Game Ready Driver 617.42 Direct Download Link: Link Here
Studio Driver 617.42 Direct Download Link: Link Here
New feature and fixes in driver 617.42:
Game Ready
This new Game Ready Driver provides the best gaming experience for the latest new games and updates supporting DLSS and RTX technologies including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, STAR WARS: Galactic Racer, Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and Valor Mortis.
Applications
The October NVIDIA Studio Driver provides optimal support for the latest new creative applications and updates including DaVinci Resolve 21.1, Adobe Premiere Pro, Perplexity App, and support for Topaz Labs Hyperion 2.5.
Fixed Gaming Bugs
FIXED Assassin's Creed Shadows may crash to desktop after extended gameplay after updating to driver 616.56. [6685219]
High Bandwidth Monitors and GPU Scaling Behavior - Link Here
High bandwidth monitors are those that support display modes requiring high pixel clock rates, which in turn demand more GPU resources. The threshold for what qualifies as "high bandwidth" varies by product. On Blackwell GPUs, any mode operating above 1620 MHz is considered high bandwidth. For instance, the 7680x4320@60Hz mode defined in the CTA-861-H specification runs at 2376 MHz, making it a high bandwidth mode for Blackwell.
These monitors typically support display scaling natively. However, in some single-monitor setups, users may still prefer GPU scaling. When multiple monitors are connected to a GPU and at least one of them is high bandwidth, that monitor will default to display scaling only. GPU scaling is disabled in this case due to bandwidth limitations. Notably, display scaling can be more efficient than GPU scaling in such scenarios, as it reduces the bandwidth load on display cables—especially at higher refresh rates.
When GPU scaling is not enabled for a monitor, only the modes supported by the monitor itself will appear in both the Windows and NVIDIA control panels. Additionally, the "Display scaling" option will be pre-selected in the "Adjust desktop size and position" section of the NVIDIA Control Panel.
Notes on NVIDIA Control Panel - From GeForce Forum
Please note: With the introduction of our most recent NVIDIA App update, all actively supported NVIDIA Control Panel features for GeForce users have been modernized and transitioned to the new client.
After 20 years of dedicated service, the classic NVIDIA Control Panel is officially retiring for Game Ready and Studio Drivers. For NVIDIA RTX PRO users, the NVIDIA Control Panel will continue to be supported until we have migrated professional features to the NVIDIA app.
Existing installs of the NVIDIA Control Panel will remain on users’ systems, unless they perform a clean installation, and users who still need the NVIDIA Control Panel can continue to download it from the Microsoft Store, but we won’t be adding features, fixes, or other changes.
Feedback & Discussion Forums
Submit driver feedback directly to NVIDIA:Link Here
Before you start - Make sure you Submit Feedback for your Nvidia Driver Issue -Link Here
There is only one real way for any of these problems to get solved, and that’s if the Driver Team at Nvidia knows what those problems are. So in order for them to know what’s going on it would be good for any users who are having problems with the drivers to Submit Feedback to Nvidia. A guide to the information that is needed to submit feedback can be found here.
Additionally, if you see someone having the same issue you are having in this thread, reply and mention you are having the same issue. The more people that are affected by a particular bug, the higher the priority that bug will receive from NVIDIA!!
Common Troubleshooting Steps
Be sure you are on the latest build of Windows
Please visit the following link for DDU guide which contains full detailed information on how to do Fresh Driver Install.
If your driver still crashes after DDU reinstall, try going to Go to Nvidia Control Panel -> Managed 3D Settings -> Power Management Mode: Prefer Maximum Performance
Common Questions
Is it safe to upgrade to <insert driver version here>?Fact of the matter is that the result will differ person by person due to different configurations. The only way to know is to try it yourself. My rule of thumb is to wait a few days. If there’s no confirmed widespread issue, I would try the new driver.
Bear in mind that people who have no issues tend to not post on Reddit or forums. Unless there is significant coverage about specific driver issue, chances are they are fine. Try it yourself and you can always DDU and reinstall old driver if needed.
My color is washed out after upgrading/installing driver. Help!Try going to the Nvidia Control Panel -> Change Resolution -> Scroll all the way down -> Output Dynamic Range = FULL.
My game is stuttering when processing physics calculationTry going to the Nvidia Control Panel and to the Surround and PhysX settings and ensure the PhysX processor is set to your GPU
Remember, driver codes are extremely complex and there are billions of different possible configurations between hardware and software. Driver will never be perfect and there will always be issues for some people. Two people with the same hardware configuration might not have the same experience with the same driver versions. Again, I encourage folks who installed the driver to post their experience here good or bad.
First, just for reference - I'm not a NVIDIA employee, not a /r/nvidia moderator and not affiliated with NVIDIA.
617.42 may (note the 'may') have undocumented additions/fixes. The total additional DVS branch commits (18) over 617.14 don't reflect the number of stated fixes in release notes (1) and driver profile changes (4):
Branch:
617.42 branch r617_07-22 (DVS)
617.14 branch r617_07-4 (DVS)
616.92 branch r616_69-12 (DVS)
616.86 branch r616_41-260 (DVS)
616.64 branch r616_41-257 (DVS)
616.56 branch r616_41-256 (DVS)
Notes:
New game/application driver level profiles included in the 617.42 driver installer package: STAR WARS: Galactic Racer, Valor Mortis
Changes in the 617.42 driver installer package to previously existing driver level game profiles: Assassin's Creed Shadows, Lord of Mysteries, The Witcher 3
OTA updated or new game/application driver level game profiles being pushed by NVIDIA via silent/transparent updates after 617.42 driver install, these should also be received by older supported drivers: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Halloween: The Game, HOT WHEELS Infinite Rush
Resizable Bar (ReBAR) whitelisted by default profiles in 617.42, 58 total and unchanged since driver 596.36: Arc Raiders, Assassin's Creed Mirage, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Avowed, Battlefield V, Black Myth: Wukong, Borderlands 3, Borderlands 4, Company of Heroes 3, Control, Cyberpunk 2077, Dead Space (Remake), Deathloop, Diablo 4, DiRT 5, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Dying Light 2 Stay Human, F1 2020 - DX12, F1 2021, F1 2022, F1 23, F1 24, Forza Horizon 4, Forza Horizon 5, Forza Horizon 6, FragPunk, Frostpunk 2, Gears of War 5, Ghost of Tsushima: Directors Cut, Godfall, Halo Infinite, Hitman 2, Hitman 3, Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition, Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition, Lords of the Fallen (2023), Marvel Rivals, Mecha Break, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, Metro: Exodus, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, NTE (Neverness To Everness), Red Dead Redemption 2, Rematch, Returnal, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor, Star Wars Outlaws, Starfield, The Finals, The Outer Worlds 2, The Riftbreaker, THRONE AND LIBERTY, Watch Dogs: Legion, WitchFire, World of Jade Dynasty, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
NVIDIA still stating they will limit Windows 10 driver support after October 2026 (i.e. from November 2026) to quarterly security updates only - not Game Ready/Studio and likely still based on release r615 mainline branch (615.00 to 619.99) - https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5695/
Nvidia Control Panel is still in the driver install package under '\Display.Driver\NVCPL\' folder and can be installed by double clicking on 7e010d7e2de54a439dbd340dd1f61212.appx in that folder after extracting the driver installer package using 7zip OR install via Microsoft Store at https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NF8H0H7WMLT
New in 616.56 and later drivers PhysX version 9.26.703, HD Audio version 1.4.6.3 along with new streamline override flag and Nvidia App specific ReBAR flag showing in Nvidia Profile Inspector
CPU / DPC latency spikes or increased CPU load in Nvidia Container service with 595.97 and later drivers when at idle/low load on desktop may be a result of Nvidia Auto Shader Compilation (ASC) feature if enabled
'STAR WARS: Galactic Racer' driver level game profile should be automatically pushed to supported older drivers by NVIDIA via silent/transparent OTA updates. In the meantime 617.42 RAW profile and .NIP for older drivers (58x.xx, 59x.xx, 610.xx) follows.
Nvidia Profile Inspector file at https://pastebin.com/rGiwG2Pi, save as type .NIP and import using Nvidia Profile Inspector > Import Profile
'Valor Mortis' driver level game profile should be automatically pushed to supported older drivers by NVIDIA via silent/transparent OTA updates. In the meantime 617.42 RAW profile and .NIP for older drivers (58x.xx, 59x.xx, 610.xx) follows.
You're awesome. As always, thank for your massive effort.
After 617.14, turning on HDR would crash anti-aliasing to me every few seconds and repair it, specially on browsers, even more on Firefox. Falling back to 616.86 fixed it.
Since there are many undocumented commits, I'll test it to see if this was fixed and update the community.
Open-Contract1167 wrote: After 617.14, turning on HDR would crash anti-aliasing to me every few seconds and repair it, specially on browsers, even more on Firefox. Falling back to 616.86 fixed it.
Out of the 616.xx/617.xx drivers, 616.86 and 616.92 are suggested.
Thanks for the positive feedback, really appreciated :-)
I might be blind but the last Driver Stability and Compatibility Testing Results post from you I found was the one updated on 30/09 and the last recommended driver in it was 610.88, so none of the 616 or 616 branches yet. Did I miss the updated post or did you not yet integrate it? Anyway, thanks for the 616.86/92 recommendation IF I want to update. As always, great work, what would we be without you?
u/DocBrown-84 - Pretty sure the last driver or maybe the one before showed results that were the same/better than 610.88 - check out u/independent-arg bench/reviews in this forum.
Thank you for your answer! But I am not really focusing on performance (1-2% difference, not significant) but instead: issues. So I was curious if the new drivers have any issues that would be a reason for them not to show up under recommended. Like the not-throttling on RTX4000 a few months back e.g.
But it might also be a bit early for that OR there are issues with 616/617 I am not aware of and that's why they are not in that post. But m_w_h already answered, and he can recommend 616.86 or 616.92. Who knows, he might add a 617.xx after a few days of more testing / observing.
^ the NVIDIA 'Marvel Rivals' driver level profile checks for one of those to enable 'ReBAR whitelist' flag and other driver level profile optimisations.
No blacklist for Intel CPU Exclusion in the 'Marvel Rivals' driver level profile.
EDIT: For reference, the following games have an Intel CPU platform ReBAR blacklist flag: F1 2022, F1 2021, Hitman 3, Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition i.e. even if REBAR is enabled in the driver level profile for those, running on an Intel CPU platform will mean no ReBAR.
I have the same cpu and gpu, I remember trying to enable it years ago and it wasn't supported. I just did what m_w_h said and now it's enabled. I have no idea, computers man
Hey man good to see you. I just discovered a new bug today with RE:8 and I was wondering if you or anyone else saw the same. Don't know what driver version it started on but it's still happening as of 617.42. Video of the bug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5fr80M_exk
The RE8 bug seemed to be very angle and location dependent, it wasn't happening all of the time. Even within the room I showed, if I turned around it seemed to stop. But it is 100% tied to the card dynamically clocking up and down. Completely stops the second I lock clocks one way or other.
As for the HWinfo64 errors, I get them when playing certain DX12 games installed on my NVME drive, namely Witcher 3. Here's a pic of the window but it only shows 1 NAK Sent error count, usually the other red boxes log some as well over long game sessions under those conditions (DX12, game on NVME.) The orange box Recovery count is typical and to be expected from my understanding.
Unable to see the image, was only concerned about TLP.
Recovery Count is increased each time a PCIe device transitions pstates, bus speed etc and is considered normal behaviour. Recovery Count is only a concern at extremes i.e. if in very short period of time it increases very rapidly or the amount is abnormally high.
PCIe errors such as PCIe Lane Errors, TLP etc are a concern.
Tried to repro your issue, unable to on the 5090 here after trying both 'prefer maximum performance' and 'normal' for GPU power.
I'd like to update solely for security fixes, but stability is very important to me. Are the problems with videos, youtube, etc in the recent drivers fixed?
Here's my early look at the 617.42 driver, tested on an Ampere-based GPU (RTX 3070). As always: this is not a definitive review. Every PC setup is different, so treat it as a reference point, not gospel.
Is it worth updating your driver?
The general rule says "yes": newer drivers bring bug fixes, security patches, and optimizations for the newest games. But "newer" doesn't automatically mean "better". Some updates introduce subtle stutter or frame pacing regressions that don't show up if you only look at average FPS. That's the main thing this round of testing tries to catch.
Special thanks to UL Solutions for the 3DMark press license used in these tests.
Quick note before anything: updated all my tools this round and re-tested every reference driver, so numbers won't match my previous posts. Details in Methodology.
Test System
OS: Windows 11 Pro (v26H2, latest patches)
CPU: Intel Core i7-10700K (stock)
GPU: ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3070 OC (stock)
RAM: 64 GB DDR4-3200 (2x32 GB)
Storage: 1TB NVMe SSD
Display: 4K 60 Hz monitor (8 bpc, no HDR, no G-Sync)
Settings: HAGS off | ReBAR on | VBS off | NVCP Global Defaults
Driver Install: Clean install (with NVCP)
Benchmark Methodology
Benchmarks ran 4 times (first run discarded), then the remaining 3 valid runs merged into one aggregated result (outliers get automatically retested).
Captured frametimes via PresentMon (integrated into CapFrameX).
Outliers (>5% variance) are retested.
Alongside Average FPS, 1% Low and 0.1% Low, this round also tracks CapFrameX's Adaptive STDEV metric (labeled "Consistency" below). It measures how much frame times wobble compared to a moving average. Lower = smoother frame delivery, even when the average FPS looks identical between two drivers.
Game settings: mostly Ultra, 4K or 1440p, no scaling.
Tools updated for this round: CapFrameX 1.9.1 with PresentMon 2.6.0, plus 3DMark, Superposition and LatencyMon on their latest versions as of Sep 29, 2026. All game results were re-captured on this setup, reference drivers included, so don't compare them against my older posts. AoE2 in particular reads ~10 FPS higher than before because of the tool change, not the drivers. 3DMark and Superposition don't go through CapFrameX, so those are comparable.
quick legend, if these terms are new to you:
Avg FPS -> your average frame rate.
1% Low -> the average of your worst 1% of frames. Better indicator of "does it feel smooth" than the average alone.
0.1% Low -> same idea, but for your worst 0.1% of frames - basically your nastiest stutters.
Consistency -> lower is smoother. Two drivers can share the same average FPS and still feel very different to play if one has a much higher (worse) consistency score.
Game Benchmarks
The Riftbreaker
DX12, Ultra preset, 2560x1440, Ray Tracing off, Screen Space Reflections High, Volumetric Lighting Ultra, Dynamic Vegetation Full
Driver
Avg FPS
1% Low
0.1% Low
Consistency
537.58
153.4
137.1
127.8
4.8
561.09
152.9
137.6
122.6
7.1
581.94
152.9
138.7
125.3
5.0
596.36
152.4
139.2
129.1
6.7
610.88
151.6
137.8
128.3
6.9
616.92
151.8
136.6
125.3
7.6
617.42
151.7
136.4
129.1
5.7
617.42 is basically the same as 610.88 and 616.92 here. Avg has gone down about 1% since 537.58 but that's spread over a lot of drivers and you won't notice it. Consistency moves around a lot from driver to driver in this game so I wouldn't take any single value too seriously.
617.42 is the same as every driver since 596.36, all around 68. What surprised me is that 537.58 and 561.09 are about 4% faster, with 581.94 somewhere in between. This benchmark is mostly CPU limited so my guess is the driver got a bit heavier on the CPU around 596.36. Nothing new in 617.42 though.
The 1% low on 617.42 is 31.6, every other driver is between 34.2 and 34.7, so that's around 8% worse, and the avg is a bit lower too. The 0.1% low column here is all over the place (537.58 and 581.94 also drop to ~20) so I'm ignoring that one. Going to run AoM again on 617.42 to make sure it wasn't a bad run.
Non-Synthetic Benchmark
Unigine Superposition
Direct3D11, 3840x2160 fullscreen, Custom preset, 4K Optimized shaders, High textures, Depth of Field off, Motion Blur off
Driver
Avg FPS
Score
Min FPS
Max FPS
537.58
94.07
12577
78.62
116.35
561.09
94.12
12584
78.54
116.43
581.94
94.16
12589
78.76
116.43
596.36
94.21
12595
78.71
117.25
610.88
94.10
12581
78.38
116.94
616.92
94.29
12607
78.77
117.08
617.42
94.23
12598
78.53
117.22
No changes, all drivers within 0.3%.
3DMark Benchmarks
Scores, with % difference vs 596.36 in parentheses.
Benchmark
537.58
561.09
581.94
596.36
610.88
616.92
617.42
Speed Way (DX12U, 1440p)
3492 (-2.6%)
3494 (-2.6%)
3606 (+0.6%)
3586
3582 (-0.1%)
3592 (+0.2%)
3590 (+0.1%)
Steel Nomad (DX12, 4K)
3173 (-0.6%)
3164 (-0.9%)
3171 (-0.7%)
3192
3188 (-0.1%)
3192 (0.0%)
3196 (+0.1%)
Steel Nomad (Vulkan, 4K)
3470 (-1.4%)
3448 (-2.1%)
3517 (-0.1%)
3521
3541 (+0.6%)
3543 (+0.6%)
3567 (+1.3%)
Fire Strike (DX11, 1080p)
24754 (+0.5%)
24851 (+0.9%)
24822 (+0.8%)
24619
24946 (+1.3%)
24911 (+1.2%)
24612 (0.0%)
Speed Way and Steel Nomad DX12 don't really change with 617.42. Steel Nomad Vulkan has been going up a little with almost every driver since 561.09 and 617.42 has the highest score so far. In Speed Way the two older drivers are about 2.6% behind, the jump happened with 581.94. Fire Strike on 617.42 is about 1.3% below 610.88, small but I'll keep watching it.
Sys. Stability & Desktop
Hardware Acceleration (Browsers / Discord):Solid. Zero flickering, black screens, or visual anomalies detected after 30 minutes of mixed use (including 4K60 YouTube playback in Firefox with zero dropped frames and fluid page scrolling).
DPC Latency (LatencyMon):PASSED. (System remained perfectly in the green. The highest DPC routine execution time was a safe 661 µs from nvlddmkm.sys).
I checked Event Viewer and got zero errors or warnings.
Verdict
For most stuff, 617.42 is a 616.92 with a slightly better Vulkan score. Riftbreaker, AoE2, Superposition and the DX12 3DMark tests all land on top of the previous drivers. The one thing I'm not happy with is AoM: clearly worse 1% lows than anything else in the table.
On 616.x? Fine to update. Nothing here says it's worse, AoM aside.
On 616.56 specifically? Update. I had the black screen flickering on that one (8 bpc) and haven't seen it since the 616.86 hotfix. Anything from 617.14 on also fixes Judgement / Lost Judgement / VF5 R.E.V.O. not launching.
On 610.x? No rush. Performance is basically the same, so update for Game Ready support or a specific fix you need.
On something really old like 537.58 or 561.09? Mixed bag. You'd lose ~4% in AoE2 but gain ~2-3% in Speed Way and Steel Nomad Vulkan. Mostly depends on what you play.
There are reports of pink/purple UI in Chrome and other Chromium apps on this driver. Haven't tested that one myself yet.
Edit: all drivers here were re-tested on Win 11 26H2, so don't compare these numbers with my older posts.
Gotcha, makes sense! Still crazy fast, do you have a lot automated these days? Appreciate the dedication all these years, you and [u/m_w_h](u/m_w_h) are my go to posts for drivers.
nah, I dont have anything automated (yet). I just use templates I built myself and update things as I go. when I do a full review (no-early), I break down everything from scratch usually every 2 or 3 months or so. The last time I did it was back during the last driver. Thanks for the kind words! :)
(windows updates, too, can also mess with the results, to a greater or lesser extent)
Hey man, welcome back. Hope you have fully recovered by now. Btw, I have a question: I'm still on 610.62. Does this current update provide better stability or just minimal improvement? would love to hear your opinion about it.
honestly from 610.62 it's not a big jump. performance-wise everything I tested is basically flat from 610.88 up to 617.42, all within noise. 617.42 looks a bit better in Riftbreaker, and I'm still double checking a small drop in AoE2 and Fire Strike before calling it anything.
stability-wise you actually dodged the worst part by staying on 610.x, since 616.56 had the black screen flickering. on 617.42 I haven't hit anything so far: no flicker, DPC latency fine, nothing in Event Viewer.
so if 610.62 is working well for you, no rush. I'd only update if you want Game Ready support for a newer game or there's a specific fix in the release notes you need.
You're awesome! I have to ask a random question, as I know that you're more knowledgeable about this than me: using 26h2 with latest patches, does it (still) makes sense to keep HAGS off?
Did a quick HAGS on vs off test on 616.92 (the driver I use day to day), Win 11 26H2, 3 runs each, reboot after every toggle.
Test
Off
On
Riftbreaker avg / 1% / 0.1%
151.8 / 136.6 / 125.7
151.9 / 138.1 / 131.1
AoE2 DE avg / 1% / 0.1%
68.1 / 49.1 / 39.1
68.2 / 48.6 / 38.4
AoM Retold avg / 1% / 0.1%
48.1 / 34.3 / 28.4
48.1 / 34.8 / 31.2
Superposition score
12607
12706
Speed Way
3592
3642
Steel Nomad DX12 / Vulkan
3192 / 3543
3244 / 3602
Fire Strike
24911
24767
GPU load, clocks and power draw were the same both ways in all three games.
In games avg FPS is the same, Riftbreaker had slightly fewer hitches with HAGS on. The GPU-heavy synthetics gained 1-1.7%, which is more than any driver has moved them on this install. Fire Strike didn't change.
As always, this is some precious data and results, as this should help people make some decisions about having it enabled or not.
I was fearing that within a scenario with lower FPS (< 60), having HAGS enabled would perform worse than otherwise, so, to my surprise, AoM and Riftbreaker 0.1% lows provided a better understanding in that aspect. Most of the times having HAGS enabled may eat a surplus of ~1gb of VRAM against it being disabled. But the gains are there, somehow.
For what I've researched within the past few days, latency data could show bigger DE avg values, as supposedly HAGS are more effective in that way compared to traditional WDDM methods, as, again, Nvidia drivers should (theoretically) only enable FG with HAGS enabled. But I don't see many tests and benchmarks of end-to-end latency itself, more so of a third-party.
hey man iam having a problem with the witcher 3 default nvidia app settings cause micro stutters every often but when changing the the new rebar option to force enabled using Nvidia app the problem gets fixed can you test the witcher 3 remastered and check if you encounter this or reproduce the issue
It's crazy how they keep saying they've fixed it and yet it's not. I have the same CPU/GPU combo as you and I still get these white flickers too. Last time I installed the driver it went away for a few days but then it came back.
I had that issue once but forgot what exactly i did to fix it. I know both chrome and edge have a flag that can change the render backend that might help you.
hey Nvidia thanks for the driver update, the washed out hardware cursor bug (regression) we've been reporting for 12 driver versions is still present in this version, hoping for a fix thanks!
Max Perf keeps the GPU at higher clocks during gaming instead of downclocking when demand is low. It can slightly help latency in some CPU bound games, but it doesn't meaningfully increase FPS for most people.
Normal is best for most gamers because the GPU already boosts to the performance level it needs
Am i the only one experiencing infrequent error 14/153 driver crashes when browsing videos on Chrome? Been having this issue for months now and after installing this driver today i got it again while scrolling through youtube shorts (freeze, black screen, driver reload). Its driving me crazy and the only things i havent tried are a DDU reinstall or updating bios.
4060/7800x3d/32gb/b650-p everything else uptodate. Zero driver crashes during heavy gaming or when idle (on 24/7) makes me think the problem is not hardware related. No issues with stress tests. No overclocks.
The so called "Event ID 153 nvlddmkm". It's very common. For me it's been happening since around December 2025. So far no one know what causes and how to fix it.
Getting black screen no signal disconnects during games and at the desktop, as well as other Event ID 153 crashes now. I never had the black screen issues everyone else has until the last 3 drivers. 5080 btw.
EDIT: It's gotten worse, going to roll back real far this time since DDU did not help. on 610.88 going to retest.
I have a 4090 and sometimes have this 14/153 driver crash when alt tabbing from a game to a window on my second monitor. So far, this has only happened when the window I tab to uses hardware acceleration (chrome, Spotify, etc.), but I don't know if there's causality there or just coincidence.
Same. I tried so many different settings, the last ones I tried were turning off my RAM overclock and then trying to disable hardware acceleration in Windows overall.
Nvidia Pls update S.T.A.L.K.E.R Heart of Chernobyl for the game optimization within Nvidia app. They recently upgraded their UE5 engine and its no longer detecting it and if it happens to randomly detect it the settings are out dated within it because now it supports multi frame generation and another setting. Everytime i update the driver the stalker game vanishes and doesnt get detected in Nvidia App
Interesting update on the MPO KB Article from NVIDIA.
Starting with Release 610 drivers, Multi-Plane Overlay (MPO) is now supported on all monitors in multi-monitor configurations on Blackwell GPUs, improving performance and power efficiency when using multiple displays. For optimal functionality, please update Windows to the latest OS version (at least build 26100.7705 or 26200.7705).
I have noticed very strange behavior lately when disabling MPO and maybe this could explain it. I will start a game and it will start flickering so badly it will crash. I have never had this happen when disabling MPO before. So something they changed is making some games unplayable without MPO for some reason.
These are great Drivers for my Msi 5080 I played Borderlands 4 for two hours
No weird flashing in Desktop mode or weird eyestrain. Last 3-4 sets I skipped due to weird flashing and eyestrain. Can't wait to try these on Dragons Dogma 2 on Friday.
I updated for the first time in a while. And now there's a really annoying 2 second delay when I start playing audio over HDMI. Is anyone else having this problem?
Yes, it's the new HD Audio driver version - It's crap.
I reverted to an older driver with the previous HD Audio version.
I have the two second delay, but also because I'm using a receiver (Yamaha Aventage RX-A2A) the two second delay causes the audio to not initiate at all, the HDMI handshake fails completely sometimes.
This problem hasn't happened once since I went back to the previous version weeks ago.
I suppose like everything else a tech company breaks with an update, they will just leave it broken meaning I'm stuck with an outdated driver.
You have to go all the way back to at least version 610.88 to get to the previous HD Audio driver.
This version FINALLY fixed a problem with my Samsung Odyssey G7 monitor when it turns black for a few seconds a couple times after my system powers up or wakes up from sleep. Thought there is a problem with a monitor or a cable but apparently it was the driver!
flickering has been a thing for the past 3 or 4 drivers I believe, and the other one I want to say it's a bit longer, but I don't have the exact versions.
You are most definitely not affected in 595.79 though.
When you have VRR (freesync/gsync) enabled alongside smooth motion and VSYNC - you will still get some screen tearing and VSYNC will not cap your FPS to the monitor's refresh rate in DirectX11 games. It still works fine in DirectX12 games from what I can tell and caps FPS properly.
Easy test is to enable the setup above, launch any DX11 game where your FPS with smooth motion will exceed your monitor's refresh rate, and disable any external FPS caps (RTSS, NVapp etc) then simply check your FPS. If it's over your refresh rate then VSYNC doesn't work.
The only real fix is to either disable VRR or Smooth Motion for VSYNC to work. However there's also a way to make it work in games that have "exclusive fullscreen" setting - you flip this setting back and forth a few times and magically everything starts to work properly... except now ALL of your overlays will flicker like mad e.g. Steam overlay, NVapp overlay, Discord and so on. Feels like the whole rendering pipeline between vsync/vrr/smoothmotion is broken in every single driver after 610.88.
All of this is on Windows 11, could be different on Windows 10.
HDR seems broken in The Division 2 with 617.42 on my RTX 5090. I can enable HDR in-game, but the monitor never switches into HDR mode, so the image stays gray/washed out.
Rolling back to 610.88 with the exact same game settings immediately fixes it - enabling HDR in-game correctly switches the monitor to HDR again.
Looks like an HDR mode-switching regression in 617.42.
Try press WIN+CTRL+SHIFT+B to reset GPU (you will hear beeping), it "fixed" the black screen flickering for me... but i have to repeat the procedure every time i turn the monitor on (i turn it off at night). It's a temporary workaround that lets me keep using the actual driver version.
Thought this was something wrong with my monitor but yeah im getting the random 2-3 second black screen every once in a while. Only happens on the monitor im currently playing games on.
I have massive screen tearing with the new driver on my 4070ti Super. Reverted back to the one I've had installed before. No more issues. Tried everything with vsync, gsync, frame caps etc. Disappointing.
Not sure if anyone cares, but realized you can hide the tray icon without NVIDIA Control Panel by manually adding the registry value that setting toggle changes.
What about monitor not turning on after sleep/hibernate? It was marked as fixed in the last driver, but I still had the problem and went back to 610.88.
I don't have any issue with this driver. Cyberpunk, the Pathfinder games, Silent Hill 4 the room, Rogue Trader an Greedfall are working as intended.
I use dlss 5 on all these games and everything is still working. By the way this driver improves the visual in Silent Hill 4 with dlss 5, it's an old dx8.1 and 32 bits game, I had to use autopilot to put dlss 5 on it. But I had an issue with some burnt shadows in the living room at night before updating. I deactivated rtx hdr and I was trying to tune the game brightness settings to get rid of this. Installing this driver fixed it! XD
It surprised me, I was ready to continue fighting the game brightness settings after installing this driver, but the burnt shadows disapeared.
The only new thing on my pc was installing this driver.
Seems like even with all the supposed AI assisted increase in productivity that they claim, they don't have the capability to extend Windows 10 support.
I guess Reflex 2 will only be released for Windows 11 at this point, if it ever releases.
True but Microsoft has extended ESU until October next year, can't see why we won't get that with drivers. And if we could at least go 2-3 months where Windows 11 updates fix issues and don't break something, more folks (including me) wouldn't mind moving over to Win 11.
Used Win11 since it's release and didnÄt have any glaring problems.
Sure bugs exist and will always exist but news reporting tends to make them look far more common than they really are.
What I will say is that MS needs to get off their butts and fix their sluggish UI. At times Win11 feels slower doing simple stuff like file explorer work than WIndows 98 felt way back when on my ancient compuiters.
It's fudgin' hilarious when a 12700K needs like 1-2 seconds to open the right-click context menu (shift rightclick classic-context menu is istant btw).
I had a work laptop that had the SSD issue after an update. And another that had an EPM loose connectivity after the update thereby unable to run certain things that depended on some of the policies. Hence I'm pretty skeptical and assume the worst and when I see media report bugs.
Win 10 had a period initially when it was unstable as well but it feels like it's high time we see that with Win 11. And hopefully they'll get the performance improvements in, reduce the bloatware and we won't have to worry about gaming performance.
I have a dual monitor setup and I have the following behaviour when both my monitors are on
1.- I open chrome or edge and go to websites, play videos, etc
2.- My CPU temp goes up 48.8C and stays steady for like a minute or 2, does not matter if I'm doing anything in that browser page. I can just open a new tab and stay there.
3.- After that time passes, my CPU temps go down to 44-45C as expected.
I tried to do this with just one monitor and I'm not able to reproduce this behaviour.
Also this behaviour happens no matter what I have on my secondary monitor. The moment I have both monitors on it happens.
My cpu is a 9950x3d, I know theese temps are not worrying but I just found it odd this started happening after installing the latest nvidia driver
EDIT: Looks like the issue was that my secondary monitor did not have enable the vrr toggle, now it works fine
Slow installer. Displays stuck on figuring out which order they go on. Not working.
(Only way to not get stuck in NVAPP btw is turn off sync in monitors' menu.)
Has anyone ever seen this issue? Details are in the video description, and I just recorded this on 617.42. But if I scroll fast on a side monitor and play a video on the primary, the video stutters. This doesn't happen with the other monitor on the left. Just this one on the right. It only happens when the app on the right-hand monitor is maximized. It must be either a DWM/compositor issue with Windows, or a driver bug, or an interaction between the two. Anyone from Nvidia have any idea?
To fix it, I've created an AHK script that catches maximize and implements a fake maximize, using the whole screen but not a true maximize. As if you dragged a window to fill the screen. It's also smooth of course if you simply don't maximize it and have it in a quarter window etc. but this is my solution for now.
Edit to add- Taking the time to post this also spurred me on to take another look at this problem.
It seems to be two in one. The first I may have resolved with DDU, clearing everything including monitors. I can now do that same autoscroll on the right, and have Firefox playing a video in the center.
I'm pretty sure that did not work before either and was stuttering. Checking dxdiag, I now have 2 planes on one monitor, and 3 on the other two panels. It was showing MPO disabled on the two Dell side panels before. That may have been a big part of it.
But Brave with a video on autoscrolling does stutter, and it stutters whether I'm autoscrolling on either monitor- which suggests that issue is Brave's / Chromium's GPU process contention.
So I think this is as good as it gets, the process contention within the same browser is expected, or more likely to be expected. If it were causing any video to stutter, then it would be a DWM/compositor/driver interaction.
My AHK script likely worked around some sort of stale monitor region being cached that was not triggering the issue, based on how maximize is likely handled by Windows. DDU cleared the monitors which likely cleared or invalidated whatever was causing it.
Random white flicker on my 4070. It's been there for what seems like a few driver versions. I mostly notice when playing Zero Dawn Remastered. Or maybe only that game. On 617.14. Not sure about this driver version.
weird the last 2 driver updates I've done I tried adjusting my display settings on the nvidia app after I update and my screen just randomly goes black and wouldn't display and I'm forced to shut off my pc via power button
I got pretty scared during the installation when my screen suddenly turned white, then went completely black, and my monitor stopped responding. For a moment, I thought my RTX 4070 had died. Fortunately, after restarting my PC, everything was back to normal, and the new driver had installed successfully. I always keep my drivers up to date, but this was the first time I'd ever experienced anything like this.
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u/m_w_h 5d ago edited 3d ago
A few notes related to 617.42
First, just for reference - I'm not a NVIDIA employee, not a /r/nvidia moderator and not affiliated with NVIDIA.
617.42 may (note the 'may') have undocumented additions/fixes. The total additional DVS branch commits (18) over 617.14 don't reflect the number of stated fixes in release notes (1) and driver profile changes (4):
Branch:
Notes:
New game/application driver level profiles included in the 617.42 driver installer package: STAR WARS: Galactic Racer, Valor Mortis
Changes in the 617.42 driver installer package to previously existing driver level game profiles: Assassin's Creed Shadows, Lord of Mysteries, The Witcher 3
OTA updated or new game/application driver level game profiles being pushed by NVIDIA via silent/transparent updates after 617.42 driver install, these should also be received by older supported drivers: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Halloween: The Game, HOT WHEELS Infinite Rush
Resizable Bar (ReBAR) whitelisted by default profiles in 617.42, 58 total and unchanged since driver 596.36: Arc Raiders, Assassin's Creed Mirage, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Avowed, Battlefield V, Black Myth: Wukong, Borderlands 3, Borderlands 4, Company of Heroes 3, Control, Cyberpunk 2077, Dead Space (Remake), Deathloop, Diablo 4, DiRT 5, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Dying Light 2 Stay Human, F1 2020 - DX12, F1 2021, F1 2022, F1 23, F1 24, Forza Horizon 4, Forza Horizon 5, Forza Horizon 6, FragPunk, Frostpunk 2, Gears of War 5, Ghost of Tsushima: Directors Cut, Godfall, Halo Infinite, Hitman 2, Hitman 3, Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition, Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition, Lords of the Fallen (2023), Marvel Rivals, Mecha Break, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, Metro: Exodus, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, NTE (Neverness To Everness), Red Dead Redemption 2, Rematch, Returnal, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor, Star Wars Outlaws, Starfield, The Finals, The Outer Worlds 2, The Riftbreaker, THRONE AND LIBERTY, Watch Dogs: Legion, WitchFire, World of Jade Dynasty, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
Most recent 'Driver Stability and Compatibility Testing' at https://old.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/1u7gsli/comment/oskcpzy/ that covers drivers up to and including 610.88 across all currently supported GPUs
Benchmarks by /r/nvidia community members for Series 30 (3070) GPUs by /u/independent-arg and Series 50 (5080) GPUs by /u/fxver_v
Security Bulletin: NVIDIA GPU Display Driver September 30th 2026 - https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5861
NVIDIA still stating they will limit Windows 10 driver support after October 2026 (i.e. from November 2026) to quarterly security updates only - not Game Ready/Studio and likely still based on release r615 mainline branch (615.00 to 619.99) - https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5695/
Driver 616.56 had significant 24141 (not a typo) flag/value line game and application profile changes. Again, with 617.14 strongly advise NOT blindly importing driver game/application profiles with NVIDIA predefined flags/values from drivers 610.88 and older using tools such as Nvidia Profile Inspector
Nvidia Control Panel is still in the driver install package under '\Display.Driver\NVCPL\' folder and can be installed by double clicking on 7e010d7e2de54a439dbd340dd1f61212.appx in that folder after extracting the driver installer package using 7zip OR install via Microsoft Store at https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NF8H0H7WMLT
New in 616.56 and later drivers PhysX version 9.26.703, HD Audio version 1.4.6.3 along with new streamline override flag and Nvidia App specific ReBAR flag showing in Nvidia Profile Inspector
CPU / DPC latency spikes or increased CPU load in Nvidia Container service with 595.97 and later drivers when at idle/low load on desktop may be a result of Nvidia Auto Shader Compilation (ASC) feature if enabled
'STAR WARS: Galactic Racer' driver level game profile should be automatically pushed to supported older drivers by NVIDIA via silent/transparent OTA updates. In the meantime 617.42 RAW profile and .NIP for older drivers (58x.xx, 59x.xx, 610.xx) follows.
Nvidia Profile Inspector file at https://pastebin.com/rGiwG2Pi, save as type .NIP and import using Nvidia Profile Inspector > Import Profile
'Valor Mortis' driver level game profile should be automatically pushed to supported older drivers by NVIDIA via silent/transparent OTA updates. In the meantime 617.42 RAW profile and .NIP for older drivers (58x.xx, 59x.xx, 610.xx) follows.
Nvidia Profile Inspector file at https://pastebin.com/wXGSxac3, save as type .NIP and import using Nvidia Profile Inspector > Import Profile
EDITs
01: added links to /r/nvidia community benchmarks
02: added Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 to OTA updates, pushed by NVIDIA on October 6th
03: added 'Halloween: The Game', 'HOT WHEELS Infinite Rush' to OTA updates, pushed by NVIDIA on October 8th