Yes, the driver warning was real—but it was developer guidance issued on March 24, 2025, not a new universal Nvidia fault. Neople’s The First Berserker: Khazan hotfix and an inZOI notice linked certain stuttering, frame drops, instability and crashes to driver compatibility in some environments. Their original GPU-specific advice was 572.83 for RTX 50-series cards, 566.36 for RTX 40-series cards, and the latest driver for RTX 30-series and older cards, with 566.36 suggested if problems continued. In August 2026, Nvidia’s catalog includes much newer 610.xx releases, so treat 566.36 as a controlled diagnostic fallback—not automatically the best driver for every player.
What the developers actually acknowledged
The evidence comes from the game teams, not an Nvidia announcement that its drivers were universally defective. inZOI identified driver-version differences as a possible cause of frame drops or stuttering in certain environments. Neople published an equivalent recommendation for Khazan and separately said it was investigating conflicts between some graphics-card drivers and DirectX 12 settings that could cause crashes. See the Khazan hotfix, inZOI notice and Khazan developer notes.
That establishes a compatibility problem reported by two developers. It does not establish one Nvidia-confirmed root cause shared identically by both games, nor does it mean every Nvidia system is affected.
The original driver recommendations by GPU generation
| GPU generation | March 24, 2025 developer guidance | How to interpret it in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| RTX 50 series | Use Nvidia driver 572.83. | Do not treat 566.36 as a general option; that package predates this generation. Check current drivers first. |
| RTX 40 series | Use 566.36, released in December 2024. The notice warned that 572.xx could cause stability issues. | This is the clearest rollback case if the symptoms began during that driver transition and the game was previously stable. |
| RTX 30 series and older | Use the latest driver; try 566.36 if problems persisted. | The original advice did not require every owner to downgrade. Confirm hardware support and current game guidance. |
The recommendations appear in Neople’s official hotfix communication. They were issued before Khazan’s March 27, 2025 Steam release, whose store page is here.
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Symptoms that fit the warning
- Intermittent stuttering or uneven frame pacing
- Sudden frame drops in otherwise playable scenes
- General graphics-driver instability
- Crashes, especially when using DirectX 12
- Graphical anomalies or flickering reported by some players
Community posts can illustrate these failure modes, but they are anecdotal rather than controlled testing. If several unrelated games and desktop applications fail, a game-specific driver profile is less likely to be the whole explanation.
Is 566.36 still the right driver in 2026?
Nvidia’s driver catalog now lists releases such as Game Ready Driver 610.88 dated July 28, 2026, and 610.62 dated June 16, 2026. Check the current Nvidia catalog before changing software.
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There are three separate conclusions:
- The developers did recommend version pinning or rollback in March 2025.
- An RTX 40-series owner with the same symptoms can still test 566.36 if the package supports that card.
- Nothing in the available notices proves 566.36 remains the best driver for every inZOI or Khazan player in August 2026.
A rollback is therefore a diagnostic A/B test. Keep it temporary, and return to a current stable driver if newer games, security fixes or other applications regress.
Check your GPU and installed driver first
- Press Windows + R, type
dxdiag, and press Enter. - Open the Display tab and record the GPU name, driver version and driver date.
- Alternatively, open Nvidia App or Nvidia Control Panel and find its driver or system-information page.
- Save the current version number before downloading anything. It is your recovery reference.
Laptop owners should check the computer manufacturer’s support page first. Nvidia advises notebook users to use the OEM’s recommended software where applicable; a generic package can omit vendor-specific power, display or switching components.
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How to roll back safely
- Create a Windows restore point or confirm that you have the current installer available.
- Download the target package from Nvidia’s official driver-download page. Choose 566.36 only when your GPU and the game-specific advice make it a reasonable test; RTX 50-series users should not use it as the default recommendation.
- Close the game, browser windows, overlays, recording tools, monitoring utilities and other GPU-heavy applications.
- Run the Nvidia installer and select Custom installation.
- Select Perform a clean installation if that option is offered, then complete setup.
- Reboot Windows.
- Verify the resulting version in Nvidia software or with
dxdiag. - Replay the same save, area or benchmark sequence that exposed the problem.
Windows Device Manager’s Roll Back Driver button is not a dependable substitute: it may be disabled, may not contain the desired version and may leave components from the newer package.
Make the comparison meaningful
Keep resolution, preset, ray tracing, DLSS mode, frame generation, frame cap and test location unchanged. Temporarily disable overlays and record whether the same stutters or crashes recur. Change one major variable at a time. Improvement after rollback shows a compatibility interaction on that system; it does not prove the driver was the sole cause.
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- PCIe 5.0
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If a normal clean install does not help
Use Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) only when the ordinary clean installation fails or the existing installation appears corrupted. Obtain it from its current official publisher page, follow that utility’s instructions and, where instructed, run it in Windows Safe Mode. Temporarily disconnecting the internet can prevent Windows from immediately replacing the package, but it is optional rather than a universal requirement. Reinstall the chosen Nvidia package and reboot.
If the symptoms remain, restore the newer driver and work through the game and system causes below:
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- Verify or repair the game files.
- Allow shader compilation to finish after a game or driver update; clear a corrupted shader cache only with a known recovery plan.
- Install pending Windows and game updates.
- Test with overlays, background recording and mods disabled. Mods can break after inZOI updates.
- Check CPU/GPU temperatures, power delivery, RAM and VRAM use.
- Remove unstable overclocks or undervolts.
- Compare DirectX 12, ray-tracing, DLSS and frame-generation settings where the game permits it.
inZOI continued shipping crash, graphics and engine-stability fixes in 2026, including its May 28, 2026 hotfix. That ongoing work is another reason not to attribute every later performance problem to Nvidia.
When rollback makes sense—and when it does not
Reasonable rollback case
- The issue began immediately after a driver update.
- You use an RTX 40-series card.
- The symptom matches the 2025 notices and the game had previously been stable.
- You can tolerate possible regressions in other games while testing.
Choose another first step
- You have an RTX 50-series card; the original guidance pointed to 572.83, not 566.36.
- The driver predates your hardware or a newer game patch requires a later branch.
- Many unrelated games fail, suggesting Windows, hardware or thermal instability.
- The crash follows an overclock, overheating or a laptop vendor’s customized driver.
Bottom line for inZOI and Khazan players
The March 2025 notices confirm a real, time-bound driver-compatibility concern. For a supported RTX 40-series system showing the matching stutter or instability pattern, 566.36 is still a sensible test. RTX 50-series owners should follow hardware-appropriate guidance such as the original 572.83 recommendation rather than forcing 566.36. Everyone else should check current game patches and Nvidia release notes first, test one change at a time, and return to a current stable driver when the diagnosis is complete.
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