This Q is born out of my curiosity (and not being able to get a simple answer via the nets). It's such a basic question, I'm a little embarrassed to ask it, but here goes>
Every time a new version of a GPU driver is released, it typically contains new stuff--maybe new features, maybe new tweaks, some of which are game specific and some of which are not.
My question: Is every tweak or change or fix ever made to a driver--even changes made five years ago or whatever--all present in the most recent version? To put it in concrete terms: A year+ ago "Detroit: Become Human" was released for PC, and the Nvidia driver 461 contained specific fixes for that game (since it was encountering some problems on launch). Fast forward to now (Feb. 2022), the latest Nvidia driver is something like version 511. Are the "Detroit" specific fixes way back from version 461 still present in the 511 version of the driver?
If the answer is yes (and I am assuming it is yes), then I have another question: After decades of fixes, tweaks, features being added to drivers, how come they aren't many, many, many, many gigs in size at this point? Over the years, these drivers would have grown to exponential sizes, no? Or is the data needed for these fixes so tiny that they don't add up this way? Or is it that the drivers are pruned of obsolete info that is no longer needed over time...or...? For example, I know that the last Nvidia driver to contain the 3D Vision feature was 425.31 (2019) but that feature no longer exists in current drivers since Nvidia killed it. (I have and still love to use my 3D screen with my glasses sometimes...I'm an old fogey). Is that how the driver sizes don't balloon out of control? Thanks for any insight...
Every time a new version of a GPU driver is released, it typically contains new stuff--maybe new features, maybe new tweaks, some of which are game specific and some of which are not.
My question: Is every tweak or change or fix ever made to a driver--even changes made five years ago or whatever--all present in the most recent version? To put it in concrete terms: A year+ ago "Detroit: Become Human" was released for PC, and the Nvidia driver 461 contained specific fixes for that game (since it was encountering some problems on launch). Fast forward to now (Feb. 2022), the latest Nvidia driver is something like version 511. Are the "Detroit" specific fixes way back from version 461 still present in the 511 version of the driver?
If the answer is yes (and I am assuming it is yes), then I have another question: After decades of fixes, tweaks, features being added to drivers, how come they aren't many, many, many, many gigs in size at this point? Over the years, these drivers would have grown to exponential sizes, no? Or is the data needed for these fixes so tiny that they don't add up this way? Or is it that the drivers are pruned of obsolete info that is no longer needed over time...or...? For example, I know that the last Nvidia driver to contain the 3D Vision feature was 425.31 (2019) but that feature no longer exists in current drivers since Nvidia killed it. (I have and still love to use my 3D screen with my glasses sometimes...I'm an old fogey). Is that how the driver sizes don't balloon out of control? Thanks for any insight...
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