- Latest update for Windows 11 24H2 packs a couple of nifty fixes for gamers
- One of those is the crucial cure for some PC games locking up completely
- The other fix is more tenuous, but a patched memory leak may also be related to issues with some games
Windows 11 24H2 just got a vital fix for gamers in its latest optional patch, and Nvidia GPUs should now be more stable with the operating system, as it irons out problems with certain PC games crashing.
This is KB5058499 which is a preview (optional) update and brings with it a ton of new features, as I discussed yesterday.
More important than any of that for gamers, though, are a couple of fixes tucked away at the bottom of the release notes which I overlooked and Windows Latest was keen-eyed enough to spot.
The most important cure here is a patch for the graphics kernel in Windows 11 24H2, of which Microsoft observes: “Fixed: An issue where some game titles become unresponsive after upgrading to 24H2.”
The bug in question causes some games to simply lock up when they are launched, a nasty glitch indeed for affected titles.
As for the other remedy related to gaming, that’s a more tenuous one, but it involves a memory leak bug in the ‘Input Service’ which according to Microsoft affects remote desktop usage and other situations that aren’t likely to be encountered by the average Windows 11 user.
However, Windows Latest argues that this memory leak might be the cause of input lag with the keyboard and mouse in some PC games, too – or at least that this bug could be part of the reason for that.
This issue with input lag can also provoke blue screen crashes with ‘memory management’ errors, we’re told, but it’s basically guesswork that the fix implemented with this optional patch for Windows 11 is part of the cure here. That could be the case, though, and if so, this is a handy double-whammy of useful patching for gamers.
Analysis: Nvidia’s not to blame (this time)
What’s interesting here is that the blame for the bug which causes games to lock up with Windows 11 24H2 was placed at the door of Nvidia by many. As Windows Latest points out, even when Nvidia released a new graphics driver that cured ‘stability issues’ with Windows 11 24H2 – back in April – problems with games becoming unresponsive continued, and Team Green caught the flak for not resolving the situation.
It turns out, then, that this was a problem in the Windows 11 kernel (the central code for the OS) that Microsoft needed to tinker with, so those venting their wrath directly at Nvidia weren’t being fair to the GPU maker. Although that said, it’s understandable why folks jumped to conclusions, seeing as Team Green has undoubtedly had huge problems with its graphics drivers ever since the release of the latest Blackwell generation – and the thorny issues plaguing those GPUs continue.
At any rate, hopefully this will be the end of the matter, at least as far as the 24H2-related crashing goes (fingers and toes very tightly crossed). If you’ve been suffering at the hands of these bugbears, the only way you’ll find out is by installing the optional update.
Of course, preview updates can be fickle themselves, and potentially still buggy, which is why they’re optional. So, you can wait until this preview update becomes the full June cumulative update, which will be released on June 10. Or, if one of your favorite games is bugged so it doesn’t work at all, you’ll likely want to risk it and grab the preview update for May right now.