PSA: Downgrade to 561.09 driver if you're experiencing crashes

The game crashes every couple of hours with the 565.90 driver, but it’s stable on 561.09.

I thought giving this solution more visibility might help others facing the same issue. Note: This is only relevant for NVIDIA hardware.

To download the 561.09 driver:

  1. Go to the official NVIDIA website.
  2. Navigate to the “Drivers” section.
  3. In the “Manual Driver Search” form, select your GPU model and operating system.
  4. Under “View More Versions,” find Game Ready Driver version 561.09 and download it.
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Confirmed. I was experiencing the crashes too, but when I went back to the 561.09, I played 6.5 hours with no crash at all.

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Do I have to uninstall my current NVIDEA driver before installing 561.09? If yes, what’s the best way to do that? DDU or some other method?

Yes.

If uninstalling the driver and installing the 561.09 fails, you will need to use the DDU tool to fully uninstall the driver then reinstall the 561.09.

But follow all the directions on the DDU website correctly for best results.

You don’t need to uninstall the current driver before downgrading; just run the installer.

Maybe not, but there can be instances where that can fail, or leave behind inconsistencies. Rather than try several times, it may be best to just clean it out fully then install the older version.

The simplest way isn’t always the best way.

I can also confirm reverting to 561.01 fixed all the crashing issues I’ve been having since the VOH launch. Do NOT update to 565.90 when prompted. I made the mistake to update my drivers when i got prompted at the VOH launch.

In my case I could not revert to the previous drivers through the Display Settings in W11 (greyed out) so I uninstalled the 565.90 driver with DDU and then I installed 561.09. I’ve been online about 10 hours since I reverted to 561 and not a single crash or Fenris error. Before reverting I’d d crash about every hour or so by getting a Fenris crash or black screen forcing a full reboot.

There are probably more issues with the game but this fixed the crashing for me. Worth a try if you are crashing with a Nvdia graphic card.

Specs - 13th Gen 13900KF / RTX 4090 / 32 GB Memory / W11

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I did this 2 days ago. Not one crash since then.
With 565.90 driver I had a lot of entire PC crashes.

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Thx alot!
Worked for me and kept me from pausing D4 :smiley:

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Confirming that this works. Tested on two different systems with a 4090 and a 2060. After digging a bit more, other forums (even non-gaming ones) are confirming high CPU usage and even voltage issues. Was getting frequent disconnects, huge lag spikes with heavy monster density, and rubberbanding. Rolling back to 561.09 solved all issues.

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Didnt resolve my high CPU usage and stuttering issues… so i guess its two separate issues.

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Confirmed it fixed my crashing

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The more I think about this issue, the madder I get. When I bought VOH and started it up, the game would not run without updating my NVIDIA driver first. So I updated to the most current driver (I know not perhaps the smartest thing to do) and the game then ran. After a number of patches, I now have to uninstall that driver and install an older one to get the game to (maybe) run without being almost unplayable? So Blizzard, you make me update my driver but you don’t verify that your game will run on the newest version? Why wouldn’t you test this? It’s not like there aren’t just a few NVIDIA systems out there running your game.

Now I know this isn’t that hard of a fix for me to make but from everything I’m reading on this and other threads, the NVIDIA driver issue is far from the only technical problems with the current VOH game. Some of the issues are so blatantly obvious, I fail to see how they could have been missed (and dealt with) by Blizzard before launch or patches.

Last but not least, most of my issues didn’t start with base VOH launch but with subsequent patches. I can’t remember which patch started my problems but it was definitely not with the base VOH release.

This worked for me as well as it was crashing to desktop every 1-2 hours (Diablo 4 with DLC). Just did a 5 hours run with no crash.

Specs - Intel 14900K / RTX 4090 / 64 GB Memory / W11

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I usually dont post but i have to say thankyou this was the fix for my disconnect. I was able to play for 6 hours without a hitch it appears so far that the current Nvidia driver update was the problem

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Yeah unfortunately dropping down to 561.09 didn’t solve the crashes for me. It still crashes about once per hour, then when I log back in, I’ll get maybe 5 minutes before the next crash. Seems like I have to go do something else for a bit, then I can come back to diablo for another hour.

How you do this matters.

If you didn’t use the DDU or didn’t follow their instructions properly, it may still fail.

There were a few that had issues, tried again and then managed to get things to run okay.

But its also entirely possible you could have another problem besides the problem this is meant to solve. That’s the rub.

So yeah, if you aren’t sure, try it again using the tool DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) and follow the instructions on their website.

I highly recommend NOT installing the geforce experience app.

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Sorry, but this did not work for me. I have even rolled back one driver behind this recommended one as well, and the game is still crashing. I did a clean removal of all Nvidia drivers and also did a clean install of driver upon install and still isn’t working and the game is still crashing.

You can even tell when it’s about to crash at times due to the Audio will cut out music wise and then it locks up and then it crashes. Its sad that it seems Blizzard is kind of mum on this and also giving very generic replays due to the issues, which is game dev code for " We don’t know what’s wrong or how to fix it…".

Also, I was wondering if the people getting the crashing, have the new expansion pack or not. I do not have it or own it yet.

I’m sorry the rollback didn’t work for you and some others :pensive:.

Maybe it’s worth gathering the system specs of people still experiencing crashes with the older driver? We might find a pattern, or it could be useful for Blizzard devs if they’re checking the forums. I’m wondering if Diablo is somehow exacerbating issues with Intel 13th and 14th gen CPUs.

As for your question about the expansion, it shouldn’t matter whether you bought it or not—everyone received the same game client in the end. You might have noticed a sizable update before the VoH launch—that was the expansion content being downloaded.

Worked for me, no crashes for a hour +… Will test more.
12900k + 3080ti (w11)

ps. interesting, that home rig with 13700k + 4080 (w11) - did not crashed once on latest drivers.