Borderlands 4 Crashes on RTX 50 Series: Driver Regression and Rollback Fix

Borderlands 4 players on NVIDIA’s RTX 50-series cards have been facing persistent crash-to-desktop and instability problems since launch, and the most reliable — and immediate — fix for many affected users is a driver rollback to an earlier GeForce driver; the pattern points to a regression introduced in recent 581.xx Game Ready drivers that destabilizes some Unreal Engine 5 titles on RTX 50 hardware.

Background​

Borderlands 4 launched as a technically ambitious Unreal Engine 5 title that leans heavily on modern systems: DLSS 4, Multi‑Frame Generation, Lumen lighting, large texture pools and fast streaming from NVMe storage. That combination raises the bar for both GPUs and drivers; Gearbox and vendor guidance set a clear baseline for SSD storage, multi‑core CPUs and GPUs with ample VRAM.
At the same time NVIDIA released a new WHQL GeForce driver — version 581.29 — tailored for Borderlands 4 and other titles, with optimizations for DLSS 4 and Multi‑Frame Generation. Multiple community reports, however, show that installing or updating to the latest 581.xx drivers has introduced game crash, visual artifact and GPU hang behaviour in a number of UE5 games, including Borderlands 4; rolling back to older 580.xx/577.xx drivers often restores stability for affected users.

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What players are seeing (symptoms and scope)​

Early public reports and community threads show a consistent symptom set:

• Sudden crash-to-desktop during cutscenes or heavy particle scenes, often with an Unreal Engine “GPU crash dump triggered” or an access violation in the game log.
• Crashes appearing at predictable points (same cutscene or mission), making the behaviour reproducible for some players.
• Instability more common with RTX 50‑series cards but not always exclusive to them; RTX 40/30 owners have reported similar, albeit less frequent, issues on certain driver versions.
• Some players report visual corruption or rendering artifacts in other UE5 titles on certain 581.xx builds.

The problem has been widely discussed on Steam forums and subreddits; multiple users found that cleanly downgrading the NVIDIA driver eliminated crashes during long play sessions. That strong correlation between driver version and stability is the clearest signal that these are driver regressions rather than pure game code defects.

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Confirming the root cause: driver regression, not engine or GPU hardware (analysis)​

Several lines of evidence point to the driver as the root cause:

• Reproducibility by driver version: affected users have repeatedly installed 581.xx, seen crashes, then rolled back with DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) to an earlier 580.xx (or 577.xx/580.97 in some reports) and regained stability. The immediate change in behaviour tied to a driver swap is a classic sign of a driver regression.
• Crowd pattern across UE5 titles: similar crashes and rendering glitches appeared in other Unreal Engine 5 games (Mafia: The Old Country, Metal Gear Solid Delta) after 581.08–581.15/581.29 family releases, reinforcing the idea that a driver change interacts poorly with common UE5 features (upscalers, DX12 pathways, async compute or certain resource life‑cycle patterns).
• Vendor release notes show 581.29 as a Game Ready driver targeted at Borderlands 4 — that driver is widely distributed and installed near launch, which aligns temporally with community reports. NVIDIA’s public listings show 581.29 and the prior 580.88/580.97 WHQL builds in the same release window.

Taken together, the evidence supports the conclusion that a driver regression in the 581.xx family is causing GPU-related crashes and instability for certain RTX 50-series configurations, driver/OS combinations, or specific engine code paths used by Borderlands 4.

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How to fix it right now (step‑by‑step)​

These instructions summarize what community troubleshooting and multiple reports found effective. They prioritize a safe, reversible approach:

• Prepare
• Save any in‑game progress and close background applications (recorders, overlays, monitoring tools). Overlays and monitoring tools can complicate troubleshooting.
• Download the target driver installer for the version you want to try (examples used successfully by many players: 580.88, 580.97, or 577.00). NVIDIA’s driver search lists these versions in its archive.
• Use DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) in Safe Mode to remove the currently installed NVIDIA driver cleanly.
• Boot to Safe Mode, run DDU, choose “Clean and Restart.” This removes lingering driver components that can interfere with a fresh install.
• Community reports emphasize that a DDU clean is critical when resolving driver-induced instability.
• Install the older driver you downloaded (e.g., 580.88).
• Choose a Custom install and optionally deselect GeForce Experience if you want to avoid auto‑updates until stability is confirmed.
• Reboot and test Borderlands 4
• Launch the game, play through the area that previously triggered the crash, and monitor for stability over an extended session (1–2+ hours if possible). Several users reported several hours of crash‑free play after the rollback.

If the game still crashes after rollback to 580.88:

• Try another nearby stable build such as 580.97 or even 577.00 (some community posts cite those as working alternatives). Document what you tested and your results.

Important notes:

• Rolling back will remove the newest DLSS 4-specific optimizations present in 581.29, so you may lose some performance/quality improvements until NVIDIA issues a corrected driver. This trade-off — stability vs latest optimizations — is important to weigh for long play sessions.
• After stability is restored, disable automatic GeForce driver updates in the NVIDIA app or Windows Update to prevent an automatic reinstallation of the problematic 581.xx family until NVIDIA publishes a fix.

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Diagnostics and additional troubleshooting steps​

If you prefer to exhaust safer diagnostics before rolling back, or you want to collect information to report to NVIDIA/Gearbox, follow these steps:

• Check Windows Event Viewer and the Unreal crash logs in the game folder for GPU error messages (AddressTranslationError, IllegalAccessError, or GPU page faults). These logs help identify whether crashes are driver-level or application-level.
• Disable overlays and monitoring tools temporarily (Steam overlay, GeForce overlay, RTSS/MSI Afterburner). Overlays have been proximate triggers in other UE5 crash reports and can mask the core issue.
• Test with DLSS/frame-generation off to see whether the crash is tied to the upscaler/frame-gen code path — some users found crashes linked to the interaction of drivers and DLSS/MFG in UE5 environments. If disabling the upscaler stabilizes the game, that’s an important data point to include in bug reports.
• Verify game files through your launcher (Steam/Epic) and ensure Windows updates Visual C++ runtimes; some launch failures are caused by missing runtimes or corrupted files rather than GPU drivers. Gearbox’s published troubleshooting emphasizes these basics alongside driver advice.
• Increase shader cache size or clear the shader cache in the NVIDIA Control Panel if shader compilation appears to be causing mid-game crashes (some community guides reported benefits from this procedure). Be cautious: this is a workaround for shader-related instability, not a guaranteed fix for driver regression crashes.

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What NVIDIA and Gearbox are doing (and what to expect next)​

• NVIDIA’s listed release notes and driver archive confirm the presence of 581.29 as a Game Ready driver timed with Borderlands 4, and older 580.xx builds are still available in the archive. That listing is consistent with the driver families implicated by community reports.
• Game developers and publishers (including Gearbox) typically advise players to keep drivers up to date but also provide fallback guidance and troubleshooting steps for launch‑window issues. Gearbox has published support notes and recommended mitigation steps for a range of launch issues, including shader compilation and general stability checks.
• Historically, NVIDIA has released hotfixes when regressions affect many users or specific high‑profile titles; multiple hotfixes were issued in past RTX 50-series rollouts to resolve crash/black‑screen problems. Expect a driver hotfix if the issue is widespread and reproducible. In the meantime, rollback remains the most reliable patient workaround.

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Risks, trade‑offs and long‑term considerations​

• Driver rollback restores stability for many users but may remove performance gains or compatibility improvements introduced for Borderlands 4 (DLSS 4 improvements are part of 581.29). If you rely on DLSS 4 features or the absolute latest Game Ready optimizations, the rollback costs you some of that potential performance boost.
• Rolling back drivers across OS/driver families can expose other compatibility quirks (desktop compositor, Windows updates, or other game-specific dependencies). Keep a stable system image or system restore point and test carefully.
• This class of problem demonstrates how tightly coupled modern game engines, vendor upscaling tech, and drivers have become. Unreal Engine 5 uses advanced rendering features that rely on precise driver behaviour; regressions can appear as crashes, resource faults, or visual corruption. That coupling raises the importance of rapid vendor fixes and thorough validation cycles for new driver releases.

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Recommended playbook for affected users​

• Short term (immediate): If Borderlands 4 crashes repeatedly on 581.xx, perform the DDU rollback to a stable 580.xx or recommended rollback build and verify stability. Keep the older driver until NVIDIA acknowledges and releases a corrective update.
• Medium term (days–weeks): Monitor official NVIDIA driver notes and the Borderlands 4 support pages for patches. When NVIDIA releases a follow‑up hotfix that lists UE5 stability fixes or Borderlands 4 as a targeted title, test that driver in a controlled way (DDU uninstall + install), and report back stability results if possible.
• Reporting: If you reproduce crashes, collect crash dumps, the Unreal logs, and GPU driver details and submit them to NVIDIA/Borderlands support. Well‑documented reports accelerate vendor triage and increase the chance of a timely fix.

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Broader context: why modern drivers matter more than ever​

The Borderlands 4 launch shows a recurring pattern in modern PC gaming: when games ship with cutting‑edge renderer features and vendor upscalers (DLSS 4, frame generation, advanced ray tracing, etc.), drivers play an outsized role in delivering a stable experience. That means:

• Regressions in drivers can affect multiple titles that use shared engine subsystems (UE5’s renderer/upscaler hooks), and
• Players on the bleeding edge (RTX 50-series, DLSS 4 adopters) are more exposed to driver volatility until vendors complete a few release cycles and hotfixes.

This is not unique to NVIDIA or Borderlands 4; similar interactions have been observed in past launches where new hardware, driver stacks and engine versions intersect. The right mitigation is rapid vendor patching, well‑scoped workarounds (rollback), and coordinated reporting from the community to help prioritize fixes.

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Final takeaways​

• The evidence collected from community reports, official driver lists and independent coverage points strongly to a driver regression in the 581.xx GeForce driver family that can cause Borderlands 4 (and other UE5 games) to crash on certain RTX 50‑series systems. Rolling back to an earlier 580.xx (or stable alternative) is the most effective immediate mitigation for affected players.
• A clean uninstall via DDU followed by a rollback to 580.88/580.97 or another community-validated stable build is recommended, followed by careful testing before re‑enabling automatic driver updates.
• Expect NVIDIA to issue follow‑up driver hotfixes; when those arrive, validate them in a controlled way and report stability outcomes to speed resolution for the wider community.

Borderlands 4 is a complex, resource‑heavy UE5 game that pushes modern PC graphics tech; that ambition creates powerful visuals but also increases sensitivity to driver regressions. If you run into crashes on an RTX 50‑series card, the rollback path described above is the pragmatic route to regain stability while waiting for a permanent driver fix.

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Source: DSOGaming Here's how you can fix Borderlands 4's crash issues on the NVIDIA RTX 50 series GPUs