NVIDIA Game Ready Driver 572.XX Poses Severe Issues for RTX 40 Series Users: Crashes, Black Screens, and More Reported!

NVIDIA has found itself in hot water recently, as its newest GPU drivers have been creating a host of issues for both the GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs and their older counterparts. Despite growing frustration among users, the company has been slow to address these problems.

Over the past few weeks, numerous reports have surfaced pointing the finger at GPU Driver version 572.XX as the source of headaches for those with RTX 40-based systems. Since the RTX 50 series hit the market back in January, NVIDIA has seemed to put bug fixes for the RTX 40 series on the back burner. This is a classic move as companies often shift focus to their latest products. Although the RTX 50 series didn’t dodge issues of its own, such as dreaded blue screens of death, the RTX 40 series was holding up pretty well under previous drivers. That is, until NVIDIA rolled out RTX 50-compatible drivers, stirring up complex issues for users of the older GPUs.

In one instance, a Redditor going by the handle u/Soctty1992 shared his frustrating journey with driver 572.XX. He compiled numerous reports of overlapping bugs, such as hard crashes, black screens, and display troubles—issues that were practically unheard of before the release of these drivers.

A compelling point to note is many users found relief by reverting to the previous 566.XX drivers. This rollback became popular after NVIDIA pushed the 572.16 driver on January 30th to support the newest RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 cards. The RTX 50 series came packed with fresh features like DLSS 4, Multi-Frame Generation, and DLSS Override. It’s important to mention that not every user who enabled these features faced issues, but there’s a mix of factors at play that clearly warrants attention.

Take, for example, one user who reported that his RTX 4080 consistently crashed when launching Cyberpunk 2077, only to be resolved with pre-572.XX drivers. Another user dealing with an RTX 4090 found himself plagued by black screens, freezes, and even non-responsive monitors, all of which were alleviated by switching back to the 566.XX drivers.

Despite user dissatisfaction bubbling since late January, NVIDIA’s response has been disappointing. The company has largely focused on fixing BSOD issues within the RTX 50-series, yet it took weeks to resolve those as well. As a result, many RTX 40 owners have been left with no choice but to revert to older drivers. In doing so, however, they miss out on the perks introduced in recent updates, like the Transformer Model DLSS 4, updated Ray Reconstruction, and a refreshed lineup of DLSS-supported games.