I’m well aware of these. Winget is a disaster of a package manager. All of them just download and run conventional installers with none of the tidiness you get with real package managers on systems actually designed for them. It’s fun watching winget update an app that already updated itself. Do any other GPU vendors typically distribute their drivers through winget?
But the real answer here is Windows Update, which Nvidia does publish drivers through. But not game ready versions, only WHQL certified builds.
The new app has fewer account requirements than the one it is replacing. With GFE, you needed an account just to get automatic driver updates. With the new app, you can do just about anything except redeem free bundled games without an account.
A lot less work for developers, smaller game sizes, and map and game design no longer needing to be built around the onerous limitations of raster lighting and reflections.
Ray tracing is a bigger deal than most people realize. It feels like a gimmick because the games that support it today are still ultimately designed around rasterization.
Path-traced lighting in particular is a huge game changer, and means developers will no longer have to choose between rudimentary global dynamic lighting and very static and storage-intensive baked lighting. You can get the benefits of both without the drawbacks of either, assuming the hardware is up to snuff.
It’s a great example. Starfield (like other BGS games) does a lot of things well that few other games do at all. So it’s frustrating when they put out a game that is pretty mediocre outside those few strengths, and also your only real option for scratching those particular itches.