Nvidia has begun pushing out a new GPU driver update (441.20 WHQL) for GeForce graphics cards, and if you plan on playing Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order when it releases on Friday, this is the one you want.
That's because it's considered a "Game Ready" driver release for Fallen Order, which basically means Nvidia's coders baked in performance and stability optimizations specific to that game.
"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," Nvidia explains.
The double-edged lightsaber, of course, is the risk that comes with installing new drivers right out of the gate. New driver releases can sometimes cause unforeseen problems. Some people prefer to wait a few days to make sure there are no annoying issues. In this case, you could make a case for doing that even if you plan on playing Fallen Order—it comes on out Friday, November 15.
In addition to Fallen Order optimizations, Nvidia's latest driver is tuned for Stormland, which we previously said was shaping up to be the best VR game of 2019 (perhaps a reason to shop for a VR headset among the coming Black Friday deals). It also adds a few more certified G-Sync Compatible monitors to the fold. They include Acer's XB273U and XV273U, and Asus's VG259Q. That brings to the overall list to nearly 60 models (see the complete list here).
There are a few fixed issues in this driver release. They include:
- [Red Dead Redemption 2][Vulkan][Maxwell GPUs]: Geometry corruption occurs on some Maxwell GPUs.
- [Red Dead Redemption 2][Vulkan]: G-Sync disengages when disabling V-Sync on the game.
- [The Surge 2] VULKAN_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST when using driver version 440.97.
- [Quake 3 Arena]: Colors in the game become washed out when set to 16-bit color.
- [HDR]: HDR black levels are grey on LG OLED55C9.
- [CS:GO]: The game experiences performance drops in certain CPU-limited cases.
Likewise, there are nearly as many known issues that have yet to be hammered out. They include:
- [SLI][Red dead redemption 2][Vulkan]: The benchmark may crash while running in Vulkan mode with SLI enabled and using Ultra graphics settings.
- [Forza Horizon 4]: "Low streaming bandwidth" error may occur after extended gameplay.
- [Forza Motorsport 7]: Game starts to stutter after racing a few laps.
- [Gears 5]: Random stability issues may occur.
- [Grand Theft Auto V]: The game frequently crashes. Nvidia is working with the application developer to resolve the issue.
You can grab Nvidia's latest GPU driver through GeForce Experience or by going here. Also be sure to check out our guide on how to update drivers for tips on best practices.
