Nvidia releases a hotfix driver to fix a BSOD issue, stuttering in Avengers, and other bugs
It also corrects black levels when enabling HDR.
Nvidia has released a hotfix driver (v460.97) that is intended to squash nearly half a dozen bugs, a couple of which are specific to laptops. One of them is a blue screen of death (BSOD) error that some laptops powered by GeForce GPUs are experiencing when waking from sleep while connected to an external monitor by way of a dock or dongle.
It seems this issue crops up from time to time. Looking at Nvidia's support forum, there are threads from two years ago, with users complaining of BSODs when waking from sleep. However, the BSOD fix included in this hotfix is specific to laptops.
On the topic of waking from sleep, it also fixes an issue that can cause corruption on some Lenovo Legion Y740 laptops, when waking them up.
Best CPU for gaming: the top chips from Intel and AMD
Best graphics card: your perfect pixel-pusher awaits
Best SSD for gaming: get into the game ahead of the rest
Other fixes include a stuttering bug with some configurations in Marvel's Avengers, some apps that use NVML may not detect the GPU, and incorrect black levels with HDR enabled (presumably in both games and videos, though the release notes do not discern between the two).
If you are experiencing any of these issues, it is worth giving the hotfix a try. It is an incremental update to the 460.89 WHQL driver that was released last Tuesday. That was deemed a 'Game Ready' driver release for Quake II RTX with Vulkan ray tracing.
Otherwise, you can wait for the next traditional driver release, which should include these fixes anyway, and possibly more. The release notes for the 460.89 WHQL driver outline several known issues that Nvidia is working to correct, such as some Pascal-based laptops with high refresh rates randomly dropping to 60Hz during gameplay, and desktop flickering on systems with a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (the latter of which is an issue I've experienced on my main desktop).
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
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).