- Nvidia GPUs have suffered since the Windows 11 October update
- The Microsoft patch meant that some PC games ran slower than expected
- Nvidia has implemented an emergency hotfix to address these issues
Nvidia GPU owners who have been experiencing lag issues affecting some games for the past month now have a solution to these performance issues in Windows 11.
Windows Latest reports that Nvidia has just released a hotfix – outside of its normal stream of graphics driver updates – that resolves “lower performance” levels with some games following Windows 11’s October patch (codenamed KB5066835).
Now, this only happens with some games, and Nvidia is keeping things vague here, as to “lower performance” and exactly what that might mean – presumably slower frame rates and less-than-smooth gaming as a result.
Clearly, for an emergency fix to be rushed out like this, Nvidia must consider this a pressing issue.
If you’ve been experiencing problems with PC games running slower since last month’s Windows 11 update (or maybe even this month’s), you might want to jump on this patch — but there are caveats attached to a hotfix, which I’ll discuss below.
Analysis: patch now or wait?
As Nvidia makes clear, it’s rushing a hotfix for a tricky bug that’s causing misery for gamers with a GeForce GPU, and as such has a much shorter period of testing and QA. In other words, it can be problematic, just like any beta update (such as an optional update for Windows 11).
This fix will be included in Nvidia’s next full driver release in a more fully tested form, so if you’re not really noticing any major issues with your games and the Nvidia GPU, your best bet is to just wait for that driver. It won’t be too far away.
But if you run into performance errors that cause you serious grief, then yes, the hotfix is probably the right move. While there are unintended side effects from this patch, odds are they probably won’t be as bad as severe frame rate hiccups.
Early feedback on Reddit suggests that this fix has indeed remedied lower than expected frame rates with some games (AAssassin’s Creed Shadows is mentioned), but it hasn’t done anything for reported issues with screen flickering (screen goes black for a second or so), which is probably a separate bugbear.
There may also be other keys on the way in terms of gaming-related performance issues with this Windows 11 update, as Windows Latest notes that AMD and Intel PCs have also encountered issues. The October Update also torpedoed the Windows Recovery Environment (which helps trying to recover from a boot failure), and Microsoft itself deployed an emergency patch to fix this bug.
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