I have an NVidia RTX-based (EVGA) graphics card and periodically update my system’s graphics driver. Currently using the most recent version. I have always assumed that MSFS has no use for the PhysX driver that can optionally be installed with each version of NVidia’s graphics driver. So, I have left it out of the downloading process with each graphics driver update. Is this the right approach?
I also leave out the NVidia sound driver from the graphics driver downloading process. Any reason to do otherwise? (I believe my Asus motherboard uses a Realtek sound driver.)
Moved to Community Help Center, #self-service:pc-hardware for advice.
I only update the PhysX driver for other uses. I haven’t found any comments anywhere that MSFS uses NVidia’s physics driver for anything, but I’d love to be proven wrong. I never download the NVidia sound driver either, as my system uses a RealTek chip and I use the driver from them. That’s never had any effect on sound in MSFS.
Regards
That seems like a fair assumption to me.
The sound drivers are generally only required if you are using the speakers on the device connected to the graphics card.
OK, thanks @Habu2u2 and @HethrMasn .
I am using speakers connected directly to the motherboard. So, I will continue to use the Realtek sound driver.
2 Likes
Any reason why you don’t just install all the Nvidia drivers? I always install every driver in my PC regardless whether I used it or not… I’ll never know if there are actually things that require them so if things don’t work I would have no idea what I’m missing.
I have 6 devices that all think they want to be my sound output and sometimes after Windows updates I end up with one of them thinking they are now the default device (3 monitors, 1 mic with a sound out, onboard sound and the dedicated sound card I actually use) not installing any of the drivers for them and disabling them stopped that.
Yup definitely uninstall/disable any device you don’t need or use.
Pretty sure physx is obsolete now too.
I see… well I usually disable device from windows directly for those that I know I won’t use, but still have drivers installed.
I guess it depends on what games you’re using the PC with. If the PC is dedicated for MSFS, that could be the case. But I play various games on my PC, and not all of them are current-gen games. Sometimes I still play games from the mid-late 2000s, and a lot of those legacy games requires legacy tools and API, so it’s just easier for me to just download all those framework like .NET Framework 3.0 runtime, DirectX 9.0, etc… so I like to have them installed just in case some of the games I play utilise these legacy API.
I guess it’s just me and my little OCD where I don’t like having missing stuff in my PC. Especially when my Device manager shows with a yellow exclamation mark just because the driver is not installed.
I see your point of course, what I should have said is I currently don’t have anything installed that uses PHYSX.
But tbh my “OCD” would be the opposite (I maintain 10 machines for DAW work).
Opposite meaning, being sure that every single item on the system has a purpose and if it has no use, it is gone.
Regarding Device Manager, that is why I mentioned uninstall and disable.
But we all have our ways of working for sure. 