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.

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)?

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.