Recent generations of graphics cards have significantly boosted performance, but they need robust drivers with optimizations for the latest games. The problem is that these drivers are practically "mini operating systems", and their update methods don't work all that well. Nvidia hardware users have encountered several issues with GeForce Experience, along with other background services, and for them there's TinyNvidiaUpdateChecker, a small application that automates the search for updates.
The latest Nvidia driver compatible with "modern" editions of Windows is version 385.41, dated August 24. This build includes optimizations for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the Destiny 2 beta, F1 2017, PES 2018, ARK, and the Early Access of Quake Champions. Its support extends to the 400 series, although we all agree the most important benefits are concentrated in the 900 and 10 series. Even so, the update is recommended, and the same process extends to AMD hardware with its Crimson ReLive 17.9.1 drivers. If you're accustomed to performing manual updates, the suggestion is to keep doing so, but for automatic updates Nvidia offers its GeForce Experience, which generally leaves much to be desired.
A direct alternative is TinyNvidiaUpdateChecker, created by a Swedish developer named Samuel who basically got tired of all the secondary services that GeForce Experience installs, and of the telemetry system built into official drivers. TinyNvidiaUpdateChecker looks for available updates and offers the possibility of performing a "minimal" installation to avoid telemetry, which, by the way, can be disabled, but that requires a preinstalled copy of WinRAR.
TinyNvidiaUpdateChecker works with Windows 7, 8.x, and Windows 10. It also needs version 4.5 of the .NET Framework (which should already be on the system), a solid internet connection (the 385.41 driver takes up 436 MB), and a copy of the HtmlAgilityPack.dll library in the same folder as the main executable. Both elements are downloaded via GitHub, and the entire project is open source, so anyone can modify it.
