A brand new Nvidia GPU driver download has just been released, with this new update promising to optimize performance in Season 3 of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Warzone, plus Diablo 4 with ray tracing. In fact, Nvidia claims that if you enable DLSS in a certain configuration with this driver, you can triple the Diablo 4 ray tracing frame rate at 4K.
Nvidia is the undisputed champion of ray tracing in games right now, with the RTX 4090 being the best graphics card you can buy for the task. However, while we love the look of Diablo 4 with ray tracing, it did hit performance hard when it was first released, and Nvidia claims its new GeForce Game Ready 552.12 WHQL driver is specially optimized for it.
Nvidia claims that “performance is multiplied by 3.1x on average at 4K in Diablo IV, with ray tracing and every other setting maxed out,” in the driver notes, as long as you enable both DLSS 3 frame generation and DLSS Super Resolution on Performance mode.
The company points to a performance graph (below) showing the frame rate jumping from an average of 46.6fps without DLSS to 144.4fps with DLSS enabled at 4K using a GeForce RTX 4090. However, bear in mind that DLSS 3 was already supported by Diablo 4 before this driver was released, and would have had a big impact then too – it’s unclear how much of a difference is made by the new driver.
Nvidia also has some performance graphs for running the game at 2,560 x 1,440 with ray tracing and DLSS 3 frame generation enabled, and DLSS Super Resolution on Quality mod. With this configuration, every desktop GPU in its current battery achieves a playable frame rate. The lowest result is from the RTX 4060, which averages 70fps, up from 31.2fps with no help from DLSS.
While these figures are good, though, they show the punishing hardware requirements of enabling ray tracing in this game. The only way a new GPU such as the RTX 4060 can run it is with AI inventing frames and scaling up the resolution. We like Nvidia’s AI and frame generation tech, but it’s also a shame it’s so sorely needed. Even the mighty RTX 4090 can only average a paltry 46.6fps in this game with ray tracing if it doesn’t have any help from DLSS.
The other main two optimizations for the new driver concern the Call of Duty series, with your GeForce RTX rig now set up to run Season 3 of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, as well as Call of Duty: Warzone. Again, Nvidia is going big on boasting about DLSS performance in these games, with Call of Duty: Warzone averaging 194.4fps on the GeForce RTX 4070 with DLSS 3 frame generation enabled, and DLSS Super Resolution set to the Quality mode.
You can download the new Nvidia GeForce Game Ready 552.12 WHQL driver from here, and it supports all the company’s RTX GPUs, as well as all its GTX GPUs from the 900 series upwards, and even Maxwell-based GeForce GTX 700-series cards.
If you don’t yet have a gaming setup that can run ray tracing in games with some help from DLSS 3, check out our full guide on how to build a gaming PC, as well as our GeForce RTX 4070 Super review, where we benchmark Nvidia’s latest ray tracing graphics card.