NVIDIA is trying to get more people to use its GeForce Experience app, and its latest plan may end up rubbing some gamers the wrong way. The company has announced that future Game Ready Drivers will be locked exclusively to the GFE app, and users will be required to register an account to access them.
Game Ready Drivers are a set of drivers optimised for the latest games, essentially designed to get the most from NVIDIA graphics cards. At the moment, these drivers can be downloaded from the NVIDIA’s website; and without having to provide any personal information. Come December, the drivers will be locked behind GFE; although NVIDIA will still publish its quarterly drivers on its website. These drivers will carry the general bug fixes, security patches, and updated features, but any performance tweaks will only be available through GFE.
To be fair, NVIDIA says that “mid- to high-90 percent” of NVIDIA owners already apply updates through GFE. This means that most of them already have provided NVIDIA with their email, and signing in to download drivers isn’t too much of an issue. However, this is a cause of concern for those gamers who would prefer to avoid additional applications like GFE.
We understand that NVIDIA wants to use the accounts to better communicate with its users, but this sounds suspiciously like just another method of tracking user data. That being said, the company is currently monopolising the graphics card market; which means that it can get away with this sort of thing.
[Source: PC World]
