Grinding Gear Games says a new Path of Exile 2 patch and Nvidia driver 610.88 address long-running device removed crashes and shader stutter after the studio shipped Nvidia a full affected setup.
Image: IGDB
Store links: Path of Exile 2 on Steam
Grinding Gear’s long-running Nvidia fix is finally in players’ hands
Grinding Gear Games says the long-running Path of Exile 2 Nvidia driver bug that caused “device removed” crashes, freezes, and shader-loading problems has been addressed through a combination of a new Path of Exile 2 patch and Nvidia’s 610.88 driver update. The fix arrives after an unusually involved debugging process in which Grinding Gear Games shipped Nvidia an entire affected PC setup so the GPU maker could reproduce the problem directly.
According to coverage of game director Jonathan Rogers’ recent technical video by PCGamesN, Wccftech, VideoCardz, MMO Fallout, and iXBT Games, the issue had been present since the earliest versions of Path of Exile 2 and was especially visible to players spending long sessions in endgame maps. Rogers said the problem affected Nvidia graphics cards using driver version 566.36 and newer, a driver line that arrived shortly before Path of Exile 2’s December 2024 early access launch.
For players, the immediate action is straightforward: if you play Path of Exile 2 on an Nvidia GPU, update both the game and your Nvidia driver. Wccftech and iXBT identify the relevant Nvidia release as driver 610.88, while PCGamesN says Rogers framed the fix as the result of combining the latest Nvidia driver with a new Path of Exile 2 patch. That pairing is important because the reported fix is split between the game update and Nvidia’s driver-side changes.
What the Path of Exile 2 driver update changes during play
The bug was disruptive because it struck at the exact point where Path of Exile 2 asks the most of a character build: combat-heavy, effect-dense endgame mapping. PCGamesN describes the common player-facing symptom as a screen freeze, usually for a second or two but sometimes longer on certain systems, followed by a cut to the loading screen. After that reload, players could return to the same area, but performance often remained degraded while shaders continued loading in the background.
VideoCardz reports that the driver crash forced the game to rebuild graphics resources after the freeze, which helps explain why the interruption could linger even after the player regained control. In an action RPG built around precise positioning, flask timing, dodge windows, and layered defensive planning, a hitch like that is not a cosmetic annoyance. It can break the rhythm of mapping, make a dangerous rare monster pack far deadlier, and undermine the trust players need when pushing a build into harder content.
Grinding Gear’s fix targets two related problems reported across the sources: recurring “device removed” driver crashes and extended shader-loading delays or stutter. PCGamesN quotes Rogers as saying both should be “significantly improved” when the latest game patch and Nvidia driver are installed. Wccftech and iXBT go further in their summaries, saying the issues have been addressed by the new update combination. The cautious reading for players is that this is the intended POE2 performance fix for the Nvidia-specific crash and shader stutter chain, but the developer wording reported by PCGamesN leaves room to watch real-world results across different systems.
Why Nvidia needed more than player complaints
The strange part of this story is not that a driver bug was hard to fix. It is that Grinding Gear Games had to prove the bug in a form Nvidia could act on. Rogers said, according to Wccftech, that Nvidia would only help if the studio could provide solid reproduction steps. He also said Nvidia did not seem to believe the issue was as common as Grinding Gear claimed, despite the studio seeing it affect a large number of high-level players.
That gap between lived player experience and usable engineering evidence is the tension at the heart of the Path of Exile 2 crash fix. PCGamesN reports that the issue was both common and difficult to reproduce reliably. The studio could ask testers to play until the freeze happened, but that did not reveal what caused it or what the engine and driver were doing at the triggering moment. For a developer trying to chase a graphics-driver failure, “play endgame maps for hours and wait” is a weak reproduction case.
VideoCardz adds a crucial detail: Grinding Gear Games assigned one engine programmer to investigate the problem for almost 18 months. The team added debugging systems, collected engine metrics, and built a replay system capable of repeating full gameplay sessions. That reportedly cut reproduction time down from several hours to roughly five to seven minutes. Even then, the problem did not appear on every system, which meant the studio still lacked the clean, universal recipe a hardware vendor normally wants before assigning driver engineering time.
The full PC shipment was a hardware-specific proof point
Grinding Gear’s eventual solution was blunt and very PC gaming: send Nvidia the machine that could reproduce it. Wccftech quotes Rogers saying the studio took one of its computers that reproduced the problem and shipped Nvidia the PC, monitor, mouse, and keyboard. VideoCardz and iXBT Games likewise report that the full setup was sent because the issue remained system-dependent even after Grinding Gear had improved its reproduction process.
That detail matters because it shows the problem was not treated as a simple game bug that could be solved only inside Path of Exile 2’s code. The affected configuration gave Nvidia engineers a controlled environment where the driver failure could be observed directly. According to Wccftech, Rogers said Nvidia finally saw the problem about a month before the video and assigned a driver engineer to investigate.
The reported technical fix also points back to the driver. Wccftech and iXBT say Nvidia found that increasing an internal value called shader heap size made the crash go away, and Rogers said this was something Nvidia could change specifically for Path of Exile 2. VideoCardz reports the same driver-side conclusion, connecting that adjustment to the “device removed” crashes and shader-loading delays. In practical terms, that means the fix required cooperation across the game and GPU driver rather than a normal balance patch or engine-only hotfix.
Who was affected, and why endgame players felt it hardest
The sources consistently identify the affected group as Path of Exile 2 players on Nvidia hardware using driver version 566.36 or newer. PCGamesN reports Rogers’ comment that this driver arrived shortly before Path of Exile 2 came out, which created an awkward situation: players following the usual advice to update GPU drivers before a major release may have moved directly into the affected driver range.
The issue was especially visible in endgame play. PCGamesN says Rogers described it as happening frequently for some players while mapping. Wccftech says Nvidia did not initially appear convinced it was as common as Grinding Gear said, despite the developer seeing it affect many high-level players. That difference is understandable from an engineering standpoint but frustrating from a progression standpoint. A bug that mostly appears after hours of high-intensity mapping can look rare in a lab and feel constant to the players living in that part of the game.
That is also why this fix carries more weight for Path of Exile 2 than it would for a shorter, linear RPG. The game’s endgame loop is built around repetition, optimization, and risk management. Players tune builds around narrow survival margins, then test those choices in increasingly volatile content. A freeze that reloads the area and tanks performance during shader recovery interrupts the feedback loop that tells players whether their build failed, their execution failed, or the game itself failed them.
What affected players should update now
If you are playing Path of Exile 2 on an Nvidia GPU, the practical guidance from the reported fix is to install the latest Path of Exile 2 patch and update to Nvidia driver 610.88. Wccftech and iXBT specifically identify 610.88 as the new Nvidia driver tied to the fix, while MMO Fallout says the latest Path of Exile 2 patch alongside the newest Nvidia graphics driver should go a long way toward solving the device crashing and shader issues.
Players who stayed on older Nvidia drivers to avoid the crash should now have a clear reason to move forward, provided they also update the game. Players already on driver 566.36 or newer are the key audience for this Path of Exile 2 driver update, since Rogers reportedly identified that driver range as the one tied to the issue. The sources do not identify an equivalent AMD or Intel GPU problem, so this specific fix should not be read as a universal performance patch for every graphics configuration.
Because Path of Exile 2 remains in early access, this update should be treated as a major technical correction rather than the end of all performance troubleshooting. The confirmed claim is narrower: Grinding Gear Games says the Nvidia-specific “device removed” crashes and shader-loading problems have been addressed or significantly improved through the new patch and Nvidia driver. If you were avoiding endgame mapping because of repeated freezes, this is the update worth testing before making deeper changes to your build, settings, or hardware.