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Nvidia Retires Its GeForce Control Panel App After 20 Years (videocardz.com) 49

Posted by BeauHD from the time-to-move-on dept.
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...

Nvidia Retires Its GeForce Control Panel App After 20 Years More | Reply

Nvidia Retires Its GeForce Control Panel App After 20 Years

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  • Up next (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Unpopular Opinions ( 6836218 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2026 @01:17PM (#66161020)

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

    • 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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ucho ( 1458291 )

      > lack of interest on the consumer markets

      You missed the memo. NVidia doesn't have consumer segment anymore, there are only data centers and "edge computing".

  • Enbloatification (Score:5, Informative)

    by TonyCI ( 6913868 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2026 @01:22PM (#66161030)
    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.

  • 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.

    • 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)?

      • 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.

        • 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

          • No, it is far-fetched. That would be a silly thing to do. And they still make it available separately. Why go back and re-release an old driver without a feature that is still offered separately? Why go back and change an old driver at all?

            Your Titan is a 2015 Pascall and is still supported for at least two years. Installing a new driver won't remove the legacy panel, so just keep updating until you can't. 596.59 just dropped a minute ago (seriously, I looked a minute ago and it wasn't there, relea

    • Re:Long Time Coming (Score:5, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2026 @02:27PM (#66161182)

      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.

      • 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.

        • Well I'll be damned. Looks like they did remove the login requirement. (Honestly the previous thing was so bad that I purposefully stopped using it).

          Yeah, it has a "redeem" option. Big deal.

          You dismiss it, but the reality is that it is a sign of precisely what the app is there for. It's a promotional marketing tool and no longer a system setting manager. It's a huge deal. Right up there with not having ads forced down your throat at an OS level.

          It also has some ads, but so does the driver installer.

          If I kick you in the balls will you accept it when I tell you, "It's okay, yeah I kicked you in the ball

          • Why? Because if Nvidia wants to show slides about new games that exploit their new tech while a driver installs, I don't really mind. It's their stuff, and they want to brag about it. AMD does the same thing.

            And the Redeem option is only new for the app, they already had it on their website. It's for redeeming promotional content, like when they give copies of a game away with the card. That's how I got the rebooted Tomb Raider with my GTX 980 (though clearly through the website since this didn't ex

            • Good work pay bitch. I'm glad you're so willing to have ads and redeem tokens shoved down your throat at every possible "Try a red bull, it gives you wings" moment.

    • 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.

      • I'm assuming it means all the tweaks to (and ways to disable) things like DLSS and frame gen that are available in the classic nVidia control panel.

        I've never seen those options in the new nVidia app, although someone in these comments claimed they were there.

        • They are. In the program and global settings. I think everything that was in the legacy panel is in the new one, plus performance tuning and in-game settings. Are DLSS overrides in the legacy panel? I don't have it in front of me.

    • As I recall, most of the utility of that control panel was for configuring SLI and PhysX, both of which are basically dead technology at this point.

      Was there another point to the Nvidia control panel besides activating the performance overlay stuff and telling it which GPU to run PhysX on if you had more than one?

  • 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 (Score:3)

    by sTERNKERN ( 1290626 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2026 @01:41PM (#66161074)
    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.

  • 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.

    • 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.

      • This. It's a unified driver covering many, many generations of GPUs. Also, GPU drivers are one of the most complicated pieces of software that consumers will ever interact with - it's actually amazing that they work as well as they do. They could probably shrink the driver package a bit by removing the telemetry they've stuffed in every nook and cranny, but probably not as much as you think.
        • Most of the stuff isn't drivers though. It's the massive libraries needed to support shoving ads down my throat every week for useless add on content for shitty games I don't own and will never play, and using custom UI widgets instead of native ones so the application looks dark even if I'm not in dark mode. (I actually leave dark mode on anyways so all the extra work to skin the ui /dark is wasted duplicate effort)
    • 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.

    • I wonder how much space all the AI models they're including now take.

    • They're just trying to keep up with printer drivers.

  • 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.

  • Nvidia seems to no long want you to have control over your own video card that you paid your hard-earned money for? WTF!?

    It's been obvious nVidia app is the drop-in replacement for Control Panel for YEARS, this was inevitable. This person had years to develop an exit strategy from the clearly doomed Control Panel.

  • Quoth the poster;

    ""Nvidia seems to no long want you to have control over your own video card that you paid your hard-earned money for? WTF!?""

    Apparently, even the submitters aren't expected to Read The Fine Article anymore;

    > all actively supported Control Panel features for GeForce users have now been moved to the NVIDIA app. For NVIDIA RTX PRO users, the NVIDIA Control Panel will continue to be supported until we have migrated professional features to the NVIDIA app.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Nah, you can read the article but you're still required to foretell doom. Apple will merge iOS and MacOS, Nvidia will stop making video cards, they won't allow you to own a computer anymore, Cheetos will be discontinued, that sort of thing.

    • You didn't fully read your own quote.. 'all actively supported' what about all the features that are not 'actively supported' but where marketed and advertised as usable features of the card, and have been actively used without issue by the install base reliably before the rug pull only to later be removed as no longer supported?

  • Drivers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2026 @03:15AM (#66162100) Homepage

    One of the best things of running Linux instead of Windows is that even if I choose to install a binary driver, it doesn't come with a bunch of "companion" apps and background services and a 4GB LLM, a game launcher, an update program, and whatever other nonsense people want to shovel onto me.

    Because if it did, distros would revolt and/or ship a version that was just the driver.

    You're a graphics card. Act like it. All you need is a driver, nothing more, nothing less.

  • gaming market share.

    You happily sucked nVidia's dick for years, now it is time for you to swallow. With a smile on your face.

    Disclaimer : I did own several nVidia cards from the era when they weren't scammers, liars and OEM bully.

    You promote and support that kind of companies with your money, now it is time to reap what you sow.

    • They have a 95% market share because their GPU performance and power efficiency is usually superior to AMD's across most workloads, they come out with cutting-edge features before AMD do, and they have (generally, historically) better game support (especially legacy game support) in their drivers. AMD has almost always been in 2nd place when it comes to performance, features and driver quality, with only a couple of exceptions over the years.

      Most of the time if I slap in an nVidia card and install the lates

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by tohoward ( 78757 )

        Most of what you said is true through the 40xx series cards, but with the 50xx series, apparently all the AI they were putting in driver development came back to bite them in the ass (note: mostly a humorous assumption on my part, maybe true, maybe not). I don't have any interest in overpaying for hardware that has poor driver support...it's why I avoided AMD for quite some time. My last three video card buys were AMD (7900xt) or Intel (2xARCB580), and they've been more than good enough in SWAP-C, esp. giv

      • It was mostly the other way around for me for the past 15, maybe 20 years. I would sometimes go for an Nvidia card when ATI did something to upset me, or I felt like I wanted a cutting-edge card again for once for some new game -- as you say, they're usually ahead of ATI/AMD technology-wise, although most of the time I ended up feeling that I fell for their marketing, that the new features are an overhyped dud and ATI was lagging behind more in marketing than technology.

        But Nvidia drivers, my god. It usuall
    • Those are strange terms to use regarding GPU management software. Especially ones you don't use or know anything about.

  • Now we can expect fewer drive-by installs and BSoD when NVidia drivers are installed.

    For all the adulation that they get, I've always found NVidia software to be absolute dog shit.

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