The render finished. It was perfect. And for the first time in months, the cursor didn't lag when she moved it across the screen.
Elara checked the metrics. She was pulling 15% more frames per second with 10% less power draw. The changelog had promised "instruction set optimization," but this felt like the hardware had been physically upgraded while she wasn't looking. cuda driver release news
We ran a few quick tests to see if the driver alone makes a difference (same GPU, same CUDA toolkit version, just the driver updated). The render finished
She opened the NVIDIA control panel. The update window was waiting, patient and judgmental. She clicked Download . Elara checked the metrics
She looked. GPU 2 was spiking to 95 degrees Celsius because the driver had hung the fan controller logic. It was the classic domino effect of bad code meeting heavy metal.