Yup, my issue was fixed after i deleted overwatch profile. Playing perfectly fine even eariler today.
Well, I thought it might have something to do with geforce, but I apparently don’t even have inspector, so now I’m at a loss again 
My RTX 2080 came over clocked. Once I underclocked it to factory settings I lost the rendering issue. But now the game crashes a few hours later and freezes my pc instead.
I may just return it today and go AMD just so I won’t deal with this happening again.
You gotta dl nvidia profile inspector seperately
Fixed my issue with this by doing either of the two common recommendations in this thread. I started having the error after upgrading to a 2080Ti
- Rename your Overwatch.exe to OverwatchTest.exe. File should be located someplace similar to C:\Program Files (x86)\Overwatch_retail_ depending on where you installed the game.
Note: you have to launch the game via the OverwatchTest.exe file each time, NOT via the Blizzard Battlenet Launcher. If you use an authenticator you will have to enter the code manually each time. PITA, but it works.
Note2: you need to do this each time the game updates.
- Google: Nvidia Profile Inspector. Download the latest version. After installing and running, search the “Profiles” drop down menu in the top left to search for anything “Overwatch” related and delete those profiles.
Note: using this technique I was able to launch the game via the Battlenet launcher.
1 Like
That’s way too much work. The game shouldn’t have these issues. I can’t even get the weekly reward because the game crashes every single time.
video and sound freeze… BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT… hard crash.
sigh.
You’re right, we shouldn’t have to jump through these hoops to play the game. Unfortunately this is where we sit at the moment. Neither of the known fixes take much time or technical know-how.
Yeah, its happening again… Help me JEFF!
I’ve been having trouble with this game. Ever since I’ve gotten the rtx 2070, overwatch has crash on many occasions before the start of match, during the match and near the end. I’ve tried to fix this problem with cpu being factory clocked, gpu not overclocked, locking my fps to 143 so it’s not overworked, moving the game to an SSD thinking it was the Hard Drive spiking up to 100% at times. But after crashing today 10 seconds before the end I’ve pretty much had it. I want the SR I’ve lost back to me if that’s possible and have the rendering issue fix. I have a evga 2070, intel 7700k at base speed, 32 Gigs of ram, and it’s on a m.2 SSD 1tb and on a current 431.60 nvidia drive. I’m just sick of playing ranked games and crashing while playing. I hope this will get resolve.
Only known Solution that works most of the time is the EXE-Renaming workaround.
I perfer to make a copy of Overwatch.exe (easyer for Updates) and rename said copy to OverwatchTest.exe like Swayde said above, you hava to launch the game from the OverwatchTest.exe directly.
You will have to login every time, so keep your Authenticator on hand.
I have been having the same problem as well I have the same GPU as you and it’s been happenings since the beginning of last week. Really Frustrating.
I get this issue, its Blizzard’s terrible job at optimizing their game. On top of it, I get penalized in game for their terrible programming and work! Fantastic freaking work Blizzard.
Having the same problem with both laptop and desktop.
Laptop = 2019 razer blade w/ rtx 2060
Desktop = 8700k @ 5.1, 16GB RAM @ 4300, 1080 ti, MSI z370 godlike gaming mobo
Fresh install on both. Please get this fixed and/or get with Nvidia to get this fixed. I’m scared to go into a competitive game for fear of losing SR and getting suspended.
Tried the renaming to OverwatchTest. Made it through 2 games of quickplay then halfway through the third it crashed again. GPU doesn’t get above 40c.
I have a 2080 RTX and I’ve had this happen 2 or 3 times and lost about 150 SR. It’s only happened since the latest nvidia drivers. The consistent factor for me that triggers the “Render device lost” message seems to be when I have a youtube video going on my second monitor and change the focus over to that alternate screen. Usually to pause the video at the start of a match. Anyone else able to confirm similar results?
A GTX 1080 will have a distinctly different issue and the OverwatchTest.exe rename workaround will not help. Please follow standard troubleshooting.
2070, but cannot confirm since mine will happen midmatch I was testing other solutions and still happened.
The renaming of overwatch.exe works for me.
I downloaded the Nvidia Profile Inspector and deleted all (3) profiles that was called something with Overwatch. I havn’t had a crash since. Thank you Swayde! 
This also means that you don’t have to rename the Overwatch.exe file and can start Overwatch normally through the Blizzard Ap.
My GFX: Asus RTX 2080 Dual Advanced
Note: I still get frame freezes when youtube videos restart or start new videos while i’m playing. (Yes I listen to music through youtube when I play 
). But this doesn’t crash Overwatch. This did not happen with my old GTX 1080.
2 Likes
I’ve been doing the following and have been crash free for over a month now, I play 20+ hours a week in different modes+ so I feel pretty confident this is working.
I have GTX 2080 with Ryzen 2700X for reference.
Overwatch seems to be very sensitive to overclocks and this includes stock overclocking that comes with almost every card.
Before I open the game I underclock the card to match reference clock of the GTX2080, in my case this is -105 mhz, I then use NVidia Profile Inspector to delete the overwatch profile before running the launcher, the profile comes back often even without reboot so I do this every single time before starting a gaming session and I make sure I close the blizzard launcher first and reopen it after if I left it running.
After every update or patch I run the game repair, failure to do so usually results in my game crashing pretty soon after playing on a new patch. I don’t turn my computer off often and I will usually just run the repair on a fresh boot anyway to be sure.
It takes about an extra minute but I have been crash free ever since I started doing it.
It is worth noting that I run graphics on low with 155 fps cap
Hi.
I’ve been running the game as Overwatch2.exe for six months with no problems.
I’m just wondering if this sh!t-house bug has been fixed yet? Can I run Overwatch from the launcher?