Nvidia accused of prioritizing RTX 5000 series as users report game crashes in older cards

[midian182]

A hot potato: To say the RTX 5000 launch has been far from smooth would be an understatement. Among the issues plaguing the new card have been black/blue screens of death and system instability problems. Nvidia rolled out fixes in recent weeks, but several owners of RTX 4000 and 3000 cards say their symptoms haven't gone away, and that Nvidia is prioritizing fixing the RTX 5000 series.

It was back in February when reports of the issues first arrived. They seemed to originate from Nvidia's 572.16 driver release, which enabled RTX 50 support.

RTX 40- and 30-series cards were impacted, but the 50-series was the worst affected. There were reports of some users getting around the problems by capping their display's refresh rate at 60Hz, which isn't what you want when gaming on high-end cards.

Nvidia quickly confirmed that it was investigating the issues and would be releasing driver updates to address them. Several have been pushed out since then, and while they seem to have fixed (most of) the problems in the RTX 5000 line, they haven't been as effective for older graphics cards, and Nvidia is doing little to help.

A user on the r/hardware Reddit forums has compiled a list of posts from other RTX 4000 and RTX 3000 owners who are continuing to experience BSODs and other system issues.

PSA: Nvidia Widespread Black Screen or Hard OS Crash Issues on 4xxx (or older) Series Cards Need To Be Widely Known & Fixed.
byu/Scotty1992 inhardware

Post author Scotty1992 writes that rolling back to the 566.36 driver was the only way to fix the problems impacting his Asus RTX 4070 Ti Super TUF card, the symptoms of which included Cyberpunk 2077 crashing his entire PC. Unfortunately, rolling back the driver has resulted in him being locked out of certain games, such as Half-Life 2 RTX, and unable to access newer Nvidia features.

Some of the posts say the crashes – and sometimes performance dips – occur when DLSS Frame Generation is used in conjunction with G-Sync. One of the suggested fixes, other than rolling back the driver, is to use an older version of DLSS and/or disable G-sync.

In addition to Cyberpunk 2077, affected games include Alan Wake 2, God of War Ragnarok, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – mostly demanding titles that many users prefer to play with Frame Generation enabled.

The big point of contention is that Nvidia seems to be focusing entirely on addressing the issues in RTX 5000 series cards while caring little about older generations, making no mention of RTX 40-series cards in its driver releases.

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Nvidia accused of prioritizing RTX 5000 series as users report game crashes in older cards

 

[opckieran]

Unthinkable that anybody would prioritize their newest stuff like that!

/s

Have they tried CUDA or AI for their drivers?

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Oh how the turn tables!

 

[magoid]

I'm pretty sure those reports of bugs on Nvidia drivers are fake news, perpetrated by disgruntled AMD owners, that have envy of Nvidia's perfectly stable drivers and 15x better performance on ray tracing.

 

[Loadedaxe]

I'm pretty sure those reports of bugs on Nvidia drivers are fake news, perpetrated by disgruntled AMD owners, that have envy of Nvidia's perfectly stable drivers and 15x better performance on ray tracing.

I cant tell if your serious or being sarcastic.
It’s understandable to have brand loyalty, but dismissing all reports of Nvidia driver issues as "fake news" isn’t really fair. No company is perfect, Nvidia, AMD, and Intel have all had their share of driver bugs.

Nvidia drivers have occasionally introduced problems, just like any other hardware vendor. The only way to know is user reports, that is how things get reported and fixed in todays society.

Assuming an agenda behind every complaint is just as pointless as having one.

 

[CrisisDog]

I'm pretty sure those reports of bugs on Nvidia drivers are fake news, perpetrated by disgruntled AMD owners, that have envy of Nvidia's perfectly stable drivers and 15x better performance on ray tracing.

Uuuh, okay. But my rig with a Radeon 7900 XTX seems faster and more stable than my rig with the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, so yeah, there’s that…

 

[magoid]

Guys, I was being sarcastic.

 

[yukka]

I’ve not used my Pc much in the last 2 weeks but it’s been completely stable using the newest nvidia drivers (4070 times out of super) prior to my short break. I updated to the newest drivers a few days ago then last night twice in a row just watching YouTube, the system just goes to a black screen, no output from the DisplayPort or hdmi cables. Nothing. Had to do a hard reset. About 20 minutes later it did the same again and this time I needed to pull the plug out of the PC for a few seconds before it would post.

Rolled back to the previous driver. But not good at all.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I rarely update my GPU driver. I've gone 1-2 years without updating them before and still playing newer and older games without issues.

The last time I updated my GPU driver was to actually see if the most recent driver for Nvidia that game out after STALKER 2 released to see if it resolved a graphical bug, which it did not, so either the issue was the game itself or Nvidia just hasn't tried to resolve that bug with their drivers yet. Otherwise I was using a driver from 8 months prior.

Many times the "if it isn't broken then don't fix it" approach is the best way to deal with drivers.

People that constantly update their drivers are bound to run into more problems. Clearly if you have a new gen GPU you have to use drivers out that support it, but if you're not using a new gen GPU you really have no need to update your drivers unless you run into an actual problem that a newer driver should fix for you.

 

[yRaz]

Guys, I was being sarcastic.

There enough fools on the internet that you really can't be certain anymore.

 

[Billybobjoey]

I updated to the newest drivers a few days ago then last night twice in a row just watching YouTube, the system just goes to a black screen, no output from the DisplayPort or hdmi cables. Nothing. Had to do a hard reset. About 20 minutes later it did the same again and this time I needed to pull the plug out of the PC for a few seconds before it would post.

I believe this was before the HL2RTX driver, but I didn't think anything of it until I saw your comment. I have a 4080 (non super) and after I closed a game (yes, not while it was running, while trying to close it from the main menu which makes this extra stupid) I had the exact same thing you described where the monitors just go black until I hard reset. This was like 2 weekends ago and I haven't run into it before this or again since, but it's super weird and even weirder how it seems to effect some cards more than others.

 

[ChipBoundary]

I rarely update my GPU driver. I've gone 1-2 years without updating them before and still playing newer and older games without issues.

The last time I updated my GPU driver was to actually see if the most recent driver for Nvidia that game out after STALKER 2 released to see if it resolved a graphical bug, which it did not, so either the issue was the game itself or Nvidia just hasn't tried to resolve that bug with their drivers yet. Otherwise I was using a driver from 8 months prior.

Many times the "if it isn't broken then don't fix it" approach is the best way to deal with drivers.

People that constantly update their drivers are bound to run into more problems. Clearly if you have a new gen GPU you have to use drivers out that support it, but if you're not using a new gen GPU you really have no need to update your drivers unless you run into an actual problem that a newer driver should fix for you.

No, just...no. please take your "advice" elsewhere. I have remained up to date on drivers for my entire life and rarely ran into an issue. If I do, I roll back the driver and try again or wait for a fix. That's happened maybe three or four times in the last two decades.

The ONLY time not to update drivers is if there is a genuine issue with the latest update that requires rolling back. And most issues don't even require rolling back, they're super minor and can be ignored.

I have a 40 series card and play the latest games, even with RTX on, and experience none of the issues the handful of users are reporting. The more likely issue is, the update highlighted an issue that already existed on their machine. Or, the driver update got corrupted when installed. Which would be fixed by a simple use of DDU and a fresh install of the latest drivers.

 

[ChipBoundary]

I’ve not used my Pc much in the last 2 weeks but it’s been completely stable using the newest nvidia drivers (4070 times out of super) prior to my short break. I updated to the newest drivers a few days ago then last night twice in a row just watching YouTube, the system just goes to a black screen, no output from the DisplayPort or hdmi cables. Nothing. Had to do a hard reset. About 20 minutes later it did the same again and this time I needed to pull the plug out of the PC for a few seconds before it would post.

Rolled back to the previous driver. But not good at all.

Your driver most likely got corrupt when installed. Try a fresh download of the update, run DDU, and reinstall. I'm on the latest drivers and am experiencing none of the issues.

 

[ChipBoundary]

I cant tell if your serious or being sarcastic.
It’s understandable to have brand loyalty, but dismissing all reports of Nvidia driver issues as "fake news" isn’t really fair. No company is perfect, Nvidia, AMD, and Intel have all had their share of driver bugs.

Nvidia drivers have occasionally introduced problems, just like any other hardware vendor. The only way to know is user reports, that is how things get reported and fixed in todays society.

Assuming an agenda behind every complaint is just as pointless as having one.

Granted you were replying to a guy being sarcastic, but you highlight an important point: don't ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. The reality is 99.9% of users don't know what they're doing and will never know what they're doing. The most likely cause of issues is almost always corruption during install. However, users are too ignorant to know that, this they go on the Internet and complain.

Now, keep in mind, this applies regardless of brand. I see this all the time in phones where handful of users assume a bug in an update do an issue. If a bug existed it would be WAY more widespread, meaning basically everybody would have it. But if it's only a handful of users complaining online, you can almost guarantee it is related to another issue.

 

[redgarl]

My 2 cents on the matter, I believe this is due to CUDA now be 64bit only with the 5000 series.

Nvidia tried to fix their driver and they screwed up the older generation at the same time.

 

[redgarl]

I'm pretty sure those reports of bugs on Nvidia drivers are fake news, perpetrated by disgruntled AMD owners, that have envy of Nvidia's perfectly stable drivers and 15x better performance on ray tracing.

ROFL... NVDelusionals were GASLIGHTING about driver issues with AMD GPUs for years.

I owned RDNA1, RDNA2 and RDNA3 GPUs and I NEVER had any of the aforementioned issues.

Even Steve reported the issues about the 5700XT disclose on social media, but even after testing dozen of cards, he was not able to report a single instance.

 

[Loadedaxe]

Guys, I was being sarcastic.

thank god

 

[sreams]

Unthinkable that anybody would prioritize their newest stuff like that!

/s

Have they tried CUDA or AI for their drivers?

Unthinkable that they would prioritize cards that nobody can get and nearly nobody has.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

No, just...no. please take your "advice" elsewhere. I have remained up to date on drivers for my entire life and rarely ran into an issue. If I do, I roll back the driver and try again or wait for a fix. That's happened maybe three or four times in the last two decades.

The ONLY time not to update drivers is if there is a genuine issue with the latest update that requires rolling back. And most issues don't even require rolling back, they're super minor and can be ignored.

I have a 40 series card and play the latest games, even with RTX on, and experience none of the issues the handful of users are reporting. The more likely issue is, the update highlighted an issue that already existed on their machine. Or, the driver update got corrupted when installed. Which would be fixed by a simple use of DDU and a fresh install of the latest drivers.

You just confirmed what I said by saying that you ran into issues, even if rarely. This is why I say don't fix something that isn't broke. You don't have to agree.

I've had a myriad of issues with Nvidia drivers over the years, such as:
* green pixels in shadows
* video formats that worked before no longer playing
* monitors not waking up from sleep
* drop in performance
* image flickering
* games what worked fine to no longer working properly
* fan profiles not working
* second monitor no longer displaying image
and those are just the ones I can recall.

I've had fewer issues with not upgrading my video driver and using one for months and months over upgrading to the newest every time one is released. I'm just letting people know my experience. Doesn't hurt my feelings if you don't agree with me, but telling people to take their experience elsewhere because it doesn't jive with yours is childish. I won't tell you not to upgrade your driver or tell you that you're wrong just because you like to upgrade every time one gets released.

You do you, I'll do me.

 

[WhiteLeaff]

That's so funny. Nvidia as a $2-3T company can't deliver stable drivers and reliable products XD

 

[kiwigraeme]

Granted you were replying to a guy being sarcastic, but you highlight an important point: don't ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. The reality is 99.9% of users don't know what they're doing and will never know what they're doing. The most likely cause of issues is almost always corruption during install. However, users are too ignorant to know that, this they go on the Internet and complain.

Now, keep in mind, this applies regardless of brand. I see this all the time in phones where handful of users assume a bug in an update do an issue. If a bug existed it would be WAY more widespread, meaning basically everybody would have it. But if it's only a handful of users complaining online, you can almost guarantee it is related to another issue.

Let's assume your point is true at 90% of users. really is it their vault . Nvidia update does a mess. Plenty of deveopers clean up old install of apps really well, before a new install.

Even MS messes this up , can't install updates and fails , BSOD , just get a error code that has 101 causes
Some of the fixes quite technical , beyond even many users know how . I'e 20x worse that running scannow , check c drive, memory etc

Apple , Google, Samsung ( just other day soundbars ) brick devices or seriously mess stuff up. Apparently from someone way back on here MS cut back real-world QC , ie thousands of real PCs with all different configs , to more virtualisations of the aforementioned.

Ie these companies are penny pinching , hoping it's all right, knowing people have goldfish memories of myth

 

[Theinsanegamer]

ROFL... NVDelusionals were GASLIGHTING about driver issues with AMD GPUs for years.

I owned RDNA1, RDNA2 and RDNA3 GPUs and I NEVER had any of the aforementioned issues.

Even Steve reported the issues about the 5700XT disclose on social media, but even after testing dozen of cards, he was not able to report a single instance.

Just because you did not experience issues does not mean issues do not exist. Describing people with ad hominems doesnt help your cause either.

I've had, and still have, some issues with my rDNA2 card, and the rDNA1 build I built for someone else had some driver issues as well. Nothing earthshattering, but lets not pretend AMD is some kind of saint. Much like nvidia, they got their reputation for a reason. Given how complex modern systems are, it is entirely possible that Steve could test every combo of motherboard and card on earth and not see the issue, how do you think these issues make it into the real world in the first place?

 

[opckieran]

Unthinkable that they would prioritize cards that nobody can get and nearly nobody has.

They don't see it that way unfortunately. Imagine, if nVidia fixed their older cards first, they'd be criticized the other way around: for "abandoning the 50 series" which is already a colossal dumpster fire. It's a lose-lose no matter what!

 

[Azurelas]

Same issue here on my 3080 system. Black screen, won't post. It's so bad (probably due to the VBIOS on the GPU) that the 3080 won't even post anymore. Thankfully, I have a spare GTX 950, but it also black screens on the new drivers: it will only run on the generic Windows display driver.

I'm old enough to remember when AMD drivers actually bricked GPUs.

My next card is an RX 9070XT.

 

[umeng2002]

Come on guys, the 40 series is obsolete. Just buy a 50 series card.