GeForce Game Ready 531.18 causes BSOD, high CPU usage problems

About a week ago, Nvidia released the GeForce Game Ready 531.18 WHQL driver. With this driver, Nvidia added support for RTX Video Super Resolution (VSR) technology, which users of GeForce RTX 30/40 series graphics cards can enjoy first. Unfortunately, it seems that the GeForce Game Ready 531.18 driver has problems, as some gamers have found that CPU usage is high after the game is closed. It turns out that CPU usage increases by 10% to 15% after the game is closed. Users can check this by looking for the “NVIDIA Containers” process in the Windows Task Manager, which has a usage rate of over 10%. Some technical community users believe that this bug is caused by Nvidia’s game session plugin (NvGSTPlugin.dll).

Nvidia has confirmed the existence of this problem and has listed it as a known issue in the driver, stating that “Higher CPU usage from NVIDIA Container might be observed after exiting a game [4007208]“. Users can wait for an official patch or new driver to fix the problem. It is worth noting that not all systems will be affected, and the problem may not be replicated on different PCs.

Some users have suggested trying to block or delete NvGSTPlugin.dll as a manual solution to this problem, but this operation may have side effects and is not recommended. The most simple and appropriate temporary solution is to remove the 531.18 drivers and revert to version 528.49 or earlier. Although this may not support RTX Video Super Resolution technology, at least there will be no major issues, and waiting for a period of time is also reasonable.

Nvidia has not revealed when this issue will be fixed, but it should not be too long.