"Game Ready" Nvidia drivers will soon require GeForce Experience registration

[Gabe Carey]

Nvidia might be ready to spark some controversy with the release of its new GeForce Experience beta. Iterating on last month's update which allowed players to challenge their online friends to games designed for local co-op, this new update gives players the chance to broadcast gameplay to both Twitch and YouTube Gaming at 60 frames per second at a crisp 1080p resolution.

Additionally, power users donning an Nvidia Shield device can stream from their Nvidia-equipped rigs at up to 60 fps at 2160p or 4K. Oh, and that goes without mentioning that 5.1 surround sound is now able to be streamed to your Shield companion. If you're enthusiastically locked into Nvidia's ecosystem, this is all exciting stuff.

Looking forward, however, there's a real whirlwind of conflict that's likely to ensue. That's because, come December, users won't be able to get Game Ready drivers without a GeForce Experience account.

See, the reason many gamers are willing to shell out a few extra bucks for Nvidia products, as opposed to competing Radeons, is because most major game releases are accompanied by day-one "Game Ready" drivers designed to prevent a long-standing problem in the PC gaming space, that is, that some games just aren't optimized well for every modern graphics card.

But come mid-December, you'll no longer be able to install Game Ready drivers without GeForce Experience and a registered email address with Nvidia. Currently, you can grab these drivers on Nvidia's website, through Windows Update, or via download mirrors like ours, but Nvidia will soon revert to distribute only major key releases on the web, once every quarter. The more recurrent Game Ready drivers will be limited to GeForce Experience users.

Nvidia's Sean Pelletier is optimistic about the forthcoming registration wall (free of charge and no password needed). "We kind of have two camps in terms of gamers," he told a group of journalists. "On one hand you have the gamer that's just casually playing things here and there, using their system for daily use and gaming on the side. They don't want to be inundated with these [Game Ready] drivers..."

"On the other side of the equation you have enthusiast gamers, who get excited about preloading a game, who want to play a game the day it comes out with all the bells and whistles," Pelletier went on. "That's obviously the demographic we're looking at for Game Ready drivers. We're targeting GFE as a single-source destination for those gamers."

On the positive side, GeForce Experience almost makes PC gaming a more console-like experience, at least in its streamlining of historically disheartening tasks like updating drivers. It moves the process along a lot more automatically.

Nvidia's reps revealed in a group call with journalists that a "mid-to-high-90 percent" of its customers already receive their updates through GeForce Experience voluntarily.

In recent years, attractive game bundles have become commonplace with high-end graphics card purchases. For example, Nvidia offered The Witcher 3 to go along with the Titan X earlier this year. Looking forward, it's possible that these freebies could be delivered exclusively through GeForce Experience.

Surely the choice to lock "fast ring" drivers behind a registration wall will piss off a vocal minority, as fundamental changes often do. Thinking on the bright side, Nvidia is building a robust tool to keep gamers happy, so here's to hoping they commit to deliver just that.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/62444-nvidia-drivers-require-geforce-experience.html

 

[Axiarus]

So now what, I have to torrent my video drivers too?

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

I really don't see what all the fuss will be about. If they want us to register a free account with them that's fine by me, in fact I think I've already have because I see my name in the top right hand corner of GFE.

 

[Evernessince]

"Nvidia's reps revealed in a group call with journalists that a "mid-to-high-90 percent" of its customers already receive their updates through GeForce Experience voluntarily."

I'd call it about as voluntary as adware that's almost always bundled with free software. GeForce experience is an opt out in the Nvidia installer. How many people are going to opt out of something with a name like that. Once you do have it installed there's really no getting around the annoying messages that constantly bombard you to update to the latest driver for each game that comes out.

"On the positive side, GeForce Experience almost makes PC gaming a more console-like experience, at least in its streamlining of historically disheartening tasks like updating drivers. It moves the process along a lot more automatically."

If this was the supposed positive side of this (which doesn't make sense because Geforce experience has been around for while, not as a result of this), I think you are mistaken. Requiring registration is only going to make the processes harder for people who just want to play the latest games.

I would advise AMD to hire a good hacking team and take the Nvidia registration down. Now at least they've got a shot if Nvidia users cannot get the game ready drivers in time.

 

[RustyTech]

Sweeeeet! I've been wanting to give amd another shot anyway! This just makes my decision clear.

 

[mrtraver]

This should make AMD happy. It doesn't impact me because I don't buy new games anyway. Although I am already registered, I voluntarily uninstall the GeForce Experience every time that I forget to uncheck the box to install it (or if I use the quick-install default settings). It annoys me with pop-ups and takes up system resources, without offering any real value in return. It doesn't even have an option that I can find to not start when windows starts, unless I go into MSCONFIG and disable it manually.

If I wanted "a more console-like experience", I would game on a console instead of on a PC. What's next? Drivers limiting resolution and post-processing options and capping framerates, so I can be guaranteed 30 fps?

 

[EEatGDL]

Meh, the registration argument is dumb. Since by default they can leave it to don't install new drivers for the casual players; the "enthusiasts" can just go there and change that option. That simple.

I'm registered since months ago, so...

 

[robb213]

Since I don't use GFE for anything other than keeping SLI profiles updated, does it download the driver in the form of an executable that will be removed after installation? Or does it download the driver as some sort of archive? I assume people will just grab the files and then post them up so I don't see a big problem--not that I agree anyhow.

 

[Experimentongod]

If you're a "power user" so to speak, GeForce Experience is mostly pointless, so having to install/run an extra program just to get the latest drivers will surely prove to be annoying for a lot of us.

 

[darkzelda]

Game Ready Drivers are pointless, I have skipped several game ready drivers and then install the latest driver and I can't find any difference in the games they were supposed to make better. Those driver seem to be useless but now they'll be even worst, the day I have to download Geforce Experience to make any of my games work, that day I'll grab an AMD card again.