Capcom’s Pragmata launched today, and NVIDIA was ready: GeForce Game Ready Driver 596.21 WHQL dropped yesterday, April 16, specifically optimizing for the game’s path tracing, DLSS Multi Frame Generation, and DLSS Ray Reconstruction pipeline. If you’re planning to fire up Pragmata on a GeForce card this weekend, this is the driver you want installed before you boot it up.
The 596.21 package, weighing in at 914.4 MB and supporting Windows 10 and Windows 11 64-bit, leads with Pragmata support. The sci-fi action title from Capcom runs on the RE Engine and is the second Capcom release this year, after Resident Evil Requiem, to support path tracing locked exclusively to NVIDIA hardware. That exclusivity is a topic worth noting: AMD’s Radeon RX 9000-series cards perform extremely well in Pragmata’s standard RT mode, and FSR 3.1 is supported, but path tracing is GeForce-only. Make of that business arrangement what you will.
Beyond Pragmata, 596.21 adds Game Ready optimizations for Windrose, bringing that survival title up to speed with DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution, Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, and NVIDIA Reflex. NTE (Neverness to Everness), the open-world action RPG from Infold Games, also receives a substantial RTX upgrade in this release: DLSS Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction, Multi Frame Generation, and a full path-traced effects pass. NVIDIA Project G-Assist also sees enhanced recommendations and control options in this build.
On the bug fix side, the Arknights: Endfield stutter issue that has been frustrating players since that game’s launch is resolved in 596.21. One known issue remains: textures in God of War: Ragnarok may intermittently flash white during gameplay in this driver, which is unfortunate for anyone doing a playthrough. NVIDIA says a fix is being investigated.
Driver 596.21 follows the 595.97 WHQL release from March 24, which we covered here, and the subsequent 596.02 hotfix that addressed instability introduced by that release. The R596 driver series has had a rougher-than-usual run through beta, so a clean WHQL release optimized for a major game launch is a welcome change of pace. Download directly from NVIDIA’s driver page or via the NVIDIA App.