Nvidia releases new driver for old graphics cards with Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 support

It is one of those rare occurrences when Nvidia releases new graphics drivers for now-unsupported graphics cards and/or operating systems. Version 475.14 is the latest driver for systems with Kepler-based Nvidia graphics cards, and it is available for users with Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, and 11.

Unfortunately, unlike regular Game Ready Drivers, version 475.14 will not make your games or GPU run better. This is a security-only release, which aims to patch some critical security issues. There are no optimizations for new games, no new features, and no bug fixes. Also, this driver is not WHQL-certified since it targets now-unsupported Windows versions, which no longer accept WHQL submissions. If you want to get that, update your graphics card and/or Windows versions.

Here is the changelog for Nvidia 475.14:

NVIDIA has released a software security update display driver for GeForce GPUs to be used with Windows 7/8.x which is no longer supported by Game Ready Drivers. Effective October 2021, Game Ready Driver upgrades, including performance enhancements, new features, and bug fixes, are exclusively available for systems utilizing Windows 10 and Window 11 as their operating system. Critical security updates will be available on systems utilizing Windows 7 through September 2024.

For now, there is no information on what exactly driver 475.14 improves. Nvidia will add details to its Security Bulletin once more users get the latest release:

See Security Bulletin: NVIDIA GPU Display Driver – July 2024, which is posted shortly after the release date of this software, and will be posted on the NVIDIA Product Security page.

This display driver is not WHQL certified because Microsoft no longer accepts driver submissions for WHQL certification on Windows 7. For information about installing this driver, see the NVIDIA knowledge base article Changes to the display driver installation process under Microsoft Windows 7

Kepler-based graphics cards include the Nvidia GTX 700 Series and the Nvidia GTX 600 Series. GTX 900 and newer are still supported, so owners of those cards can use the latest Game Ready driver (on 64-bit Windows 10 and 11) with optimizations, fixes, and new features.

You can download Nvidia 475.14 from the official website. Full release notes are available here.