Windows updates have significantly degraded the performance of Nvidia graphics cards

Nvidia graphics cards experience reduced performance after installing the Windows 11 KB5074109 update

*Brief overview of the issue*

Owners of Nvidia graphics cards who have noticed a drop in FPS and other visual glitches over the past few weeks should check whether they have installed patch KB5074109. This update turned out to be the cause of the degradation in GPU performance.

*What Nvidia says*

The company acknowledged that after installing this update users are experiencing:

- a 15–20 FPS drop in frame rate;
- flickering and shadow artifacts;
- frame generation errors and other graphical glitches.

As a result, Nvidia recommends completely uninstalling KB5074109.

*Why the situation arose*

The patch was released in January as part of Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday and contained more than 100 security fixes. After its installation many Windows 11 users enabled the update, after which Microsoft issued several emergency patches to address emerging issues.

Key problems associated with KB5074109:

- difficulties connecting Remote Desktop to Azure and Office 365;
- cyclical device reboots with secure boot enabled;
- Outlook failures and other functional disruptions.

*What’s next?*

Microsoft plans to fix these issues in a major February cumulative update. It is still unknown whether Nvidia graphics performance will return to its previous level – it is clear that AMD GPUs have not experienced similar drops.

In response to the situation, Microsoft engineers are forced to focus more on the stability and efficiency of Windows 11 than on adding new features.

*Additional context*

Some experts link the decline in update quality to increased use of artificial intelligence in the company’s code. According to CEO Satya Nadella, AI-based code accounts for about 30 % of the total.