[SOLVED] Constant Fatal Error Crashes

[STICMAN13]

SOLVED: Checking event viewer lead me down a path investigating nvlddmkm.dll system errors. Looking into those, rolling my drivers back even further to 566.36 seems to have resolved my constant fatal errors and let me play for at least 2 hours after rolling back (could have kept going but I needed to get off). Proper steps for fixing this were:

1. Download the latest version of DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller)
   
2. Reboot Windows into safe mode
   
3. Using DDU, clean NVIDIA drivers and reboot
   
4. Download and install NVIDIA driver 566.36
   
5. Reboot
   
6. Play

I have tried every possible solution and fix from every forum and reddit post to try to resolve this. I completed 20 hours of playing through Act 1 with no issue. Upon entering camp the first time after the start of Act 2 cutscenes, I now get constant fatal error crashes after a few minutes of loading in. I can just stand there and look at a wall and it'll crash. I'll attack to start combat and it'll crash. I'll open the camp record player menu and it'll crash. My arrival to Act 2 was also the same day as the previous patch so it could also be a result of that. I also have never installed any mods. This is a completely vanilla problem.

Some of the things I've tried (and probably forgetting a few):

• Loading previous saves. Gone back to a few saves before Act 1 ending and it still happens.
  
• Verifying game files
  
• Clearing all system temp files
  
• Clearing game specific shader cache
  
• Clearing all of systems shader cache
  
• Using DDU to cleanly reinstall GPU drivers
  
• Using DDU to cleanly roll back GPU drivers
  
• Clearing all overclocks
  
• Disabling all overlays
  
• Running only the game with nothing else
  
• Deleting settings file to let the game regenerate a new one
  
• Disabling steam and shadowplay recording
  
• Lowering all graphics settings to minimum (I've been playing act 1 on medium with a couple things set to high without issue)
  
• Using every combination of upscaler and scaling settings (DLSS/XeSS/TSR and 0-100% options)
  
• Edit: Complete reinstall of game and redistributables
  
• Edit: Various "performance/fix mods" (cleared and reinstalled game after testing with no success)

I really want to be able to play and continue the story, especially after the end of Act 1, so if anyone has been able to fix this issue themselves please post what you've done. Maybe I didn't do one of these right or I haven't done it.

Edit:
Plays stable (at low fps) on the steam deck. New games also crash.

My specs are:

• 9800x3d (stock clocks)
  
• RTX 2080 Super (tried with both a list OC and stock)
  
• 32 GB 6000Mhz DDR5
  
• Installed on NVMe M.2 SSD
  
• Targeting 1080p at least 60 but capping at 120 fps
  
• Edit: On latest BIOS

[tenchu400]

Tried checking to see if your bios is up to date? I have a 9070 and the motherboard had several bios updates that improved performance specifically. Would make sure the ram profiles are correct also in the bios.

[STICMAN13]

Originally posted by tenchu400:

Tried checking to see if your bios is up to date? I have a 9070 and the motherboard had several bios updates that improved performance specifically. Would make sure the ram profiles are correct also in the bios.

I am unfortunately already on my latest bios. RAM is also on the right EXPO profiles. Thanks though. What's wild is I played it the night of the update without issue and it currently runs stable on the steam deck (albeit at 40 fps with some weird input latency but with no crashing).

[tenchu400]

Originally posted by STICMAN13:

Originally posted by tenchu400:

Tried checking to see if your bios is up to date? I have a 9070 and the motherboard had several bios updates that improved performance specifically. Would make sure the ram profiles are correct also in the bios.

I am unfortunately already on my latest bios. RAM is also on the right EXPO profiles. Thanks though. What's wild is I played it the night of the update without issue and it currently runs stable on the steam deck (albeit at 40 fps with some weird input latency but with no crashing).

Yeah I play on Linux myself and have had no issues from day 1 even with all the patches. The difference being that the linux systems use their own shaders. Enabling steam shader cache on windows has helped people with this game in very specific circumstances. But some of the fatal errors I have seen posted around seem to relate to .netframework or the calls to window dlls. Without an official error or log your kinda chasing ghosts taking shots in the dark and you seem to done most of the advanced/technical things going by your list.

[EnzoVic]

Originally posted by STICMAN13:

I have tried every possible solution and fix from every forum and reddit post to try to resolve this. I completed 20 hours of playing through Act 1 with no issue. Upon entering camp the first time after the start of Act 2 cutscenes, I now get constant fatal error crashes after a few minutes of loading in. I can just stand there and look at a wall and it'll crash. I'll attack to start combat and it'll crash. I'll open the camp record player menu and it'll crash. My arrival to Act 2 was also the same day as the previous patch so it could also be a result of that. I also have never installed any mods. This is a completely vanilla problem.[/list]

You are probably running out of disk space and gives you the fatal error when it's trying to autosave.

[V]

Lower the Shading option to Medium,
that solved my problem during cutscenes.

[Jemmbot]

I have the same problem and didnt had this before patch

[STICMAN13]

Originally posted by EnzoVic:

You are probably running out of disk space and gives you the fatal error when it's trying to autosave.

I've got plenty of drive space so it's unlikely. I've also been able to force an auto save between crashes and it saved fine.

Originally posted by tenchu400:

Yeah I play on Linux myself and have had no issues from day 1 even with all the patches. The difference being that the linux systems use their own shaders. Enabling steam shader cache on windows has helped people with this game in very specific circumstances. But some of the fatal errors I have seen posted around seem to relate to .netframework or the calls to window dlls. Without an official error or log your kinda chasing ghosts taking shots in the dark and you seem to done most of the advanced/technical things going by your list.

I've tried going through the crash logs but the ones I found were in a format that's not very human friendly so wasn't able to find anything tracing back to a cause. Do you know what all crash logs the game makes in case I'm missing some?

[tenchu400]

Originally posted by STICMAN13:

Originally posted by EnzoVic:

You are probably running out of disk space and gives you the fatal error when it's trying to autosave.

I've got plenty of drive space so it's unlikely. I've also been able to force an auto save between crashes and it saved fine.

Originally posted by tenchu400:

Yeah I play on Linux myself and have had no issues from day 1 even with all the patches. The difference being that the linux systems use their own shaders. Enabling steam shader cache on windows has helped people with this game in very specific circumstances. But some of the fatal errors I have seen posted around seem to relate to .netframework or the calls to window dlls. Without an official error or log your kinda chasing ghosts taking shots in the dark and you seem to done most of the advanced/technical things going by your list.

I've tried going through the crash logs but the ones I found were in a format that's not very human friendly so wasn't able to find anything tracing back to a cause. Do you know what all crash logs the game makes in case I'm missing some?

I would try using event viewer. Running the game until it crashes to fatal error and seeing if it spits out anything. You may have logs there already. In theory it should be more legible. You may want to repeat it if it does to see if the error is consistent unless the error becomes very obvious on what's faulting.

[ˢᵈˣ FatCat]

they say if your GPU already normal clock, you need turn off turbo boost on cpu, the cpu trying so hard

[Bitrot]

I am crashing in the fight with the Paintress, second stage. It says "The Paintress unleashes" then I get a fatal error. Every time, can't proceed.

Anyone know where crash logs are?

[STICMAN13]

Originally posted by Bitrot:

I am crashing in the fight with the Paintress, second stage. It says "The Paintress unleashes" then I get a fatal error. Every time, can't proceed.

Anyone know where crash logs are?

Game crash dumps are in %localappdata%\Sandfall\Saved\Crashes for Windows. However these were pretty unreadable to me and seem to mostly be memory dumps and the current config. What helped me was the below.

Originally posted by tenchu400:

I would try using event viewer. Running the game until it crashes to fatal error and seeing if it spits out anything. You may have logs there already. In theory it should be more legible. You may want to repeat it if it does to see if the error is consistent unless the error becomes very obvious on what's faulting.

Good idea with event viewer. Somehow forgot to check stuff there. Each crash seemed to correspond with a display driver crash related to a nvlddmkm.dll. Looking into display driver crashes for that lead me down a path where I needed to roll back my drivers even further as the recent ones this year were not stable (despite being "game ready" lol) for my gpu. Was able to just play 2 hours without issue after this. What was odd is I was playing on the latest drivers fine until the last patch.

To summarize, at least for a 2080 Super and from what I read up to 40 series cards, rolling back to NVIDIA driver 566.36 is the most stable driver and resolved my constant fatal errors.

[tenchu400]

Originally posted by STICMAN13:

Originally posted by Bitrot:

I am crashing in the fight with the Paintress, second stage. It says "The Paintress unleashes" then I get a fatal error. Every time, can't proceed.

Anyone know where crash logs are?

Game crash dumps are in %localappdata%\Sandfall\Saved\Crashes for Windows. However these were pretty unreadable to me and seem to mostly be memory dumps and the current config. What helped me was the below.

Originally posted by tenchu400:

I would try using event viewer. Running the game until it crashes to fatal error and seeing if it spits out anything. You may have logs there already. In theory it should be more legible. You may want to repeat it if it does to see if the error is consistent unless the error becomes very obvious on what's faulting.

Good idea with event viewer. Somehow forgot to check stuff there. Each crash seemed to correspond with a display driver crash related to a nvlddmkm.dll. Looking into display driver crashes for that lead me down a path where I needed to roll back my drivers even further as the recent ones this year were not stable (despite being "game ready" lol) for my gpu. Was able to just play 2 hours without issue after this. What was odd is I was playing on the latest drivers fine until the last patch.

To summarize, at least for a 2080 Super and from what I read up to 40 series cards, rolling back to NVIDIA driver 566.36 is the most stable driver and resolved my constant fatal errors.

Well I'm glad to hear it ended up working out for you. This seems to be a common issue with many of the newer drivers. For Nvidia you want to roll back to older drivers in many of the card lines, for AMD you want to be as up to date as possible on windows and especially on Linux for AMD. There seems to be a bug somewhere in the newer Nvidia drivers as you are not alone it reporting this. Hopefully this get's fixed in the future driver updates.