NVIDIA's New Hotfix GPU Driver Stops These Games From Crashing

Petting a happy dog in Final Fantasy XVI.
In case you missed it, NVIDIA recently pushed out a new WHQL-certified driver package for GeForce hardware, version 572.16. That went out on January 30 to coincide with the retail release of its GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5080 graphics cards. In the days since, however, NVIDIA has made available a hotfix GPU driver that you won't find in the NVIDIA App (which replaces GeForce Experience).

Why is that? NVIDIA's hotfixes are basically out-of-band updates designed to fix specific issues in a more timely manner.

"The GeForce hotfix driver is our way to trying to get some of these fixes out to you more quickly. These drivers are basically the same as the previous released version, with a small number of additional targeted fixes. The fixes that make it in are based in part on your feedback in the Driver Feedback threads and partly on how realistic it is for us to quickly address them," NVIDIA explains.

If you're not affected by the issue(s) a hotfix driver addresses, you can skip it without missing out on anything. The same fixes are rolled into the next official driver release anyway, so they'll eventually find their way to your PC (assuming you keep up with installing the latest GPU drivers for your graphics card).

In this case, NVIDIA's new 572.24 hotfix driver stomps out a couple of show-stopping bugs. As hinted by the image up top, one of those is in Final Fantasy XVI. On GeForce-powered gaming PCs running Windows 11 23H2, the game may freeze up. It's not clear how prevalent the issue is and whether it affects all GeForce GPUs, but if you're running into that issue, give the hotfix a whirl and see if it goes away.

Valorant characters wielding weapons.

The other issue the hotfix addresses is one that is specific to GeForce RTX 5080 owners. According to the release notes, the GeForce 527.24 hotfix stomps out a bug that is causing Valorant to crash when starting the game. Again, if this doesn't apply to you, there's no reason to install the hotfix. However, if you are affected, you might as install it if you don't want to wait potentially weeks for the next regular driver release.

In addition to these bugs, the 572.16 release that the hotfix is based on addresses a few other gaming and general bugs. They include...
  • Certain G-SYNC Compatible monitors may display flickering when game FPS drops below 60FPS
  • [G-SYNC] Indiana Jones and the Great Circle may display micro-stutters when Vertical Sync is disabled
  • Improved stability for Ubisoft games using the Snowdrop engine
  • [Evernote/QQ/Asus Armoury Crate] displays higher than normal CPU usage
  • Motion blur renders incorrectly in some more cases in Blender Cycles
  • [KeyShot2024] TDR on loading the scene Camera Keyframe Animation
You can check out the full release notes (PDF) for the 572.16 release for more info.