Phantom Blade Zero's 5GB day-one patch boosts ray tracing, and S-Game wants you to roll back your Nvidia driver

Phantom Blade Zero just launched for PC and PS5, and S-Game has prepared a roughly 5GB day-one patch. Director and producer Soulframe Liang confirmed the download in a message shared on Chinese social media and translated on the game's subreddit. The patch is not a minor hotfix. According to Liang, it can "significantly improve ray-tracing and path-tracing performance" and includes a batch of bug fixes. Players who preloaded the game should download the update before launching. Those who did not preload will get the latest version automatically.

The context makes the patch more important than usual. Phantom Blade Zero is a demanding game even without ray tracing, and its install size is already substantial: around 145GB on PC and roughly 134.9GB on PS5. Adding another 5GB on launch day isn’t nothing, but for players planning to use path tracing, it may be the difference between a showcase and a stutter-fest.

Nvidia's 621.01 GRD is the driver to avoid

Liang also issued an unusual launch-day warning. Nvidia's latest 621.01 Game Ready Driver, which shipped with day-one support for Phantom Blade Zero, reportedly "exhibits unstable performance in certain situations". After internal testing, S-Game found that driver version 617.42 "currently provides the best compatibility" with the game. Players who have already updated beyond 617.42 are advised to clean-reinstall the older driver or wait for Nvidia's next release, which S-Game expects soon.

The recommendation is to avoid universal panic. Wccftech's reviewer, running an RTX 4080 on driver 617.14, reported little to no issues. But a studio telling players to downgrade their GPU driver on launch day is notable. It suggests the compatibility problem is real enough that S-Game would rather absorb the confusion than let players judge the game on an unstable build.

The patch has a performance gap to close

Ray tracing was always going to be the stress test. In Wccftech's review, the game ran at around 100 FPS at 4K with High settings and DLSS Quality on an RTX 4080. Enabling ray tracing dropped that to the high 50s, while path tracing brought it down to roughly 30 FPS. Our own coverage noted similar concerns, with reviewers reporting conflicting PC results and frame-pacing issues on higher-end hardware. The game still holds an 88 on Metacritic across PC and PS5, so the technical shortcomings haven't stopped critics from calling it a standout.

Whether a 5GB patch can close that gap entirely is doubtful. Path tracing at 30 FPS on an RTX 4080 is still far from smooth, and a single update is unlikely to double performance. But even a meaningful improvement in ray-tracing stability would make the mode viable for more players, and that is exactly what S-Game is promising. The patch may not fix everything. It at least shows the studio knows what is broken.

Buy the Phantom Blade Zero game guide on Amazon