The most anticipated game of the year launches at midnight (GMT) tonight and NVIDIA are ready well in advance with a driver that offers optimised performance from day one. Yes Cyberpunk 2077 is almost here, complete with ray traced graphics and green team-specific features, and owners of GeForce RTX hardware will be well placed for the best possible experience on release.
Heading up the GeForce 460.79 Game Ready driver's highlights are of course Cyberpunk 2077 optimisations. CD Projekt Red's latest RPG incorporates a plethora of ray traced visual technologies including shadows, reflections, diffuse & global illumination, and ambient occlusions, each of which will impose something of a tax on performance. Mitigating against this will be DLSS, NVIDIA's proprietary tech. that upscales to your monitor's native resolution with only minor reductions in image quality.
NVIDIA claim that enabling DLSS in Cyberpunk 2077 when all RT features are switched on will increase frame rates by up to 60% or more, depending on GPU and resolution. Given how demanding reviews are purporting Cyberpunk to be, squeezing out any additional frames would make the feature well worth dabbling in.
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There is however more to this driver package. Minecraft RTX is transitioning from beta to official release this week, warranting Game Ready stature and support for DLSS. Enabling DLSS could more than double your frame rates in this deceptively demanding title that also includes Physically-Based Rendering via texture packs in supported worlds.
Four other titles are also incorporating DLSS this December, helping to boost performance where necessary: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, CRSED: F.O.A.D., Scavengers and Moonlight Blade. Each pose their own challenges when it comes to hitting >60fps frame rates at the highest possible quality settings and resolutions, so DLSS offers just a little more leeway for your RTX 20- and 30-series hardware.
On the hardware side, five monitors have been added to the growing list of G-SYNC Compatible-certified models. The Acer XV242Y, Acer XB273U NV, Gigabyte FI27Q-X, MSI MAG274R and Phillips 275M8RZ give gamers yet more choice for setups that sync your monitor's refresh rate with your in-game FPS for stutter-free buttery smooth gaming. A full list of G-SYNC Compatible displays can be found here.
Furthermore, two new Alienware G-SYNC ULTIMATE models are now available from Alienware. The 27" AW2721D and 38" curved ultrawide AW3821DW are edge-lit IPS panels with VESA DisplayHDR 600 certification that have been augmented with the G-SYNC ULTIMATE Processor, pushing very high variable refresh rate experiences on these high resolution monitors.
Alienware's G-SYNC ULTIMATE AW3821DW is a big beastie with plenty of tech inside
GeForce Experience continues to be an essential part of the toolkit for novice users, helping them leverage the capabilities of both driver and hardware through one-click per-game settings optimisations as well as entry-level streaming and game capture capabilities. Over the past month 29 games have been added to the one-click optimisations program, allowing users to take advantage of NVIDIA-suggested in-game visual and performance settings and make the very best use of your hardware setup. Cyberpunk 2077 is of course on that list.
You can download the GeForce 460.79 Game Ready driver right now from https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/drivers/ or via the GeForce Experience desktop app. It's suitable for systems powered by 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and 10, and supports graphics hardware as far back as the GTX 600-series (Kepler).
Release Notes
Version 460.79 WHQL Highlights
This section provides highlights of version 460.79 WHQL of the NVIDIA Release 460 Driver for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 (including the October 2020 Update v2009).
Existing Support
This release supports the following APIs:
- Open Computing Language (OpenCLTM software) 1.2 for NVIDIA® KeplerTM and later GPUs
- OpenGL® 4.6
- Vulkan® 1.2
- DirectX 11
- DirectX 12 (Windows 10)
Software Module Versions:
- nView - 201.18
- HD Audio Driver - 1.3.38.40
- NVIDIA PhysX System Software - 9.19.0218
- GeForce Experience - 3.20.5.70
- CUDA - 11.1
- DCH NVIDIA Control Panel - 8.1.959.0
What’s New in Version 460.79 WHQL
GeForce Game Ready Driver
Game Ready Drivers provide the best possible gaming experience for all major new releases. Prior to a new title launching, our driver team is working up until the last minute to ensure every performance tweak and bug fix is included for the best gameplay on day-1.
Game Ready for Cyberpunk 2077
This new Game Ready Driver provides the ultimate gaming experience for Cyberpunk 2077. In addition, this driver provides optimal day-1 support for the official launch of Minecraft with RTX for Windows 10.
Changes and Fixed Issues in Version 460.79
The following sections list the important changes and the most common issues resolved in this version. This list is only a subset of the total number of changes made in this driver version. The NVIDIA bug number is provided for reference.
Fixed Issues in this Release:
[Forza Motorsport 7]: The curb may display a black strip during a race on certain tracks. [2781776]
When setting the refresh rate higher than 100Hz, the color format switches from RGB to ycbcr422. [3053990]
[GeForce RTX 3090][SLI][G-SYNC]: When G-SYNC is enabled in SLI surround (3x monitors), the system locks up when launching a game. [3167493]
[GeForce RTX 3-series]: NvAPI_GPU_GetGPUInfo() returns an incorrect number of GPU Tensor Cores. [3140329]
[MPC-HC]: The video player crashes when playing 1088 pixel-width videos. [3148082]
[5k display]: When the display is set to 5k resolution, you cannot set the color settings from the NVIDIA Control Panel > Change resolution page. Either the controls are greyed out or they revert to the default after applying any change. [200630939/3182567].
Newly Identified Windows 10 Issues:
[Steam VR game]: Stuttering and lagging occur upon launching a game. [3152190]
[G-SYNC][NVIDIA Ampere GPU architecture]: GPU power consumption may increase in idle mode on systems using certain higher refresh-rate G-SYNC monitors. [200667566]
[Freestyle][Vulkan apps]: With the freestyle filters applied, a blue-screen crash occurs when pressing [Alt+Tab] while running Vulkan applications. [200667477]
[YouTube]: Video playback stutters while scrolling down the YouTube page. [3129705]
[Notebook]: Some Pascal-based notebooks w/ high refresh rate displays may randomly drop to 60Hz during gameplay. [3009452]
[G-Sync][Vulkan Apps]: Performance drop occurs when using G-SYNC and switching from full-screen mode to windowed mode using the in-game settings. [200681477]To workaround, either launch the game in windowed mode directly or disable G-SYNC.
[GeForce RTX 3070][Clone Mode]: When the resolution is set to 2560x1440 @ 144Hz, the performance state is stuck at maximum performance. [200678414]
[NVIDIA Turing or later][Windows Movies and TV Player]: When playing a 4k video in full-screen mode on a 2560x1440 HDR monitor, the video extends beyond the edge of the screen. [3186830]
This section provides highlights of version 460.79 WHQL of the NVIDIA Release 460 Driver for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 (including the October 2020 Update v2009).
Existing Support
This release supports the following APIs:
- Open Computing Language (OpenCLTM software) 1.2 for NVIDIA® KeplerTM and later GPUs
- OpenGL® 4.6
- Vulkan® 1.2
- DirectX 11
- DirectX 12 (Windows 10)
Software Module Versions:
- nView - 201.18
- HD Audio Driver - 1.3.38.40
- NVIDIA PhysX System Software - 9.19.0218
- GeForce Experience - 3.20.5.70
- CUDA - 11.1
- DCH NVIDIA Control Panel - 8.1.959.0
What’s New in Version 460.79 WHQL
GeForce Game Ready Driver
Game Ready Drivers provide the best possible gaming experience for all major new releases. Prior to a new title launching, our driver team is working up until the last minute to ensure every performance tweak and bug fix is included for the best gameplay on day-1.
Game Ready for Cyberpunk 2077
This new Game Ready Driver provides the ultimate gaming experience for Cyberpunk 2077. In addition, this driver provides optimal day-1 support for the official launch of Minecraft with RTX for Windows 10.
Changes and Fixed Issues in Version 460.79
The following sections list the important changes and the most common issues resolved in this version. This list is only a subset of the total number of changes made in this driver version. The NVIDIA bug number is provided for reference.
Fixed Issues in this Release:
[Forza Motorsport 7]: The curb may display a black strip during a race on certain tracks. [2781776]
When setting the refresh rate higher than 100Hz, the color format switches from RGB to ycbcr422. [3053990]
[GeForce RTX 3090][SLI][G-SYNC]: When G-SYNC is enabled in SLI surround (3x monitors), the system locks up when launching a game. [3167493]
[GeForce RTX 3-series]: NvAPI_GPU_GetGPUInfo() returns an incorrect number of GPU Tensor Cores. [3140329]
[MPC-HC]: The video player crashes when playing 1088 pixel-width videos. [3148082]
[5k display]: When the display is set to 5k resolution, you cannot set the color settings from the NVIDIA Control Panel > Change resolution page. Either the controls are greyed out or they revert to the default after applying any change. [200630939/3182567].
Newly Identified Windows 10 Issues:
[Steam VR game]: Stuttering and lagging occur upon launching a game. [3152190]
[G-SYNC][NVIDIA Ampere GPU architecture]: GPU power consumption may increase in idle mode on systems using certain higher refresh-rate G-SYNC monitors. [200667566]
[Freestyle][Vulkan apps]: With the freestyle filters applied, a blue-screen crash occurs when pressing [Alt+Tab] while running Vulkan applications. [200667477]
[YouTube]: Video playback stutters while scrolling down the YouTube page. [3129705]
[Notebook]: Some Pascal-based notebooks w/ high refresh rate displays may randomly drop to 60Hz during gameplay. [3009452]
[G-Sync][Vulkan Apps]: Performance drop occurs when using G-SYNC and switching from full-screen mode to windowed mode using the in-game settings. [200681477]To workaround, either launch the game in windowed mode directly or disable G-SYNC.
[GeForce RTX 3070][Clone Mode]: When the resolution is set to 2560x1440 @ 144Hz, the performance state is stuck at maximum performance. [200678414]
[NVIDIA Turing or later][Windows Movies and TV Player]: When playing a 4k video in full-screen mode on a 2560x1440 HDR monitor, the video extends beyond the edge of the screen. [3186830]
