Nvidia plans to tweak its GeForce graphics drivers using artificial intelligence to ensure games run faster, according to the latest from GPU Grapevine.
This comes from CapFrameX on Twitter (via videocardz (opens in new tab)), a known source of leaks and developer of a utility that deals in frame time capture and analysis.
[Rumor] Nvidia is working on AI optimized drivers. Maybe release this year (Q1). ▶️ Up to 30% higher performance ▶️ Average improvement ~10% ▶️ No idea about specific genes Take it with a grain of salt. If true nvidia drivers would be the real “fine wine”. pic.twitter.com/QGTUL9iK7NJanuary 8, 2023
AI-powered optimizations to boost performance will vary in their effects from game to game, naturally, with the leaker stressing that the average improvement will be in the ballpark of 10%. However, some titles can see gains of up to 30% in terms of faster frame rates.
Obviously, we should be skeptical of this claim, and indeed as CapFrameX notes we should apply a grain of salt here (we’d go for a grain much higher than that, mind).
Analysis: Big boost for (relatively) small games?
This could be huge if it’s actually true, but as it stands, the claim is very vague. We don’t know exactly how the AI will work and very little information is provided, although later in the Twitter thread the leaker answers a question about what the AI will optimize – which will be, we quote: “instructions, throughput, hardware usage, threading, settings…”
Pretty much everything, then, or at least a broad sweep of aspects. And presumably the AI improvement of the drivers will be an ongoing process, which means the Nvidia drivers may well have the “fine wine” effect (referenced in the tweet), a label traditionally applied to AMD’s drivers.
There’s a wide scope for the exact amount of expected frame rate increase, though, and if some PC games are inching towards 30%, and the overall average is 10%, that means some titles only benefit to a minimal extent. are about to happen. (probably a few percent).
We could theorize that big-name AAA games, which are already heavily optimized for Nvidia – and have a ton of resources behind them are in the first place to do serious work on performance optimization – perhaps because of this AI tuning. will experience the smallest effect with, as they are already highly tuned. Fewer games could lead to a lot more gains, but we’re just speculating here.
CapFrameX says this AI graphics driver tuning could happen this year, maybe even in Q1, which could mean we’ll see something in the next few months. The other question that’s up in the air is which graphics cards this will apply to – could Nvidia tie it to a specific generation, like the loveless RTX 4000 GPUs (as is the case with the DLSS 3)? It doesn’t seem likely, but we could definitely see it being limited to RTX graphics cards, perhaps (if Nvidia can take the opportunity to decline the upgrade, you bet the firm will).