Older NVIDIA drivers boost RTX 40 series performance by up to 70% in Resident Evil Requiem with path tracing
RTX 40 series owners have run into an unexpected issue in Resident Evil Requiem – the latest NVIDIA drivers cause a noticeable performance drop when path tracing is enabled. In some cases, the RTX 4090 ends up slower than the RTX 5070 Ti, which is as bizarre as it sounds.
Reddit users quickly tracked down the cause. Rolling back from the current GeForce 591.86 driver to version 576.88 delivers a performance boost of 60 to 70%. User DiesIrae13 reported a 60% gain, while another user, Sebastian Castellanos, saw a full 70% improvement in the main street area.
The bug only appears with path tracing active – rasterized mode runs fine on both driver versions. That's why it slipped through some benchmarks undetected: testing was done exclusively on the RTX 5090, which isn't affected.
If you have an RTX 4080 or RTX 4090 and want to play Resident Evil Requiem with path tracing, downgrading to version 576.88 is currently the only working fix. NVIDIA will likely address it in an upcoming driver update.
The community also found a separate improvement unrelated to drivers. By default, the game uses Preset D for DLSS Ray Reconstruction, but Preset E does a much better job of eliminating visual artifacts.
Switching presets isn't possible through the official NVIDIA app – you'll need the third-party NVIDIA Inspector Tool. Not the most convenient solution for anyone unfamiliar with it, but the visual difference makes it worth the effort.
