GeForce 511.23 Driver Performance Analysis

GeForce 511.23 Driver Performance Analysis – 26 games benchmarked, including God of War using an RTX 3080 and 2080 Ti

This driver performance analysis showcases the performance of a Gigabyte AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER (Ampere architecture) and an EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK (Turing architecture) with 26 PC games including God of War using the latest GeForce 511.23 Game Ready driver. We compare these drivers versus our previously recommended driver 497.29 with both cards, and we perform all tests on the same game version and the same OS build.

Our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings and hardware are identical except for the GPUs we use and the drivers we compare.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.0605 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F4 VBIOS, stock clocks
• EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti BLACK EDITION GAMING 11GB, stock clocks
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 497.29 and 511.23 drivers; ‘High Quality’ and ‘prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile-basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• Resizable BAR off
• V-Sync application controlled in the control panel, V-Sync off in-game.
• AA and AF as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v21H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS off, Game Mode, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis.
• GIGABYTE and ASUS tools not installed.
• Latest DirectX
• All 26 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark’s suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall old driver using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• The corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence is used.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• CapFrameX is used for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• Consecutive runs until detecting 3 valid runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • ‘Aggregate excluding outliers’:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and value the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss, by setting the following thresholds to consider a certain % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/FPS Avg > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • FPS Avg > 3% when evaluating raw performance;
  • P1/P0.2 > 3% when evaluating frame time consistency; after applying our custom formula

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Benchmark Suite: 26 PC Games, 4 Hybrid & 4 Non-Synthetic Tests

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Port Royal
• Time Spy Extreme

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU
• Boundary: Raytracing Benchmark
• Neon Noir (Benchmark)
• UNIGINE Superposition

DX11 Games

• Borderlands 3 (DX11)
• Chernobylite (DX11)
• Days Gone (DX11)
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (DX11)
• Far Cry New Dawn (DX11)
• God of War (DX11) – NEW
• Neon Noir (DX11; Loop Mode)

DX12 Games

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (DX12) – NEW
• Borderlands 3 (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• DIRT 5 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12) – NEW
• Hitman 3 (DX12) – NEW
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• LEGO® Builder’s Journey (DX12)
• Metro Exodus (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Myst (2021, DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (DX12)
• Watch Dogs: Legion (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.5.0)
• Strange Brigade (VK)
• Wolfenstein Youngblood (VK)

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

Both ‘High-Quality’ values for texture filtering-quality setting and ‘Prefer maximum performance’ for power management mode are set on a per-game or program profile-basis via Manage 3D Settings > Program settings tab.

GeForce 511.23 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

This latest GeForce Game Ready 511.23 driver was released on Friday (01/14/22) primarily for the launch of God of War on PC and to provide optimized support for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction, Hitman III (Year 2), The Anacrusis, GRIT, and Monster Hunter Rise.

It introduces support for NVIDIA Deep Learning Dynamic Super Resolution (DLDSR) technology, a new AI-enhanced NVIDIA DSR. It renders a game at a higher resolution before using deep learning algorithms to downscale the frames back to your native resolution, improving image quality by enhancing detail, smoothing edges, and reducing shimmering.

This new driver adds support for 8 more monitors to the G-SYNC compatible list, bringing the total to 204 (AOC AG275QG3R4B+, Q32G3WG3, AG275QXE; Dell G2723HN; HP OMEN 27i IPS; MSI MPG321UR-QD; Philips 24M1N3200ZA; and ViewSonic VX3220-4K-Pro).

The download links for the latest GeForce 511.23 drivers can be found starting here. The release notes are found here as a downloadable pdf file. Here are the release highlights from NVIDIA’s website:

Game Ready Drivers provide the best possible gaming experience for all major new releases. Prior to a new title launching, our driver team is working up until the last minute to ensure every performance tweak and bug fix is included for the best gameplay on day-1.

Game Ready for God of War

This new Game Ready Driver provides the best day-0 gaming experience for God of War, which utilizes NVIDIA DLSS to maximize performance and NVIDIA Reflex to minimize latency. In addition, this new Game Ready Driver offers support for the latest new titles and updates including Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction, Hitman III, The Anacrusis, GRIT, and Monster Hunter Rise.

The God of War Performance Overview using an RTX 3080

God of War (PC, 2022), by Sony Interactive Entertainment and Santa Monica Studio, is a high-quality port of the PS4 version to the PC ecosystem. The PC version brings enhanced graphics, an unlocked frame rate, HDR, DLSS 2.x, and ultrawide screen support. The launch on PC was a success, although it has a few issues, such as the lack of a DLSS sharpness slider and a RAM/VRAM memory leak. The developers are actively investigating the RAM/VRAM memory leak and are considering the addition of a DLSS Sharpness slider in the future.

We use the latest 511.23 drivers to chart God of War’s performance using our RTX 3080 graphics card. We compare the performance using all the main video quality presets and also chart multiple DLSS settings/modes.

Video Quality Preset Charts

Our performance results of God of War show an overall good optimization. There are no significant stutters or frame-pacing issues. We tested “Ultra”, “High”, and “Original” preset, and we saw an approximate 30% performance gain going from “Ultra” to “High”, and an approximate 43% performance improvement from “Ultra” to “Original” preset.

DLSS Settings/Modes Performance Charts

Our results show a consistent and significant performance boost in God of War due to the use of any DLSS setting/mode. In fact, we see a performance increase of +13.5% going from DLSS off to DLSS Quality mode and up to +22% with DLSS Performance mode. We also see that God of War performance scales well when you move between the different DLSS settings.

We don’t recommend RTX users playing God of War without DLSS. Using DLSS Quality/Balanced from a 1440p native resolution provides near-native image quality and a significant performance boost. So there is no reason to play this game without DLSS if you have an RTX GPU.

The GeForce 511.23 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 26 Games

Below you can find the summary charts of our representative selection of 26 games plus 4 hybrid and 4 non-synthetic benchmarks. We chart our games’ driver performance progression from version 497.29 to 511.23 using both the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK.

You can see the list of graphics settings on the charts, and we run each built-in or custom game benchmark’s sequence at 2560×1440, except for Borderlands 3, Days Gone, Far Cry New Dawn, and Far Cry 6 tested at 3840×2160 resolution. You may click on each chart to open a pop-up for the best viewing.

Results give average framerates and higher is better. We display the low FPS percentiles (P1 and P0.2) below the corresponding averages. We use CapFrameX to record frametimes over time and to visualize and convert them into their corresponding average FPS and P1 and P0.2 FPS percentiles values.

There are also columns showing percentages of gain/loss in both raw performance (average FPS) and, when applicable, in frametimes consistency or stability between the different driver versions. We applied the following custom formula to calculate the stability gains or losses:

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

We mark significant performance changes (higher than 3%) in bold and use purple for the significant improvements or orange font for regressions.

GeForce 511.23 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 511.23 Driver Performance

From the charts, we see no significant differences in graphics performance between drivers for both the hybrid and non-synthetic tests using both our RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Ti.

For the game benchmarks, most games show no significant differences when we move to 511.23 drivers from the 497.29 driver version using both GPUs.

Disclaimer

Please be aware that the following results, notes, and the corresponding driver recommendation are valid for similar Ampere and Turing gaming rigs on Windows 11 v21H2. Its representativeness, applicability, and usefulness on different NVIDIA GPU architectures, testing benches, and MS Windows versions may vary.

Conclusion

Based on our previous results and findings, we recommend Ampere and Turing users to update to the latest GeForce 511.23 driver. Its raw performance and smoothness or frametimes consistency level are overall on par with our previously recommended driver 497.29 using both NVIDIA GPU architectures.

From a qualitative point of view, there are important reasons that also make it advisable to upgrade to version 511.23. These reasons include support for Windows 11 Dynamic Refresh Rate, its higher level of driver bug fixes, the optimizations for the latest games, and support for the latest NVIDIA technologies, such as Deep Learning Dynamic Super Resolution (DLDSR).

Let’s Play!

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Rodrigo González (aka ‘RodroG’) is an enthusiast gamer and tech reviewer especially interested in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.