NVIDIA’s newest GPU drivers have sparked a storm of trouble for GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs, and even older models, yet the company remains silent about these issues.
Since the introduction of the RTX 50 series back in January, it seems NVIDIA has largely neglected the RTX 40 series GPUs when it comes to sorting out bugs. It’s typical for tech companies to shift their attention to their latest releases. While the RTX 50 series has had its share of challenges like blue screen errors, the RTX 40 series was functioning reasonably well with earlier GPU drivers. That is, until NVIDIA came out with RTX 50-ready drivers that started triggering a slew of complications with the RTX 40 GPUs.
Take Reddit user u/Soctty1992, who describes his troublesome experience with the newer 572.XX driver. He’s compiled a list of overlapping reports highlighting shared issues. These include major system crashes, black screens, and unexpected display problems which weren’t as common before the introduction of the 572.XX drivers.
Interestingly, a comment thread shares that rolling back to the 566.XX drivers resulted in success for many. These drivers were released just before NVIDIA launched the 572.16 driver on January 30th, aimed at supporting the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080. The RTX 50 series came packed with new features like DLSS 4, Multi-Frame Generation, and DLSS Override. While enabling these isn’t directly causing the problems, it’s likely a complex mix of factors at play that need thorough investigation.
One gamer mentioned that running Cyberpunk 2077 on his RTX 4080 led to crashes right upon startup, which were only resolved after reverting to the pre-572.XX drivers. Another RTX 4090 user reported issues like blackouts, freezes, and blank monitors—problems that also disappeared when switching back to the 566.XX drivers.
It seems NVIDIA has turned a blind eye to these bug fix requests, despite users actively voicing their concerns since late January. Their focus has been on resolving RTX 50-series system blue screen errors, which took several weeks to address. Many RTX 40 users have been left with no choice but to revert to older drivers, thereby losing out on the latest updates and features like the Transformer Model DLSS 4, improved Ray Reconstruction, and access to new additions on the DLSS-supported games roster.
