"Render Device Lost" Fix for RTX

i tried it still crashes for me

Hey there. Sorry I didn’t see your response, if you click “Reply” directly to this post or the prior one I made I’ll get the notification.

You’re right, there are literally dozens upon dozens of reasons someone might have this error occur. If you experience this once or twice since you’ve started to play OW, that’s not really significant. The issue arises when you can consistently replicate this error in a clean environment on a system which does not have issues running other high-demand and highly performant 3D applications across the 9xx, 1xxx and specifically 2xxx Series of NVIDIA GPUs. Check your GPU utilization while you’re in a match - It’s likely going to be pegged at 99-100% while you’re playing. That’s efficient use of resources. It’s a good thing but it’s also a very demanding task for any system - of course.

When your application is designed to squeeze out every bit of performance the system can give and your system is not stable, then you are bound to run into these errors. If your RAM has an XMP profile, disable it, see if your issue is resolved. The maximum “supported” speed for DDR4 is 2133MHz. Set everything in your BIOS to stock. That 800MHz OC on your i5 could be your problem, even if that seems ridiculous to you, it may be isolated to this program due to how extensively it utilizes available resources. It’s clear that this game needs a truly stable environment to work right in. Set your TDR value to 10 seconds, see if that helps. I didn’t try this as I don’t think Overwatch can tolerate a TDR event with the default 3 second recovery period or the increased recovery period.

Check Event Viewer for TDR issues. Hit your windows key, type in “Event Viewer”, open it. Expand the “Windows Logs” drop-down. Click “System”, then right-click “System” and click “Filter Current Log”. In the window that appears, where it says <All Event IDs> enter 4101. Click OK. Do you have multiple TDR failures that occur outside of Overwatch? If so, this is likely your issue.

If not then… Well, you see the point, I can go on about the different ways to track this down. People are still having TDR failures on the desktop with multi-monitor setups with NVIDIA GPUs & drivers. This has been an issue for a long time and also relates to the way in which Windows works.

What you have to ask yourself (and what it comes down to for me) is that:

  • Why has this thread been open for so long, with now over 700 replies, with no definitive fix? I don’t believe Blizzard to be directly responsible in fixing this error, though I believe that they can mitigate it in specific circumstances (e.g. results of renaming the .exe for the 2xxx series cards provides some good diagnostic data to Blizz). Ultimately, the complete fix lies with NVIDIA* and/or Microsoft. How, when, or what form that fix will come in is total speculation. This issue is definitely not specific to Overwatch (asides from 2xxx series cards - best guess on that one).
  • Regardless of that, re-naming an .exe based on advice from forum support posted months ago for a game you paid for to work on a system you owned that meets its’ specifications and is a known-good system - some users having running it like this for months now is a bit crazy. There should be more follow-up, I think. What’s the point of the launcher if we have to use a manual work-around to run the game for months? Even if it only effects some small percentage of users. GeForce experience is useful for highlights, and shouldn’t be a conflict as well. Why should we have to modify so much to get this game to work?

All said and done, this is a real issue that is hard to troubleshoot. There isn’t anyone in particular to blame. It’s incredibly frustrating and deserves some attention from NVIDIA as well, as Overwatch should be able to handle TDR events appropriately and that’s not entirely up to the developer or NVIDIA. Until then, we use clunky workarounds.

Edit: If you’d like to trigger a TDR event while Overwatch is running to see if it causes a crash, you can do that. Without modifying your TDR settings from default, run an OpenCL application that uses CUDA/Hardware Acceleration. Alternatively, you can run something such as nbody from the CUDA demo suite. This should cause a TDR event at default settings.

1 Like

On my one account I’m now banned in comp cuz of all the crashing caused by rtx 2080. I’m so sick of this not getting fixed I’m ready to uninstall overwatch.

Crashed the very first game after performing the rename, for me. RTX 2080 Ti here. The temps for my video card were lower though if that helps.

I played again 10 placement matches in a row and a few of comps and didn’t have any crash. I didn’t want to play any comp since I have my RTX 2060 and this problem that no one really fixs.

I’ve never used the rename fix, I did:

  • Nvidia Profile Inspector: Delete OW profile
  • Medium setting
  • Render Scale 100%

I played them with GeForce experience on/overlay for screenshots, etc.

The way i see it, we will see Overwatch 2 sooner then the fix itself.
I don’t know why Blizzard not tries to find a solution as fast as possible. I know, it’s most likely NVidias fault, but still, it’s in Blizzard interest to fix it or they lose players.
Gamers all around the world soon will have no other choice then to buy only RTX cards. I know, there are GTX 1660, but it has the same issues. I see the posts and GTX10** series starting to get issues with the game. And now that the Super Series coming out, it means the lower tier RTX cards will become even more cheaper, which means even more issues with the game.

This issue is really annoying and has lost me many games.

But I guess I can count myself lucky because the renaming trick worked for me. Over 30 games since then and not a single crash. (Although once I accidently started the game from the launcher and it crashed within the first 5 minutes.)

It worked for me by renaming the Overwatch.exe to OverwatchTest.exe and then I just created a shortcut for it on my desktop.
Note: Patching Overwatch creates a new .exe and it needs to be renamed again.

1 Like

OMG I hate this. I just lost 150 competitive points in 2 hours because of this bug. Come on Blizzard at least detect that is your crappy client that’s crashing and don’t take my points and ban me for an hour.

So here’s what worked for me. I own an Nvidia GEForce GFX 1660Ti, and one of the newer drivers from Nvidia allowed non-authentication, or non-supported monitors to have G-Sync activated on them. My monitor, which is an Acer KG271U (144Hz, gaming monitor), is not official supported for G-sync. However, the Nvidia control panel would let me turn it on regardless.

After I turned it off, I have not had the rendering device lost problem since. Ongoing testing…

I don’t even have an RTX card, and this has been my issue since THEIR last update of the game. It’s Blizzards problem not my card. I don’t even have my card overclocked and the game will still crash with this error/ This is blizzards fault. it’s their update that caused it, and they need to go in and fix it.

I’ve done everything to try and fix this problem. Only thing left to do is uninstall windows and reinstall (Which is ridiculous). I will not underclock my card for just ONE GAME in my entire library.

None of your troubleshoot options work. Tell your devs to stop derping around and fix this game.

Yeah, no. Doesn’t work. Tell the devs their games needs a fix.

Rename did not work for me.

This is infuriating.

I have an RTX 2080.

RTX 2060 here, I had the same issue the day I installed the card. I had it on my first competitive game, then 3 games later, once again. I searched this thread and tried everything.

What did work for me is the Nvidia Profile Inspector, where you delete the “Overwatch” profile, no crashes anymore!

I haven’t tried the rename trick as I fixed it with the Nvidia Profile Inspector and I believe they do the same, also renaming seems like such an annoyance anyway.

I use GeForce Game Ready Driver Version 419.67

I have yet to update to the latest, as of now is 430.86 since I don’t want to risk any issues.

i’m saying this carefully but i might have found a fix for my issues.
I have a RTX 2070 myself and i updated my drivers to the latest version (430.86) and after that i went to the Nvidia control panel and disabled G-sync.
I have played for over 2 hours without any crashes.
It also felt a bit smoother, but i might be wrong about that.

Make sure to restart (so not shutdown) your pc and try this again.

If i crash again, i’ll let you guys know

Blizzard! Important discovery!
When I first got my 2080, Overwatch worked fine. The crashes got progressively worse and I started crashing on every other game as well. Sent my PC in for repair and they replaced the 2080 with a new one. Everything works fine now–including Overwatch.

Based on this, I theorize that over time Overwatch somehow overworks the card into burnout. I have mechanisms in place against overclocking, but now I’m afraid I’ll just burn out my card again.

You’re not burning out your card by playing Overwatch unless you’re ignoring your temp. Your old 2080 was most likely defective if they replaced it with a new 2080 (depends on the maker, aftermarket, etc). More specifics would be needed. This game specifically won’t burn out a card, but anything that runs the card too hot for too long can burn it out. So, any app can burn out a 2080, if it’s not being cooled enough but being used to the max. Those things are mini space heaters!

Overwatch pulls everything from your GPU it can, pretty much all the time, especially at the high settings a 2080 can manage. It’s a stressful game on your system. Your GPU is also going to overheat if you don’t limit the frame rate - 200FPS just means more heat and power for frames you can’t see if you’re playing on an uncapped G-Sync screen capable of 144Hz max, for example…

my game crashed today…
I am a sad man now.
If anyone has an idea, please let me know

Im going to make this short and simple.
I havent gotten a single Rendering devise lost with my new RTX 2080 ever since i swapped to using my headset mic versus my YETI microphone…
And i was getting it constantly with using the Yeti. To add to this, my USB that i used for the yeti wasnt very stable and sometimes I would bump it and it would briefly turn off, but id have to do more testing if that is apart of the issue.

PS im also overclocked on GPU and CPU. ive got that puppy turned back on , now that i have my Yeti mic Disabled.

ever since writing this comment, i havent gotten a crash.

guys, try turning of G-sync