NVIDIA GeForce 551.61 WHQL with RTX HDR Released, NVIDIA Finally Has a Modern Control Panel

NVIDIA today released the latest version of GeForce drivers. While the actual driver package of the new GeForce 551.61 is WHQL, it also includes a beta version of the NVIDIA App. This is NVIDIA's take on a modern control panel application that combines functionality of the classic NVIDIA Control Panel that hasn't quite changed in 20+ years; and the GeForce Experience application that not everyone likes to have installed. The new NVIDIA App has a lot in common with the AMD Radeon Software application, in that you can configure your displays, monitor and tune your GPU, as well as manage and optimize your installed games. The app also helps gather and present software update options spanning both the main drivers and application profiles for DLSS and other technologies. Most importantly, the NVIDIA App provides a comprehensive performance overlay suite. We will be doing an article detailing the NVIDIA App before the weekend.


NVIDIA is also debuting RTX HDR, a technology that adds HDR capability to games that otherwise lack it. It does so by utilizing Tensor cores and an AI model that attempts to add HDR to SDR content. The driver adds optimization and optimal settings for Granblue Fantasy: Relink, Nightingale, Pacific Drive, and Skull and Bones. A stability issue with Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege running using the Vulkan API has been fixed. Among the general issues fixed concern incorrect tone mapping for RTX Video HDR; poor SDR video playback quality in Chromium-based web-browsers with Windows HDR setting enabled; filter settings not carrying over with NVIDIA Freestyle; and a couple of bugs with Adobe Substance 3D.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 551.61 WHQL










Game Ready

• Nightingale

NVIDIA App

• Supports the beta release of NVIDIA App, which unifies GeForce Experience and the NVIDIA Control Panel

GFE Optimal Settings

• Granblue Fantasy: Relink


• Nightingale


• Pacific Drive


• Skull and Bones

Fixed Gaming Bugs

• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege: Stability issues when running Vulkan API [4460050]

Fixed General Bugs

• RTX Video HDR: Tone mapping not working properly with custom HDR brightness values in Windows [4472972]


• Chrome/Edge Browsers: Poor black level quality in SDR video playback with Windows HDR setting enabled [4492243]


• NVIDIA Freestyle: Filter settings are not saved after quitting game [4472656]


• Adobe Substance 3D: Stager unable to initialize the viewport [4403960]


• Adobe Substance 3D: Vulkan version of Substance Painter cannot be launched [4425856]

Known Issues

• [Netflix] Display issues for videos when using Edge browser. Recommend using Windows Netflix application as workaround. [4388454]


• GeForce GTX 10/RTX 20 series: PC may randomly freeze when Windows Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling and NVIDIA SLI are both enabled [4009884]

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