SteamOS Nvidia - Pick Your Driver, Support Older GTX Cards, Update Safely
Two big requests answered in one video. The SNGI Windows tool — Steam Nvidia Graphics Install — now lets you choose which Nvidia driver package goes into your SteamOS build. And I show the full driver update process: how to move…
Two big requests answered in one video. The SNGI Windows tool — Steam Nvidia Graphics Install — now lets you choose which Nvidia driver package goes into your SteamOS build. And I show the full driver update process: how to move from an older driver to the latest without wiping your games or data.
link to script on the site
you can buy me a coffee to help with channel
https://buymeacoffee.com/gnugent
subscribe for updates
Subscribe for more reviews and videos https://www.youtube.com/@28allday?sub_confirmation=1
or become a member
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1nagfUlQ4_ZmOVkGhWcw1g/join
You can download Omarchy here https://omarchy.org
Amazing premade Omarchy themes here and other cool stuff
https://github.com/HANCORE-linux
DRIVER SELECTION IS IN
The original tool locked you into the newest driver package — currently 610. That's fine for recent cards, but plenty of you have GTX 1080s and other older cards that the new drivers dropped. The rewritten Windows tool now has a driver dropdown — go all the way back to 575, which is the version sitting in SteamOS's own extras repo and the one most likely to support the older GTX cards.
I can't guarantee every old card works — SteamOS is finicky about hardware and I don't have a 10-series to test — but the patching works, and you can keep building USBs with different driver versions until you find what your card likes. If you're getting screen tearing or weirdness on 610, drop back to 590 or 580 and try again. 610 is a feature branch, well ahead of the production curve, so older branches may actually behave better.
THE BUILD
Same process as before — download the Steam recovery image, drag it into the tool, pick your driver from the dropdown, start build. It decompresses the image, pulls the selected driver branch, and patches it in. You need a USB bigger than 16 gig, formatted exFAT. Flash it from the built-in burner and you're done.
UPDATING DRIVERS WITHOUT LOSING YOUR STUFF
This is the bit everyone's been asking about. Say you installed with 590 and want to move to 610. You rebuild the ISO with the tool — it always patches in whatever driver you select, including the very latest — flash it to USB, plug it in, and reboot.
When the installer comes up, do NOT pick the wipe option. Hover along the top icons and choose the reinstall/upgrade option — it says game user data is preserved, OS customisations outside home will be lost. That's exactly how SteamOS itself updates: everything inside home is protected, everything OS-level gets flattened and repatched. Proceed, let it do its thing, pull the USB, reboot.
Expect the giant black pauses — Steam loves them. It can take 10-15 minutes with the driver recompile. Leave it alone. You'll come back to the Steam login, sign in again since it's a first boot, and your games, saves, and settings survive. Check system settings and the new driver is live.
One tip — if you're using SteamOS as a proper operating system, back up your home folder before any of this. And I keep my games on a separate drive anyway, which I'd recommend.
THE MICROSOFT SAGA
Quick apology if you tried to download SNGI and it vanished — Microsoft decided it was a virus about two days after I published it. It even deleted itself off systems after download. I've submitted it through Windows Defender, it's been scanned and cleared as non-malicious, and I'm going through code signing now. On Linux you just publish things. What an epic.
THE TOOL
SNGI for Windows and the Linux version are both on Git. Every build always pulls the latest available drivers, with the dropdown for older ones. Questions in the comments.
ABOUT THIS CHANNEL
I make videos about Linux, Omarchy, SteamOS, gaming, and self-hosting. Subscribe if that's your thing.
00:00 - Start
00:09 - PREAMBLE
02:40 - CREATE ISO
05:53 - INSTALL WITH OLD DRIVERS
07:51 - UPDATE DRIVERS
12:21 - FINAL REBOOT
13:27 - UPDATED DRIVERS
13:40 - FINAL WORDS