NVIDIA released GeForce Game Ready 621.01 WHQL on 21 October, two days before Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 goes on full sale. The headline feature isn't a percentage of extra frames. With this driver installed, MW4 can skip the shader compilation screen entirely, because the shaders arrive already compiled for your exact card and driver. There's a catch, and it's an odd one for a game plenty of people bought on Steam: the precompiled files come through the Xbox PC app.
The same driver is Game Ready for the DLSS 4.5 update in Cyberpunk 2077 on 22 October, for Phantom Blade Zero on 28 October and for Crimson Desert Enhanced: Charting the Unknown on 29 October. It also brings seven fixes, two of them for 360 Hz monitors.
Modern Warfare 4 without the shader compilation screen
Every DirectX 12 game ships generic shaders that have to be compiled for your particular GPU and driver version. That work lands on the CPU, and by NVIDIA's own estimate players wait up to 30 minutes whenever a game launches for the first time or gets an update. Precompiling everything on the developer's side was never realistic: NVIDIA says it would mean terabytes of downloads for each game and each patch.
Advanced Shader Delivery is Microsoft's fix, and 621.01 is the driver that turns it on for MW4 on every GeForce RTX card. Developers capture the shaders into a database, Microsoft's cloud compiles them for "hundreds of thousands" of hardware and driver combinations, and the package that matches your PC is bundled with the download or update through the Xbox PC app. According to NVIDIA the system doesn't care where you bought the game. A Steam copy benefits too, as long as the Xbox PC app is installed. Gears of War: E-Day gets the same treatment.
- What you need. A GeForce RTX card, driver 621.01 or newer and the Xbox PC app. NVIDIA names DirectX 12, Windows 11 and Microsoft's Agility SDK as the building blocks.
- What you get. No compilation screen at launch, and with a cache hit rate NVIDIA puts at "near-100%", no shader stutter in the middle of a match.
- What NVIDIA doesn't say. Whether Windows 10 is covered. If you're still on 10, don't count on it until someone tests it.
The rest of the MW4 support is the familiar set. DLSS Super Resolution and Reflex work on any RTX card, Frame Generation on RTX 40, and Dynamic Multi Frame Generation of up to 6X on RTX 50. The campaign has been in early access since 16 October, DMZ since 20 October, and multiplayer joins on 23 October.
I'd install the Xbox app for this alone. Half an hour of a progress bar after every patch is the one part of PC gaming nobody defends.
Cyberpunk 2077 moves to DLSS 4.5 on 22 October
The NVIDIA side of CD Projekt Red's update is bigger than a version bump. The game gets DLSS 4.5 Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, and its existing Multi Frame Generation, Ray Reconstruction and Super Resolution switch to NVIDIA's second generation AI models. 621.01 is the driver NVIDIA lists for it. What else Update 2.5 changes on CDPR's side is in our news on the patch.
NVIDIA hasn't published frame rates for the updated version, so I won't guess at them.
Phantom Blade Zero and Crimson Desert are next
S-GAME's Phantom Blade Zero launches on 28 October, with pre-orders open on Steam at $59.99 and on the Epic Games Store. On RTX cards it has path-traced lighting cleaned up by DLSS Ray Reconstruction, plus DLSS 4.5 with Dynamic Multi Frame Generation. A day later, on 29 October, Crimson Desert Enhanced: Charting the Unknown follows with the full DLSS 4.5 set.
The driver also covers NBA 2K27 Season 2, which got the faster DLSS 5 model last week: up to 1.4 times more frames on RTX 50 cards, RTX Spark laptops and GeForce NOW, by NVIDIA's numbers. Everything about that model, and about the mods that run it on other cards, is in our DLSS 5 guide.
What 621.01 fixes and who should update now
The release notes list seven fixed problems since driver 617.42, three in games and four general ones:
- Wuthering Waves could crash with NVIDIA Freestyle filters and DLSS Frame Generation on at the same time.
- Star Citizen could crash on the Vulkan API.
- Surviving Mars: Relaunched could crash mid-game after the R595 drivers.
- QHD monitors at 360 Hz could show an occasional black flash in games.
- 360 Hz G-SYNC Pulsar monitors could drop to 320 FPS.
- Meta Horizon Link streaming could freeze over USB.
- Some ASUS notebooks dimmed now and then after the R615 drivers.
The open issues section says just "N/A". That doesn't make the driver bug-free, it only means NVIDIA isn't listing anything on day one. The feedback thread on the GeForce forums usually fills up within a few days.
Supported cards start at the GTX 16 series and RTX 20; GTX 10 cards aren't on the list. Windows 10 and 11 are both supported. If you play MW4 from 23 October or return to Cyberpunk this week, update. Same if your 360 Hz monitor has been flashing black. Everyone else loses nothing by waiting a few days for the forum reports.
Sources
NVIDIA, GeForce Game Ready Driver For Phantom Blade Zero and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Released. NVIDIA, Modern Warfare 4 Launches and Cyberpunk 2077 Upgrades To DLSS 4.5. NVIDIA, Release 620 Driver for Windows, Version 621.01, release notes (PDF). Steam, Phantom Blade Zero. Screenshots from the Steam pages of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Blade Zero.
