Nvidia Driver issues post 537.58?

Is anyone else having issues post 537.58 Nvidia Drivers on 3000 series cards? My laptop has an RTX 3070. I have tried everything but wow gets a choppy/stuttering effect when running the game in the background (alt tabbed) on Nvidia Drivers after 537.58. When I stop running task in the foreground and go back to playing the game about 10sec later it starts smooth again and the choppiness goes away. The moment I open another app and start running wow in the background again (AKA ALT TABBED) it starts all over with the choppy/stuttering effects

Driver 537.58 works just fine with no issues at all. But if I update the driver these issues start. This started with driver 545.84 and continues to be a problem in 545.92 . However if I go back to 537.58 all the issues go away.

2 Likes

This is sad to hear. I had to return a Radeon graphics card due to issues with WoW and my tech suggested the RTX 3060 (which is what I can currently afford). But if it also is going to have problems with WoW I don’t know what to do now.

You wont just use driver 537.58 until they release a non-buggy driver. Driver 537.58 has 0 issues

Are Nvidia cards generally reliable?

Comment Removed. Fixed the issue

Always been more reliable to me than AMD but thats just my opinion. Its 100% an Opinion. As a Bonus I do video editing and Nvidia Plays better with Adobe Premiere.

WIth that said I fixed the issue. Just rolled back to Driver 537.58 for the time being. All issues solved

If you do change your graphics card make sure you use DDU to remove any old driver files. Its super simple. Video here of what to do.

1 Like

I am unable to do technical stuff with any confidence; my card will be installed by my computer technician and I will try and remember to ask him about that. Thanks.

If you use EVGA PrecisionX make sure it hasn’t capped your GPU’s power to something absurdly low like 20%. It likes to do this after both driver and PrecisionX updates. The 3060 in my laptop handles this game on max settings at ~120fps.

1 Like

Yeah I heard about that. Dont use it. Just use the default stuff since my laptop GPU is soldered to the motherboard I dont use or have any 3rd party driver software. Just the default Lenovo software. Its a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro. I even tried it under Max Performance power plan. Still had same issue. It started stuttering like it does when unplugged.

Going back to 537.58 fixed the issues. So I will stay on that for the time being. There have been 2 driver updates since then. Both of them had the same issue and seems to only affect my laptop and no my desktop. Not sure whats being changed but I will stay on 537.58 until a more stable driver is released.

Its quite perplexing though. Its only happening when the game is alt tabbed and I start surfing the web or something. Id love to know what the 2 new drivers are changing thats causing the problem. It does seem almost like a power usage settings is being changed but I can not seem to find where its being changed at. :man_shrugging:

I will see reddit is filled with laptop users having various issues post 537.58. Desktop users seem to be fine.

You should update the driver on your laptop and try surfing FB or something with the game alt tabbed and if it does it too? Starts after about 10 sec of doing so

UPDATE: Found out whats happening on the two drivers post 537.58 its FORCE limiting fps to a max 5 FPS when alt tabbed. Driver 537.58 and older does NOT do this. Why this is happening or how to stop it I have no clue.

Its NOT a setting in wow. Has something to do with the driver. I just wish I knew what the driver was doing specifically to cause this

I literally open any app and this happens. Its not the frame limiter in wow. Its disabled Nvidia seems to FORCE a frame limiter when running things in the background post 537.58. Seems to be Nvidia Mobile/laptop related

1 Like

It’s a setting in the game itself. You probably installed Geforce experience along with the driver, which if you don’t pay attention, it will automatically optimize the game client’s settings. The default background FPS for WoW is 8fps and is enabled by default, if I recall correctly.

No as I mentioned in my comment above Ive already checked that. It was disabled and unchecked. I reenabled it and disabled it 6x and same problem. Its not just doing it in wow. Its other games too. It seems to be a driver bug where its somehow FORCED. Basically if the Game has a Background frame limiter the two drivers post 537.58 FORCES your fames limited to 5 fps regardless on if its enabled or not.

Many folks on reddit complaining about the same thing. There are 3 threads on it and it seems to only be affecting Laptop 3070 GPUs atm. At least now after more testing I know now its not just WoW. So this really is not Blizzards problem. Its Nvidia’s.

Due to this new info this thread is pretty much done. The Temp fix is posted below. Marked this resolved since its not an issue caused by Blizz

Rolling back to 537.58 is the fix if anyone experiences this until Nvidia releases a driver that fixes the issue

Download 537.58 from Nvidia here

1 Like

Thank you for posting this! I have an Ailenware desktop RTX 3080 and since I last updated my drivers, my game and internet had come to a crawl and I had never considered a driver problem. The longer I played WoW, the stuttering and lag would cause my computer to come to a crawl. It redlined. My internet would also not load pages. It would just hang, even if I closed out WoW, to the point Firefox would crash. The desktop commands and mouse pointer would not respond.

I just went to Nvidia and downloaded the 537.58 version for desktop as there is a laptop and desktop version of the same driver. It has solved my problem. Thank you, thank you!

1 Like

No problem my guy that’s why I figured I’d leave the fix for anyone experiencing the same issues. I have been hearing that most of the issues are happening around the 3000 series cards for some reason

I also updated the fix with the link of where they can download it from

UPDATE: the issue is better but persist in Driver 546.01.

So my game has been running 5-25 fps max no addons installed. I have a 2070 super and tried many things including rolling back to 537.58 nothing ive tried works. I even formated my laptop and reinstalled wow and it does the same thing. I tried low graphics to ultra and they all stay at the same fps. Im trying older nvidia drivers to see if i can hit a place where it used to work but not having much luck.

1 Like

Best of luck to you. I have heard nothing about 2000 series. This current issue seems to be a 3000 series problem. my 4000 series has had no issues at all.

I have a 3060 (laptop) and a 3080ti, currently on 545.92, with zero issues (can’t update to 546.01 until I get home). I did have a problem with one specific driver (537.42) over a month ago, but starting with the next one past that I’ve had no issues. The 537.42 problem for me at least was an isolated incident, and one of my friends reported issues with many other games and that specific driver.

On mine and many others the issue only happens when alt tabbed. Try it when you get home on your laptop

I alt tab all the time on both machines. I’m at work with my laptop now (not enough bandwidth to download the new driver atm). I have the game set to limit to 8fps when tabbed out…but when I tab back in everything is fine. I’m getting ~120fps virtually everywhere.