Windows 11 was actually supposed to be the optimized operating system for gaming, at least that’s what Microsoft promised. Instead, many users are still struggling with problems that impair the performance of numerous games on Microsoft’s current operating system.
Things got particularly bad with October’s Patch Tuesday and update KB5066835, which not only broke some keyboards and mice but also caused gamers to get serious FPS losses in games like Assassin’s Creed Shadows. In some cases, FPS was cut by almost half.
November is almost over and Microsoft still hasn’t taken note of the problem nor provided a solution. Instead, Nvidia has now come to the rescue with a GeForce driver hotfix that’s supposed to address the performance hits and increase FPS by 50 percent again. The driver hotfix in question is driver version 581.94.
A quick solution for gamers
The driver update’s performance improvement is explicitly aimed at people who are struggling with FPS problems in Windows 11. It’s difficult to estimate how many were affected.
Apparently, the cause of the problem is faulty communication between the game, the Desktop Window Manager (DWM), and the hardware of the affected PC, which first started occurring after the October Windows 11 update. In addition, KB5066835 may have changed the Multi-Plane Overlay (MPO) in Windows 11, which disrupted the prioritization of workloads and caused considerable performance problems, especially in newer and more demanding titles.
The first users who have installed and tested Nvidia’s updated driver report a successful restoration of original FPS performance. Tom’s Hardware even mentions cases of 65 percent gains.
In addition to average frame rates, the minimum frame rate was also significantly improved by Nvidia’s patch. Users report 46 percent higher 1-percent lows than before. There should therefore be significantly less noticeable stuttering in the game.
How to get the GeForce hotfix
You can download the hotfix directly from Nvidia here. However, you should only install it if you really have problems with the gaming performance of Windows 11 due to the October Windows 11 update. As this is a beta driver, further errors could otherwise occur.
After Nvidia, AMD and Intel should also offer a corresponding fix for their graphics cards as they also experienced performance losses. It’s rather unlikely that Microsoft will offer its own fix.
Further reading: Essential Windows 11 tweaks for PC gamers
