Questions about Nvidia Drivers

Epic82Epic82 Posts: 124
edited March 2023 in The Commons

Back in October, I installed an update for my Nvidia game driver. But that update somehow disabled d-force, and someone in this thread informed me that I need to install a studio driver instead of a game driver, which is what I had been using for years before I installed the studio driver. I installed the studio driver, and I haven’t had any problems with rendering or simulating d-force items. But I had a question. Does the studio driver ever need to be updated? If so, how do I update it? Also, I still get notifications from Nvidia that tell me to install updates for my game driver. Should I continue to ignore them? 

Post edited by Epic82 on

Comments

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 9,296

    The old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies here. When one has GPU drivers that work with the programs one uses without problems, update only when there is a reason for it - Newer ones having been released is no reason.

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,040

    I use the Studio Driver and when I get a notice to say there is a new Game Driver I open the Nvidia Control panel and it is the Studio Driver that is there for download. I have just downloaded the new driver, 531.41, and it works fine here.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,890

    Since you are network gaming just install nVidia GEForce Experience app & choose Studio Drivers as the default. You will have to open an nVidia account. Game Drivers, once cleared as stable, eventually get released as Studio Drivers anyway, although with more conservative, stable settings used. That is my understanding how the process works.

    Alternatively, you can just manually download & install the Studio drivers whenever you feel like it. You must be familiar with how that works as it's the same process you used to install the Game Drivers all those years.

  • nonesuch00 said:

    Since you are network gaming just install nVidia GEForce Experience app & choose Studio Drivers as the default. You will have to open an nVidia account. Game Drivers, once cleared as stable, eventually get released as Studio Drivers anyway, although with more conservative, stable settings used. That is my understanding how the process works.

    Alternatively, you can just manually download & install the Studio drivers whenever you feel like it. You must be familiar with how that works as it's the same process you used to install the Game Drivers all those years.

    studio drivers are required for the tesla cards... they don't work with game drivers. 

     

  • tsroemitsroemi Posts: 2,310

    Fishtales said:

    I use the Studio Driver and when I get a notice to say there is a new Game Driver I open the Nvidia Control panel and it is the Studio Driver that is there for download. I have just downloaded the new driver, 531.41, and it works fine here.

    Is dForce also working for you? I've been postponing updating my card (and switching to DS .21) because I've read a few times in the forums that the newer drivers wreck dForce for people. Could you share your experience on this? 

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,040

    tsroemi said:

    Fishtales said:

    I use the Studio Driver and when I get a notice to say there is a new Game Driver I open the Nvidia Control panel and it is the Studio Driver that is there for download. I have just downloaded the new driver, 531.41, and it works fine here.

    Is dForce also working for you? I've been postponing updating my card (and switching to DS .21) because I've read a few times in the forums that the newer drivers wreck dForce for people. Could you share your experience on this? 

    I only use dForce occasionally and I use Studio 4.15 most of the time. I have Studio 2.1 Beta installed which I also only use occasionally. I just did the dForce simple falling sheet drop test in Studio 2.1 Beta, which is supplied, and then rendered it and it worked fine. 

  • https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/8024006/#Comment_8024006

    526.98 and later do not have the OpenCL issue that was breaking dForce.

  • tsroemitsroemi Posts: 2,310

    Thanks very much, both of you!

  • Fishtales said:

    tsroemi said:

    Fishtales said:

    I use the Studio Driver and when I get a notice to say there is a new Game Driver I open the Nvidia Control panel and it is the Studio Driver that is there for download. I have just downloaded the new driver, 531.41, and it works fine here.

    Is dForce also working for you? I've been postponing updating my card (and switching to DS .21) because I've read a few times in the forums that the newer drivers wreck dForce for people. Could you share your experience on this? 

    I only use dForce occasionally and I use Studio 4.15 most of the time. I have Studio 2.1 Beta installed which I also only use occasionally. I just did the dForce simple falling sheet drop test in Studio 2.1 Beta, which is supplied, and then rendered it and it worked fine. 

    4.21.1.x?

  • outrider42outrider42 Posts: 3,679

    Studio drivers are really no different than game drivers in nature. The ONLY promise made with Studio drivers is that they are verified for the specific applications.

    Dforce was not truly broken by a game driver. Game drivers update far more frequently because they are released around new game launches. Like the recent game Harry Potter game, that was a huge game release, so Nvidia put out a new driver that optimized for it. Then another big game came out and sure enough a game driver came along with it.

    Studio drivers are updated on a roughly quarterly schedule, while the game drivers might get an update each month or even more. Sometimes the drivers break things, but that can happen with anything. I do not believe dforce is something that Nvidia would test for, but the specific bug that caused dforce to fail was fixed in a gaming driver. Because of the more frequent releases, a gaming driver might actually get a new feature before a studio driver is released. For example, Nvidia has a new video upscaling option for streaming in some browsers, which also reduce noise in compression. The gaming drivers had this since February. However the studio drivers only got this feature a few days ago with the recent studio driver. There are times when the wait is much longer. (Though I did not care for the upscaling, it needs work and runs the GPU surprisingly hard.)

    Also note that this dforce bug didn't effect older versions of Daz Studio.

    Often the fix for something is to simply roll back to the previous driver. There is every chance that a bug in a gaming driver ends up in a studio driver as well, especially if it is something more under the radar.

    If you don't game, there is no need to be on the game driver branch. Iray doesn't update fast enough for this to matter. However, if by chance Iray released a big new update requiring a new driver, the odds are high that a gaming driver actually gets the update first. Again, this is purely because of the frequency of gaming driver releases. On the flip side, the odds are also high that Daz Studio will not get the update before a studio driver launches because Daz must do their testing and whatever. It usually takes them a couple months to release their own update that includes the newest Iray.

    For example, Iray 2022.1.6 just came out on March 23. But it is not in Daz Studio, and will likely not be for a month or so. And that is the Daz Beta. Who knows when the non beta version will get it.

    FYI, the Iray developers also promised that Iray 2023 BETA will follow soon after GTC with a bunch of improvements (though they did not elaborate on what is improved). GTC is over now, so hopefully that means soon.

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,040

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Fishtales said:

    tsroemi said:

    Fishtales said:

    I use the Studio Driver and when I get a notice to say there is a new Game Driver I open the Nvidia Control panel and it is the Studio Driver that is there for download. I have just downloaded the new driver, 531.41, and it works fine here.

    Is dForce also working for you? I've been postponing updating my card (and switching to DS .21) because I've read a few times in the forums that the newer drivers wreck dForce for people. Could you share your experience on this? 

    I only use dForce occasionally and I use Studio 4.15 most of the time. I have Studio 2.1 Beta installed which I also only use occasionally. I just did the dForce simple falling sheet drop test in Studio 2.1 Beta, which is supplied, and then rendered it and it worked fine. 

    4.21.1.x?

    Yes, sorry :) 

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