Is it safe to say that this is a problem on Blizzard’s end because Overwatch is the only game that crashes for me in this way?
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Yes! There is something in the game that makes the GPU unable to process TDR (2s by default) and then windows kills and reloads the driver.
In my case it happens at random times on two completely different (as hardware components) computers.
I suggest you limit the FPS to a value that utilizes your GPU at max 90% and if that doesn’t help you can increase the TdrDelay value to 6s or more.
I’ve seen some people mention turning off TDR (whatever that is). Do you think that would help? Would increasing the delay be a better option? Also, I currently have my frames capped at 144 which shouldn’t cause any usage issues with my gpu. Furthermore, I keep an eye on my gpu temperature during gameplay and it never goes over 60-64c.
TDR (Timeout Detection and Recovery) tries to detect if the GPU has “hang up” and tries to fix that - during the fixing period there is a timeout (2s by default) - in case the GPU is not able to finish the task in those 2s a timeout occurs and TDR will kill and restart the GPU driver and that is the Render device lost error you see. (I tried to ELI5 but if you want technical details, let me know).
Increasing the timeout to 6-8s might give enough time for the GPU to handle the work during the TDR check and prevent the reset of the driver. Also having the GPU at 60-80% utilization could also help but have in mind that the amount of work the GPU has to do is not constant and varies a lot.
I have limited mine to about 40% utilization and so far managed to play 6-7 games without TDR reset.
I am against disabling TDR - in case you do so and the driver crashes - you’ll be forced to reboot the whole PC as the driver won’t be reinitialized by TDR.
How do I monitor my Gpu usage during gameplay, and what is the best way to reduce it? Thanks for the help so far. Also, could this issue be a problem with the Windows 10 OS?
Following up… TDR delay at 8 sec still crashes with rendering device lost error.
So I’m going to try some previously mentioned ideas to fix this issue, including:
- running a system file checker on my operating system to search for any missing or corrupted files.
- Change my gpu to debug mode.
- Change various settings in nvidia’s control panel, including: set power managment mode to prefer maximum performance, set triple buffering to off, turn threaded optimization on, and turn verticle sync off.
- Revert back to a previous gpu driver.
I’ll update once I’ve tested each of these out. I’m inexperienced with these things, so if any of the possible solutions I’ve mention could have negative side effects on my computers performance, please let me know.
In case this helps, I get the crash every two games or so, but I haven’t gotten it when I play Practice vs. AI (at least not back when I tried it). I hope that narrows down the potential scenarios where this happens.
I’ve done everything that I’ve seen, short of just chucking my PC out the window and it still crashes. I had a good 3 hour run last night where nothing happened but it crashed today as soon as I picked a toon
Ultimately there is nothing any of us can do except wait for Blizzard to take responsibility and fix their poorly coded game.
It’s not a hardware issue as there are over 100 people on these forums alone experiencing the same problem each with different hardware.
It’s not conflicting software on our computer as even a fresh HDD with nothing but Windows and Overwatch continually crashes.
The problem is Overwatch itself.
But Blizzard refuse to admit they screwed up, they already have our money so they simply don’t care.
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The last blue comment said they were able to reproduce the problem, so they may be working on a solution as we speak. I just wish they would update us more often…
Update on my end with an rtx 2070.
Playing on all low settings worked. Haven’t crashed ever since. Unfortunate with a card like this but this is the only way I can play until they fix it.
How often were you having crashes before, and how long have you gone without a crash since changing the settings?
Crashed every 3-4 games randomly mid-game. Not in the beginning or end like some other people.
Haven’t had a crash since lowering settings playing 3-4 hours a day. GPU temps at 60C.
Hey all,
We’ve gotten a number of reports on this and we’ve fiddled with it on our end some. We need some more information on whether or not this specific step works-around this issue.
- Open your Overwatch installation folder, the default location is:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Overwatch\_retail_ - Right-click the Overwatch application file and choose Rename
- Rename the file to OverwatchTest
- Double click the application to launch the game
You can just reply in the thread whether or not this fixes the issue for you. Keep in mind that we don’t expect this to fix everybody’s issue since there are a couple of different reasons you might be getting this error. If this does stop the errors from happening though, please post here so we know what the issue is.
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Hi Drakuloth,
So far so good on my end. Played for ~ 4 hours without a crash.
Does that mean that I need to use the OverwatchTest.exe every time I want to play the game? If that’s the case, I’m assuming this would mean that the Blizzard launcher won’t work?
Side note, when I launched the OverwatchTest.exe, it re-created an Overwatch.exe.
Thanks to the team for digging into this.
Quick update on this: Still no crash on my end after 2 days.
Could you explain why this is going to work and what’s going on the the background? Is it creating a fresh launcher, resetting some graphic settings?
Thanks
This makes no sense. I haven’t had a crash for a whole week and all of the sudden the game crashed again. I guess I will have to try the “fix” as well. Although with how it took a whole week for the crash to appear again it is really hard to figure out if the “fix” will even work at all.
I don’t even know what my login details are… I’m so used to Bnet launcher!
I used my email as account name, it asked for an authenticator but nothing came up on my authenticator, and the manual authentication code didn’t work either.
Update:
With the OverwatchTest method I have experienced my game freezing on me for 10 seconds before being able to move again. Before changing to OverwatchTest I have only had crashes to desktop.
What I find odd is that I have yet to crash to desktop during a custom game.
Edit: My game froze again in QP, this time 5 seconds.