Exactly that, and if you have an old version of GPU, Nvidia won’t release updates to work with newer kernel, luckily, there exists community patched binaries to run them in newer kernel and open source driver called nouveau. It is worth trying both setups out to compare the two. Just make sure to use the driver management tool from your distribution to achieve best results.
For example, if you have an older setup with integrated and dedicated GPU, it is mostly required to use the proprietary nvidia driver in order to benefit from that.