Can you explain more on this solution? I renamed my Overwatch.exe to Overwatch_fixed.exe, and then the launcher just replaced it with a fresh “Overwatch.exe” when trying to launch the game.
don’t use the launcher. go into the install location and launch the game using the renamed .exe
Been following this for a while now because ever since I got my new PC I’ve had the same problems and here is what worked for me.
I never ended up trying the rename fix because by the time I read about it I managed to get my game was stable after running windows update and installing specifically “Windows 10 version 1809” and Nvidia drivers 419.17. After the windows update Overwatch was stable all week and I could play comp again without any troubles, I thought it was completely solved but…
Came back after the weekend and turned on my computer to crashes every single game, I could not for the life of me figure out what was going on considering it was so stable when I left and NOTHING had changed, I tried DDU and updating to 419.35 with no luck, all the common stuff but no success including the rename fix.
After some investigation here is what finally worked, I did two things at once so I can’t be sure which one solved it, but I have a feeling it was disabling fast boot (just google it).
I can’t remember what exactly led me down this path but it was something I noticed in the windows logs and some googling suggesting that fast boot can stop certain devices from being initialized properly, I noticed a similar error showed up in my logs before I fixed it the first time and after it started crashing again, it makes sense that my PC was stable after the windows update (so it might not be necessary) because it would not have used fast boot after the update and I didn’t turn off my PC until the weekend upon which it would have used fast boot to turn back on and the crashes resumed, also because that had led me to the power settings I also noticed that the PCI Express Link State on my power profile was set for moderate power savings, I also turned this off because I know that can cause problems.
Ever since disabling fast boot and restarting my game has been rock solid, went from crashing mid way through every single game to solid for 5 hours so I think its back to what I had it last week.
I had to remove 419.35 because it has a performance conflict with the “Windows 10 version 1809” windows update which is known and caused big fps drops, 419.17 with Windows 10 version 1809 is stable for me so long as fast boot is off.
Hope this helps someone in the same situation as me, it was infuriating
i think you need a little more time to test this, because i had some weekends, with 0 issues, then next weekend every 10 matchs, crash. For me the rename worked perfectly, so yeah, lets hope for a real fix and not just some workarounds, this has been like this months already.
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Exactly.
All the methods described here needs to be tested at least 1-2 week(avg. daily 5-6 hour) to be confirmed as solution.
I have tested almost all the methods, not a single one working for me.
Crash over crash, sometimes just 1 crash in 5-6 hours, but other times 1-2 in every hour.
At the end i need to buy a 10xx card to even play the game.
I think that fixed another problem, I still need to use the rename fix.
Rename fix didn’t work for RTX 2070, along with most other homebrew solutions that are coming up. So what now?
Hey Blizz, with insurance, packaging, and shipping, it’ll cost me $70 to RMA my card. So one last time. Is this an issue with my video card or something software side?
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I can’t speak for everyone on this but I believe GIGABYTE had a bad run of cards released around Black Friday and extending to Christmas.
Most of the newegg reviews of these cards mention these crashes.
After Some seriously great help from Blizzard support I did some additional tests with my RTX 2070 Card and regardless of hardware (My college has a tech lab and I tried a lot of different hardware.) the issue persisted and began appearing in other games. (Black Ops 4, Elite Dangerous, Stellaris) I recommend to those who are still having this issue after trying all of the offered solutions to look into RMAing your card because that is likely the problem.
Honestly, it can probably happen with any brand. I had an MSI and I had about the same amount of crashes with that brand as I do with Gigabyte; and yes, I bought the Gigabyte graphics card between Black Friday and Christmas. I really don’t think RMA’ing in most cases is the solution. I have zero crashes now thanks to the renaming method mentioned by Blizzard. If this works for you (not you specifically) an RMA may simply not be necessary.
In my personal experience, the crashes only happen (or happened) in Overwatch.
Start a separate thread about your issue because there may be something more causing your crashes. Maybe contacting support is better if you include data from apps such as HWMonitor.
If you haven’t already, first try out the “solutions” mentioned in this thread. I would first try out the renaming method before you start fiddling with the register or other such solutions. Only do an RMA if you have tried all the solutions and none of them work. No need to spend a lot of extra money when the crashes mainly plague Overwatch.
Hello, it’s the first time I have a problem with overwatch. I played overwatch since two years and had never problem with it.
I used to play with GTX 570, GTX 970 and GTX 970 in SLI with the same computer.
Now I upgraded with an RTX 2060, and after two games I got crash with “Rendering Device Lost”, I don’t think the RTX 2060 has a problem because I played on other game and I don’t have any crash. It only happens with Overwatch.
And I don’t think it’s a problem with another piece of my computer because I never had any problem with it when I was using other graphics card.
Thank you for reading and for the reply.
The dev recognized this issue back in like Dec 2018 and said they’re working on it with Nvidia. But so far there isn’t anything specific fixed about this issue from the few nvidia driver update since then.
There is currently a temporary workaround that you can make a copy of the Overwatch.exe in your installed directory, renamed it to anything else, and start the game with the renamed exe instead of using the bnet application.
The downside of it is that you have to enter your ID and PW (as well as authentication code if you have one) every time you start up your game, and make a new copy of Overwatch.exe whenever there’s a update. But at least it won’t crash your game in the midst of a fight every now and then.
Is this thread broken for anyone else? Somehow Dosseum’s post is from 11 days ago, even though my own post before that post is from 1 day ago.
Edit: Thanks for the reply Rebird, that makes sense.
Same error of ‘Rendering device has been lost’ and it is with an RTX 2070, so it seems like the same issue to me. The renaming method is not working as other people are also reporting.
I do see as well Dosseum’s post is from 11 days ago.
The mod merged his post and my reply to this thread lol.
i came from the GTX 970 too and made the same jump to RTX 2060, the “name change” fix, worked really nice for me, give it a try.
There’s a survey on the reddit thread for the drivers 419.35, please fill the form, unfortunately I cannot add the form to the thread.
I think if we get enough traction on the survey, we might get something instead of rare fixes. I’m still experiencing the driver crash and is horrible.
RTX 2060 non-overclocked model here with latest NVIDIA driver and since I installed it on my computer (Core i7 7700k + H110i + 32GB) Overwatch became unplayable, crashing very often and now I have an XP penalty of 10 matches because of the crashes.
I tried to rename the executable to something else but unfortunately it’s still crashing at random. Putting back my old GTX 980 Ti that used to be rock solid, but it’s a shame I can’t use my new video card with my favorite FPS game. 
I was able to play for about 2 hours straight without problems after replacing the RTX 2060 with my old factory overclocked GTX 980 Ti…