What can be removed out of a nVidia driver

Well, you have Profile Updater, telemetry monitor and crash and telemetry reporter running like you said, so that at least is not avoidable without debloating the archive, right?

I guess that is the main reason, why users ask for removing stuff they do not require. They do not want anything running in the background except the driver itself.

 

yeh, there in there but not running, there ready mode, they need to be triggered.

Nv changed some of background processes, I used to have the backend one, which I could set to manual. Now we have container one but you can't mess with it.

 

Ok, I went to Autoruns, typed filter "nvidia" and saved report into file:

I have never deleted files from installer folder, and I always install only driver and physx with clean install option. No bloatware entries. No telemetry.
I checked audio driver - it is of version 1.3.34.4. Audio driver in 375.70 bundle is of version 1.3.34.17, so Autoruns shows some leftover one (probably installed it accidentally).

 

Already answered. Most of your list won't be installed if you won't explicitly select components which require parts from this list. The stuff which is installed no matter what you select is there to help me (Profile Updater) and NV (Telemetry and Reporter) to make things run better. Feel free to remove them but don't come crying for help next time something doesn't work for you as it was you who made it more difficult to fix the problem in the first place.

 

Like anything will run much better with updater and telemetry services running in the background, sure..., that is bs and you know it! Nobody without those crappy services will come crying and seeking for help, because removing them does not cause any issues.

Please stop misinforming users by advertising useless parts of the driver package, which clearly can be removed without issues. IF users need Shadowplay, GFE, updater etc. they know what to install. This thread is clearly about *REMOVING* everything not needed for most users.

 

T_R_V, the fact that my rig lacks the components you described as deselectable tells me that you are not correct about this. And the fact that different gurus report different sets of autoruns entries tells me that we know nothing about nvidia installer. Of course there is a chance that some gurus`rigs get drivers installed from Windows Update servers at least once and those "deselectable" components just linger since then.

 

I think the point he is trying to make is this:

updater is there for convenience sake. you will get new game profiles without installing new drivers all the time.

And the telemetry tool is useful to nvidia to fix issues. as they get input from systems without you having to come to the forum and tell us "i'm having issues".

Obviously, they can use telemetry for bad stuff, like data mining for profit.

 

I install the same stuff as TJ in comment #11 (HDMI audio out to TV) and then set the NVIDIA Display Container LS service to manual and just use Inspector for all my settings. You don't need the Vulkan runtime either if you don't play any games that support it if you're going full-on minimalist.

I don't think this helps performance at all but if you don't like a bunch of crap installed on your rig then it only takes a little extra time to do it this way.

 

Interesting, as I do the same as you (drivers+physx+hd audio driver) BUT those telemetry services got installed with 375.xx for me.
Have them disabled though but they are there.

 

Yeh, same here but there not services, they are under task-scheduler's
Of course you can disable them easy if you want to.I have never seen them run, but also i haven't crashed either lately.

PS: I am still on 375.86 so maybe it changed again.

 

Yea under Task Scheduler, not services, hasty wording on my part. Disabled them too.

 

It may be that something in OS configuration here prevents those tasks like telemetry from installing. For example my WiFi connection is configured as metered. In such case we could tell that installer from NV is pretty much intelligent.

 

Could be. I have a 4G connection but it uses a router connected via ethernet cable so Windows sees it as an ethernet connection.

Before I had a 4G dongle and that was detected as a mobile network and for example WU didn't autodownload updates because of it.

 

OP asked "what crap can be removed from the driver". For me and the majority of advanced users "crap" is stuff, that gets installed without explicit permission and stuff that keeps running in the background without providing any value to the user/system/application.
I don't care, if any collected data helps Nvidia to improve anything, because I never got asked, if I really want to participate in helping to collect data.
Even a heavily modified setup.cfg only adds "Nvidia Update" and "Virtual Audio" to setups advanced selection list. There is no way to deselect telemetry.

Conclusion
- telemetry/update services do not always get installed (may depend on OS, OS version, graphics card, driver version)

- if telemetry/update services get installed, they get installed without user permission

- to get a 100% crap-free driver setup, there is no other way but debloating the driver package and removing everything not needed like shown on screenshots in this thread

 

Speaking of telemetry,

well, it wont tell nvidia if a game has stutter or if it feels laggy or if it has other visual anomalies not present with older driver, or sync issues, etc.

 

Uh, anything running in the background constantly sending pc + game data to a server which is not the game itself can cause stutter, as seen with a million similar cases.

Telemetry is cancer in every way you can put it. If a game is ****ty and is stuttering etc, they will know immediately trust me. The problem is that there is so much they can do, 90% of the time it's stuff that only the developers can fix.

 

There's nothing "running in a background constantly sending pc + game data to a server". You can check what's being sent and when with any network monitoring tool of your liking.

And speaking of stuff running in a background doing **** - that's how Windows operates, and this alone does not lead to anything.

 

Ok, So this morning (9hrs ago), I setup to monitor 3 processes with a watchdog that show if x process gets triggered and for x time.
here 3 processes ,nvprofileupdater64.exe, nvtmmon.exe, nvtmrep.exe.

So far only 1, (nvtmrep.exe) has started and that was for 0.01 seconds.
Will see how it goes, i might not be able to check logon ones depending on if my watchdog gets loaded first.

 

+1 to Minimalistic. The rest is unnessiciary bloatware and garbage. For those of you who use shadowplay, give MSI Afterburner a shot as it can actually be configured to give you excellent video quality (instead of the blocky/hazy washed out mess that shadowplay gives you) and if tweaked correctly has about the same performance impact.

Also, dr_rus has no idea what he's talking about.Use a program like Netlimiter to see the network activity, the Nvidia telemetry sends a load of data once per hour at a minimum. Geforece experience and the overlays and sh!t that run do impact performance and increase the potential for issues. (Remember the BSODs anyone? Yea, that was fun). And finally, removing this near 700MB of garbage from your system vs an express install results in significantly less DPC latency, although someone like dr_rus will most likely deny the existence of DPC latency's relevance altogether. :bugeye:

For those who aren't anti-optimization you'll definitely be pleased to know that ONLY AFTER getting rid of all the crap in the Nvidia drivers (and Windows 7/8.1/10) it's possible to run with 2-28us DPC latency during idle, with no spikes above 100us whatsoever at any time or during any task.

I also recommend disabling the steam overlay and any other overlays aside from MSI AB OSD and Uplay if it is required to run your game like it is for Rainbow Six Siege... (it's getting better, somewhat less cancer).

 

"Constantly". Yeah, *I* don't know what I'm talking about.

And nothing changes in how your system work because of that. What an achievement.