NVIDIA driver 596.49 brings Forza Horizon 6 support and more

Forza Horizon 6 is launching in early access in just three days, and NVIDIA has a Game-Ready driver for it.

Forza Horizon 6 is launching in early access on May 15, with a global launch scheduled on May 19. While we finish our review (look out for it on May 14), NVIDIA released a Game-Ready WHQL driver that brings optimizations for the upcoming racing game. Version 596.49 is now available for download with optimizations and DLSS support for Forza Horizon 6, Directive 8020, and Subnautica 2.

In the announcement post, NVIDIA claims that with the latest driver, RTX 50 Series graphics cards can achieve up to 337 FPS in 4K (with the RTX 5090), 414 FPS in 1440p, and 493 FPS in 1080p with DLSS 4.5 multi-frame generation enabled. NVIDIA is not revealing performance details in native mode without frame-gen technologies, though.

Forza Horizon 6 will be available on Friday (the Microsoft Store, Steam, Game Pass, and GeForce NOW), alongside Subnautica 2. Directive 8020 launches today, on May 12.

As for fixed bugs, driver 596.49 includes the following:

• Enhanced smoothness when DLSS Frame Generation is used with V-SYNC.
• Foundry Mari 7.0v2 viewport displays flickering.

The NVIDIA 596.49 WHQL driver is available on 64-bit Windows 10 and 11 systems with the following graphics cards:

NVIDIA recently dropped GTX 10 Series and GTX 900 Series graphics cards, and they no longer receive new Game-Ready drivers (only security fixes).

You can download driver 596.49 WHQL from the official NVIDIA website or the NVIDIA app. Release notes are available here (PDF).

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Posted Wednesday 13 May 2026 at 7:23 am AEST (my time).

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