Path of Exile 2 players who have been battling frustrating shader stuttering and mysterious “Device Removed” crashes on Nvidia hardware finally have reason to celebrate. Grinding Gear Games announced on July 30 that a long-standing technical issue affecting Nvidia GPU owners has been resolved through a combination of a game-side fix and a new Nvidia driver.
The problem, which specifically impacted systems running Nvidia driver versions above 560, caused severe performance hitches as the game struggled to compile shaders during gameplay. Players frequently reported sudden freezes followed by “Device Removed” errors that kicked them back to the desktop, disrupting boss fights, mapping sessions, and otherwise smooth gameplay. For many in the community, it had become one of the most persistent and annoying issues since the game’s Early Access launch.
The fix comes in two parts. First, Nvidia released driver version 610.88, which addresses the root cause on the driver side. Players who were already on version 610.47 received a similar patch automatically roughly a week ago. Second, Grinding Gear Games pushed a game update that further optimizes how Path of Exile 2 handles shader compilation, reducing the frequency of the problematic calls that triggered the crashes in the first place.
Players will need to update both their Nvidia driver and the game to fully benefit from the fix. After updating, expect longer initial load times as the shader cache rebuilds from scratch. Once that process completes, though, performance should stabilize at a noticeably better level than before the patch. Grinding Gear Games included a graph in their official post demonstrating that the issue was isolated to Nvidia driver versions above 560, making the data behind the fix transparent to the community.
For Steam players running Nvidia hardware, this is a significant quality-of-life improvement. Path of Exile 2 remains one of the most popular action RPGs on the platform, and consistent performance is critical for a game built around fast-paced combat and complex endgame builds. The fix also signals that Grinding Gear Games is actively collaborating with hardware partners rather than waiting passively for driver-level solutions.
If you are still experiencing shader issues or Device Removed crashes after updating both your driver and the game, Grinding Gear Games encourages players to post detailed bug reports with system specifications in their Bug Reports forum so the team can investigate any remaining edge cases.
Path of Exile 2 is currently available in Early Access on Steam. The game is planned to eventually go free-to-play at full launch.
Sarah Chen searches the quieter corners of PC gaming for remarkable ideas that bigger releases leave behind. She covers indie games, platform updates, and the human stories behind development for SteamGamer.net. If a strange little game has twelve reviews, an unforgettable mechanic, and absolutely no marketing budget, Sarah has probably already finished it—and is explaining why everyone else should care.
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