PC gamers love performance, and that performance isn’t limited to the games themselves. So when some of them started noticing abnormally high CPU usage after the latest Nvidia GPU driver update, it threw up some red flags. After a little investigation, Nvidia confirmed the problem itself: Some users have seen inflated CPU usage after closing 3D games, which persists until rebooting.
The company confirmed the problem in its latest driver update, 531.18, published on February 28. An updated list of open issues (including some that didn’t make it into the full release notes) was -posted on Nvidia’s support forum, and spotted by VideoCardz.com. Issue number 4007208 reads, “Higher CPU usage from NVIDIA Container may be observed after exiting a game.” Some users have shown CPU usage of up to 10-15 percent in these conditions – not serious enough to disrupt most gaming desktops, but more than enough to be an annoyance, especially if your use your PC for other intensive tasks. Like having three Chrome tabs open at once.
There is currently no easy fix, so the immediate solution if you are affected is to roll back your driver to version 528.49 from February 8th, which is available for manual download here. Hopefully Nvidia will be able to patch a newer driver soon. Update: In a tweet responding to PCWorld’s coverage, Nvidia software product manager Sean Pelletier SAYS the company will post a hotfix for the issue tomorrow, on March 7.
Of course modern GPU drivers are very complex pieces of software, and Nvidia isn’t the only one dealing with bugs at the moment. AMD has a rather embarrassing issue on its hands with its latest high-end Radeon cards, which under the right circumstances, can absolutely tank a game. installed on Windows. In contrast, Intel seems to be continuously improving the software side of its Arc GPUs, which have gained surprising traction in the budget market.