Broken Pixilated Shadows On Blackwell GPU

[Sean P]

Just installed the game the other day, was curious to see what it looked like on my rtx 5080 and I noticed immediately that my characters shadow seems to cast a distractingly pixilated mix of black and randomly colored pixels. It looks completely broken and I wanted to know if anyone else had this their rtx GPU (presumably one powerful enough to run it).

I posted some screenshots over in this portal reddit thread if you'd like to see them for yourself:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Portal/s/3U85mZWmLx

[Ontrix_Kitsune]

All new technology is expected to be unstable, buggy, crashing, etc, near it's launch date. It's called "Teething pains". When you buy a brand new video card very near or at it's launch date then expect this sort of behavior. You will just have to wait "a while" for Nvidia to fix it with newer drivers later. Do note that "a while" may be a few weeks to several months. This is why most people don't upgrade video cards at all until they have been released for a couple months (at least 6+ months, probably longer) to give time for the manufacturer to get the drivers stable.

[Sean P]

Originally posted by Ontrix_Kitsune:

All new technology is expected to be unstable, buggy, crashing, etc, near it's launch date. It's called "Teething pains". When you buy a brand new video card very near or at it's launch date then expect this sort of behavior. You will just have to wait "a while" for Nvidia to fix it with newer drivers later. Do note that "a while" may be a few weeks to several months. This is why most people don't upgrade video cards at all until they have been released for a couple months (at least 6+ months, probably longer) to give time for the manufacturer to get the drivers stable.

https://c.tenor.com/8j2kYlZ6dogAAAAC/tenor.gif

[EternalLoop]

update rtx remix using the latest from here https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/rtx-remix/releases replace the ones inside the bin folder of portal.

that, or just disable volumetric lighting inside the remix menu, or go back to 572.83 driver

[Ontrix_Kitsune]

Originally posted by Sean P:

https://c.tenor.com/8j2kYlZ6dogAAAAC/tenor.gif

You must be very new to computers and technology then. Recent Nvidia drivers were *EXTREMELY* buggy causing numerous crashes, black screens, full computer reboots when gaming, etc.

I just looked and there's a brand new hotfix driver posted 7 hours ago that is supposed to fix this exact problem:
This hotfix addresses the following:

[RTX 50 series] Some games may display shadow flicker/corruption after updating to GRD 576.02 [5231537]
Lumion 2024 crashes on GeForce RTX 50 series graphics card when entering render mode [5232345]
GPU monitoring utilities may stop reporting the GPU temperature after PC wakes from sleep [5231307]
[RTX 50 series] Some games may crash while compiling shaders after updating to GRD 576.02 [5230492]
[GeForce RTX 50 series notebook] Resume from Modern Standy can result in black screen [5204385]
[RTX 50 series] SteamVR may display random V-SYNC micro-stutters when using multiple displays [5152246]
[RTX 50 series] Lower idle GPU clock speeds after updating to GRD 576.02 [5232414]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/1k4kkx8/geforce_hotfix_display_driver_version_57615/

Go update your driver and it (should) resolve this for you. However it is still *VERY* early in the release cycle of RTX 5000 series video cards so expect more bugs and issues until Nvidia irons it out with better drivers later. That's what you get for being an Early Adopter.

[elvissteinjr]

The latest driver does not address the Portal RTX rendering issues. Not sure where you're reading that in the changelog you're quoting.

Updating RTX Remix manually however, does indeed work.

[Ontrix_Kitsune]

Originally posted by elvissteinjr:

The latest driver does not address the Portal RTX rendering issues. Not sure where you're reading that in the changelog you're quoting.

Updating RTX Remix manually however, does indeed work.

I quoted that from the reddit post which I supplied with the comment above. Which the reddit post got their information from this page here: https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5650

Which one of the listed fixes is as I quoted above.

It's not listed on the "nvidia drivers" section of the website, you won't be able to get it there. You have to get it through this news release page above, which has a download link. If you download and try the drivers it should fix this for you.

If you go to the Nvidia website and just go to drivers -> Display drivers -> RTX 50 series -> Pick driver it will only show you driver version 576.02 (from Wed Apr 16, 2025) as the "latest" driver, which is out of date and old. The latest driver is the hot fix above, which is version 576.15 (released on April 21, 2025).

[Retarp]

Originally posted by EternalLoop:

update rtx remix using the latest from here https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/rtx-remix/releases replace the ones inside the bin folder of portal.

that, or just disable volumetric lighting inside the remix menu, or go back to 572.83 driver

kudos to you!

yes this worked perfect to fix the mess that was broken colored shadows. the new hotfix driver did not help. (5070ti)

Performance seems improved too with the updated RTX-remix

[Ontrix_Kitsune]

Originally posted by Retarp:

the new hotfix driver did not help. (5070ti)

I'm going to go ahead and assume you did not even try the new hotfix driver seeing as one of the listed fixes exactly covers the described problem here, which means it should fix this.

[elvissteinjr]

There aren't that many hotfixes to choose from. 576.15 does not fix it on my machine.

Notably, what's happening in this case is a separate open issue listed for 576.02 as "[RTX 50 series] Portal RTX displays rainbow colored artifacts after updating to GRD 576.02 [5108472]", and not the shadow corruption fixed in 576.15.

[Dandavuk]

I'm running an RTX 5080 and the 576.15 hotfix driver - the rainbow pixels problem still persists. I haven't touched RTX remix versions but that will be my next thing to try. I can confirm though that the latest driver update does not fix this problem.

[Anon GM.]

Originally posted by EternalLoop:

update rtx remix using the latest from here https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/rtx-remix/releases replace the ones inside the bin folder of portal.

that, or just disable volumetric lighting inside the remix menu, or go back to 572.83 driver

thanks

[Jinx]

Originally posted by Ontrix_Kitsune:

Go update your driver and it (should) resolve this for you. However it is still *VERY* early in the release cycle of RTX 5000 series video cards so expect more bugs and issues until Nvidia irons it out with better drivers later. That's what you get for being an Early Adopter.

I'm sorry but GPUs should work and have stable drivers on day one. They aren't some completely new technology, they are iterative. If you want to be an "early adopter" of GPUs you'll have to get a time machine and go back to the 90s.

[Ontrix_Kitsune]

Originally posted by Jinx:

Originally posted by Ontrix_Kitsune:

Go update your driver and it (should) resolve this for you. However it is still *VERY* early in the release cycle of RTX 5000 series video cards so expect more bugs and issues until Nvidia irons it out with better drivers later. That's what you get for being an Early Adopter.

I'm sorry but GPUs should work and have stable drivers on day one. They aren't some completely new technology, they are iterative. If you want to be an "early adopter" of GPUs you'll have to get a time machine and go back to the 90s.

This is not a new concept to grasp as computers and technology has always been this way for 30+ years: Every time some new thing comes out there is always a period of a few months after it's release where drivers for it are unstable and in general the device it's self is unstable. Anyone that buys a product during this period is termed an "early adopter" because they bought into it early. This is most common with video cards. This ALWAYS happens after every new series of video card is released.

In the terms of motherboards and CPU's there is also an early adopter period but it's a much longer period and more long-term. For example: Look at AMD's first Ryzen 1000 series processors from when the AM4 platform first launched and then compare those to Ryzen 5000 series when the platform was mature. You may not of been around or followed technology but for the very first generation (Ryzen 1000 and Ryzen 2000) processors they suffered from *SERIOUS* instability issues, very slow ram speeds (they couldn't use DDR4 faster than about 2400-2600 Mhz). It was much later when the AM4 platform was maturing and AMD started releasing bios updates for the older AM4 systems that the stability improved greatly. Today the Early AMD 1000 series and 2000 series AM4 processors can be stable with ram speeds up to 3333 and 3400 Mhz, which wasn't possible near when they launched.

This is why a lot of people wait at least 6-8 months after a video card launches to buy into it and usually wait at least until the 2nd or 3rd revision on a brand new motherboard platform before buying into it.

[Jinx]

Originally posted by Ontrix_Kitsune:

Originally posted by Jinx:

I'm sorry but GPUs should work and have stable drivers on day one. They aren't some completely new technology, they are iterative. If you want to be an "early adopter" of GPUs you'll have to get a time machine and go back to the 90s.

This is not a new concept to grasp as computers and technology has always been this way for 30+ years: Every time some new thing comes out there is always a period of a few months after it's release where drivers for it are unstable and in general the device it's self is unstable. Anyone that buys a product during this period is termed an "early adopter" because they bought into it early. This is most common with video cards. This ALWAYS happens after every new series of video card is released.

In the terms of motherboards and CPU's there is also an early adopter period but it's a much longer period and more long-term. For example: Look at AMD's first Ryzen 1000 series processors from when the AM4 platform first launched and then compare those to Ryzen 5000 series when the platform was mature. You may not of been around or followed technology but for the very first generation (Ryzen 1000 and Ryzen 2000) processors they suffered from *SERIOUS* instability issues, very slow ram speeds (they couldn't use DDR4 faster than about 2400-2600 Mhz). It was much later when the AM4 platform was maturing and AMD started releasing bios updates for the older AM4 systems that the stability improved greatly. Today the Early AMD 1000 series and 2000 series AM4 processors can be stable with ram speeds up to 3333 and 3400 Mhz, which wasn't possible near when they launched.

This is why a lot of people wait at least 6-8 months after a video card launches to buy into it and usually wait at least until the 2nd or 3rd revision on a brand new motherboard platform before buying into it.

I don't think I've ever seen someone cope so hard to defend a billion dollar company. I have been PC gaming since the beginning and new GPU releases are typically fine. And CPUs rarely have major issues. The reason the tech media has made such an uproar over some recent issues with Nvidia and Intel products is precisely because it reflects laziness or incompetence on the company's part that is unusual.

And regardless none of this would be an *excuse* for releasing a buggy or broken product. This isn't buying some indie game in early access, this is an expensive product by an experienced company that has the money and assets to test it thoroughly. Your behavior just tells companies they can half ass it and that's okay. Stop making excuses for them and putting the blame on the consumer. Omg how dare a consumer buy a product and expect it to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ work on day one?!

[Ontrix_Kitsune]

Originally posted by Jinx:

I don't think I've ever seen someone cope so hard to defend a billion dollar company.

I'm just sharing the truth about the history of computing, nothing more. No "coping" involved. Both AMD and Nvidia have suffered from immature drivers shortly after a new graphics product launches frequently. It's not a new thing at all.

Originally posted by Jinx:

Omg how dare a consumer buy a product and expect it to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ work on day one?!

Someone would have to be EXTREMELY naive or unknowable about computers in that situation. Everyone should always expect new technology to be unstable shortly after it's release. It's why most smart people always wait multiple months before buying any new type of video card. Anyone who buys a brand new video card within the first 2-4 months after it's release is doing so wholly knowing and expecting instability and problems. They are Early Adopters after all. Let them report all the bugs and help the manufacturers work out the bugs in the drivers so the rest of us can have a bug-free experience months later.