With the release of the GeForce RTX 4090, Nvidia has released new 522.25 graphics drivers. These include support for this first model of the Ada architecture, but also a surprise: optimizations that have improved the performance of all GeForce graphics, even older ones.
Yesterday the first Nvidia graphics cards of the new generation of Ada Lovelace went on sale (GeForce RTX 4090 model) and the company has also released them a new driver. However, it appears that it doesn’t just include support for the new architecture and graphics model. Nvidia has bundled an update to the GPU driver components with this release, which greatly improves overall performance, even for older cards.
We recently had a similar overall performance boost here with AMD graphics, where performance in OpenGL and DirectX 11 using games has been improved, probably behind the rewriting of some essential parts of the drivers responsible for performance. Nvidia seems to have done something like this now: the new version of the GeForce 522.25 driver is expected to bring performance improvements across a large group of games at the same time.
According to Nvidia, these are optimizations at various points in the code and related to game switching using the DirectX 12 API (DirectX 11, Vulkan and OpenGL modes are probably therefore not directly affected). Changes have been made to the shader compiler, for example, and Nvidia claims to have reduced the driver overhead in terms of CPU power (time) it consumes. This is important, because many games are limited on powerful graphics not by the GPU itself, but by the performance of the CPU. If the controller consumes less per frame, the game can achieve a higher frame rate.
Increases from 5% up to 24%
Performance increases vary from game to game, as is usually the case. Most often, they will likely be medium to higher single-digit percentages – Nvidia reports a 5% to 9% performance improvement for Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Tom ‘Clancy’s The Division, Far Cry 6, Red Dead Redemption 2 or even Control.
But there are cases where these optimizations will be more significant, for example in the F1 22 game the new controllers are up to 17% faster, in Cyberpunk 2077 up to 20% and the biggest improvement was measured by Nvidia in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla , where performance is said to increase by 24%.
However, please note that these specific “up to” numbers may apply to a specific resolution or graphics model, while others may be slightly different due to all sorts of circumstances. Here are the results Nvidia gives as an example:
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: as far as 24% better performance (1080p)
- Battlefield 2042: as far as 7% better performance (1080p)
- Borderlands 3: as far as 8% better performance (1080p)
- Call of Duty: Vanguard: as far as 12% better performance (4K)
- Check: as far as 6% better performance (4K)
- Cyberpunk 2077: as far as 20% better performance (1080p)
- F1 22: as far as 17% better performance (4K)
- Far Cry 6: as far as 5% better performance (1440p)
- Strength Horizon 5: as far as 8% better performance (1080P)
- Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition: as far as 8% better performance (4k)
- Red Dead Redemption 2: as far as 7% better performance (1080p)
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider: as far as 5% better performance (1080p)
- Tom Clancy’s The Division 2: as far as 5% better performance (1080p)
- Watch Dogs: Legion: as far as 9% better performance (1440p)
So, if you’re using GeForce graphics, we recommend installing this driver, as you should get slightly better FPS for free (hopefully without any side effects) in games that perform better than DirectX 12.
The 522.25 driver also includes some non-global optimizations: this is the addition of support (and with it specific optimizations) for some new games (Scorn, Gotham Knights, A Plague Tale: Requiem, but also for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection , which is a coincidence) circumstances the game that now AMD offers freebies with Ryzen processors as a bonus).
Profiles for Resizable BAR have been added for other games, which should ensure enabling will have an advantage – Forza Horizon 5 and F1 22 have met this (note: the benefit of this PCI Resizable BAR optimization should probably be included in the percentage above improvements). So obviously this part of the performance enhancement only applies to those whose computer can “ReBAR” (and have it turned on).
Source: Nvidia
