NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Crashes During Million Dollar CS2 Tournament Despite Being Selected As The GPU Of Choice

Recently, PGL revealed its chosen hardware for the upcoming CS2 Major Tournament, consisting of systems equipped with AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPUs and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 GPUs. However, it appears that things did not go according to plan as a driver crash linked to the GPU ended up causing a team to miss out on the playoffs.

NVIDIA RTX 4080 Driver Crash Causes Controversy at PGL CS2 Major Tournament

According to PCGamesN, the incident took place during a face-off between Virtus Pro and G2. James, a player for Virtus Pro, encountered a significant technical issue during the second round of the best of three match. This resulted in G2 winning the round and ultimately defeating Virtus Pro with a score of 11-13, preventing them from advancing to the playoffs. In a positive video, James acknowledged that these types of problems are common in the game and expressed optimism for future tournaments.

The link provided is for a YouTube video with the URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwSNWMsscq8

Despite this, PGL did publicly address the issue and acknowledged that the game crash on James was caused by a technical malfunction resulting from an NVIDIA driver crash. It was noted that James’ PC was equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 GPU (Non-SUPER), which is known for its excellent optimization in CS2. Moreover, the game event utilized NVIDIA’s Reflex technology, providing players with a competitive advantage in terms of latency feedback and response times, making it crucial for eSports gaming.

Despite PGL’s statement that they had “meticulously optimized”the gaming setups for the tournament, they are still working with NVIDIA to identify and resolve the issue of the driver crash.

We are working now with NVIDIA to identify and fix the issue.

— PGL (@pglesports) March 24, 2024

Although a game crashing at a major tournament is not uncommon, it does not imply that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 GPU is not a worthy purchase. It is possible for games and drivers to crash unexpectedly, with no discernible reason. James’ experience during the tournament does not necessarily reflect the performance of the GPU as it could be due to improper testing or a faulty driver installation. We will await an official statement from PGL and NVIDIA regarding this issue.