[Ars] Should we be required to create an account to get drivers?

[Azix]

Having to enter your email won't tie you to nvidia. It's entirely a bad thing for consumers because it adds stress and reduces privacy.

why nvidia is doing it? Milk the sheep. They can get away with a lot and with millions of users from years back now having to have GFE running or at least identify themselves, they get a lot of info. GFE will be doing its own data collection along with the farmed emails. Now they can send you an email once a month to upgrade your 680 etc. Tell you this game is such and such on geforce.

Ideal situation is a simple software to check drivers and offer to download + install them. No need for anything else.

 

[crisium]

Hopefully drivers can still be manually downloaded and installed from third party sites not long after being available. I installed GFE for the first time earlier this year when my main machine was Nvidia and I didn't like extra bloat for features I didn't use.

 

[bystander36]

Meh, I believe a lot of people should probably be console gaming. It seems they really only play Triple A titles, and they rarely want to upgrade their hardware, they essentially are playing at console settings.

I've seen a number of people who have gaming setups that are basically console settings and they say "I don't want to be a console peasant lol!"

I would say I wouldn't be surprised if there was a good chunk of PC gamers who could easily get a superior experience from a console.

You may not recognize it, but there are at least 3 primary reasons people still prefer PC over a console. You do recognize 1:
1) Graphics
2) The mouse
3) They have a PC that needed little or no upgrade to be able to game a little.

There are other reasons, but those definitely are the ones you hear the most. I'd likely never become a console gamer due to 2. I prefer a mouse. It just gives a much more connected feel.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

This is silly on nVIDIAs part but they will release quarterly drivers to their website and if you want game ready drivers you can just download them from another website like techspot, guru3d, etc.

 

[bystander36]

I probably won't care that much, but I'd rather not have another password to worry about, or email account with more junk emails. I'm just going to have to use my junk email account.

 

[nurturedhate]

This is silly on nVIDIAs part but they will release quarterly drivers to their website and if you want game ready drivers you can just download them from another website like techspot, guru3d, etc.

If Nvidia is set on making people use GFE for new driver releases they are not going to allow a 3rd party site to circumvent that.

 

[littleg]

Thank you for seeing my 100lbs drum of sarcasm for what it was.

Everyone else, let's actually look at this for what it is. Is Nvidia a busines? Yes. What is the bottom line goal of a business? Profit. How does this help increase profits? By tying users into an ecosystem that they eventually feel they cannot leave. Works for Microsoft. Works for Apple. Works for most. Now, take what those companies did in the past successfully in monetizing their products and guess how far Nvidia will take this in say 5 years. Do you want that future?

And I can't believe I have to say this but we do here on this forum or people in green shirts will get angry and defensive (about this singular situation). This has nothing to do with Nvidia being good or bad. It has nothing to do with Nvidia fans vs AMD fans. This is the result of a company flexing its current market share muscle to ensure they stay on top, as they should when they do what a business is suppose to do which is make money.

But don't sit there and tell me they will just stop here out of their own free will. If they can monetize something and the market will bear it, they will.

That really doesn't make any sense at all. You're not 'tied' to anything, if you want to install an AMD card then just do it same as you do now.

 

[Techhog]

If you're using it to game at PC settings not available on consoles, or to play games not available on consoles (Dota, LoL, MMORPGs, etc.)

I used 4K as an example for me.... Obviously you have people who prefer 1440p high refresh. Or Widescreen panels, etc.
When you start to care about tailoring the experience to yourself. Then PC gaming is where you need to be.

Still seems like you're saying that 1440p144 or 21:9 are the minimum or you're better off with a console.

 

[nurturedhate]

That really doesn't make any sense at all. You're not 'tied' to anything, if you want to install an AMD card then just do it same as you do now.

Really? You get "literal forced into something with no way of leaving" out of that one word? I don't know what to say.

 

[bystander36]

Really? You get "literal forced into something with no way of leaving" out of that one word? I don't know what to say.

The only thing you may be tied to is an email address, but they likely will let you change that too. I do find it annoying to have to have another email account, or more advertising in my current ones, but that's as far as it goes for being "tied" to anything.

As to your fear of them going the route of MS on charging for using their service, that is far fetched. There is a BIG/HUGE difference between them. MS sells software, and Nvidia sells hardware. MS' other issues was the years between new versions, with everyone upgrading at the same exact time, and people no longer wanting or feeling a need to upgrade. They had to find a way to make a constant stream of money. Nvidia's business doesn't work like that.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I wouldn't be surprised if AMDs Raptr would soon be the same requirement. It already got a login system that many subscribed to.

And hopefully those that got Raptr installed isn't the ones questioning if NVidia will sell information.

 

[Azix]

I wouldn't be surprised if AMDs Raptr would soon be the same requirement. It already got a login system that many subscribed to.

And hopefully those that got Raptr installed isn't the ones questioning if NVidia will sell information.

Raptr is not AMDs. They do bundle a version with AMD marketing on it but its another company responsible for it. I'd guess it also checks for nvidia drivers.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Raptr is not AMDs.

But it serves the same purpose for AMD. And AMD bundles it.

http://www.amd.com/en-us/markets/game/raptr

 

[boozzer]

so nvidia can spam my inbox? no thanks.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

If Nvidia is set on making people use GFE for new driver releases they are not going to allow a 3rd party site to circumvent that.

Says who? Assumptions are dangerous.

 

[ocre]

Some misconceptions about Geforce Experience:

- the "optimize game" feature is optional. But even if you do use it it, once you physically change a setting in the game it, GE wont optimize that game anymore unless you push the optimize button for that game.

- The biggest reason nvidia created GE was because they were alarmed to find that the majority of people with Nvidia cards were buying and playing games at the the default settings. Game developers became aware of this too. See, only recently do games auto detect HW. People were buying games and playing them at default which was 800x600 and everything at their lowest settings.

- GE only automatically updates drivers if you chose to. I only have it on alert. I download and install it when i choose to.

- It is an extremely small footprint. In the background, this app uses 100-1200kb, that is about .1 to 1 whole megabyte of ram. It is tiny.

Anyway, I am sure that there are enthusiast that might not have any use at all for GE. I have had it installed forever now and find the driver update notification useful. I like having the icon in my notification area because it pops up a menu for the nvidia control panel or GE. I use the control panel way more often than anything else.

Nvidia wants to build up its ecosystem and GE is part of that vision. No one really has to use it, especially enthusiast that dont want to. I dont see it as a big deal at all, not even a small one. Although i do find it interesting, why would they do this? Perhaps there is some reason(s) we havent seen yet. Regardless though, it matters none to me. I already have GE and already use it for my driver installs. I have for a while now.

 

[AnandThenMan]

The paywall wouldn't surprise me down the line.

Me either in fact it is the next logical step for a program like GFE. I'm sure there will be a way to extract only the driver package and make that available but if this happens you can bet Nvidia will go after sites/users that do it.

 

[Erenhardt]

I wouldn't be surprised if AMDs Raptr would soon be the same requirement. It already got a login system that many subscribed to.

And hopefully those that got Raptr installed isn't the ones questioning if NVidia will sell information.

Raptr is fully optional. It never changed a single in game setting without me asking it to.
Raptr or Gaming Evolved App informs user if there is a new driver (or beta driver - depends on the settings). It gives link to driver latest driver download page.
Additionally, Catalyst Control Center have driver up-to-date checking function with built in updater.
None of the above force anything upon user, which is the way it should be. Especially on the nvidia side, as some of their recent driver releases where not up to snuff (even WHQL)

 

[tential]

Some misconceptions about Geforce Experience:

- the "optimize game" feature is optional. But even if you do use it it, once you physically change a setting in the game it, GE wont optimize that game anymore unless you push the optimize button for that game.

- The biggest reason nvidia created GE was because they were alarmed to find that the majority of people with Nvidia cards were buying and playing games at the the default settings. Game developers became aware of this too. See, only recently do games auto detect HW. People were buying games and playing them at default which was 800x600 and everything at their lowest settings.

- GE only automatically updates drivers if you chose to. I only have it on alert. I download and install it when i choose to.

- It is an extremely small footprint. In the background, this app uses 100-1200kb, that is about .1 to 1 whole megabyte of ram. It is tiny.

Anyway, I am sure that there are enthusiast that might not have any use at all for GE. I have had it installed forever now and find the driver update notification useful. I like having the icon in my notification area because it pops up a menu for the nvidia control panel or GE. I use the control panel way more often than anything else.

Nvidia wants to build up its ecosystem and GE is part of that vision. No one really has to use it, especially enthusiast that dont want to. I dont see it as a big deal at all, not even a small one. Although i do find it interesting, why would they do this? Perhaps there is some reason(s) we havent seen yet. Regardless though, it matters none to me. I already have GE and already use it for my driver installs. I have for a while now.

I have mostly heard good things about gfe and it's no surprise to me that nvidia wants to improve on it. Most people I know that talk about nvidia always mention how they used gfe to optimize settings for their games because they don't know what settings to use without it. They're not like us reading each review and knowing what settings do what. They want a plug and play solution and gfe does a great job at that.

It seems people fear gfe without even giving it a chance.

That's why I'm saying that after 7 months of nvidia users using gfe before new video cards are available this whole issue will be a nonfactor. The people who leave nvidia cards over this will be miniscule imo.

 

[Teizo]

The download cache that GFE uses when you download driver updates is:

C\ProgramData\Nvidia Corporation\NetService

Look into one of the temporary folders. It uses one for GFE updates, and one for driver updates. It appears, at least from what I saw, that after the update the temp cache gets deleted.

So, for those of us who like to use DDU to do clean installs on all driver updates, it is possible to take this file and copy/move it to another folder. DDU deletes the contents of this folder by default though you have the option to not delete the C\Nvidia folder

So, from that vantage point, there is a work around for doing clean driver installs rather than overwrites, but it still is more steps than should be necessary.

GFE is a good piece of software, but I really have no use for it personally as I don't record or broadcast any of my game play. It is totally pointless for the most part for me to install it. Doesn't really make sense I should have to either, but at least I did find one work around for doing clean installs, and the fact that there is an actual download cache means that the GR drivers are going to be able to be found on the internet somewhere, and it would be really reaching for Nvidia to stop Hilbert at Guru3D for hosting those drivers and allowing downloads for people who don't want to install GFE.

 

[DooKey]

snip

The paywall wouldn't surprise me down the line. Nvidia could easily push the notion of 'premium drivers' and setup a tiered driver system using GFE as some sort of DRM to prevent pirating them

Not sure if serious.

If so, LOL.

 

[Spjut]

I'm always opposed to being forced into something. Since Nvidia has uploaded the latest drivers on its homepage for years and making GFE optional, I just find it absolutely frustrating that GFE + a verified email is becoming a requirement

 

[AnandThenMan]

I have mostly heard good things about gfe and it's no surprise to me that nvidia wants to improve on it. Most people I know that talk about nvidia always mention how they used gfe to optimize settings for their games because they don't know what settings to use without it. They're not like us reading each review and knowing what settings do what. They want a plug and play solution and gfe does a great job at that.

Then they are free to use GFE or whatever they want. This forum is for enthusiasts that don't want a company holding their hand never mind forcing them to use a application and provide an email just to get a driver.

It's all about choice.

 

[Dribble]

This is silly on nVIDIAs part but they will release quarterly drivers to their website and if you want game ready drivers you can just download them from another website like techspot, guru3d, etc.

This, I can't see why they just don't put all the drivers on the website. Make GF experience standard, but why annoy that small % of enthusiasts who hate GFE.

Note: I do have GFE installed, but don't use it to auto config my games on my desktop, just to update drivers as it's easier then going to nvidia's web site, and/or working out if there is a new driver. Kids PC's also have it installed and they do have it auto-setting games settings and it works great for them.

 

[tential]

Then they are free to use GFE or whatever they want. This forum is for enthusiasts that don't want a company holding their hand never mind forcing them to use a application and provide an email just to get a driver.

It's all about choice.

You do have a choice. A choice to not use nvidia if this bothers you. I doubt many will sell their cards now for amd over this and after 7+ months of dealing with it they'll be used to it by the time new cards come out.

But maybe nvidia will cave for the enthusiast community. But honestly I could see nvidia getting away with a move like this.

We'll see how it plays out though.