The CUDA Driver API and the CUDA Runtime are two of the programming interfaces to CUDA. Their version number enables developers to check the features associated with these APIs and decide whether an application requires a newer (later) version than the one currently installed. This is important because the CUDA Driver API is backward compatible but not forward compatible, meaning that applications, plug-ins, and libraries (including the CUDA Runtime) compiled against a particular version of the Driver API will continue to work on subsequent (later) driver releases. However, applications, plug-ins, and libraries (including the CUDA Runtime) compiled against a particular version of the Driver API may not work on earlier versions of the driver, as illustrated in Figure 1.