Nvidia says recent Windows 11 update harmed GPU gaming performance, releases new driver to fix it

PC Guide is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Read More

Microsoft released a Windows 11 patch last month (KB5066835), dated October 14, largely focused on addressing security issues. Nothing unusual with that, but it was later discovered that the update was having a negative effect on gaming performance, at least according to Nvidia.

So, for anyone with an Nvidia graphics card who has noticed sub-par performance lately, there’s now a hotfix you can download to try and resolve the issue. GeForce Hotfix Display Driver version 581.94 is available on the Nvidia website here.

Nvidia releases hotfix for Windows 11 October 2025 performance

Microsoft doesn’t list any GPU performance issues under its ‘Known issues’ section of the patch notes, so this looks to be something on Nvidia’s side of thing. Nvidia says “A GeForce driver is an incredibly complex piece of software,” so sometimes these kinds of hotfixes are required to address any issues that previously went unnoticed in the quality assurance (QA) process.

This Hotfix addresses the following:

• Lower performance may be observed in some games after updating to Windows 11 October 2025 KB5066835 [5561605]

The update is as simple as that. It doesn’t go into much detail, or pinpoint any particular graphics cards or games affected for anyone on the Windows 11 October 2025 version. If you did happen to notice poor performance on your Nvidia GPU all of a sudden, then now you know you’re not the only one. Microsoft has since released its November 2025 update (KB5068861), though it’s unclear whether this build also retains the prior performance issues.

We can see from recent Steam Hardware & Software surveys that Windows 11 has seen a surge of new users following the end of Windows 10 support. However, many people are still sticking to Windows 10, whether that be through the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program – free for users in the European Economic Area (EEA) and paid elsewhere – incompatible hardware for Win11, or simply those unbothered by the risk of running an unsupported operating system.