NVIDIA are beginning February on a positive note this afternoon with the launch of a brand new GeForce Game Ready driver. This latest update incorporates support for Zombie Army 4: Dead War by the minds behind the Sniper Elite franchise, plus additional improvements to underlying driver features (including two introduced recently) and support for Metro: Exodus' new DLC. As always you can find the driver for your own GeForce GPU at geforce.com/drivers.
Rebellion's Zombie Army 4: Dead War is a third person shooter launching tomorrow (Tuesday February 4th) with fairly modest system requirements. Nonetheless day-0 driver optimisations should help prevent crashes and frame rate instability, improving the player experience even if raw performance figures aren't impacted in a meaningful manner. It should be well worth installing these drivers if you're planning on playing the game at launch.
Later this month Metro: Exodus will welcome the Sam's Story DLC, content which will grandfather in real-time ray tracing and DLSS via NVIDIA's RTX suite of tools. This driver is required to support these features when the DLC becomes available on February 11th.
And finally (at least when it comes to game content support) this driver is up to date with optimisations for Season 4 of Apex Legends competitive play.
Three more NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible monitors now validated
The list of NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible monitors continues to grow as three more are added to the API whitelist. ASUS's VG259QM, Dell's AW2521HF, and LG's 34GN850 all now support NVIDIA's implementation of the Adaptive Sync technology standard by default when detected, bringing silkly-smooth tear-free frames to your eyeballs. The full list of supported panels is available here, but be aware that manufacturers may have multiple monitors listed under very similar SKUs.
Max Frame Rate and VRSS Feature Improvements
NVIDIA recently introduced maximum frame rate and Variable Rate Supersampling features into their driver stack, and today's update adds functionality based on user feedback. Maximum frame rate can now be adjusted from 20 up to 1000 fps if so desired, and VRSS support can now be toggled globally as always on for compatible titles.
VRSS improvements in particular may be motivated by the upcoming launch of Half Life: Alyx, a game which might prove to be premium VR's first 'killer app'.
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The regular bevvy of fixed and newly identified issues remain a part of this driver release, and this time around the pipeline has rolled out some oriented towards older GPUs. Despite being a driver ostensibly optimised for Zombie Army 4: Dead War however, NVIDIA have identified a pair of teething issues in Windows 10 when using Ansel/FreeStyle tools and with HDR when rendering using the Vulkan API. Details are available in the release notes (summarised below).
The GeForce Game Ready 442.19 driver package can be downloaded directly here, or by selecting your GPU/OS/preferred installer at geforce.com/drivers. The drivers are available for 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and 10, and GPUs are far back as the GTX 600-series (Kepler) generation are supported. As a WHQL driver they have also been validated against Microsoft's driver certification program.
Release Notes
Version 442.19 WHQL Highlights
This section provides highlights of version 442.19 WHQL of the NVIDIA Release 440 Driver for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 101.
Requirement for Obtaining NVIDIA Drivers
Microsoft now provides only SHA-2 signed drivers. If your Windows 7 system is NOT equipped to detect SHA-2, you need to install the SHA-2 update support patches. For details as well as access to SHA-2 update support patches, see the Microsoft KBA "2019 SHA-2 Code Signing Support requirement for Windows and WSUS".
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® 1.1
- DirectX 11
- DirectX 12 (Windows 10)
Software Module Versions
- nView - 149.77
- HD Audio Driver - 1.3.38.21
- NVIDIA PhysX System Software - 9.19.0218
- GeForce Experience - 3.20.2.34
- CUDA - 10.2
- Standard NVIDIA Control Panel - 8.1.940.0
- DCH NVIDIA Control Panel - 8.1.956.0
What’s New in Version 442.19 WHQL
Game Ready Driver Updates
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 Zombie Army: Dead War 4The new Game Ready Driver provides the latest performance optimizations, profiles, and bug fixes for Zombie Army: Dead War 4. In addition, this release also provides optimal support for Apex Legends Season 4 and Metro Exodus: Sam's Story.
Maximum Framerate
In the last Game Ready Driver, we introduced a new Maximum Framerate Setting into the NVIDIA Control Panel which allowed gamers to set the max framerate a 3D application or game can render. With the latest Game Ready Driver, we've incorporated community feedback asking for the limits to be extended. As a result, framerate limits can be as low as 20fps and can be raised as high as 1000fps.
New Features and Other Changes
- NVIDIA Control Panel>3D Settings>Maximum Frame Rate control (Extended the slider values to minimum=20, maximum=1000).
- Added Virtual Reality - Variable Rate Super Sampling (VRSS) setting to the NVIDIA Control Panel ->Manage 3D Settings page. VRSS improves image quality by applying super sampling selectively on the central region of a frame. This feature is available for VR applications profiled for VRSS.
See this Game Ready Driver article for the latest list of profiled VR apps.
Changes and Fixed Issues in Version 442.19
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
[The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine]: The game may crash when a user reaches a specific cut scene. [2726931]
[Maxwell GPUs][OpenCL]: SETI@Home shows driver TDR occuring on Maxwell GPUs using OpenCL. [2739609]
[Call of Duty Modern Warfare]: Streaming of gameplay using OBS will randomly stop. [2743477]
[Battleye][Low-Latency Mode]: Launching Battleye with NVIDIA Low Latency Mode set to Ultra may cause DWM to reset. [2775906]
[SLI+G-SYNC Stutter]: User may experience minor stuttering when using NVIDIA SLI in combination with G-SYNC. [2778783]
[Doom (2016)]: The game crashes when launched on GeForce 600/700 series (Kepler) GPUs [2791124]
[NVENC]: Memory leak occurs. [2805384]
[Multiple Apps][SLI][G-SYNC]: Stuttering and drop in frame rate occurs during gameplay with SLI and G-SYNC enabled [200566678]
Open Issues - Windows 10 Issues
[Mortal Kombat]: The game may randomly crash to the desktop without error [2813996]
[Zombie Army: Dead War 4][Ansel/Freestyle]: The Ansel & Freestyle tabs are unselectable. [2810884]
[Zombie Army: Dead War 4][Vulkan][HDR]:Corrupted flickering occurs when in-game HDR is enabled. [200585136]
- To work around, either disable HDR or use DirectX 12 mode.
[Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege][Vulkan][G-SYNC]: When playing the game in Vulkan mode with G-SYNC enabled, flickering occurs after switching the game between full-screen and windowed mode.[200578641]
- To work around, either disable G-SYNC or play using an API other than Vulkan.
This section provides highlights of version 442.19 WHQL of the NVIDIA Release 440 Driver for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 101.
Requirement for Obtaining NVIDIA Drivers
Microsoft now provides only SHA-2 signed drivers. If your Windows 7 system is NOT equipped to detect SHA-2, you need to install the SHA-2 update support patches. For details as well as access to SHA-2 update support patches, see the Microsoft KBA "2019 SHA-2 Code Signing Support requirement for Windows and WSUS".
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® 1.1
- DirectX 11
- DirectX 12 (Windows 10)
Software Module Versions
- nView - 149.77
- HD Audio Driver - 1.3.38.21
- NVIDIA PhysX System Software - 9.19.0218
- GeForce Experience - 3.20.2.34
- CUDA - 10.2
- Standard NVIDIA Control Panel - 8.1.940.0
- DCH NVIDIA Control Panel - 8.1.956.0
What’s New in Version 442.19 WHQL
Game Ready Driver Updates
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 Zombie Army: Dead War 4The new Game Ready Driver provides the latest performance optimizations, profiles, and bug fixes for Zombie Army: Dead War 4. In addition, this release also provides optimal support for Apex Legends Season 4 and Metro Exodus: Sam's Story.
Maximum Framerate
In the last Game Ready Driver, we introduced a new Maximum Framerate Setting into the NVIDIA Control Panel which allowed gamers to set the max framerate a 3D application or game can render. With the latest Game Ready Driver, we've incorporated community feedback asking for the limits to be extended. As a result, framerate limits can be as low as 20fps and can be raised as high as 1000fps.
New Features and Other Changes
- NVIDIA Control Panel>3D Settings>Maximum Frame Rate control (Extended the slider values to minimum=20, maximum=1000).
- Added Virtual Reality - Variable Rate Super Sampling (VRSS) setting to the NVIDIA Control Panel ->Manage 3D Settings page. VRSS improves image quality by applying super sampling selectively on the central region of a frame. This feature is available for VR applications profiled for VRSS.
See this Game Ready Driver article for the latest list of profiled VR apps.
Changes and Fixed Issues in Version 442.19
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
[The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine]: The game may crash when a user reaches a specific cut scene. [2726931]
[Maxwell GPUs][OpenCL]: SETI@Home shows driver TDR occuring on Maxwell GPUs using OpenCL. [2739609]
[Call of Duty Modern Warfare]: Streaming of gameplay using OBS will randomly stop. [2743477]
[Battleye][Low-Latency Mode]: Launching Battleye with NVIDIA Low Latency Mode set to Ultra may cause DWM to reset. [2775906]
[SLI+G-SYNC Stutter]: User may experience minor stuttering when using NVIDIA SLI in combination with G-SYNC. [2778783]
[Doom (2016)]: The game crashes when launched on GeForce 600/700 series (Kepler) GPUs [2791124]
[NVENC]: Memory leak occurs. [2805384]
[Multiple Apps][SLI][G-SYNC]: Stuttering and drop in frame rate occurs during gameplay with SLI and G-SYNC enabled [200566678]
Open Issues - Windows 10 Issues
[Mortal Kombat]: The game may randomly crash to the desktop without error [2813996]
[Zombie Army: Dead War 4][Ansel/Freestyle]: The Ansel & Freestyle tabs are unselectable. [2810884]
[Zombie Army: Dead War 4][Vulkan][HDR]:Corrupted flickering occurs when in-game HDR is enabled. [200585136]
- To work around, either disable HDR or use DirectX 12 mode.
[Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege][Vulkan][G-SYNC]: When playing the game in Vulkan mode with G-SYNC enabled, flickering occurs after switching the game between full-screen and windowed mode.[200578641]
- To work around, either disable G-SYNC or play using an API other than Vulkan.
