Chinese gamers can now game on the U.S. sanction-proof GPU — RTX 4090D gets first GeForce Game Ready driver

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The Nvidia 546.34 WHQL driver also rolled out Game-Ready support for "The Finals" and "Squad."

Nvidia RTX 4090D
(Image credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia released the GeForce 546.34 WHQL driver for Windows 10-64 bit and Windows 11, which is the first to support the RTX 4090D exclusively made for the Chinese market as a way to conform to the export regulations imposed by the US.

Besides supporting the RTX 4090D, Nvidia delivers 'Game Ready' support for The Finals and Squad. Fortnite Chapter 5 gets DLSS Super Resolution support. The 546.34 WHQL driver fixes a specific issue with Discord where colors appear muted when the gameplay is streamed and another issue where a new Nvidia icon is created in the system tray every time a user switch occurs in Windows. There is one open issue where Netflix has display issues via the Edge browser.

The GeForce 546.34 WHQL driver only supports the new GeForce RTX 4090D and can be downloaded from Nvidia's website.

This sanction-proof RTX 4090D was launched two days ago in China with 12.8% fewer CUDA cores than the standard variant to comply with these restrictions mandated by the US government. Chipmakers can only distribute and sell GPUs under 4,800 TPP (Total Processing Power) to ensure the Chinese market does not retail any high-performance hardware and AI accelerators. This prompted Nvidia to make this graphics card since the RTX 4090 is 5,286 TPP. AMD also complies with this sanction restriction by providing a scaled-down AI accelerator. These GPUs are needed in the Chinese retail market and system builders like Dell as the company had to stop bundling its systems with a plethora of systems with AMD Radeon graphics cards.

China is a significant market for respective manufacturers and vendors to ignore; hence, making some changes to comply with these restrictions makes it well worth the effort. We'll likely see more 'under 4,800 TPP' GPUs from respective chipmakers as long as the sanctions are active, either for China or any country with this restriction.

The RTX 4090D, made by some AIC partners, is sold via Chinese-based retailers like JD between ￥13,999 ($1,977.66) and ￥16,999 ($2,401.47). Before this GPU's availability, Chinese retailers and scalpers could have some stop-gap solutions by importing RTX 40 series GPUs from other countries. At the same time, some domestic GPU brands repurposed older graphics cards. This GPU might be available in a few other countries and continue to roll out support via globally released drivers like the rest of the GPUs.

Roshan Ashraf Shaikh
Roshan Ashraf Shaikh
Contributing Writer

Roshan Ashraf Shaikh has been in the Indian PC hardware community since the early 2000s and has been building PCs, contributing to many Indian tech forums, & blogs. He operated Hardware BBQ for 11 years and wrote news for eTeknix & TweakTown before joining Tom's Hardware team. Besides tech, he is interested in fighting games, movies, anime, and mechanical watches.

6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bit_user
    On a related note, GPU sanctions are hardly the only (or even the biggest?) thing Chinese gamers & its gaming sector have to worry about, these days.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/27/chinese-gaming-shares-fall-as-regulators-announce-new-proposals
    Reply
  • TCA_ChinChin
    bit_user said:
    On a related note, GPU sanctions are hardly the only (or even the biggest?) thing Chinese gamers & its gaming sector have to worry about, these days.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/27/chinese-gaming-shares-fall-as-regulators-announce-new-proposals
    I mean this one was just a public proposal meant to gauge response and dialogue from the industry. I can't see them pushing too far seeing as just this draft caused huge waves. Even if they're implemented, I can pretty much only see positives for the actual gamers, since it would require game companies to not rely on predatory practices for revenue.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    TCA_ChinChin said:
    I mean this one was just a public proposal meant to gauge response and dialogue from the industry.
    We'll see, but it wouldn't be the first such regulations they've created to restrict gaming.

    TCA_ChinChin said:
    Even if they're implemented, I can pretty much only see positives for the actual gamers, since it would require game companies to not rely on predatory practices for revenue.
    Yeah, those particular regulations don't sound terribly onerous for gamers. The industry sure didn't like it, though.
    Reply
  • TCA_ChinChin
    bit_user said:
    We'll see, but it wouldn't be the first such regulations they've created to restrict gaming.


    Yeah, those particular regulations don't sound terribly onerous for gamers. The industry sure didn't like it, though.
    I mean I agree, its probably gonna be like the last large restrictions, where they announce pretty big changes and then everyone figures out how to bypass it and the net result is pretty small. With the end result of a very small actual change in what they want to happen with the side affect of negatively impacting the stock market.
    Reply
  • Joseph_138
    The black market will always find a way to provide consumers with blacklisted goods.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Joseph_138 said:
    The black market will always find a way to provide consumers with blacklisted goods.
    Yes, for commodity items, but at (sometimes highly) inflated prices. When we're talking about a GPU that's already priced out of reach for most users, that puts it even further out of reach. As a result, volumes will be reduced and the sanctions will still have an effect. Whether leaky sanctions are still worthwhile depends on their purpose.
    Reply