I tried launch a game a few hours ago. It won't launch. I tried different settings, checked whether my laptop was using the GTX 1060 for the app, no go.

So on to update drivers.

Installing new Nvidea drivers installed this horrible GeForce experience thing which only found 2 games on my system. I couldn't find anywhere where to select which GPU to use for which game, after it pestered me to make yet another account. Meanwhile the Nvidea control panel had gone missing.

I uninstalled the GeForce Experience again, seemed useless.
I tried to reinstall NVidea control panel from the MS store, that simply gives an error, won't download.
I tried restarting the NVidea display container service, no go.
I tried reinstalling the driver for the GTX 1060, no go.
(There is a nvidea control panel icon in the quick launch bar but it doesn't work, dead, the one in the right click on desktop menu is missing, only integrated GPU settings there)
I uninstalled and deleted the GTX 1060 driver and let windows find it again.
Windows downloaded it and now wants me to restart.

Any suggestions what I did wrong, or how to get out of this mess.

Well, Eureka, this time after restarting it's back!
Driver version 442.23

Is that the latest, a good one? So useless. It was 419.17 before so I assume it's newer at least.

Trying if that game will load now...


It works!!! It loads at least, I had a bit over an hour to play, spend 2 hours trying to get it to run :/ Hopefully it will still work next time.

Glad I could help. Hope you enjoy your session of......Hatred?

PC Master race my ass...

So... what game was it?

Yeah, one of the examples I don't use PC to game anymore. After work, I just want to pop in the disk, download the day 1 patch, get angry about not being able to play it the day I bought it and play the next day.


@SvennoJ.. You're doing it wrong.

UBoat, a game I backed on Kickstarter. A smaller game I figured I would try again for a bit. It didn't work at first either when it first released end of December, nor after a big update in Februari. I have logged 79 minutes on the game without actually playing anything of it yet lol.

There was an update on April 29th so I was hopeful it would work now. (However I now see that was for the beta branch so I don't even have that update)
Then I figured my video drivers could use an update after not finding any work around.
Since there was no (or I'm to stupid to find it) update driver option in the nvidea control panel and went to the nvidea website to get the latest driver for the GTX 1060. That wanted to install the GeForce experience, however first the download failed 3 times, then the install screwed up the control panel replacing it with a rather useless Geforce experience.

Anyway the game started, looks interesting, but the tutorial says it's out of date and shouldn't be used anymore, wait for update or find a guide. I started the first mission (I think) and don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do haha.


So yep, back to comfy console gaming for now.


Next time, I'll start by uninstalling and deleting the current driver and let windows find the correct driver after discovering my gpu again. That did the trick instead of using the official nvidea driver site. I was doing it wrong.

Weird but generally what I do when I am doing a driver update from Nvidia's website is to do a clean install instead of Express since that generally works better. Windows driver update usually doesn't have the latest version with all the hot fixes and game ready drivers. Also not sure if you noticed but on Nvidia's website, there is a driver for 1060 and 1060 laptop so make sure to download the one for that.

And yea I wouldn't go to Windows Store for anything other than Gamepass and movies.

How do I know if I actually need the 1060 laptop. I was told it was the desktop version in this laptop and it doesn't show as 1060m like it did with the dedicated gpu in my previous (non gaming) laptop. The installer (all selections led to the same multi purpose installer anyway) chose what to install on its own.
445.87-desktop-win10-64bit-international-dch-whql is what it downloaded. But I guess I need the one with laptop in it.


This is what nvidea control panel coughs up

NVIDIA System Information report created on: 05/11/2020 00:29:17
System name: LAPTOP-TROS2LSD

[Display]
Operating System: Windows 10 Home, 64-bit
DirectX version: 12.0
GPU processor: GeForce GTX 1060
Driver version: 442.23
Driver Type: Standard
Direct3D API version: 12
Direct3D feature level: 12_1
CUDA Cores: 1280
Core clock: 1455 MHz
Memory data rate: 8.01 Gbps
Memory interface: 192-bit
Memory bandwidth: 192.19 GB/s
Total available graphics memory: 14257 MB
Dedicated video memory: 6144 MB GDDR5
System video memory: 0 MB
Shared system memory: 8113 MB
Video BIOS version: 86.06.65.00.2C
IRQ: Not used
Bus: PCI Express x16 Gen3
Device Id: 10DE 1C20 12631025
Part Number: 2914 0030

[Components]

nvui.dll 8.17.14.4223 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component
nvxdplcy.dll 8.17.14.4223 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component
nvxdbat.dll 8.17.14.4223 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component
nvxdapix.dll 8.17.14.4223 NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component
nvCplUIR.dll 8.1.940.0 NVIDIA Control Panel
nvCplUI.exe 8.1.940.0 NVIDIA Control Panel
nvWSSR.dll 26.21.14.4223 NVIDIA Workstation Server
nvWSS.dll 26.21.14.4223 NVIDIA Workstation Server
nvViTvSR.dll 26.21.14.4223 NVIDIA Video Server
nvViTvS.dll 26.21.14.4223 NVIDIA Video Server
nvDispSR.dll 26.21.14.4223 NVIDIA Display Server
NVMCTRAY.DLL 26.21.14.4223 NVIDIA Media Center Library
nvDispS.dll 26.21.14.4223 NVIDIA Display Server
nvDevToolS.dll 26.21.14.4223 NVIDIA 3D Settings Server
PhysX 09.19.0218 NVIDIA PhysX
NVCUDA.DLL 26.21.14.4223 NVIDIA CUDA 10.2.132 driver
nvGameSR.dll 26.21.14.4223 NVIDIA 3D Settings Server
nvGameS.dll 26.21.14.4223 NVIDIA 3D Settings Server


Is it up to date, do I have the right drivers, how can I tell!
I guess it's not up to date since it downloaded 445.87 before.


What's the difference anyway with the desktop GTX 1060.


(The windows store came up by itself after windows 10 detected the nvidea control panel was missing. 'Purchase' worked, download just kept giving "Error" with no further explanation. Trying to download it from the web redirected me back to the windows store lol)

I think the main difference is the frequency if I remember correctly but most laptops that have Nvidia GPUs have Nvidia Optimus which switches between Nvidia GPU and Intel GPU which the desktop version doesn't. Also the desktop version has a lot more options in the Nvidia control panel cause it's the primary GPU while the laptop version doesn't since the Intel GPU is the one that will be used most often. So there are a good number of differences which might be related to which driver you choose but I didn't exactly experiment with it myself. I would suggest always downloading the laptop version from Nvidia's website regardless of how close your 1060 is to the desktop version.

Nvidia's website will always get you to the most up to date driver but GeForce Experience will also notify you when there's a new driver. 445.87 is the most up to date one.

And yea I am not too sure what happened there loll. All I know is, don't get anything software related unless it's Gamepass from the Windows Store. The two instances when I tried to do it, both were crap.