Nvidia says it will soon fix the DPC latency issue

Those who routinely monitor Nvidia’s GeForce Game Ready driver updates will have noticed the long-standing issue of “Increased DPC latency observed in LatencyMon [3952556],” which has yet to be rectified.

Recently, Manuel Guzman, Nvidia’s Software Quality Manager, announced that the fix for the “Increased DPC latency observed in LatencyMon [3952556]” is ready. However, prior to releasing the updated version of the driver, it must undergo standard software testing procedures.

Despite Nvidia’s concerted efforts to minimize input latency and boost responsiveness through projects like Nvidia Reflex, users employing the GeForce Game Ready driver have been grappling with DPC latency issues for several GPU generations. Guzman claims that the final phase of problem resolution is now underway and that users should expect to see the solution soon, although the actual efficacy will only be evident once the driver update has been installed.

DPC latency, a system delay introduced by the Deferred Procedure Call (DPC) in Windows, was originally designed to defer lower-priority tasks for high-priority ones. However, the DPC buffer might become overfilled, leading to stuttering, skipping, or similar glitches in video and audio. These incongruous delays, when encountered during gaming, video viewing, content creation, or music listening, can substantially detract from the user experience.

Users can leverage various tools to scrutinize and help their systems minimize the impact of this issue and perform appropriate fixes. Guzman suggests that users exit all GPU monitoring applications before the issue is resolved, as the default settings’ lower power targets might lead to diminished performance. Furthermore, users with Nvidia GPUs on Windows 11 can upgrade their systems to the latest version to resolve some issues.