Isaac Sim 5.1 GUI crash (access violation) on RTX 5070 Ti Blackwell — fixed by driver downgrade to 591.74

Omniverse Isaac Sim
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Operating System

Ubuntu 24.04
Ubuntu 22.04
Ubuntu 20.04
Windows 11
Windows 10
Other (please specify):

GPU Information

  • Model: NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU (Blackwell architecture, 12GB VRAM)
  • Driver Version: 595.79 (CRASH) / 591.74 (WORKS)

Topic Description

Isaac Sim 5.1.0 GUI mode crashes on RTX 5070 Ti (Blackwell) with driver 595.79. Headless mode works perfectly.

Detailed Description

Isaac Sim 5.1.0 installed via pip crashes approximately 20 seconds after the “app ready” message when running in GUI mode on an RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU (Blackwell architecture) with NVIDIA driver 595.79.

The crash occurs in omni.kit.window.preferences with an access violation error. The application window appears briefly and then terminates.

Headless mode (–headless) works flawlessly on the same system with the same driver, using the D3D12 renderer. The issue appears to be specific to the Vulkan rendering path on Blackwell GPUs with the 595.xx driver branch.

Downgrading the NVIDIA driver from 595.79 to 591.74 resolves the issue completely. Both GUI and headless modes work without any problems on 591.74.

System specs:

  • GPU: NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti Laptop (Blackwell, 12GB VRAM)
  • CPU: Intel Core i9-13900HX
  • RAM: 32 GB
  • OS: Windows 11 Pro
  • Isaac Sim: 5.1.0 (pip)
  • Isaac Lab: 0.48.0 (release/2.3.0 branch)
  • Python: 3.11 (Anaconda)
  • PyTorch: 2.7.0+cu128

Steps to Reproduce

  1. System: RTX 5070 Ti (Blackwell) + Windows 11 + NVIDIA driver 595.79
  2. Install Isaac Sim 5.1.0 via pip (pip install isaacsim==5.1.0 --extra-index-url https://pypi.nvidia.com)
  3. Launch any script in GUI mode (without --headless flag)
  4. Wait ~20 seconds after “app ready” appears in console
  5. Application crashes with access violation in omni.kit.window.preferences

Error Messages

Access violation in omni.kit.window.preferences extension, approximately 20 seconds after application reports ready state. No detailed stack trace available as the application terminates abruptly.

Screenshots or Videos

N/A — application crashes before meaningful interaction is possible.

Additional Information

What I’ve Tried

All of the following failed to resolve the issue on driver 595.79:

  1. Cleared shader cache
  2. Forced D3D12 renderer via --/renderer/active=d3d12
  3. Disabled hotkeys extension (omni.kit.window.hotkeys)
  4. Upgraded Isaac Lab from 0.48.0 to 2.3.0
  5. Attempted migration to Isaac Sim 6.0 (not yet supported on Windows)
  6. Clean conda environment rebuild with fresh Isaac Sim 5.1.0 install

SOLUTION: Downgrading NVIDIA driver from 595.79 to 591.74 fixed the issue immediately.

Related Issues

No existing forum posts found for this specific Blackwell + 595.xx driver combination.
This may affect other Blackwell GPUs (RTX 5080, 5090) on the 595.xx driver branch.

Additional Context

Posting this to help other Blackwell GPU users avoid the same debugging process. The key takeaway: if Isaac Sim 5.1 GUI crashes on a Blackwell GPU, try downgrading to driver 591.74 before attempting any other fixes.

Working configuration:

  • Driver: 591.74
  • Isaac Sim: 5.1.0
  • Isaac Lab: 0.48.0 (release/2.3.0)
  • Python: 3.11
  • PyTorch: 2.7.0+cu128
  • GUI: Working
  • Headless: Working
2

Hi @mehmetturan2003

Thanks for the detailed write-up and for sharing your findings — this will help other Blackwell GPU users.

Driver compatibility: The latest tested Windows driver for Isaac Sim 5.1.0 is 580.88 (see System Requirements (Isaac Sim Requirements — Isaac Sim Documentation). Both 595.79 and
591.74 are newer than our validated range. While newer drivers often work, regressions can occur — particularly on newer GPU architectures where the Vulkan path is still maturing.

Recommendation: For the most stable experience with Isaac Sim 5.1 on Windows, we recommend using driver 580.88 or the closest available version for your GPU. If 580.88 doesn’t support the RTX 5070 Ti (Blackwell
GPUs may require a newer driver branch for basic functionality), then 591.74 is a confirmed working alternative based on your testing.

What’s happening: The crash in omni.kit.window.preferences is a symptom — the underlying issue is in the Vulkan rendering path on the 595.xx driver branch. This is consistent with headless mode (D3D12) working
fine. We’ve flaged this internally.

Regarding Isaac Sim 6.0 Windows support: Please refer to GitHub - isaac-sim/IsaacSim at v6.0.0-dev2 · GitHub .

If anyone else is running a Blackwell GPU on Windows and experiences GUI crashes, please reply with your GPU model and driver version.