NEW Nvidia Drivers: GeForce WHQL 516.94 - Nvidia has issued a security warning for it's GPU drivers on 4/8/2022)

Just follow the link to the Guru3D website, there is a dedicated forum thread on these drivers. BRGDS. Charles

This is what I usually do before asking questions indeed, especially since spending 5 minutes searching online is often faster too. Nevertheless in this case, I didn’t find what was left out, only what was left in, except what is visible in this post noticeably:

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/460-89-clean-version.433367/page-6#post-5863968

Is this all about this?

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Hello Captain! I am sorry I did not have much time earlier with you, I have been wanting to get back here to write to you. Unfortunately I never recorded or took screen-shots of all the running processes on my computer relating to the Nvidia driver, (there is normally quite a few from what I recall). If I had anticipated your question, I would have done this for you. I have the ‘trimmed’ down driver version installed. Assuming you have an official Nvidia driver, check the running Nvidia processes using your computer task manager, (Windows). There are only two Nvidia processes running in the background NOW and they are NvContainer while using the trimmed down driver. I am trying these drivers because I have a significant stuttering problem that has crept into my simulator from somewhere.

The driver trimming tool is available from the Guru3D website, if you need detailed information about it’s use and what it hopes to achieve, there is probably instructions that come with it. For me it’s very simple, I am hoping fewer Nvidia processes running in the background would equal fewer stutters. I have not had the chance to put this theory to the test, I’m just clutching at straws. Take care. BRGDS. Charles

Thank you for the follow up. I should have been more precise as well. I know about the “trimming tool” (as a matter of fact I’ve just discovered this topic over there a few days ago!). However what was puzzling me was the qualification “bloatware” which led me to believing there would be something else than just “NVidia” installed alongside the driver and I was wondering then what could this be?!!?

Having said this, the stuttering problem is present in any driver past 446.14 which is the last version before HAGS and Win2004. I’ve very good results with 457.30 and FS2020 with regard to the NVidia induced stuttering. However the main stuttering source in FS2020 is not the driver but the Coherant GT and the way they’re refreshing the gauges:

(copied from a post you might not have access to)

  • Glass Cockpit Refresh Rate is the main source of stutters
  • HAGS is killing VR with NVidia 457.30 and SteamVR 1.14.15.

You can try this too in doing this:

  1. Disable HAGS and reboot (mandatory)
  2. Disable Game Mode
  3. Use “My 4K Settings”
  4. Set Glass Cockpit Refresh Rate to HIGH
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Hi Captain.

Yes, I realised using the term ‘bloatware’ was probably a bit confusing, I picked it up from their forum and the main thread title relating to the ‘trimmed drivers’. I should have said Nvidia background processes as this would have probably been more specific. Thank you for the extra information and informed insight. I have seen a reference to HAGS before but have not followed this up yet. I am using a i7-2600K overclocked to 4.2GZ and a GTX 1070, it’s worked surprisingly well at 1080P until recently. I now have to turn off one side of the glass cockpit in the A320 to get 33FPS at high simulator settings. I have ‘Game Mode’ disabled and have right clicked the properties of the MSFS.exe, (executable) to set turn off ‘full screen optimisations’ and made a change to the DPI setting as suggested in many of these forums. I am not sure if this really helps though? I will try my instrument refresh rate set at high, it sounds counter-intuitive to me at first and so it has never occurred for me to try that.

Take care and keep safe. BRGDS. Charles

Ah ha! HAGS was turned on! I will let you know tomorrow if this has helped reduce my stuttering. If it has , I will have to give you a big virtual hug! :rofl:

You might want to read this, it might help you (or not):
My 2070 SUPER 4K settings and suggestions - episode 2

NB: “My 4K Settings” is recommending HAGS ON and Gauges Refresh MEDIUM, however, it is because of more recent discovery I’m starting to recommend HAGS OFF, Game Mode OFF and Gauge Refresh HIGH but you’ll have to wait until Dec. 22 for more.

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Wow, there is quite a bit here to read! :smiley: I will take a look at this tomorrow, thank you for what you are doing to help! Time for bed now. Yours aye. Charles

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“Run and gun” driver cleaning…

Looking through the installation files/folders, it looks like [nodejs] and [PPC] folders aren’t necessary. Deleted these two folders and installed. So far so good.

These people are messing around with drivers using trial-and-error. And what testing was done before publishing? Sound like when the “updated” driver is installed and doesn’t immediately crash, it passes QA testing.

Hi Pacific. I am not sure there will be any QA testing because they are already release candidate drivers from Nvidia but presumably, literally stripped to the ‘core’. I don’t think it’s trial-and-error, at least I hope not because Guru3D appears to be a well respected and trusted website with a great following. Would they risk a trial-and-error approach to this type of software distribution? This is the first time that I have used one of these modified drivers, obviously there are what appears now to be unnecessary background processes running with the official driver, as to weather not having them improves performance or does something else beneficial, is unclear to me. This information should be easy to find and kept with their download link on the website. If it’s there, it’s not obvious. Charles

My biggest concern is, although highly unlikely, if these cleaned up drivers from Guru3D or anyone else somehow caused hardware problems, would NVIDIA honor warranty replacement? My video card was expensive and it has already been replaced once by NVIDIA. I wouldn’t want to get into a ■■■■■■■ match between NVIDIA and any other company over a warranty dispute. After warranty expiration, I’ll be much more open to drivers modified by other companies. This is just my personal opinion FWIW.

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Yes, that’s a good point!
I would not like to put it to the test. I think it would be difficult to damage a GPU with drivers though. Fortunately there is built in thermal hardware protection from the effects of bad overclocking with most, if not all modern GPU’s. With the cost of GPU’s being so astronomically high, it’s wise to be cautious. Charles

Well I did a lot of testing this morning to try and work out what’s different in my system that would cause the major stuttering issue which started when I installed the 460 series drivers.

I restart the PC between every set of tests.

I installed 460.79 and the stuttering starts right from the loading screens. Rolled back to 460.51 no stuttering
I installed 460.89 and again the stuttering starts right from the loading screens. Rolled back to 460.51 no stuttering.
Installed 460.89 and disabled everything in the background (RGB, NVIDIA Control Panel, ICue etc). Still stutters.
Turned off GSYNC. Rebooted PC and guess what! No stutters.

My Acer 4K monitors are natively Freesync but are supposed to be compatible with GSync. They have worked perfectly with NVIDIA drivers up to 457.51 with GSync turned on however it appears there is an incompatibility introduced from 460.79 onwards :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

Why oh why can’t AMD and NVIDIA get their act together over sync compatibility!

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Hello Captain,

I disabled HAGS as you suggested and everything is almost ‘gravy’ now. Just the occasional micro stutter. I did have it, (HAGS) disabled at one-time. Many thanks for reminding me about disabling it.

The ‘weight watchers’, (slimming) driver performed as it should. No problems and it uninstalled without a hitch using DDU. I have installed the latest ‘weight watchers’ Nvidia driver 460.89. No problems here, performance is pretty good now on my aged computer. I have no concerns about these drivers, I feel confident using them, there is no evidence to suggest the core files have been tampered with. I will keep this latest driver installed. I like the idea of loosing the extra Nvidia processes running in the background on the simple premise that, ‘less MAY be more’, less to look at in my Windows task manager. Charles

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one question, what is HAGS?

Thanks for the test. I have gsync on, but my acer monitors are gsync not just freesync, so may be different for me. I’m not having much stuttering, only an occasional freeze. Could be in my case an internet connection glitch (I have comcast, but I’m not sure how good it really is).
I’ll try with gsync off and see if that happens to eliminate the infrequent issues I’m having. I’m on .89
Mark.

Your question was not to me however, it’s a Windows feature that can be turned on or off easily. Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling, (HAGS). There are many links to this subject on the internet, here is one https://www.pcgamer.com/windows-10-may-update-could-boost-your-gaming-performance-for-free/

Charles.

I found an interesting article which warns against using the Nvidia driver trimming utility. I don’t know if there is any real validity in this persons argument. I am currently using a ‘naked’ driver trimmed with this utility, (460.89) and getting excellent results. I downloaded it from Guru3D. Importantly, the work has already been done on my driver and the utility is not necessary.

The issue here is with an older version of 7.zip used and NOT the driver itself. Where 7.zip is only used to extract the utility tool package and is used for so much other software too!

Bear in MIND this article was written in 2018 and is probably very much out of date!
I personally feel happy and will continue to use these drivers.

As I am getting very good results from this driver, (460.89) I will keep it installed. My FPS has improved along with a significant reduction in stuttering, this is probably more due to the fact that I turned HAGS off. Anyhow, here is the link to the article FYI …

Charles

Truly amazing graphics with this driver 460.89! ‘Naked’ version, (just core files). I don’t think the light stripped down version of the driver has anything to do with the better looking graphics.

I am using 1080P with high graphics settings on an i7-2600K and GTX 1070. The anti-aliasing is fantastic , I think it’s the best I have ever seen in this simulator. Here are some pictures taken using the Ultra version of the freeware Gatwick airport. I have a virtually stutter free experience now. I have turned HAGS off and have render scaling set at 120, ultra clouds and textures, lots of aircraft traffic and my frame rate rarely dips as low as 27 FPS at this Gatwick airport. The clouds suddenly look fantastic, now that I have disabled post rendering, film grain and image sharpening within MSFS. I turned on volumetric lighting withing the .cfg file and set the value to quality=1. Not sure if this makes the sim look better or if it even works? I noticed that entering and leaving clouds is a graphically better experience, something has changed for the better.

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but there is nothing new with this driver related to MSFS … at least I can’t find things in changelog :roll_eyes:

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Yes, I know and that is what I don’t understand. The driver just works better with my system and graphics card. Sometimes I feel if Microsoft are optimising some of off-line components, something that other people have thought they had sensed too. Yesterday, I started buying airports because I had felt a vast improvement in the performance of this simulator and noticed a leap forward in graphical rendering. I became really immersed in the game, I am now using live traffic and have lots of static aircraft at the airports. Something has changed and I don’t know what I have done, maybe I have had something running in the background eating up my computer resources that I have removed, I don’t know. I see that you use a rolling eye emoticon, but the pictures speak a thousand words. Charles