Why does having an out-of-date graphics driver cause crashes in older games?

[Atriox]

I notice that whenever NVIDIA release new drivers, old games tend to start having crashes. Is there a reason for this? I never understood why this happens, because surely old games shouldn't be affected by a new driver update?

[_I_]

never trust windows update for drivers, period

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Anything such as drivers or software that comes with hardware on a disc of any kind will be outdated and useless. Make other uses for such discs, coaster, target practice, or put in a shredder.

For any drivers or software go online yo the official makers sites and download them.

If using NVIDIA GPU and you wish to use an older driver, use this link: https://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx

If you need to ensure a clean wipe of GPU drivers and software, use the DDU app. Instructions for DDU are in page#1 on my Steam Profile Comments section

[Atriox]

引用自 _I_：

引用自 Iron Knights：

You don't need "a new driver" unless yours got corrupted and re-installing, still say use the best & most compatible driver with all the games you play. Stop the "update" addiction & frenzy.
There is nothing wrong with the driver that came WITH your GPU.

this is completely wrong
the driver shipped on disc with the gpu is older than the gpu
if its a new gpu, always get the latest one from amd/nvidia/intel sites
later drivers from when the gpu is still current gen do have improvements for them

Yeah, I have no idea why he said this lol

[Atriox]

引用自 Bad 💀 Motha：

New Drivers contain everything from all the old ones, but with various fixes along the way being included in the latest drivers. Yes sometimes the latest driver is not always best. But your OS does not store and fetch data from multiple drivers for a single device. The new driver over-writes the old. But again the new has everything the old ones had as well.

This answer makes the most sense

[Lixire]

引用自 Iron Knights：

You don't need "a new driver" unless yours got corrupted and re-installing, still say use the best & most compatible driver with all the games you play. Stop the "update" addiction & frenzy.
There is nothing wrong with the driver that came WITH your GPU.

Modern GPUs these do not ship with a driver disc anymore and even if they do in some cases. Why would you use an ancient version?
Even the automatic driver installation from Windows Update in 10 and 11 will give you a newer driver than whatever the AIB might ship with. not including the bloatware that comes with the AIB for "tweaking"

Just as an example, I was one of those who managed to get a 3080 right on its launch at MSRP pricing and the launch driver has been dreadful to use with random crashes/black screens yet became perfectly fine after a couple of driver updates and I use the same card to this day.

[Iron Knights]

Don't listen to me Atriox, only about 30yrs. in Computer Science.
Pick the google popular opinion and whatever makes sense to your expert self.

[Lixire]

引用自 Iron Knights：

Don't listen to me Atriox, only about 30yrs. in Computer Science.
Pick the google popular opinion and whatever makes sense to your expert self.

Computer Science is a field that is more relatable to software development/programming.
Completely different realm from basic computer maintenance or IT.

Even 20 years ago, People were updating their GPU drivers by downloading them through the internet and the only reason they did use the drivers from the disc was to gain the ability to see the desktop at a proper resolution as Windows back then didn't install the GPU drivers with it after a clean install.

[Atriox]

引用自 Iron Knights：

Don't listen to me Atriox, only about 30yrs. in Computer Science.
Pick the google popular opinion and whatever makes sense to your expert self.

It makes no sense to use a driver that you get with your graphics card and never upgrade. As other people have said, there are bug fixes and optimisations when you upgrade your driver which stop game crashes or increase performance.

The main question I was just asking is why does it seem like games start crashing when I don't update for a while. I think that a previous answer explained it well.

[Lixire]

引用自 Atriox：

引用自 Iron Knights：

Don't listen to me Atriox, only about 30yrs. in Computer Science.
Pick the google popular opinion and whatever makes sense to your expert self.

It makes no sense to use a driver that you get with your graphics card and never upgrade. As other people have said, there are bug fixes and optimisations when you upgrade your driver which stop game crashes or increase performance.

The main question I was just asking is why does it seem like games start crashing when I don't update for a while. I think that a previous answer explained it well.

Normally it shouldn't happen. considering I'm using quite an older driver myself (546.33 from Dec 2023) yet not really experiencing any real issues with it.
But again, it also depends on the games you play. If its Live Service titles then those are being constantly updated and feature different changes to the engine overtime which is expected to an extent.

[-=SOF=-WID99]

im using a really old driver for my rtx 3060 with no problems at all with WIN 10 PRO here

472.12............ i figure don't fix whats not broken

but then again it was a clean install of the driver using DDU

[Atriox]

引用自 ★Sinon★ <3：

引用自 Atriox：

It makes no sense to use a driver that you get with your graphics card and never upgrade. As other people have said, there are bug fixes and optimisations when you upgrade your driver which stop game crashes or increase performance.

The main question I was just asking is why does it seem like games start crashing when I don't update for a while. I think that a previous answer explained it well.

Normally it shouldn't happen. considering I'm using quite an older driver myself (546.33 from Dec 2023) yet not really experiencing any real issues with it.
But again, it also depends on the games you play. If its Live Service titles then those are being constantly updated and feature different changes to the engine overtime which is expected to an extent.

Yeah that makes sense

[_I_]

there is only one reason why a previous working driver could cause crashes on a specific game

only if the game had a patch that now requires a newer version of the driver, making calls the older driver does not support