NVIDIA has recently faced several driver-related issues. The company had to remove its latest drivers due to problems, and the 591.86 drivers are also causing performance issues with certain graphics cards, including the GeForce RTX 4090.
Tests show that with driver version 591.86, the GeForce RTX 4090 suffers a major performance drop in Resident Evil Requiem. In the opening area of the game, using path tracing, maximum settings, 4K resolution, and DLSS in performance mode, the card delivers only 33 FPS. However, when using older 576.88 drivers, performance jumps to 68 FPS. That is more than double the frame rate, which clearly points to a serious driver problem rather than a simple optimization issue.
Major Performance Difference Between Driver Versions
Other affected users have confirmed the same results after testing both driver versions. Some have also reported improvements when using older drivers on GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards.
NVIDIA has not released any official statement about the issue so far.
Based on the figures shown in a video test, the RTX 4090 appears to have much lower power consumption with the 591.86 drivers, around 250 watts. With the older 576.88 drivers, power consumption rises to around 390 watts, which is closer to the card’s 450-watt TGP limit. This difference in power usage could explain the performance loss.
There have been past cases where NVIDIA drivers limited power usage or clock speeds, although this was more common with laptop GPUs. It is possible that the newer drivers are restricting the RTX 4090 in a similar way.
NVIDIA has recently released new GeForce Game Ready 595.71 WHQL drivers. It remains to be seen whether this new version fixes the issue and restores full performance in Resident Evil Requiem.
In other news, Resident Evil Requiem could receive a story DLC starring Alyssa Ashcroft.
