Persistent "A Restart Is Required to Apply Some Settings"

Technical Support
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I am experiencing an issue with Overwatch where the game continuously displays the message: “A restart is required to apply some settings.” Despite multiple attempts to restart and troubleshoot, the issue persists.

I have tried reinstalling the Windows operating system, installing the game on both Steam and Battle.net platforms, verifying game file integrity, deleting the settings files, resetting all game settings to default, and adjusting graphics card and monitor settings, but none of these attempts have resolved the issue.

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Hey there, I’m a volunteer and I do not work for Blizzard or relay messages to developers.

Since the issue is following you through reinstalls, I’m thinking it might be related to the software managing the graphics card or peripherals (like a gaming mouse) trying to apply settings specific to the Overwatch client.

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I have the same issue since the latest patch. My graphic settings have changed in game as well with no way to set them back. I have tested a few things like changing the resolution. When I changed resolution it some how changed all the display settings to high or ultra even though it doesnt show that in the options. I can tell they have changed because of reflections ect. There is something very wrong with the antialiasing settings and other display options. Nothing has changed on my pc but the patch.

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Alright, glad to see it’s not just me experiencing this. Just installed OW, I never install crap like the Nvidia app or anything else to control my game graphics, and seeing this error made me think it was somehow still installed. Created new profile, reinstalled Nvidia without app, still see message. Tried deleting Overwatch doc folders with all settings, tried scan/repair, took permissions of ow folder/gave admin, etc. Still showing up.

I even installed the Nvidia app to see if optimizing the game with it would do anything, it doesn’t.

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Ya ive tryed all that stuff Undeadbanana with no luck as well. All my other games are fine and this just started since the latest update so im pretty sure it was the update that caused this. They have added a few gpx settings that probably screwed everything up.

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Is HDR actually working in this patch for you?

That’s another setting that seems to be broken, turning it on in-game seems to adjust display settings but in-game you can’t calibrate any longer and I’m not even sure if it’s actually enabled as my monitor says it’s HDR Emulated now rather than just HDR as previous.

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I’m having this issue as well, so far it seems the options still seem to be applying fine, but HDR is broken. The persistent “Restart to Apply changes” is there, this is on a fresh reinstall of Windows 24H2 and OW2.

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I don’t know what they did but my game is incredibly laggy now that it’s unplayable. Even setting everything to low in the video settings does nothing.

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I’m having the same issue as well. It started after the last patch/update to the game, and I believe that was when the “Graphics API” setting first appeared in the settings, or at least it was the first time I noticed it. Mine is set to DirectX 11, and that’s the only available selection choice. Not sure if that’s relevant at all, just something I noticed appeared at the same time as the “A Restart is Required…” message started persisting regardless of anything I try.

It doesn’t seem to be effecting my game performance, though, or at least, not that I noticed.

I have Windows 11, RTX 4090, Ryzen 7950x3d, in case that helps. Latest drivers as well, I’m anal about that, and my rig is highly optimized.

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Is anyone starting the Overwatch client with extra command line flags on the *.exe? Or compatibility mode?

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Well, possibly. Not compatibility mode, but I use Process Lasso and RivaTuner (RTSS) and both of them are setup to use specific settings for when I am gaming, which are triggered by the launch of Overwatch.exe. But I tried closing both of those, preventing either from starting on a reboot, rebooting, checking and making 100% sure they weren’t still somehow running any background processes, verified the are not, started up Overwatch, closed it, and restarted it again, just in case, and then Alt+Tab out of OW while it was still running, just to verify that Lasso and RTSS are still not running any processes…

…but still see the Restart is Required… message.

3 Possibly Totally Irrelevant Tidbits of Info:
(but just in case they are relevant, giving you all the info I can think of to give you, even if it’s useless)

1] I use Battle.net to launch OW, not Steam. I could try Steam to see if it is any different, but haven’t yet.

2] I also tried resetting all of my OW graphic settings back to default and relaunching. So in other words, all setting on the Video tab and Graphics Quality tab.

3] Lastly, even though the “A Restart is Required to Apply Some Settings.” message is present, the Apply button is not present (unless of course I actually change some settings). But the Apply button isn’t there, otherwise, so it’s not like it’s actually waiting for me to Apply anything initially, even though the Restart message is there.

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Also have this issue, and my 21:9 option is gone.

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Maybe some graphics settings from the driver are being applied, but your Overwatch directory has corrupted permissions so they’re not writing to the Overwatch userdata file? And then maybe it’s in some sort of limbo? The limbo being that settings were applied but the client sees they are different than the previous settings and wants you to restart to “apply” them. Just guessing here since this thread contains the only players reporting this issue.

Edit:

That problem seems specific to a certain LG TV model, not sure if there’s anything the devs can do. Perhaps the graphics drivers aren’t working with the model properly.

Edit 2:

Since this is probably a bug or what I described above, report it in Bug Report when you have a chance.

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This could be true but for me the only thing that has changed was the update.

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I uninstalled both battlenet and OW2 using revo uninstaller and did a fresh install. I deleted all the data in the initialization file and restarted. did not help.

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I was able to get my settings to appear truly “low” and got my frames back as well. I ran DDU, reinstalled drivers (AMD 7900XTX) with defaults and applied the settings in game. Still can’t get HDR to work.

It’s like I am stuck in time. I am still displaying the maintenance warning about this morning’s possible interruptions. My friends’ statuses in the battlenet app have not changed for a long time.

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Reinstalling my video drivers did reset my settings in game to appear in low. I still see the “a restart is required warning” but my video settings seem to be working now.

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Its working but you can’t adjust the slider.

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Looks like it was reported 7 days ago:

Everyone in this thread should post there to confirm.

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Thank you, I thought it was my graphics card so I uninstalled the amd software and just installed the driver but still persistent. The a restart is required message on Ow2. Also to add that when I close the game it is still running when I check my task bar, I left it for awhile to see if it would stop but I have to end process manually. To add to that my game starts with around 20fps and then eventually after about 20 minutes of unplayable experience it would kick back to around 160fps with some high drops now and then. I have played around with the setting nothing worked. Then I decided to check Dayz and played it for awhile and found that I have no issues with my fps… So as much as Blizzard can say it’s something we did or changed, I can only come to the conclusion that it is something from the last patch file because Ow2 was running smoothly a couple of weeks back.

1 Like