Nvidia's new WHQL driver squashes some game-crashing bugs, adds support for Avowed and Civ VII

Nvidia releases 572.42 WHQL driver
(Image credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia has released the GeForce Game Ready Driver 572.42 WHQL. The new software delivers day-one support for Avowed (Feb 18), Sid Meier's Civilization VII, an Indiana Jones and the Great Circle DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation (MFG) update, and the Wuthering Waves DLSS Frame Generation (FG) update. It also claims to fix some gaming bugs and irons out annoying wrinkles.

For lucky GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 owners, this is the first WHQL update since the launch driver, building on a Hotfix released on February 11. However, we have confirmation that the RTX 5070 Ti will be available from February 20, so relaxed Nvidians might want to wait a week. Another new driver will inevitably land on that day—unless the games mentioned above are in their libraries.

The first game-ready driver supporting the new RTX 5090(D) and RTX 5080 graphics cards came out at the end of January (572.16 - WHQL). It was an important release as it debuted DLSS 4 technology for titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, Hogwarts Legacy, Star Wars Outlaws, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Avowed - Pre-Order Trailer - YouTube Avowed - Pre-Order Trailer - YouTube
Watch On

Feb 11's Hotfix stopped Valorant crashing on startup, which afflicted those with shiny new Blackwell GPUs and patched up a bug that caused Final Fantasy XVI to freeze on exit.

Today, we welcome the 572.42 WHQL driver and it WHQL-izes what the hotfix offered, and adds a game fix for Delta Force players. Some team-based shooter players were getting slower performance when Resizable BAR was enabled, which was an obvious error.

Another fix in the newest driver affects the 3DMark DXR Feature Test. It is peculiar, as the release notes say user tests resulted in an "Unusually low score for Blackwell GPUs." If that fixes everything, then the software developer time spent here hardly seems worthwhile.

The new 572.42 WHQL driver could also be a welcome download for the owners of several new monitors added to the G-Sync Compatible tier. Four AOC and one new Philips model can now benefit from a baseline Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) experience on supported Nvidia GPUs.

Nvidia releases 572.42 WHQL driver

(Image credit: Nvidia)

Looking at the big picture, the launch of the Blackwell architecture GPUs hasn't been smooth sailing for anyone involved. Thanks to our old friends (under)supply and demand, we've had availability and pricing issues. Now, a frightening number of users seem to be experiencing the second great wave of melting power connectors. While we wait for the worrying hardware and perhaps some firmware issues to be fixed on the newest GeForce family, the game optimizations and bug fixes in software offer little consolation.

Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

Read more
GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition
New Nvidia GeForce driver addresses RTX 50-series GPU black screen issues
Asus graphics card DP and HDMI ports
Nvidia Hotfix arrives to address black screen issues remaining after Thursday's driver release
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition
Nvidia RTX 50 owners get another Hotfix, with 572.75 addressing crashes and clock speeds
Nvidia App HERO
Nvidia introduces DLSS Smooth Motion, DLSS Override, improved model for RTX Video Super Resolution reduces VSR power consumption by 30%
GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition
Upcoming driver to fix Nvidia RTX 50-series black screen and BSOD issues
GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs
Nvidia's mid-January GPU driver update addresses several vulnerabilities and exploits
Latest in GPU Drivers
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition
Nvidia RTX 50 owners get another Hotfix, with 572.75 addressing crashes and clock speeds
Asus graphics card DP and HDMI ports
Nvidia Hotfix arrives to address black screen issues remaining after Thursday's driver release
Nvidia releases 572.42 WHQL driver
Nvidia's new WHQL driver squashes some game-crashing bugs, adds support for Avowed and Civ VII
Intel XeSS 150+ games milestone graphic
Intel heralds XeSS passing the 150 games milestone, but only two titles support XeSS 2.0
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition card photos and unboxing
Nvidia's RTX 50-series drivers feel half-baked, focus too much on MFG
AMD RDNA 4 at CES 2025
AMD FSR 3.1 game titles 'should just work' with FSR 4 drop-in DLL file replacement hints leaker
Latest in News
Despite external similarities, the RTX 3090 is not at all the same hardware as the RTX 4090 — even if you lap the GPU and apply AD102 branding.
GPU scam resells RTX 3090 as a 4090 — complete with a fake 'AD102' label on a lapped GPU
Inspur
US expands China trade blacklist, closes susidiary loopholes
WireView Pro 90 degrees
Thermal Grizzly's WireView Pro GPU power measuring utility gets a 90-degree adapter revision
Qualcomm
Qualcomm launches global antitrust campaign against Arm — accuses Arm of restricting access to technology
Nvidia Ada Lovelace and GeForce RTX 40-Series
Analyst claims Nvidia's gaming GPUs could use Intel Foundry's 18A node in the future
Core Ultra 200S CPU
An Arrow Lake refresh may still be in the cards with only K and KF models, claims leaker
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    Admin said:
    Another fix in the newest driver affects the 3DMark DXR Feature Test. It is peculiar, as the release notes say user tests resulted in an "Unusually low score for Blackwell GPUs." If that fixes everything, then the software developer time spent here hardly seems worthwhile.
    I actually reported that one! LOL. I don't know that many other people use it, but I wanted what would hopefully be a more vendor agnostic full ray tracing test. Now I can retest and see what things look like. Here's the 5080 / 5090 old data, though:

    https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/GmV99EbcEa84fRFV53acFd.png
    Reply