Why New GPU Drivers Can Boost or Break Your FPS

Understanding What GPU Drivers Actually Do

Drivers are basically the bridges, they bridge us with the operating systems. They are basically the tools or the software due to which we can communicate with our operating system, games, graphics cards, and with hardware. Without drivers, GPU don’t know how to and when to render the instructions. It totally depends upon the driver to enhance your gaming experience or completely drop it. GPU did not know how to properly render graphics, manage memory, or process advanced visual effects without driver.

When we launch a game, the driver is the translator. It translates our instruction into machine language then give it to the GPU. It processes, renders the information, and then sends it to the display screen whether it is a monitor or LCD. This rendering and sending process is of milliseconds. That’s why so instant result is shown on our screen. This translation, the sending of all commands into the GPU’s basic commands language is critical for performance, stability, and compatibility.

A well optimized driver ensures that GPU gives its output at its best. It uses core efficiently, minimizes latency, and avoids unnecessary overhead and lagging problems. And on the other hand, outdated, poorly optimized, cheap, and low spec GPU can limit CPU performance, causes the FPS drop, stuttering, or screen lagging. This is why GPU manufactures constantly update drivers to include new things day by day and to improve the game’s speed, graphics, incompatible with the hardware and the software.

Stability vs Performance: What Drivers Prioritize

GPU drivers not only focus on the FPS but they also have a lot of other works to do. Most of the drivers focus on performance, most of the focus on power consumption, while few cover both of them like NVIDIA’s AMD and Intel drivers are specifically designed in such a way that they can carry all the things together. Many updates prioritize system stability, crash fixes, security patches and all other rising problems but few focus on all the things at once.

A driver is responsible for reducing or increasing an FPS to prevent the overheating, crashing, and other visual artifacts but cannot be completely held responsible for such measures. Stability improvements are critical for long gaming sessions and competitive play where crashes are more damaging than a small FPS drops. These are basically the main problem while some of the high-spec system fail to run the games giving the maximum output and consuming low power.

These all things must be kept in view while designing a PC but if you are using a designed PC and you wanted to enhance your system’s efficiency then professional workloads like video editing, 3d rendering, and all other extra programs that are running in the background must be completely shut down. As a result gamers should not judge driver updates only by the FPS numbers because some of the times they are just for handling the system more efficiently, managing its programs and tasks in a specialized manner. Stable experience with a consistent frame rate often feels more smoother than the higher FPS.

Best Practices Before Updating GPU Drivers

• Check release notes for known bugs or performance issues

• Create a system restore point

• Avoid updating drivers mid-game tournament or ranked season

• Use clean installation options when available

• Disable unnecessary background applications

• Back up your current driver version

• Wait for community feedback if unsure

• Update chipset and OS alongside GPU drivers

Signs a New GPU Driver Is Hurting Your FPS

The main headache using a gaming PC is to detect the roots of problems. If there is any problem arising like screen tearing, lagging, throttling, stuttering, or any other, the main problem is the recognizing of root cause. Because when it will be recognized, it can completely be resolved. But mostly we cannot recognize it because everything is interconnected and cannot be judged which device or software is creating problem.

Recognizing performance issues early help us to decide whether to create a full backup or to keep rolling and wait for the next update. Common symptoms a system shows when a new GPU driver is hurting FPS are micro-stuttering, increased input lag, taking longer time for loading, and consuming a lot of power. Some of the times users also observe inconsistent frame pacing where the FPS fluctuations are too much. Sometimes it is too high, then it is too low, it does not remain constant.

This rapid increase and decrease in FPS results in heating up of the system which can further exaggerate to the blast. So these things must be resolved as soon as possible. Increased GPU resolutions without the upgrade in visual devices is another red flag and can lead to the destruction. Monitoring tools like MSI Afterburner help us to monitor our system’s FPS. If the performance issues suddenly come after updating or installing a new GPU driver, then you must know that this is the main cause and you should revert to a previous version.

Conclusions

At last, if I give you a final opinion, I would say that irrespective of your system, whether it is a high-end gaming PC or a low-spec system, you should maintain your software’s drivers up to date. Keep watching for the new updates coming and update as soon as possible. These things are responsible for the FPS drop 10 to 15%. And if you maintain these, you will get a very good FPS.

Furthermore, things like temperature, low-volt electricity, cheap data cables, cheap extension boards, etc also result in the loss of FPS. But mainly, you should focus on the above mentioned main things to get a higher FPS. If this blog was informative then you take help and read our other blogs too. Don’t forget too share your opinion by filling the form on our contact us page.