A string of driver hotfixes suggests Nvidia RTX 50 GPUs are having trouble keeping their software down

Nvidia have released the latest in an unusually frequent series of GeForce driver hotfixes, with the vast majority of identified issues affecting the newest RTX 50 graphics cards specifically. GeForce Hotfix Display Driver version 576.26 targets various crashing and flickering problems with, among others, Black Myth: Wukong, Forza Horizon 5, and Red Dead Redemption 2 – though it’s the growing regularity of these patch jobs that’s more disquieting than any particular instance of game breakage.

While driver hotfixes have been rare during previous GeForce generations, a recent flurry has seen them averaging about one every two weeks, from the 572.24 hotfix for a Valorant startup crash on the RTX 5080 to the black screen scourge of 572.75, and now both the 576.15 and bumper-size 576.26 versions being deployed within the same day. Peering through their patch notes reveals that by far the most common thread is the RTX 50 series, which is hardly a ringing endorsement of their software stability.

I should say that I haven’t experienced any such problems myself while reviewing these cards, which performance-wise, range from the pretty decent to the enormously disappointing. Still, I am but one hardware editor, and even the Nvidia forum post announcing the latest hotfix leads into a raft of community replies reporting various continuing problems. Driver version 576.02, the most recent stable driver, is repeatedly identified as a breaking point, and with two hotfixes having now been sticky-plastered on top of it, the accusation carries some weight.

It's true that 'stable' drivers are faced with potentially meddlesome time restraints, as they’re usually released in support of either key new games or a new piece of hardware (the RTX 5060 Ti, in 576.02’s case). Still, that’s been the case with GeForce drivers for donkeys’ ages, so can’t really shoulder the blame for the sudden uptick in problems and resultant hotfixes. In any case, if you’ve been having hiccups with your own GeForce GPU, give version 576.26 a download and hope you won’t need another one for a while. It’ll need to be a manual installation, as hotfixes aren’t released through the Nvidia App like stable drivers are.