NVIDIA’s Gamescom Game Ready Driver Boosts Performance, Adds Low Latency and Integer Scaling
NVIDIA Game Ready Driver 436.02 Brings Significant Feature Updates
In what promises to be the biggest driver update of the year NVIDIA has dropped a “Gamescom Ready Driver” this morning that not only offers what the company claims to be up to a 23% performance improvement in popular games vs. version 431.60, but adds a new ultra-low latency mode as well as visual improvements including something dear to the hearts of retro gamers: integer scaling.
“Today, we’re celebrating our GeForce gaming community by releasing a special Gamescom Game Ready Driver, at 6am PT, that packs some big software optimizations for Apex Legends, Battlefield V, Forza Horizon 4, Strange Brigade and World War Z, which increase framerates by up to 23%.
Also included are several new beta features based on feedback and requests from our community — an Ultra-Low Latency mode for faster input response, an Integer Scaling display mode for pixel art games, and a new GeForce Experience Freestyle sharpen filter. Lastly, our new driver brings support for 3 new G-SYNC Compatible gaming monitors, and day-0 game support for Remnant: From The Ashes.”
Faster Performance in Popular Games
NVIDIA says the new driver offers optimizations for Apex Legends, Battlefield V, Forza Horizon 4, Strange Brigade, and World War Z, bringing performance improvements ranging from around 5% to over 20% depending on the game.
Ultra-Low Latency Options
AMD turned some heads with their announcement of a low-latency feature called Radeon Anti-Lag during their E3 event, and while it has been possible to limit pre-rendered frames with NVIDIA drivers previously the company has made this a more visible option with this update.
And the real-world impact of the low-latency option can be, according to NVIDIA’s chart, significant:
Integer Scaling
If you have ever played games produced in the era when Super VGA really was super on a modern LCD display, you might have the impression that vintage games were blurry and terrible. Not so! It was just recently that Intel was introducing their upcoming integer scaling option for Gen11 graphics, but NVIDIA has beaten them to the punch – and it works on all current Turing GPUs.
As NVIDIA points out, “when enabled in retro games, emulators and pixel-art titles that lack resolution-scaling filters, the difference in clarity and fidelity is dramatic”. They offer this comparison for your reference:
Image Sharpening
Another aspect of AMD’s drivers that received so much attention around E3 was Radeon Image Sharpening, and NVIDIA is now offering a new sharpening filter to improve visuals in a similar vein.
“As part of our new Game Ready Driver, we are releasing a new Sharpen Freestyle filter with improved image quality and performance compared to our existing “Detail” Freestyle filter. The image quality of the new filter is improved, and the performance impact is roughly half that of the prior filter.”
NVIDIA also points out that their sharpening filter “also offers broader API support than other solutions”, which is a clear shot at AMD’s lack of DX11 support for Radeon Image Sharpening. DX9, DX11, DX12 and Vulkan APIs are supported with a current list of over 600 games, with new game support to be added via future Game Ready Driver releases.
The new Gamescom Game Ready Driver isn’t currently an option in the US (as of 11:30 AM EDT), and there may be some bugs to work out of the installer before we see widespread availability. Stay tuned.
