v0.3.1

Caution

You use this software entirely at your own risk. A modified VBIOS can damage hardware. Any modification you load with it, and any damage that results, is solely your responsibility. Not affiliated with or endorsed by NVIDIA.

Changes since 0.3.0:

• If the GPU drives your screen, restart Windows instead of the GPU. On an RTX 2070 SUPER, loading with Restart the GPU now left the screen with no signal; after a full restart the same override worked. The README says so, and the load confirmation now adds: if the screens stay black, restart Windows (the override stays stored).
• Turing is no longer untested: an RTX 2080 Ti (ROG Matrix BIOS, driver 617.70) reached about 458 W with raised board and connector power, and an RTX 2070 SUPER ran an edited image. Other Turing GPUs are untested.
• Ampere laptop: on an RTX 3050 6GB Laptop GPU a lowered power ceiling (70 W) applied; a raised one is untested on laptops.
• Load, Remove override and Verify work as in 0.3.0.

Make payloads with Vix Editor 0.1.21 or newer.

Windows 10/11 x86_64, administrator account, NVIDIA driver 616.56 or newer for Load:

• vbios-loader-gui.exe: window, English and Spanish, light and dark theme.
• vbios-loader.exe: command line (status, load, unload, verify).
• third-party-notices.zip: license texts of the CPython, Nuitka and Tcl/Tk runtimes inside the programs.

SHA256SUMS covers the files: Get-FileHash FILE in PowerShell. The programs are not code-signed, so SmartScreen may ask once (More info → Run anyway).

Thanks to @pantsoftime, whose original vbios_override work this project family is built on. GPL-3.0-or-later; see LICENSE and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

v0.3.0

Caution

You use this software entirely at your own risk. A modified VBIOS can damage hardware. Any modification you load with it, and any damage that results, is solely your responsibility. Not affiliated with or endorsed by NVIDIA.

New: Turing (TU102–TU117: GeForce RTX 20, GTX 16, TITAN RTX, Quadro RTX, T series), experimental and not tested on any Turing GPU. The loader now accepts Turing payloads with the same checks and the same 512 KiB limit. Whether the Windows driver runs the GSP firmware on Turing and applies the override there is unknown; if the override is refused, the card runs its stock VBIOS. Load, Remove override and Verify are unchanged for Ampere, Ada and Blackwell.

• Make the payload with Vix Editor 0.1.18 or newer: saving an edited Turing copy saves <name>-loader.bin (load it first) and <name>-loader-e0end.bin (try it if the first loads but the edit does not apply).
• If you own a Turing card, please help test: follow the Turing tester guide and report the Verify result and nvidia-smi -q -d POWER before and after.

Windows 10/11 x86_64, administrator account, NVIDIA driver 616.56 or newer for Load:

• vbios-loader-gui.exe: window, English and Spanish, light and dark theme.
• vbios-loader.exe: command line (status, load, unload, verify).
• third-party-notices.zip: license texts of the CPython, Nuitka and Tcl/Tk runtimes inside the programs.

SHA256SUMS covers the files: Get-FileHash FILE in PowerShell. The programs are not code-signed, so SmartScreen may ask once (More info → Run anyway).

Thanks to @pantsoftime, whose original vbios_override work this project family is built on. GPL-3.0-or-later; see LICENSE and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

v0.2.0

Caution

You use this software entirely at your own risk. A modified VBIOS can damage hardware. Any modification you load with it, and any damage that results, is solely your responsibility. Not affiliated with or endorsed by NVIDIA.

New: Verify checks that the driver is really running the override. It reads the VBIOS image the GPU's GSP firmware is using, twice, through NvAPI (NvAPI_GPU_GetVbiosImage), and compares it byte for byte with the override stored in the driver key. It only reads: Load and Remove override work exactly as in 0.1.0.

• Window: select a GPU and press Verify. Command line: vbios-loader.exe verify --gpu N (or --pci BUS:DEV.FN, --json). The exit code is 4 when the override is not active or the two reads differ.
• Results: the override is active (verified byte for byte); the override is stored but not running (restart the GPU or Windows, or the driver rejected it and runs the card's VBIOS); no override is stored (the driver should be running the card's own VBIOS); or the two reads differ.
• NvAPI returns at most 1,024,000 bytes. If a stored override is longer, only that part is compared and the result says so.
• Needs a driver that has NvAPI_GPU_GetVbiosImage; tested with 617.42.

Windows 10/11 x86_64, administrator account, NVIDIA driver 616.56 or newer for Load:

• vbios-loader-gui.exe: window, English and Spanish, light and dark theme.
• vbios-loader.exe: command line (status, load, unload, verify).
• third-party-notices.zip: license texts of the CPython, Nuitka and Tcl/Tk runtimes inside the programs.

SHA256SUMS covers the files: Get-FileHash FILE in PowerShell. The programs are not code-signed, so SmartScreen may ask once (More info → Run anyway).

Tested by the author with driver 617.42: Verify reported the loaded override as active (verified byte for byte) on a GPU with an override, and the card's own VBIOS on a GPU without one.

Thanks to @pantsoftime, whose original vbios_override work this project family is built on. GPL-3.0-or-later; see LICENSE and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

v0.1.0

Caution

You use this software entirely at your own risk. A modified VBIOS can damage hardware. Any modification you load with it, and any damage that results, is solely your responsibility. Not affiliated with or endorsed by NVIDIA.

First release. Loads a modified VBIOS for an NVIDIA GPU on Windows without flashing it: the image goes into the GPU's driver registry key, where the NVIDIA driver looks for a VBIOS override, and the device is restarted. Remove override (unload) restores the key.

Windows 10/11 x86_64, administrator account, NVIDIA driver 616.56 or newer:

• vbios-loader-gui.exe: window. Pick the GPU and the file, then Load or Remove override. English and Spanish, light and dark theme (follows Windows; Language and Theme menus).
• vbios-loader.exe: command line (status, load, unload, with --dry-run, --no-restart and --json).
• third-party-notices.zip: license texts of the CPython, Nuitka and Tcl/Tk runtimes inside the programs.

SHA256SUMS covers the files: Get-FileHash FILE in PowerShell. The programs are not code-signed, so SmartScreen may ask once (More info → Run anyway).

Tested by the author with driver 617.42:

• RTX 5070 (Blackwell): an edited VBIOS loaded and worked after a GPU restart, without restarting Windows.
• RTX 4090 (VBIOS 95.02.18, ada-relocated-v2 payload): 671 W power limit and +1200 MHz core clock offset ceiling applied.
• RTX A2000 (ampere-relocated-v1 payload): 5 W power floor applied.

Other GPUs are untested. Ada and Ampere need a relocated payload: Vix Editor 0.1.11 or newer saves it as <name>-loader.bin next to an edited copy. If the GPU does not start, see "If the GPU does not start" in the README (Safe Mode, then remove the override).

Thanks to @pantsoftime, whose original vbios_override work this project family is built on. MIT license; see LICENSE and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.