Wasn't broke, but I tried to fix it anyway! NVidia Driver..

[Noel 4,486]

Having not installed a new NV driver since Sept '21 I decided to try a couple of the latest game-ready drivers.  I uninstalled the current old driver first, then used the clean install option in the installer.  Got absolutely no improvements in anything visually or otherwise except was getting some slight 'shudders' for lack of a better word.  Kind of brief shimmy/shudder randomly but regularly--yuck!!  This was with the latest driver one, then one from a few versions back, same same on both.  Reinstalled the one from last year (472.12) and all was back to normal.  One has to wonder how many folks with odd issues like this stem from the driver.  No, I did not do the "deep clean" as I haven't relied on that routine for many years now with no untoward effects.  Plus, I have a hard time accepting NV doesn't know how to uninstall/install drivers here in mid 2022.

[David Mills 4,734]

I've suffered many instances over the years where I updated myself completely out of operation.

[Sethos 4,300]

I always run DDU and then NVCleanstall to sanitize the driver for all the junk, every bit of telemetry and whatnot. Always run the latest driver with zero issues. 

[Noel 4,486]

3 minutes ago, Sethos said:

I always run DDU and then NVCleanstall to sanitize the driver for all the junk, every bit of telemetry and whatnot. Always run the latest driver with zero issues. 

Well, the old one went right back in with no issues, FWIW.

[enright 496]

5 minutes ago, Sethos said:

I always run DDU and then NVCleanstall to sanitize the driver for all the junk, every bit of telemetry and whatnot. Always run the latest driver with zero issues. 

Honest question: what junk? Do drivers cache data or leave residual data somewhere?

[Sethos 4,300]

2 minutes ago, enright said:

Honest question: what junk? Do drivers cache data or leave residual data somewhere?

Mostly just all the junk that comes in the driver itself. You'd be surprised how much is included in these drivers outside of the basic driver itself, that is installed on your machine. Virtual audio drivers, telemetry that sends data back to Nvidia, services for all sorts of stuff, even drivers for old rare laptops, all the Geforce Experience stuff which requires a large subset of stuff, like streaming services, virtual host controllers, backend components, process monitors etc. NVCleanstall has 21 items outside of just the driver itself that are left unticked during installation which are not needed. 

 

[MrFuzzy 2,118]

I'm using the latest driver (516.59) as I always do, and I don't experience anything strange. SU10 and DX12 - for me - brought the sim to a level of smoothness that I didn't even think possible.

I never saw anything happen after a driver update, honestly. I use DDU only when downgrading the driver for test purpose, otherwise I simply overwrite it with the latest version installer. 

As for the junk, I just don't install GeForce Experience and I have only these two background processes using virtually no resources:

I tried NVCleanInstall too of course, and the same processes were there, same performance obtained, so I just ditched that as well🙂

[Bobsk8 12,550]

You want problems, install the latest drivers, and then try and fix what you just broke. 

[Noel 4,486]

25 minutes ago, Sethos said:

Mostly just all the junk that comes in the driver itself. You'd be surprised how much is included in these drivers outside of the basic driver itself, that is installed on your machine. Virtual audio drivers, telemetry that sends data back to Nvidia, services for all sorts of stuff, even drivers for old rare laptops, all the Geforce Experience stuff which requires a large subset of stuff, like streaming services, virtual host controllers, backend components, process monitors etc. NVCleanstall has 21 items outside of just the driver itself that are left unticked during installation which are not needed. 

Umm, and when you install the new one, new "junk" isn't added?  Quite obviously, it is, else it wouldn't come out with the next install.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Noel

[Noel 4,486]

26 minutes ago, MrFuzzy said:

I'm using the latest driver (516.59) as I always do, and I don't experience anything strange. SU10 and DX12 - for me - brought the sim to a level of smoothness that I didn't even think possible.

I never saw anything happen after a driver update, honestly. I use DDU only when downgrading the driver for test purpose, otherwise I simply overwrite it with the latest version installer. 

As for the junk, I just don't install GeForce Experience and I have only these two background processes using virtually no resources:

I tried NVCleanInstall too of course, and the same processes were there, same performance obtained, so I just ditched that as well🙂

I already have perfect smoothness, again, after reinstalling the old driver with a new copy of GF Experience which I use for shadowplay only.

[Sethos 4,300]

5 minutes ago, Noel said:

Umm, and when you install the new one, new "junk" isn't added?  Quite obviously, it is, else it wouldn't come out with the next install.

What? No that's literally what you remove with NVCleanstall?

[Noel 4,486]

6 minutes ago, Sethos said:

What? No that's literally what you remove with NVCleanstall?

Oh I see, you run this AFTER you install the new driver, yes?  I do wish to keep Shadowplay alive--does this tool give the opportunity to do this?

[Sethos 4,300]

1 minute ago, Noel said:

Oh I see, you run this AFTER you install the new driver, yes?  I do wish to keep Shadowplay alive--does this tool give the opportunity to do this?

No, you run NVCleanstall and clean the driver installer itself if you've downloaded it manually or let NVCleanstall download it for you. Then you go through a process of ticking / unticking all the stuff you need. Then you can install it directly or create a new 'cleaned up' installer package. 

[Noel 4,486]

12 minutes ago, Sethos said:

No, you run NVCleanstall and clean the driver installer itself if you've downloaded it manually or let NVCleanstall download it for you. Then you go through a process of ticking / unticking all the stuff you need. Then you can install it directly or create a new 'cleaned up' installer package. 

I see.  Does NV produce this product?

[Sethos 4,300]

1 minute ago, Noel said:

I see.  Does NV produce this product?

It's a piece of third party software from TechPowerUp https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-nvcleanstall/