Hey, after some abstinence i recently got back into playing D2R.
Like 2 or 3 days ago, the game randomly keeps crashing without an error - described by other players here in the thread. Most of the time, i’ve seen the “black boxes” stuttering on the screen before. Especially when there were many effects like hydras, blizzard and poison nova from my merc were flying around at the same time.
My nvidia driver is up to date with the version 512.15.
Never experienced crashes like this before. 
Edit: My Rig: Windows 10 Pro
Nvidia Geforce RTX 3080
Driver Version 512.15
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor
32 GB RAM
Res: 1920 x 1080. 144 hz
Hi there,
Just to say that I was a tad disappointed right after the 2.4 update a week ago when this inconvenience was still there (albeit in a really reduced form, the squares appeared only one frame long, which is not very nice for people sensitive to epilepsy, but it was not my case so… it was just a bit bothersome).
However, I was glad to notice that, after the update from yesterday, I’m unable to see black square anymore (Act II, IV and the worldstone keep in Act V).
A big thanks for this fix 
(at least on my side).
− Chouhartem
My configuration:
- System: Archlinux (5.17.5-arch1-1 I don’t know if it’s relevant), with Lutris and Native Wine (7.7).
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700x (on a x570 MoBo)
- GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (from Sapphire, blower)
- Memory: 16 Go @ 3200MHz CAS16
- Display: 2560x1440 @ 120Hz
Here too. Linux, nvidia driver 510.54. I know earlier versions work, but other things are broken when I use those versions.
Still bugged for me. I have a similar configuration, but with Intel and Nvidia hardware.
Configuration:
- Arch Linux 5.17.1-252-tkg-cfs #1 TKG SMP PREEMPT
- CPU: 6700k
- GPU: 1070ti with 510.60.02-1 driver
- Tested on system Wine 7.7 (native) and lutris-7.2
So ever since the new ladder I’ve noticed Only in Baals throne room as I’m killing waves sometimes it happens sometimes it doesn’t, these black boxes form on the waves and then my game closes, no error, nothing. Is anyone else experiencing this? I play pc Windows 11 3070 Ti…
Yes, still happening to me as well. It seems like the crash isn’t happening anymore? But the artifacting is as rampant as ever.
One thing I noticed recently is, around the point where the game client used to crash, now just the lighting changes–like the screen gets way dimmer (a light source/layer shuts off, or something). I think it’s very specifically about how D2R manages ambient light vs VFX light.
I have these artifacts too
After experiencing this on my EndeavourOS rig with the v495 & v510 drivers, I was hoping that the v515 drivers would finally squash this bug…and of course, it didn’t; maybe even worse now.
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I have the same issues mainly in A4 (sometimes at start on character screen) on Manjaro.
Amd r5 3600, gtx 2070 super
kernel 5.15 with matching driver
lightdm, i3wm, picom
I think this is even worse than before, I barely see anything of act 4.
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I have the same issues with two of my linux laptops , one Fedora , other is Gentoo.
Fedora laptop is intel 7700hq + 1060 mobile
Gentoo laptop is intel i9-11900H + 3080 mobile
On Gentoo laptop I checked differant nvidia drivers, and it seems to be driver dependent : black boxes occur on 510.73.05-r1 , 510.85.02 , 515.65.01
but did not occur on 470.141.03
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Friendly reminder that this remains not fixed. Have tried multiple drivers, multiple power settings, multiple clock settings, with clean and test in between. Also multiple in-game graphics settings, from lowest to highest. Nothing makes any difference. It’s definitely the game, and specifically (would bet money on it) how the game handles lighting.
Artifacting always occurs around lighting-intensive vfx. At the throne, sometimes instead of crashing, the environment goes really dark–as though one of the primary lighting layers faulted out. Whatever was done around artifacting and lighting in the previous patches was not enough.
Haven’t seen a blue acknowledge this thread since the suggestion last October to bug-report it. I intend to submit a bug report every single time I see artifacting until blizz acknowledges it is a real problem.
All right besties, after nearly a year of trying to fix this, I think I figured it out. Still way more testing to do, but I just did about a dozen Shenk catapult storms with gfx settings maxed and zero lagging or crash. Likewise multiple WSK/wave runs wearing dual forts and throwing lightning everywhere, zero artifacting. This was at 3440x1440 and ultra settings.
The solution for me was to disable dynamic power scaling on my graphics card. I locked it at 1 volt, 1890 MHz. The problem is, as we’ve all pointed out, D2R doesn’t actually need a top-shelf rig. Clock speeds and core temps are low during normal play. But sometimes, like when a bunch of skeletal mages drop on you and all throw ice bolts in the middle of your blizzard, or 11 council members pop hydras on your head and your chilling armor is shooting back, suddenly you need waaay more power. My card appears not to be able to handle the power scaling at the pace D2R’s vfx require. See this YouTube about power-scaling problems with 3080s: RTX 3080 Problems FIXED, no crashes step by step guide - YouTube
In that video, you’ll see the creator talking about setting your max voltage to get a line past which the power won’t scale. That’s essentially the same as undervolting, and I tried that multiple times with no improvements to the D2R crashing. But the thing is, with typical undervolting, you pick a point on the curve and set max voltage to have a straight line (power-wise) going right–locking max hertz and voltage. Left of the undervolt point is still a curve. And this is where the fact that D2R is a puppy comes in. D2R’s normal power needs are so low that, even with undervolting, the jump between normal play and the undervolt limit during something like a Shenk kill is so great that it was enough to crash my card–like, half a volt, 90-ish watts, and 1500 MHz.
So instead of undervolting with a curve, I locked my card at 1v. D2R runs like a dream now. And it makes so much sense that I never had artifacting with my old 1060: It was a weaker card and was always running at a higher baseline, so the vfx weren’t causing some crazy power fluctuation sine wave.
I have a GeForce NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti. If you have a similarly robust GPU, and you’re artifacting/crashing, it might be because your card is too powerful. Try to force D2R to play at a fixed voltage and see if it helps. gl
It’s the second time my game crashes upon ACT V, throne room and before it happens a few black squares pop up on top of the mobs…
Glad you found a fix for a high-powered card. But my 1070, which is very similar in performance to your 1060, has been affected by this since the beginning. I think if GPU prices ever stabilize I may have to switch to AMD.
False alarm anyway. After additional stress testing for the last 3-4 hours. I still get artifacting and crashes at Shenk. For instance, I watched the wattage roll as high as 270 (from baseline roughly 140 at 1v) before the thermal throttling set in and the FPS tanked (then kernel fault client crash). That was with me running around like crazy throwing lighting fury during a Shenk storm with burning archers and quill rats all over the place, BC/BO and forts on me and merc, plus auras.
Anyway, it’s way more stable at fixed voltage compared to dynamic power scaling, but not resolved. Looks like there are situations where there are just too many lighting/particle effects for a reasonable-to-good setup.
Maybe we should all go buy $10k gpus.
My issue with artifacting had nothing to do with overload; it’s consistent with certain monster types (A2 and A4, especially). I can run a Necro with a full hoard (20+ summons) against a P8 army of Shenk and his minions with no issues. But show me a Maggot and half the screen disappears.
By the way, I failed to mention that I started experiencing these black squares in the throne room with my new machine, which operates on rtx 3080 ti. I didn’t have crashes like that on gtx 1070… Diablo is the only game that crashes like that, unfortunately.
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Same with me. I keep hoping that Blizzard/Nvidia will fix this before the 470 driver gets sunsetted.
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After switching back to a dual-boot with Windows 10, I tried the latest Nvidia drivers with D2R…and all of my graphics issues are gone. I was even able to bump up the settings that I’d lowered on my Linux/Steam install.
I have the same problem and I use windows 10, will blizzard seriously leave the game like this?
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