NVIDIA GeForce 496.76 WHQL driver download & Discussion

So I can't use NIS with anything else other than native resolution? That sucks.

I switched from DSR to custom resolution since image sharpening is now attached to the new feature. The higher output resolution, blurring, and sharpening combined looked so good.

 

So we are also getting a hotfix? That's so weird

 

Anyone got Win11 flickers with this?

 

It's grayed out though. How am I supposed to run it on specific applications? Am I missing something?

 

I have a very weird bug, since several driver releases and my Oculus Quest 2. I mostly use it wireless via official Air Link. This also works fine and the quality is good.
The weird thing though, after putting my laptop into sleep and waking it up later and repeat that for a few times, the display driver will continuously restart and I get a flickering screen (driver crash/restart every 1-2 seconds). It's barely possible to shutdown the laptop then. This only happens after having used the Oculus software and the headset since the last laptop reboot.
Running Windows 10, a GTX 1070 and keeping all drivers manually up to date.

Anybody else having this weird issue?

 

It will be enabled only if you'll switch your display resolution to one of resolutions created by NIS.
So unless you're switching your desktop to a lower resolution for some reason it won't affect it even being enabled.

 

@ManuelG

I did not understand these two points:

1) [NVIDIA Image Scaling][Desktop]: The screen moves to the upper left corner on cold boot when Image Scaling is applied to the desktop. [3424721]

Do not apply NVIDIA Image Scaling to the desktop. It is intended only for video upscaling or for games which do not run with a scaling resolution unless the same Image Scaling resolution is applied on the desktop.

2) [NVIDIA Image Scaling]: After performing a clean install or over install over version 496.49, NVIDIA Image Scaling resolutions do not appear in the game. [3434708]

To work around, a. Disable HDR in case it’s enabled from the Microsoft Control Panel, enable Image Scaling and apply the Image Scaling resolution on the desktop, and then reboot the system. b. If the previous instructions do not work, upgrade to the hotfix driver 496.84.

 

this update is massive @ 831.8 Mb, there is more to what's going on than has been said

 

Did a quick test with this "new" scaling.
You can FINALLY change sharpening strength in real time without having to relaunch your game BUT this only applies to Global sharpening. When you're in-game and you try to change strength slider in the application profile - nothing happens and it still requires a game restart.
You can change sharpening strength via GFE overlay BUT it only works in games that support Freestyle because the slider is buried in the Freestyle settings. It also has no effect on sharpening sliders in the control panel e.g. if you have it at 0% in control panel but 100% in GFE it will still be at 0% in control panel. I'd guess that's by design but confusing on what takes precedent when the game loads (I assume control panel one).
Setting sharpening to 0% seems to disable it, at least on native resolution. Unlike the "old" sharpening where even at 0% it still sharpened the image if you had sharpening enabled. Can any pixel detectives confirm that it's totally off at 0% on native?
Without applying sharpening, there's barely any difference between the "new" scaling and old one, I can see slight difference when looking at pixels with 300% zoom but in-game I probably wouldn't notice it.

It works on any resolution below native, at least in games according to the overlay indicator. However you can still use sharpening effect even native resolution despite overlay saying NIS is not active. Doesn't seem to have any effect on Start menu or random UWP apps (as it shouldn't) but works in games.

 

Many Nvidia driver releases first appear here before the official site.

 

Yeah, and this is why Nvidia needs a new CPL with non-ancient UX - it sure looks like they themselves are starting to trip over their own options.
I mean, the fact that there is no separate option for sharpening in CPL now is already pretty bad. But the way it is worded and integrated with sharpening working on all resolutions when image scaling is on is even worse.
Also that list in "manage 3d settings" is just pure comical stuff on a 4K display.

 

Ok, it is linked now to NIS. Hopefully this means 100% compatibility without some games requiring shader re-compile.

I also find the new sharpen to look much better than the old one, hardly any ringing at 10-20% strength (a bit more aliasing though).

 

Does the game have to get an update for new DLSS , or just the driver?

 

Ok for the moment i skip this release

 

There hasn't been a standard driver since 472.12 whats with that?

 

Nothing to report here! Performance, stability and functionality remains the same, at least for the time being

 

Same exact problem with HD Audio either reinstalling or uninstalling it causing my pc to hard reboot when installing drivers.
It reboots the pc to a unclean install of the driver (because if it doesnt finish its unclean imo) and you cannot even try to do a clean install over it without it hard rebooting.
Only way to fix is to DDU it completely and reinstall fresh EVERY DAMN TIME

 

Thats an issue your end buddy, some dll or something having a wobble

 

Other people have reported it as well. Not sure if it was HDMI 2.1 or just HDMI in general.

 

Adding to my previous post, I'd really like to see some performance benchmarks with NIS on and off. I ran a few quick CSGO benchmarks, since this is the only game I have with a benchmark albeit a non-official one and results look pretty bad on my system. This is just for native display resolution.

496.76 NIS OFF: 358 fps AVG
496.76 NIS ON: 324 fps AVG

I reran the bench multiple times but getting same results every time. Sharpening at 0% or 100% has no effect on performance, seems like it's always forced on even when visually it doesn't seem do anything at 0%.

In comparison here's 496.61 on native resolution.

496.61 GPU scaling ON, sharpening OFF: 360 fps AVG
496.61 GPU scaling ON, sharpening ON: 347 fps AVG

Didn't even test downscaled resolution performance difference when I saw those numbers and instantly rolled back to 496.61. Now this could be just old CSGO engine misbehaving but for now I'll stay on 496.61 until the proper benchmarks are out. It's not worth it to have this much of a performance hit on, again, native resolution when NIS shouldn't be active, in theory, especially when you're forced to have it as a global setting for whatever reason and you don't have a separate sharpening on/off toggle like you do in 496.61, which I suspect is what tanks performance in my case.