NVIDIA Driver Bug Causes Increased CPU Usage

NVIDIA Driver Bug Causes Increased CPU Usage

If you’re among the affected – you may see CPU usage hovering around 10% persistently once exiting a game.

Image: NVIDIA

The latest GeForce driver from NVIDIA (version 531.18, which introduced features like RTX Video Super Resolution) has been misbehaving, which will cause increased CPU usage after exiting a game. The culprit is NVIDIA’s Display Container Service – and it can be seen occupying around 10% of CPU persistently. Some Reddit users believe this may be caused by a part of the driver called Game Session Telemetry Plugin (NvGSTPlugin.dll).

Not all users face this bug, including Hardwareluxx Editor Andreas Schilling. He can’t reproduce the bug despite having the problematic version of the driver; meanwhile NVIDIA has confirmed and zeroed in on the issue, with a hotfix on the way. (Editor’s note: my own personal PC has seen this bug – though in my particular case, selecting ‘End Task’ on the Display Container Service – which may cause the display to briefly flash – seems to have worked around the issue until the next system restart. Your mileage may vary.)

Over at Reddit, some users suggested blocking or removing the DLL file in question should fix the issue, however it’s not recommended as this may introduce stability issues. If you need a more persistent workaround, simply revert back GPU driver to the version before (528.49) and all will be back in order, though be aware that you’ll have to wait until the driver is fixed if you intend to use features like RTX Video Super Resolution.

Source: Videocardz | Tom’s Hardware

Pokdepinion: I think I can live with this minor annoyance for now (with my own workaround), since I don’t reboot my system as much.