Nvidia has just released its latest display driver for Linux 64-bit systems. Display Driver 590.44.01 was released on December 2, but if you’re using another older than a GTX 16 series graphics card, then your GPU won’t be supported. The patch notes reveal support for desktop cards started at the GTX 16 series, up until the latest RTX 50 series. A wide range of mobile (Notebook) GPUs continue to be supported, too.

Nvidia has slowly been phasing out support for its older GTX graphics cards. In July, the company confirmed that the GTX 700 to GTX 10 series would transition to quarterly security updates on Windows until October 2028, and those series have already lost Game Ready Driver support. As for Linux, the 590.44.01 drivers cuts all support for 10 series and 900 series GPUs.

Display Driver 590.44.01 highlights

The 580 branch has long been confirmed as the final driver branch to be be supporting these GTX 900 (Maxwell) and GTX 10 (Pascal) series.

Release highlights

• Raised the minimum supported Wayland version to 1.20.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the PowerMizer preferred mode dropdown menu in the nvidia-settings control panel from functioning correctly on Wayland.
• Raised the minimum supported glibc version to 2.27.
• Improved the performance of recreating Vulkan swapchains. This helps prevent stuttering when resizing Vulkan application windows.
• Raised the minimum supported X.Org xserver version to 1.17 (video driver ABI version 19).
• Fixed a bug that caused the Dots Per Inch (DPI) to be incorrectly reported for some monitors such as the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9.
• Fixed several problems that prevented Vulkan applications from working on Venus VirtIO virtual GPU.
• Fixed a bug that could cause system freezes on PREEMPT_RT kernels.

Source: Nvidia

One user, Tekstryder, has confirmed that their GTX 1050 Ti is ‘ignored’ by the 590.44.01 driver, and will have to instead roll back to a 580 legacy driver to continue using it on their machine. The same will now happen with any other 10 series card, including the ‘GOAT’ GTX 1080 Ti – though it’s probably about time to start retiring this card now that we’re almost in 2026.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.