Choosing the Right Nvidia Driver – Is the Latest Version Always the Best?

[david_joe]

I’m a DCS helicopter pilot. After testing the new drivers 572.16, 572.24, and 572.47 over the past few days, I found that enabling DLSS 4 + K improved the clarity in DCS, but also caused more motion blur and the “jelly effect” on low-altitude ground objects, which led me to abandon the new driver updates. I’ve now reverted to version 566.xx, and it has allowed me to enjoy flying again without the dizziness.

Any suggestions from fellow pilots? (My hardware specs are in my profile.)

[speed-of-heat]

The latest Nvidia drivers are not always the best, and normally I only update my drivers if there is a significant personal benefit to the games i play as a rule of thumb i watch this thread

 or its later iterations under performance.

That said, I'm not sure the issues you are describing are as a result of the latest full stack driver, rather the DLSS dll within the driver that you can manually add to DCS if you choose to do so, and then make the correct changes via profile inspector or similar to enable the latest profile (K).   DLSS does have artefacting and does impact clarity , at least in my experience, however the impact of the 310.2.1 dll is considerably less than that of previous drivers.  This also improves clarity/performance of DLAA in a similar way.  It does not improve the visual artefacts from not using DLSS or DLAA but significantly reduces them and improves performance for the *SAME* quality level so if you were using preset D before and you continue to use preset D you would see an improvement in performance, if you went from D to K you would see an improvement in quality... maybe a slight drop in perf.

The Jelly effect is normally, in my experience, associated with some form of CPU bottle neck when using ASW or similar tech.

[Aapje]

I also watch the Nvidia reddit to see what issues people report and also only update if there is a reason. If you don't have a recently released GPU, there is typically rarely a good reason to upgrade. Although there is now a good reason with DLSS 4.

 

[scommander2]

I guess that it is the same rule for upgrading Nvidia App, right?

[zildac]

I have had numerous issues with the 572.x series, predominantly black screens and random system lock ups (using multi monitors). This seems to be a known issue and is all over the Nvidia forums. For now, I have rolled back to 566.36.

[LucShep]

To be constantly updating to the very latest NV drivers is not the best option, it will backfire at some point.
They're also historically prone to errors when a new architecture is launched - as has been the case this month.
And it's even worse with "Beta" non-WHQL drivers (never, ever, install these).

None NV driver is perfect, they are always in constant corrections, and new bugs appearing at times (when previously those weren't present).
Latest GPU hardware and popular game titles are the priority for improvements, while others are deprecated and can become worse in the process (and eventually they do).

Simply put, stick to the good old "if it ain't broken, don't fix it".

• If you have an RTX 4000 series GPU, there is no point in upgrading to a driver newer than 566.36 (link here)
   
• If you have an RTX 3000 series GPU (or older), it might even be a better idea to stick with 537.58 (link here)

I also strongly suggest to debloat the NV drivers before installing them - they always have a heap of nefarious bloatware taking precious HW resources for no good reason.
You can do this by using NVCleanstall (link here). If you never done this, there's a tutorial here (there may be others around) to see how it works.

 

Edited March 1 by LucShep
added links

[david_joe]

8小时前，LucShep说：

To be constantly updating to the very latest NV drivers is not the best option, it will backfire at some point.
They're also historically prone to errors when a new architecture is launched - as has been the case this month.
And it's even worse with "Beta" non-WHQL drivers (never, ever, install these).

None NV driver is perfect, they are always in constant corrections, and new bugs appearing at times (when previously those weren't present).
Latest GPU hardware and popular game titles always get the priority for improvements, while others can become worse in the process (and eventually they do).

Simply put, stick to the good old "if it ain't broken, don't fix it".
 

• If you have an RTX 4000 series GPU, there is no point in upgrading to a driver newer than 566.36 (link here)
   
• If you have an RTX 3000 series GPU (or older), it might even be a better idea to stick with 537.58 (link here)

I also strongly suggest to debloat the NV drivers before installing them - they always have a heap of nefarious bloatware taking precious HW resources for no good reason.
You can do this by using NVCleanstall (link here). If you never done this, there's a tutorial here (there may be others around) to see how it works.

 

Thanks for response, it was very helpful. I'm curious, with the 5090 graphics card using the latest drivers, does DLSS still cause "ghosting"?

[speed-of-heat]

1 hour ago, david_joe said:

Thanks for response, it was very helpful. I'm curious, with the 5090 graphics card using the latest drivers, does DLSS still cause "ghosting"?

in an absolute sense, yes ghosting to some degree is inherent in the technology... it's just the way it works, improved over what was present in earlier versions, yes, but it will still be there at some level... now for me with Preset K on a 4090 solves most of my issues with ghosting but it is still "there"...  i'm no longer looking at a big smear behind the trailing edge of a wing... but every now and again yep its definitely there (the worst offender for me is fences on the ground) .

 

[Qcumber]

4 hours ago, david_joe said:

Thanks for response, it was very helpful. I'm curious, with the 5090 graphics card using the latest drivers, does DLSS still cause "ghosting"?

For BVR combat DLSS 4 with preset K is very good. For WW2 or cold war dog fights the ghosting is still very noticeable and significantly affects spotting. For this reason I have reverted back to MSAA. As I use QVFR the performance with MSAA is the same as DLSS (perf), and better than DLSS (quality).