NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready Driver 617.42 fixes an Assassin's Creed Shadows crash and chases Call of Duty

NVIDIA's new Game Ready Driver 617.42 brings day-one support for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 and finally fixes an Assassin's Creed Shadows crash, though there's little else in this lean release.

NVIDIA has pushed out its third Game Ready Driver in about six weeks. Version 617.42, the WHQL-certified desktop build, went live on October 6, and its headline purpose is prepping your rig for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.

Here's where things stand, plus a couple of caveats you should read before hitting download.

What this driver actually does

NVIDIA describes 617.42 as a Game Ready Driver that "includes optimizations and enhancements for a raft of new DLSS 4.5 games, expansions and updates." The press announcement is titled "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 & STAR WARS: Galactic Racer Game Ready," which tells you everything you need to know about the marquee titles.

The full optimized set reaches five games: Modern Warfare 4, Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Sim Update 7, STAR WARS: Galactic Racer, and Valor Mortis. Gears of War: E-Day also shows up in some supporting lists, though it curiously doesn't appear in NVIDIA's own feedback-thread summary.

Modern Warfare 4 is the one most people are actually waiting for. The campaign opens to pre-orders on October 16, with the full launch landing October 23.

An Assassin's Creed Shadows fix that closes a loop

The one genuine bug fix here is worth the attention. NVIDIA has resolved an Assassin's Creed Shadows crash-to-desktop that started biting players after they upgraded to the 616.56 driver. It's logged as NVIDIA bug 6685219.

The crash usually reared up after long sessions, the kind of problem that only surfaces when you've already sunk hours into a playthrough. It hung around through the September 22 release of driver 617.14, so the fix lands a touch late. Given how far out Shadows shipped, that timing is arguably fine.

Three drivers in six weeks

The pace deserves a mention. NVIDIA shipped 616.64 around September 3, followed by 617.14 on September 22, and now 617.42. In the months since, the driver program has stayed unusually busy. DLSS 5 arrived with NBA 2K27 in driver 616.64, and the 617 branch rolled out Vulkan 1.4.351 alongside CUDA 13.4. That last detail hasn't been independently confirmed against 617.42, so treat it as likely-but-unverified.

It reads like a deliberate strategy of chasing day-one support for major launches. Call of Duty is the obvious magnet, but Gears of War: E-Day and STAR WARS: Galactic Racer both dropped into the early October window as well.

The cost of that speed is a lean release. NVIDIA lists no updates to its general bug-fix section, so this isn't the build for cleaning up older gremlins.

Head here to download the driver.