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Nvidia’s new GeForce driver is perfect for ‘Watch Dogs 2’, ‘Dead Rising 4’, more

Kevin Parrish
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Watch Dogs 2: PC Trailer – NVIDIA GameWorks
Nvidia released a new GeForce Game Ready driver certified for Windows on Monday that is optimized for Watch Dogs 2,
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Dead Rising 4, and
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Steep. Listed as version 376.09, the release notes weren’t available as of publication, so we can’t state what other goodies the driver brings to the PC gaming scene such as SLI profiles, fixes, and improvements for new and old titles alike.

News of the driver release arrives through the GeForce website, which talks about how v376.09 improves the three upcoming optimized games for the PC. Watch Dogs 2, in particular, arrives on Tuesday and comes packed with 20 graphics settings, support for HBAO+, HFTS, PCSS, and TXAA, and support for SLI configurations, GameStream, GeForce Experience Share, and so on.

Just in case you missed the minimum and recommended specs, here they are, provided by Ubisoft:

Minimum Recommended
Operating system: Windows 7 SP1/8.1/10 64-bit Windows 7 SP1/8.1/10 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-2400S @ 2.5GHz
AMD FX 6120 @ 3.5GHz		 Intel Core i5-3470 @ 3.2GHz
AMD FX 8120 @ 3.9GHz
Memory: 6GB 8GB
Storage: 50GB 50GB
Video card: GeForce GTX 660 2GB
AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB)		 GeForce GTX 780 3GB
GeForce GTX 970 4GB
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB

Of course, Nvidia’s blog suggests that customers wanting to run the game at 1,920 x 1,080 resolution with “High” detail enabled should use the GTX 1060. To crank the detail up to “Very High” at the same resolution, customers should rely on the GTX 1070 instead. The maximum Watch Dogs 2 experience will be 2,560 x 1,440 at “Very High” using the GTX 1080.

On the Dead Rising 4 front, the zombie-infested PC version lands on the Windows Store on December 6. The system requirements include the GeForce GTX 760 serving as the minimum and the GTX 970 as the recommended graphics cards. However, Nvidia suggests that customers use the GTX 1060 card or its more powerful siblings for even better performance.

Minimum Recommended
Operating system: Windows 10 64-bit Windows 10 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-2400 @ 3.1GHz
AMD FX-6300 @ 3.5GHz		 Intel Core i7-3770 @ 3.4GHz
AMD FX-8350 @ 4.0GHz
Memory: 6GB 8GB
Storage: 50GB 50GB
Video card: GeForce GTX 760 2GB
AMD Radeon R9 270X		 GeForce GTX 970
AMD Radeon R9 390

Finally, Ubisoft’s Steep arrives a day before Dead Rising 4 on December 5. The system requirements appear to be in the same general ballpark, with the GeForce GTX 660 serving as the minimum requirement and the GeForce GTX 980 as the recommended card. However, unlike Dead Rising 4, Steep won’t be locked to the Windows Store, but served up to PC gamers on Steam just like Watch Dogs 2.

Minimum Recommended
Operating system: Windows 7 SP1/8.1/10 64-bit Windows 7 SP1/8.1/10 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-2400S @ 2.5GHz
AMD FX-6350 @ 3.9GHz		 Intel Core i7-3770K @ 3.5GHz
AMD FX-8350 @ 4.0GHz
Memory: 6GB 8GB
Storage: 25GB 25GB
Video card: GeForce GTX 660
AMD Radeon R7 260X		 GeForce GTX 980
AMD Radeon R9 Fury

To get ready for these three highly-anticipated games, manually grab the GeForce Game Ready 376.09 WHQL driver here, or download and install the driver through Nvidia’s GeForce Experience desktop client.

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Kevin Parrish
Kevin Parrish
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kevin started taking PCs apart in the 90s when Quake was on the way and his PC lacked the required components. Since then…
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