NVIDIA driver 572.XX causes instability for RTX 30 and RTX 40 GPUs – developers advise against update

While NVIDIA officially supports its RTX-50 GPUs with the 572.XX driver series, the company appears to be causing growing dissatisfaction among owners of older Ampere and Ada-Lovelace cards. Several developer studios are publicly warning against using the latest driver versions for the RTX-30 and RTX-40 series. The reasons are tangible: instabilities, crashes and sometimes massive drops in performance have become more frequent since the release of the new software.

Recommended return to older drivers

Two current titles in particular are coming into focus: inZoi and The First Berserker: Khazan. Both games have recently been released and are apparently particularly susceptible to the problem areas in the current NVIDIA driver package. The responsible development teams therefore feel compelled to make explicit recommendations against using the 572.XX drivers on older cards. For RTX-40 GPUs, the recommendation is to use version 566.36, which was released in December 2024, i.e. before the official launch of the RTX-50 series. The latter, on the other hand, is not affected by the use of the 572.83 drivers – at least not to the same extent.

I've been pretty vocal about the issues I've been experiencing with the newer Nvidia drivers, any 572.xx version, and have been told it's my PC by many people (it's not). The devs of InZoi and Khazan have now recommend people use 565.xx drivers due to possible instability. pic.twitter.com/UUhebpZvu3

— Mostly Positive Reviews (@mpr_reviews) March 30, 2025

Different effects by generation

While the RTX-50 series struggled with known black screen problems in its early phase, which NVIDIA claims to have addressed in the meantime, there are now clear deficits in the driver maintenance of older generations. Gamers with RTX 40 GPUs are reporting stutters, inexplicable frame rate drops and, in some cases, complete system crashes. RTX 30 users are not spared either, albeit to a lesser extent. According to the developers, a rollback to drivers from the 566 series can provide a remedy. However, this solution is not available to owners of the RTX 50 series – older driver versions simply do not support these GPUs. The result is a strange balancing act: while the latest cards technically have to live with the latest drivers, RTX 40 and RTX 30 users still have a choice – and should use it, according to developers.

NVIDIA remains silent, developers take action

The silence from the official side so far is striking. Despite the growing number of user reports in relevant forums, Reddit threads and on X (formerly Twitter), NVIDIA does not seem to see any need to comment on the reports or offer temporary solutions. The reaction of the studios, on the other hand, is pragmatic: they publish specific information on compatible driver versions in their support channels and in-game FAQs. The problem is not new. There have already been reports of occasional instabilities with previous releases, but this time the situation seems to have escalated. The fact that games that are only a few days old are already launching with specific driver recommendations underlines the seriousness of the situation.

Driver policy with background noise

One aspect that should not be neglected: NVIDIA is increasingly focusing on the enterprise and AI market. Gaming GPUs now account for a rather marginal share of sales. This raises the suspicion that software maintenance and optimization for consumer products are now being given lower priority. The abandonment of backwards compatibility of older drivers with new cards fits into this picture. For users of the RTX-30 and RTX-40 series, this means there is a clear need for action. Anyone who has installed the latest 572.83 driver in the past few days and is suddenly struggling with system instability should switch back to the 566.36 version as soon as possible. In many cases, a new installation is unavoidable, as NVIDIA is known to leave little room for parallel versions. The current driver problems at NVIDIA once again highlight the strained relationship between hardware manufacturers and game developers. While the latter are dependent on stable platforms, NVIDIA seems to be increasingly setting its own priorities. The ball is now in the company’s court to communicate the obvious problems transparently – or at least to mitigate them with rapid bug fixes. Until then, the only option is to use older software – and another chapter in the long history of drivers that are intended to solve more problems than they create.

Source: mpr_reviews, inZoi, Khazan