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

The recent series of driver updates from NVIDIA, specifically aimed at addressing compatibility with the new GeForce RTX 50 series, have inadvertently thrown a wrench in the performance of previous-generation RTX 40 series GPUs. Owners of these GPUs, along with even older models, are experiencing a slew of problems, yet NVIDIA has been slow to acknowledge or provide solutions to these issues.

Since the RTX 50 series hit the market back in January, NVIDIA’s focus on its latest line has left previous models somewhat neglected in terms of maintenance and support. While the RTX 50 series faced its challenges, including the notorious Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) problems, the RTX 40 series was performing admirably until the release of these RTX 50-compatible drivers, marked as 572.XX. This update seems to be wreaking havoc on RTX 40 systems in particular.

One Redditor, known as u/Soctty1992, shared his frustrating experiences with these updates, and his story echoes across numerous similar complaints from others. The troubles range from severe system crashes to ominous black screens and unexpected display errors, phenomena that were rare prior to the infamous 572.XX update.

Interestingly, many affected users reported that rolling back to the earlier 566.XX drivers helped restore stability and performance. This older version predates NVIDIA’s January 30th release of the 572.16 drivers, designed to support the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 along with new features like DLSS 4, Multi-Frame Generation, and DLSS Override. While the issues don’t consistently occur when these features are enabled, they seem to arise from a complex interplay of factors that remain under-explored.

Take, for instance, a user running Cyberpunk 2077 on an RTX 4080; the game repeatedly crashed on startup until he reverted to using pre-572.XX drivers. Similarly, someone with an RTX 4090 faced persistent glitches including black screens and freezing, issues resolved only with a rollback to 566.XX.

NVIDIA has largely sidestepped these bug difficulties, despite users actively reporting them since late January. They’ve chosen to prioritize resolving BSOD issues for RTX 50 setups, and even that was a slow process taking multiple weeks. As a result, many RTX 40 owners have been trapped in a frustrating cycle: either endure the problems or sacrifice the benefits of new drivers, such as the Transformer Model DLSS 4, enhanced Ray Reconstruction, and the latest integrations into the DLSS-supported games roster.