Getting crashes every couple of minutes

[big_isaac]

I've tried playing the game around a dozen times now, and the furthest I've gotten is the cutscene where Gustav gives a flower to his lady friend.
At some random point during a cutscene, the screen freezes and the sound stops a few seconds later. Once, the game also just closed itself instantly during the opening cutscene.

I'm on a ROG Strix laptop with a 4090 and a i9-13980HX

Changing graphics settings didn't seem to affect anything.
I've rolled my Nvidia drivers back to 2 previous versions (one from earlier this year and one from December 24) without success.

[C1REX]

Check if there is a bios update for your CPU and test the CPU for stability.

https://rog.asus.com/support/

Some BIOS updates are rated by ASUS as critical. It's very important to install such updates ASAP. Some older BIOSes were applying too high voltage making the system unstable and even degrading the CPU permanently.

[big_isaac]

It looks to me like my BIOS is already up to date.
All the automatic update helpers say as much.
Checking manually, my system info says I have BIOS version 331, which is also the version ASUS has on their site as critical.

Are there any other known potential causes for these crashes?

[C1REX]

Originally posted by big_isaac:

Are there any other known potential causes for these crashes?

Few recent NVidia drivers cause problems for some and people get more lucky with older versions from before 50 series launch.

[giganova]

Do a DDU safe mode uninstall of the nvidia drivers, then install version 566.36 from back in December (may also need to temporarily disable network interface card/wifi to prevent Windows update from cramming a generic GPU driver down your throat.)

[Revan]

Originally posted by C1REX:

Check if there is a bios update for your CPU and test the CPU for stability.

https://rog.asus.com/support/

Some BIOS updates are rated by ASUS as critical. It's very important to install such updates ASAP. Some older BIOSes were applying too high voltage making the system unstable and even degrading the CPU permanently.

I would also recommend checking the CPU for stability issues, because all UE5 games will run in frequent crashes, if a CPU degraded too much. The 13th and 14th generation of Intel CPU's tended to degrade extremely fast because they just take in to high a voltage.. causing the silicon within them to degrade.

Once it has happened it's already too late though. When this happens the CPU is too damaged to be used with Unreal Engine 5 games.

Unreal Engine 5 tends to give you an error message, refering to issues with "shaders", in many CPU-related crashes.

[Ricky the Pooh]

Originally posted by Revan:

Originally posted by C1REX:

Check if there is a bios update for your CPU and test the CPU for stability.

https://rog.asus.com/support/

Some BIOS updates are rated by ASUS as critical. It's very important to install such updates ASAP. Some older BIOSes were applying too high voltage making the system unstable and even degrading the CPU permanently.

I would also recommend checking the CPU for stability issues, because all UE5 games will run in frequent crashes, if a CPU degraded too much. The 13th and 14th generation of Intel CPU's tended to degrade extremely fast because they just take in to high a voltage.. causing the silicon within them to degrade.

Once it has happened it's already too late though. When this happens the CPU is too damaged to be used with Unreal Engine 5 games.

Unreal Engine 5 tends to give you an error message, refering to issues with "shaders", in many CPU-related crashes.

Any recommendations for a stress test/tool? Didn't experience the same issue as OP but man this is making me paranoid lol

[Revan]

Originally posted by Ricky the Pooh:

Any recommendations for a stress test/tool? Didn't experience the same issue as OP but man this is making me paranoid lol

That was not my intention, sorry! D:

The safer but not as reliable options that come to mind for me are those:

- Intel Processor Diagnostics Tool: it can be downloaded directly from Intels homepage. It runs a few tests and tells you if your CPU passed these tests. If your CPU is alright it should pass every last one of them. If it fails a test, then there might be an issue..
- 3D Mark: not free, but it does offer a CPU stress test that takes around 20 minutes or so to complete. It's mostly performance related but after the test it gives you the option to compare your results to other peoples results. Should there be a huge difference between your CPU's performance and other peoples performances with the same CPU, then there might be something.. or when 3D Mark itself runs into an error
- Prime95: This is as far as I am aware one of the better free tools to check if a CPU is doing alright. However, it is also a tool that comes with a certain risk. This tool comes with a stress test that can damage undamaged CPU's if for example the cooling unit can't keep up with the stress test. So this tool should be used with caution and better while also using HWiNFO64 to keep an eye on temperatures. I would say the test should be aborded if HWiNFO64 shows CPU temperatures 90°C or above to not cause damage while checking for damages.

But maybe there are people who have some better ideas on how to check for these issues. Those were the tools I used to learn that my CPU was damaged last week. It was an i9 14900K that was only 13 months in use.

Before you start any of these stress tests do make backups of your important files though :) You never know what happens if you use a stress test on a damaged CPU. In most cases the tool will probably just tell you that something is wrong, but I believe there is always the risk that a damaged CPU can be completely broken by a stress test.

[big_isaac]

Originally posted by giganova:

Do a DDU safe mode uninstall of the nvidia drivers, then install version 566.36 from back in December (may also need to temporarily disable network interface card/wifi to prevent Windows update from cramming a generic GPU driver down your throat.)

The 566.36 is one of the drivers I had already tried.

My CPU failing doesn't make a lot of sense to me, since I'm having zero issues running other supposedly CPU-intensive games like Monster Hunter Wilds.
I don't think I'm going to be kicking apart that ant's nest by running a stress test, especially if it wouldn't actually solve anything even if my CPU was the problem.

I guess I'll get a refund and hope the game comes to Switch 2 eventually. Bummer, but I'll live.

[Ricky the Pooh]

Originally posted by Revan:

That was not my intention, sorry! D:

The safer but not as reliable options that come to mind for me are those:

- Intel Processor Diagnostics Tool: it can be downloaded directly from Intels homepage. It runs a few tests and tells you if your CPU passed these tests. If your CPU is alright it should pass every last one of them. If it fails a test, then there might be an issue..
- 3D Mark: not free, but it does offer a CPU stress test that takes around 20 minutes or so to complete. It's mostly performance related but after the test it gives you the option to compare your results to other peoples results. Should there be a huge difference between your CPU's performance and other peoples performances with the same CPU, then there might be something.. or when 3D Mark itself runs into an error
- Prime95: This is as far as I am aware one of the better free tools to check if a CPU is doing alright. However, it is also a tool that comes with a certain risk. This tool comes with a stress test that can damage undamaged CPU's if for example the cooling unit can't keep up with the stress test. So this tool should be used with caution and better while also using HWiNFO64 to keep an eye on temperatures. I would say the test should be aborded if HWiNFO64 shows CPU temperatures 90°C or above to not cause damage while checking for damages.

But maybe there are people who have some better ideas on how to check for these issues. Those were the tools I used to learn that my CPU was damaged last week. It was an i9 14900K that was only 13 months in use.

Before you start any of these stress tests do make backups of your important files though :) You never know what happens if you use a stress test on a damaged CPU. In most cases the tool will probably just tell you that something is wrong, but I believe there is always the risk that a damaged CPU can be completely broken by a stress test.

Decided to run the diagnostics tool and am happy to report: Systems all green.

That was incredibly helpful, many thanks!

[Aris]

Have you checked Event Viewer to see if there's an error there when the game crashes?

[Stan Lee]

Originally posted by Aris:

Have you checked Event Viewer to see if there's an error there when the game crashes?

I just checked it, it said Event 153, nvlddmkm
It seemed to be my overclocking caused game crashing, I just lower my oc settings see how's going.

[big_isaac]

I just bit the bullet and ran the Intel diagnostic tool.
Came back with no issue.
On the downside, I still don't know why the game keeps crashing
On the upside, my CPU's not busted, so that's something

[C1REX]

If anybody wants to test their CPU here is a video suggesting few tests.
Depending how bad or not so bad the degradation is, it may not be very easy to intentionally trigger the problem.

https://youtu.be/P7Eyv5d2Rq8?si=ljj5QYA9vngcLPxM

[RyoKurosaki]

Originally posted by big_isaac:

I just bit the bullet and ran the Intel diagnostic tool.
Came back with no issue.
On the downside, I still don't know why the game keeps crashing
On the upside, my CPU's not busted, so that's something

Oh if you read the bugs thread in this forum there are many people complaining about the game crashing constantly (myself included) with very different setups, I don't think there is anything you can do but wait for a patch

[C1REX]

Originally posted by RyoKurosaki:

I don't think there is anything you can do but wait for a patch

That a pretty hopeless position you are putting yourself into when most people play the game normally. There most likely is a solution available to you right now. Maybe windows update damaged your GPU drivers? It's not that rare.