PSA: Latest Nvidia drivers (546.01, 546.08, 546.17) may break your game

[metamec]

This game performed flawlessly for over 30 hours with Nvidia driver 537.42. However, after updating to the latest driver, 546.01, I immediately noticed stuttering when panning the camera. This issue persisted across multiple sessions even after rebooting. Reverting to driver 537.42 completely resolved the problem.

Notably, the stuttering could temporarily be mitigated by bringing up the inventory or saving the game. However, it consistently reoccurred when transitioning to a new area. Therefore, I recommend avoiding the 546.01 driver.

[Woldren]

fiuuuu I always wait 2 weeks before updating my drivers after they release a new version, now I will let that update there until I finish this game.

[metamec]

Yeah, delaying driver installation until plenty of other users have tried them 😅 is definitely wise. I'd been holding out with 537.42 for a while, but the new CUDA System (Shared Memory) Fallback policy in 546.01 tempted me to try it out.

I just discovered that driver 546.08 has since been released, so I might give it a whirl when I get home and see if the problem returns.

[metamec]

Just an update, the latest Nvidia hotfix driver does not fix this problem.

So:

537.42 (Game Ready) = Good.
546.01 (Game Ready) = Bad.
546.08 (Hotfix) = Bad.

[DenFromHell]

For windows 10/11, Settings - system - display - graphics
Select The Outer Worlds Spacer's Choice from the list of applications and set the graphics settings to "High Performance"

[metamec]

Power saving settings are unrelated to the 546.0x driver issue. :)

OW has always been on High Performance on my system.

[metamec]

Same problem with the latest driver: 546.17.

If you experience the same issue, rollback to 537.42.

[=HellFire=]

Thank you for this thread, much appreciated. Guess I have to finish this game ASAP then xD.

[metamec]

Originally posted by =HellFire=:

Thank you for this thread, much appreciated. Guess I have to finish this game ASAP then xD.

No worries! I think the problem might only be apparent when vsync is enabled or when the framerate is not unlimited. Some other games seem to be affected by the same problem, so hopefully a fix is forthcoming.

Older Nvidia drivers can be acquired from this page:

https://www.nvidia.com/download/find.aspx

Set Windows Driver Type to DCH.
Set Recommended/Beta to Recommended/Certified.

I haven't had a single crash or issue with 537.42, but the more recent 537.58 driver probably works just as well.

I get the impression from the Nvidia forums that driver 545.84 is where everything started to go south for quite a few games.

[=HellFire=]

Was it fixed in a newer version by any chance?

[metamec]

Originally posted by =HellFire=:

Was it fixed in a newer version by any chance?

Uh, I didn't check before uninstalling it. Sorry. Manuel at NVidia helped me work out that disabling hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling resolved the issue with the newer drivers though. I just finished the game with the old driver because I hate to disable that.

I'll try to reinstall this game within a few days and test it out with the latest driver.

[jhughes]

With a newer AMD card and Drivers, I have to turn off 'Screen Space Global Illumination' in the Video Settings. Probably not also for NVIDIA .. but you can try it and see

[Tyrant]

I recommend sticking to the Vulkan beta drivers for a while. They're, ironically, typically more stable than the mainline drivers because the maintainers steer clear from problematic release versions to use as a baseline.

https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver

Installing these instead of downgrading the mainline driver has the advantage of still delivering optimizations and graphics profiles for the latest games.

Users of Maxwell / Pascal architecture GPUs (900s and 1000s) may want to consider keeping to the mainline drivers though, since they made changes that improved those cards' stability and performance during high VRAM usage.