This Nvidia GPU driver will get your PC ready for the RTX 3070 and Watch Dogs Legion

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You might not be able to buy an RTX 3070, but at least you can prep for PC for when you can.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Retail Box
(Image credit: Nvidia)

Yesterday's retail launch of the highly anticipated GeForce RTX 3070 went about the way we thought it would—retailers sold out of available units pretty much immediately, just as they had done with the 3080 and 3090 that came before it. Eventually supply will catch up to demand. In the meantime, you can at least get your PC ready with Nvidia's latest GPU driver.

That alone is not much reason to install a new driver right from the get-go, given that driver updates can sometimes have unintended consequences—it's always best to let others be the guinea pigs, if you can afford to wait. However, official support for the 3070 is not the only thing it brings to the table.

Nvidia's latest "Game Ready" 457.09 GPU driver also serves up optimizations for Watch Dogs Legion, which launched yesterday as well. Ray-traced reflections and DLSS support both accompanied Watch Dogs Legion at launch, so that's a better reason to pounce on this driver.

In addition, the latest driver adds four more monitors to the G-Sync Compatible fold. They include newly validated models from Acer (XB323U GX), Asus (VG279QL1A), Dell (AW2521HFLA), and Gigabyte (FI25F), bringing the total number of G-Sync Compatible monitors to 98 currently. The new additions are all high refresh rate models (165Hz and up).

The 457.09 driver also fixes a handful of issues, including:

  • [Turing GPU][Notebook]: On some Turing-based notebooks, users may see a black window when playing back a video in a web browser.
  • [For Honor][RTX 30 series]: Game will crash to desktop when launched on GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards.
  • Random flicker may occur in multi-monitor configurations when G-Sync is enabled. Flickering occurs on Dell S2417DG and Dell S2716DG monitors.when playing YouTube or Twitch videos at 144Hz.
  • [Forza Motorsport 7]: The game may crash to the desktop when starting a race.
  • Users may see a black screen when launching a game on a monitor using DSC (Display Stream Compression).
  • [G-Sync]: With G-Sync enabled on some Freesync displays, half of the screen goes black. 
Your next upgrade

(Image credit: Future)

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And finally, Nvidia's new GPU driver bolsters GeForce Experience's one-click optimal settings (OPS) feature with support for 16 more games, including Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, Baldur's Gate 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (added Reflex support), Call of Duty: Warzone (added Reflex support), Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War, Desperados III, Fortnite (added DLSS, Reflex, and raytracying support), Mafia: Definitive Edition, Medieval Dynasty, Phasmophobia, Pumpkin Jack, Second Extinction, Serious Sam 4, Star Wars: Squadrons, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, and The Wind Road.

You can grab the latest driver through GeForce Experience, or download and install it manually from Nvidia's driver page.

Paul Lilly
Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).

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