SOLIDWORKS Certified NVIDIA Graphics Card Drivers – Branch Family Support

SOLIDWORKS requires a certified graphics card and driver for optimal performance and stability.  Our SOLIDWORKS Certified Graphics Drivers blog post provides detailed information recommended SOLIDWORKS graphics cards and drivers.

SOLIDWORKS is also transitioning to support “Branch Family” of NVIDIA drivers to make it easier to stay certified.  Traditionally SOLIDWORKS supported very specific drivers, for example 440.97.  A new approach is now being used where a family of NVIDIA drivers are now supported (i.e. Branch).  For example driver 440.97 is part of the family R440.  The graphics card vendor may add additional point updates for the R440 driver with security fixes and optimizations, creating a new driver 440.XX or even 441.XX.  There are minimal changes to drivers within the same branch so this gives you the ability to update to the latest driver patches for security.

To locate the certified branch driver for your graphics card, browse to https://www.solidworks.com/support/hardware-certification and use the filters or search fields.

The NVIDIA Quadro Branch History Table gives a list of all released drivers and dates.