With new GPU driver release, NVIDIA offers advice to Intel CPU owners plagued by games crashing

NVIDIA has taken the unusual step of addressing a bug caused by another firm's hardware in Team Green's driver release notes - in this case, Intel's 13th-gen and 14th-gen processors.

In case you missed this one, it seems that high-end (Core i9) CPUs from the current and last generation of Intel's silicon are becoming instable when PC gaming and crashing regularly.

Unfortunately, this appears to be a problem which only gets worse as time goes on, and is a particular issue with games that use the Unreal Engine (UE).

As first noticed by Harukaze5719 on X (formerly Twitter), with NVIDIA's notes for the Game Ready Driver v552.12, it includes a section addressed to Intel processor owners specifically about these problems.

NVIDIA writes:

"If your system is using an Intel 13th/14th Gen unlocked desktop CPU and is experiencing stability issues/out of video memory error messages/crash to desktop while the game is compiling shaders, please consult the following sites for troubleshooting assistance:

https://community.intel.com/t5/Processors/Regarding-Reports-of-13th-14th-Gen-Unlocked-Desktop-Users/td-p/1575863?profile.language=en

https://www.radgametools.com/oodleintel.htm"

What this suggests to us is that the problem with Intel's CPUs is becoming widespread enough that NVIDIA feels the need to clarify that the lack of stability is nothing to do with its new driver. Not a good sign for Core i9 Raptor Lake or Raptor Lake Refresh processor owners, frankly.

The advice basically boils down to: Get in touch with Intel customer service. And yes, you could probably figure that one out for yourself. While Intel has acknowledged the problem and is currently investigating the root cause(s), Team Blue hasn't given us any concrete info on exactly what might have gone awry here.

There's also a link to the theories and potential troubleshooting strategies from Epic Games (as mentioned, these crashing woes are more commonly occuring with Unreal Engine-powered games).

However, this is mostly about NVIDIA underlining that it isn't to blame for any wonkiness experienced in PC games for those who have just installed its most recent graphics driver. Well, if they're running one of the mentioned Intel CPUs, of course.

VRAM victim

There are various theories about what's happened here to cause these crashes with Intel chips, and the commonly reported 'Out of video memory' error which doesn't actually have anything to do with VRAM (and that's likely another reason NVIDIA was keen to add this clarification to its release notes).

One of the probable causes here is motherboard settings which may be, unbeknownst to the PC owner, pushing the Intel CPU in terms of power or current limits - or other stresses applied due to configuration issues. Which is why one of the suggested solutions is to rein in the processor via undervolting.

We supposed it can't hurt to contact Intel, but we wouldn't expect you'll get much save for a stock boilerplate reply ('we are looking into this etc'). Hopefully soon enough we'll see Team Blue make an official announcement on what's going on here, and provide some firm details on what action owners of affected CPUs should take.

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