NVIDIA Game Ready Driver 572.XX Reportedly Causing Major Issues for RTX 40 Series Users: Crashes, Black Screens, and More!

NVIDIA’s newest GPU drivers have been stirring up a bit of a hornet’s nest for users of the GeForce RTX 40 series, and even some older models aren’t escaping unscathed. However, NVIDIA hasn’t responded to these issues just yet.

Since January heralded the release of the RTX 50 series, the RTX 40 GPUs have somewhat fallen by the wayside in terms of bug fixes. While it’s common for tech companies to turn their attention to the latest hardware, leaving the RTX 40 series a touch neglected is proving problematic. Initially, things were running smoothly with the older drivers, but the introduction of RTX 50-compatible updates began causing headaches for the RTX 40 users.

Take, for instance, the insights shared by Redditor u/Soctty1992. They not only narrate their personal struggles with the latest driver 572.XX but also compile similar issues from other users. Key problems being flagged include system crashes, black screens, and display glitches that were relatively rare before the new driver era.

Interestingly, those grappling with these issues found relief by reverting to the 566.XX drivers, the ones around before NVIDIA dropped the 572.16 driver on January 30th to usher in support for the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080. The RTX 50 series brought a slew of new features, such as DLSS 4, Multi-Frame Generation, and DLSS Override. Not all these new toys are guaranteed to cause problems, but a myriad of factors could be at play here.

Some gamers chime in with their war stories: one with an RTX 4080 faced constant game crashes with Cyberpunk 2077, resolved only by stepping back to the pre-572.XX drivers. Another who uses an RTX 4090 echoed similar troubles with black screens and uncontrollable freezes, all remedied by returning to 566.XX drivers.

Despite these continuous reports since late January, NVIDIA seems to have turned a blind eye. Their focus shifted to dealing with BSOD issues in the RTX 50 series—a problem that took weeks to address. Many RTX 40 users have resorted to backtracking to older drivers, although this move means missing out on the latest innovations like DLSS 4’s Transformer Model, improved Ray Reconstruction, and an expanded DLSS game library.