Nvidia’s latest 384.76 GPU drivers are causing Watch Dogs 2 to crash

Some gamers are reporting trouble getting Watch Dogs 2 to run after installing Nvidia's 384.76 WHQL drivers that were released yesterday. If that is a game you play, your best bet is to avoid the driver update for the time being, or roll back to a previous version if you've already installed them.

As far as driver releases go, Nvidia has had smoother roll outs. For one, Nvidia noted on its forum that a temporary server issue prevented its latest driver updates from appearing on its website. As we noted in our article yesterday, the only way to apply the update at the time was to go through Nvidia's GeForce Experience software.

The other issue is a lack of consistency in Nvidia's release notes. Nowhere in the release notes available online as a PDF does Nvidia mention the Watch Dogs 2 issue, though it is brought up as a potential issue on its web forum. It is one of two bugs that users might encounter.

Here is what Nvidia says on its GeForce forum:

  • Your PC may boot to a black screen if you have DuetDisplay installed on a PC running Windows 10 Creators Update. Please uninstall the software until the issue is addressed by the app developer.
  • Watch Dogs 2 may crash on launch with driver 384.76.

While the latest driver package introduces a couple of known issues, it also fixes several others, including the presence of stuttering in Prey on GeForce GTX 1060, 1070, and 1080 graphics cards.

The main reason to download the newest driver release from Nvidia is because it includes optimizations for the LawBreakers open beta and for Spider-Man: Homecoming Experience (VR). If you don't plan on playing either game and aren't affected by any of the issues it addresses, then you might as well wait for the next release.

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).