The game Need for Speed Unbound, which went on sale today, revealed a previously hidden bug in the flagship GeForce RTX 4090 video card. And you can’t solve the problem with a regular video driver update – you have to update the graphics accelerator’s vBIOS firmware. This is probably the first time in history that a game requires a graphics card firmware update to resolve any issues.
Image Source: Electronic Arts
According to Electronic Arts tech support, flickering may occur in Need for Speed Unbound on systems equipped with the GeForce RTX 4090. You can solve the problem only by updating the firmware of the video card itself. Fortunately, this does not require the rather risky process of manually updating the BIOS with NVFlash. NVIDIA has already released a special Firmware Update Tool that will do everything automatically. At the same time, updating the BIOS of the video card can be carried out in the Windows environment. This is confirmed by TechPowerUp, which has already updated its editorial GeForce RTX 4090.
Image Source: Electronic Arts
Curiously, the GeForce RTX 4090 Automatic BIOS Update Tool does not reset the factory overclocking of GPUs or change the TDP limit settings for non-reference versions of video cards from NVIDIA partners. TechPowerUp proved this by updating their Palit GeForce RTX 4090 GameRock OC and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition using the NVIDIA Firmware Update Tool.
Image source here and below: TechPowerUp
It seems that the update tool is universal for all versions of the GeForce RTX 4090. It somehow updates only part of the vBIOS code without changing its version, build date and custom manufacturer settings. And although the vBIOS checksum definitely changes, this process does not change the digital signature of the firmware. It seems that NVIDIA engineers have found a way to update not the entire vBIOS, but only its individual sections, while not affecting the digital signature, which prevents the use of unauthorized firmware.
UPD 03.12: Electronic Arts Support has updated information on a flickering issue in Need for Speed Unbound on GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards. Initially, it was stated that this problem could only be solved by updating the vBIOS of these cards. After additional tests, the game publisher reported that the problem is solved by installing the latest BIOS version of the PC motherboard. You do not need to update the BIOS of the GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card. For the latest firmware version for the motherboard, you need to go to the website of its manufacturer.
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