Clean nVidia Drivers - how to remove ALL the bloatware

I came across this in a thread at WP and it is an amazing way to utterly gut the nVidia drivers of any and all bloatware and just leave the bare essentials. I follow the how to guide and do it myself;
https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/441-87-clean-version.421390/
If you scroll down you will see the;

Essentially you:
- DL latest driver,
- unzip it into folder (I use 7zip),
- delete all the unessential from that folder (Step 3),
- restart into Safe mode and run DDU,
- reboot into normal OS and install the clean driver from the folder.

It is a lot quicker without the bloatware and on my GTX1070 I have yet to experience any problems and in fact have had improvements in one that was very laggy (WOT) although Ping and packet loss looked fine and I was suspecting it was the GPU drivers. It is working as expected in RDR2 where many seem to have a multitude of different GPU issues for many varied reasons.

I do have one outlier which I am trying to resolve being the 'NVPCF' folder which I cannot find in the above thread.

Here is a detailed discussion on all of the folders present in the nVidia driver and whether it is necessary or not;
https://github.com/CHEF-KOCH/nVidia-modded-Inf/blob/master/Docs/nVidia Driver package structure/Driver.md

Either way I have become a big fan of this method and have used it for the last 2 driver packages.

 

Any big performance gains? Alot of effort if not.

 

It does nothing to the display drivers so no changes in performance but it is more along the lines of it removes potential impairments.

I always run DDU for any uninstall so no changes there and the unzip takes 10-20s and then delete most of the crap and it takes 1-2mins at most to prepare, removes all of the call home rubbish and arguably installs quicker due to the bloat removal;

The primary point is to remove the crap and spyware.

 

By bloat do you mean shit like Geforce Experience? because i heard people saying it's slowing them down so i buggered it all off, full clean windows and went driver only.
Zero improvement, harder to know when drivers are out and then i installed it again because i like their FPS overlay.

Eh i just go simple route now.

 

By bloat I am meaning that plus all of the other shit and the spyware (Telemetry) and other utter garbage, review the how to guide and you will see Step3 and what gets deleted and how much is just crapware being installed. If your not using HDMI Audio then the HDAudio folder can go as well;

 

Can you still the check average fps and record video etc after erasing all those folders?
NVidia Freestyle is pretty useful imo, https://forums.overclockers.com.au/threads/nvidia-freestyle.1272438/ and I think you can also set the maximum fps with latest NVidia driver.
https://techreport.com/news/3467784/nvidia-441-87-game-ready-driver/

 

I would say video is gone and so might avg FPS without knowing where they might reside but if you are aware of the folders then those could be preserved (not deleted). I will have to review that.

Any ideas of where that folder/function might reside?

 

Simplest method I use now is NVCleanInstall by TechPowerUp. You select the stuff you want, (rest is deselected by default), descriptions indicate what components do, it has driver version selection and in the latest version they've added optional driver update checking (via the tool, not GFE).

https://www.techpowerup.com/261542/techpowerup-nvcleanstall-v1-2-0-released

 

Soz, no clue.. but they shouldn't be too big once you figure it out.
Took me like 2 months to figure out Control saved game folder, but it was only 800KB.

 

I did see that but if there is a way to do it yourself I like to do it.

Woops I stand corrected I meant

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/nvidia-driver-slimming-utility.423072/

 

lmao i need all that shit your stripping out mate but have fun i guess your gpu is old and slow

 

No one needs Telemetry spyware, that alone demonstrates you have no idea of what you actually need or not. Also, who and what sort of n00b uses GF Experince, no sensible person I know again showing you don't mind installing utter rubbish.

The GTX1070 is one generation old and objectively plays all the current titles that I play at the highest settings including RDR2, so another irrelevant point.

Thought provoking and high value contribution post there, NOT! If you actually come up with something meaningful that contributes to the discussion and demonstrates an actual capacity to understand what is going on I will salute but at the moment I am just seeing something that is comical at best!

 

if your PC is connected to the internet windows 95-10+ has spyware you CANNNOT turn off so does your cpu mobo and other devices its baked right into the hardware so no i honestly dont give two fucks about nvidot

 

Good job of thread crapping and presenting nothing!

 

Good job necroing a thread

 

Or download a set that's already been cleaned..

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/4...fix-clean-version.421390/page-36#post-5752786

 

Am I really suffering because I don't ever so a clean driver install?

 

I don't like the idea of telemetry services (corporate spyware), GFExp., and other non-essential services that simply are not required running on my machine.

As well as a cleaned up driver I also run 'DoNotSpy10' and follow the privacy and security enhancements from here; https://www.privacytools.io/

Personally, I feel I am making an effort to preserve some privacy from corporate and state-actors whilst also enhancing performance potential.

It is simple to do but each to their own.

 

I've been using DDU for the past 3 - 4 years. Sure, it's a few minutes longer. Boot to safe mode, etc, but I've had the most hassle-free gaming for the past 3 - 4 years also. It might be the combination of parts, but factors like keeping shit clean also plays a part. I used to create/design SOE's, and I'm a clean freak in general, so it comes naturally.

I expected a lot more would have DDU as a standard method when they update their graphics drivers though.

 

Well, maybe?
As long as the driver set still supports whatever card you're putting in, it'll usually just work. The last couple of Windows versions have been pretty good at dealing with hardware swapping but it can still go horribly wrong sometimes.

DDU is such a handy tool, I've included it in my custom windows distros. Not that I use it every time, but when you need it, godsend!

Same. Been running NVslimmer since the 380's or so. Whenever it was that NV added lines into their install script that buggered up just deleting the unnecessary sub folders.
I've found that the GFE overlay can put an appreciable dent in performance in some titles, nor does it seem to have any features I actually use.

Bingo!