Nvidia Retires Its GeForce Control Panel App After 20 Years

Nvidia is retiring its classic Control Panel for GeForce Game Ready and Studio Driver users after 20 years, as it pushes users to a newer, more unified "NVIDIA" app. Longtime Slashdot reader BrendaEM first shared the news, commenting: "Nvidia seems to no long want you to have control over your own video card that you paid your hard-earned money for? WTF!?" VideoCardz.com reports: Existing Control Panel installs will remain on users' systems. NVIDIA says the old panel will only disappear after a clean driver installation. Users who still need it can continue to download it from the Microsoft Store, but NVIDIA will no longer add new features, fixes, or other changes.

The retirement currently applies to Game Ready and Studio Drivers. NVIDIA RTX PRO users will continue to receive Control Panel support until the company moves professional features to the NVIDIA app. For GeForce users, NVIDIA says the app now includes the modern functionality previously available through Control Panel. [...] The classic panel is therefore not being removed from every system overnight. It is being moved into maintenance mode for GeForce users...

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[Unpopular Opinions]

NVidia retires the entire RTX family of cards, citing lack of interest on the consumer markets, thus focusing on their new pet project, AI.

Re:

[ambrandt12]

Of course, because AI is the future!

It wouldn't surprise me if someone went out in the warehouse at NVidia and had a brainstorm... "we'll just reflow the cards that didn't sell and throw the parts that fell off the old one's into the parts bin for the NPU production line", and I can totally see all the NPU manufacturers buying up all the video cards they can find to use them for all the small parts or just flash the firmware to enable NPU-like functions on older cards.

Enbloatification

[TonyCI]

I wouldnâ(TM)t mind using a modern interface for the same functions as the Nvidia control panel, but the Nvidia app is a huge install with lots of tracking telemetry and functions you might never need. Even deselecting items during custom install reports back to Nvidia and if you use NVCleanInstall to strip it back to basics you risk it breaking as the app has hooks into other Nvidia libraries, which if missing will cause issues.

Re:

[sabbede]

Well, it doesn't force you to sign in like GeForce Experience did, which is a plus. And it also now has all the features and controls as the old panel, which was slow as hell.

Long Time Coming

[Himmy32]

Surprised that it took this long. The old app has been on life support for a long time.

Doesn't make sense to support two control applications. The one with better built-in marketing was always going to be the clear winner.

Re:

[ambrandt12]

I wonder if the change will be retroactive for all NVidia cards' drivers packages, or will the not-new cards keep the functions that came with the driver package (including the older style control panel)?

Re:

[sabbede]

Well, that's an easy one. If your card doesn't support the latest drivers, this does not apply to you. This impacts the GTX 750 (oldest still-supported GPU) and newer.

Though, as the summary points out, the new drivers don't remove the old panel, which can also be installed from the MS store.

I prefer the new one. The old panel is irritatingly slow and has been since it was first released.

Re:

[ambrandt12]

My cards (only one is in use, one is in use at ma's place, a Radeon 7850): TitanX (installed in the 24-core Threadripper tower with 128Gigs RAM and 9 drives... did manage to get SCSI totally working in Win10 on that rig), Radeon 4650HD, Quadro 400, Quadro 200.

But, the big rig is a TitanX 12GB, which won't work with the newest one, it requires the version before (might try to force the last/latest next time I do a nuke-and-pave install).

It's not too far fetched to think that NVidia or ATI/AMD or whoever migh

Re:

[thegarbz]

They don't have two control applications. They have one control application and one fucking horrendous poorly programmed marketing app that serves only to force users to register for an nvidia account.

One is a control panel. The other seemingly exists to offer me a "Marvel Rivals Geforce Reward" whatever the fuck that is.

If anyone every programs a tool which has the "System" menu option next to a "Redeem" menu option I hope you get hit by a bus... and don't die, but spend an eternity in pain.

Re:

[sabbede]

Are you thinking of the previous incarnation, GeForce Experience? It required a login, but I don't think the "nvidia app" does. I have it updating a driver right now and it isn't logged in.

Yeah, it has a "redeem" option. Big deal. It's faster than the old control panel and has more features. Including those that used to only be available through a manufacturer-branded utility. It also has some ads, but so does the driver installer.

Re:

[sabbede]

And the old one was so damn slow! God forbid you have to click the dropdown to select a specific application's settings.

GeForce Experience was horrible and it forced you to sign in. Ick. The new app doesn't, has gone past feature parity with the control panel, and is just generally better.

I have no idea what the, "Nvidia seems to no long want you to have control over your own video card", bit was supposed to be about.

Thanks Steve

[SumDog]

Interested on Games Nexus take on this. I'm pretty sure it will be in their hardware news segment. I personally rarely use my Windows box anymore. My hacked PS4 Pro is my main gaming system now. My PS5 is sitting disconnected from the Internet until a 10.40 firmware hack is discovered. Fuck both nVidia and Sony.

Not on the roadmap

[sTERNKERN]

If You have listened to what that midget idiot in the leather jacket has been rambling about You'll have nothing but a terminal and a "mini" datacenter nearby (maybe even on your lawn) which You do not own but pay for every goddamn month. They do not want You to own anything.

I still miss the XP Era Control Panel Applet

[Voyager529]

Fast, effective, included the nView Desktop Manager to include transparency and window-shade mode to any window, and it was under 100MB installed.

Why nvidia drivers are now larger than Windows XP itself is a mystery to me, and they've always been a concession that has gotten bigger, slower, and more confusing than what they replaced.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Why nvidia drivers are now larger than Windows XP itself is a mystery to me

The driver package has drivers and firmware for tons of cards you're not installing.

Re:

[sabbede]

Fast? My biggest complaint with it has always been "painfully slow". Was the desktop manager included with the XP drivers? I recall that being entirely separate, and eventually essentially exclusive to the Quadros. I was able to get it installed but had to pull it from Quadro drivers.

What's Brenda talking about?

[sabbede]

I use the new one all the time. It gives me control over more things than the old control panel does. And it isn't slow as molasses.

How does this in any way mean that "Nvidia seems to no long[er] want you to have control over your own video card"? Especially since I can now set the clocks without needing some rebranded version of RivaTuner?

And if you prefer a clean, but slower, interface you can still use the old panel.