Intermittent black screen with RTX3060 and updated drivers

[chipartist]

I dl'd the game soon after it was available and played both the base game and the DLC with no significant graphics issues using the NVIDIA driver I had at the time, which was not the most recent. Before beginning a NG+ i updated the GPU driver, and ever since then I have been having an intermittent 2 - 3 second screen blackout problem. Time between blackouts is random but has recently become more frequent, on average 5 to 10 minutes apart. While the screen is black the game proceeds as usual, allowing keyboard input, movement, etc., making it a real problem in combat scenarios.

I have tried using a much earlier driver (one dated prior to the release of HFW) but the problem persists. I do not have a record of the exact driver I was using initially with no issues so I cannot be sure which one to try, but have gone back as far as 551.23 for trials.

Given its lesser requirements, I decided to open up an NG+ in Horizon Zero Dawn to see what's what in that game, which I had played for a great any hours before the driver change(s) with zero issues; it also shows occasional screen blackouts though not as frequently for the relatively short time I played to test it.

No other game I play displays this behavior (pun intended), including Starfield, Satisfactory, Elite Dangerous Odyssey, and Beat Saber, among others.

I also use Blender extensively, which can be very GPU-intensive when rendering, but do not have any issues with screen blackouts.

GeForce RTX 3060, 12Gb DDR5 VRAM, current GRD 566.14, have tried earlier versions back to at least 551.85.

I am at a loss to as to what to investigate or try next. I love the game but it really is unplayable with the screen blackouts. Any suggestions?

PS. I also tried the Studio Driver version, same issue.

[EightSeven6]

not sure about that but I noticed that you have a 3060 and wanted to tell you that you probably won't be able to run Burning Shores, if you were planning to play it. I have a close GPU AMD 6650xt and it barely runs in 10-20 fps on medium-high settings.

If you'd be so kind please let me know how it runs on the 3060 12GB if you have the DLC, I'm quite curious.

[ZemX]

This occasionally happens to me but it's due to Shader Compilation. Blacks the screen and shows that message in text at the bottom. Very brief, like one second or less. But the audio and game pause during that one second, as far as I can tell. The only place this would reliably happen to me before was at the end of the Zenith facility in the prologue mission. Now it happens elsewhere in the game, though not nearly as frequently as you describe. I have a 4080 though. I think I am running not the most recent driver but the one just before that.

[chipartist]

Originally posted by EightSeven6:

not sure about that but I noticed that you have a 3060 and wanted to tell you that you probably won't be able to run Burning Shores, if you were planning to play it. I have a close GPU AMD 6650xt and it barely runs in 10-20 fps on medium-high settings.

If you'd be so kind please let me know how it runs on the 3060 12GB if you have the DLC, I'm quite curious.

As I OP'd, I ran the game and the DLC flawlessly before upgrading my drivers, I let the NVIDIA app set the graphics parameters and it looked and played stupendously imo, I was simply gobsmacked by the upgraded art and performance compared to HZD. Ran 80 - 100 fps almost continuously even in Burning Shores. Even now the only issue I have is the black screens, all else runs fine, though I did recently notice some flickering texture issues in a few character faces, particularly Beta during the long ride cutscene to Gemini cauldron. I saw none of that during my first playthrough. I expected the game to run at least marginally better after updating as I had a fairly old driver on board, but it's been worse in many ways. I can ignore a lot of that, but not the screen blackouts.

[chipartist]

Originally posted by ZemX:

This occasionally happens to me but it's due to Shader Compilation. Blacks the screen and shows that message in text at the bottom. Very brief, like one second or less. But the audio and game pause during that one second, as far as I can tell. The only place this would reliably happen to me before was at the end of the Zenith facility in the prologue mission. Now it happens elsewhere in the game, though not nearly as frequently as you describe. I have a 4080 though. I think I am running not the most recent driver but the one just before that.

I have not seen (or noticed) that shader compllation message, but it's something to look into at least. Thanks for the intel. Is there any way to offload that task to the CPU? I have 64Gb system RAM doing very little while playing, maybe put it to work?

[ZemX]

Originally posted by chipartist:

I have not seen (or noticed) that shader compllation message, but it's something to look into at least. Thanks for the intel. Is there any way to offload that task to the CPU? I have 64Gb system RAM doing very little while playing, maybe put it to work?

If you don't see the message, which I think is printed in the lower right corner of the screen and very clearly says "Compiling shaders..." or something like that, then you are experiencing a different issue. Like I said, when it happens to me, it pauses the game. It's not running with the screen black like you described.

But I have heard of some problems like stuttering going away after someone deleted the shader cache and has the game recompile them again after the next startup. You could look into that. It's a several steps process of disabling the cache, deleting it, rebooting, etc. So you'd want to Google that up if you want to try it. May or may not have any effect but it shouldn't do any harm outside of taking a handful of minutes to recompile shaders the next time you run HFW after deleting the cache. But should be a one-time thing.

The only other thing I've heard about black screens has to do with Windows 11 24H2 update. But that's been in relation to certain Ubisoft games. Not this one. Might also not be related. But that's all I can think of at the moment. Good luck.

[chipartist]

Thanks for the suggestion, ZemX. I have improved my situation a great deal by going in game into the (Nvidia-optimized) Settings/Graphics & disarming a few options that don't seem critical to gameplay or appearance, and some I just don't like in games (like lens flare). After that, I played for about 3 hours with only four black-screen incidents, widely separated -- problem not eliminated but reduced to a more tolerable frequency. I also noticed that the GPU/CPU usage ratio (as reported by the Nvidia overly app) has kind of swapped -- now using a lot more CPU over a range of around 10% to 25%, while GPU seems to have dropped to a nearly constant 4%, with no discernible reduction in graphics quality overall. Hitting 75fps minimum both out in the field and in populated areas. If I'm feeling experimental later on I may start switching stuff back on to see where the more frequent blackouts may arise.

[EightSeven6]

Originally posted by chipartist:

Originally posted by EightSeven6:

not sure about that but I noticed that you have a 3060 and wanted to tell you that you probably won't be able to run Burning Shores, if you were planning to play it. I have a close GPU AMD 6650xt and it barely runs in 10-20 fps on medium-high settings.

If you'd be so kind please let me know how it runs on the 3060 12GB if you have the DLC, I'm quite curious.

As I OP'd, I ran the game and the DLC flawlessly before upgrading my drivers, I let the NVIDIA app set the graphics parameters and it looked and played stupendously imo, I was simply gobsmacked by the upgraded art and performance compared to HZD. Ran 80 - 100 fps almost continuously even in Burning Shores. Even now the only issue I have is the black screens, all else runs fine, though I did recently notice some flickering texture issues in a few character faces, particularly Beta during the long ride cutscene to Gemini cauldron. I saw none of that during my first playthrough. I expected the game to run at least marginally better after updating as I had a fairly old driver on board, but it's been worse in many ways. I can ignore a lot of that, but not the screen blackouts.

oh...how in the HELL? 80-100fps? Now I have to really check what the hell is going on and why I get 20...
What settings were you playing at? I was on medium high and LOD was on high

[EightSeven6]

Now I'm just hella confused.

I realised that AMD Expo was off so I went and turned it on and the SAME exact scene by save, which gave me 10-20FPS before. That scene was a solid 60FPS now.
I cleared shader caches after that too thinking something is borked and that's why I'm getting more fps now but no...still solid 60fps.
Back out of windows I turn AMD Expo off again, start the game, same scene, still 60FPS.
Clear AMD caches again and same, still 60fps (capped by the way).
I checked the normal area of the game and again, same result. Solid 60fps even when flying around.

I don't understand this. I changed everything I did back but somehow my FPS is rock solid now...There must have been something wrong with my AMD shader caches or something.

[Omega-Cyber-King]

I'm really curious how this game can be optimized to run on a console, but requires a high end gpu to be able to play the dlc on pc.
I guess I'll avoid this one, as well.

[chipartist]

Originally posted by EightSeven6:

....
Now I'm just hella confused.

You and me both. amigo. Yesterday I played about 2 hours and the first 30 minutes were a blackout nightmare, so I guess reducing the GPU load is not a valid solution. Yet today, I've had a flawless 3-hour session without a single black-screen occurrence. There is no pattern, no common condition, no basis for a useful attempt to analyse the issue. it's just a royal PITA afflicting my favorite game.

[acowsik]

Are you guys doing a DDU clean when updating drivers? I would strongly recommend that for any driver update. Has always worked for me personally and I rarely have had any issues.

[chipartist]

Originally posted by acowsik:

Are you guys doing a DDU clean when updating drivers? I would strongly recommend that for any driver update. Has always worked for me personally and I rarely have had any issues.

I have not been uninstalling the driver, not knowing it best practice, so this time, I did, and it does seem to make the diff -- another multi-hour session with zero (and by that I mean ***ZEROOO!!!***) screen blackouts. I'm not gonna Jinx it by saying it's fixed, I'll just say thanks a bunch!

[EightSeven6]

yep ALWAYS DDU man. It's a damn shame that GPU manufacturers don't advertise DDU more, and that it's 100% necessary in the first place.

[ZemX]

Originally posted by EightSeven6:

yep ALWAYS DDU man. It's a damn shame that GPU manufacturers don't advertise DDU more, and that it's 100% necessary in the first place.

I haven't had a problem even using Nvidia's express install... as long as I am just updating to the next or nearly next version of the same driver on the same GPU. I'd use DDU if I'm switching GPU vendors (or generations) or if I'm rolling back.

[EightSeven6]

Originally posted by ZemX:

Originally posted by EightSeven6:

yep ALWAYS DDU man. It's a damn shame that GPU manufacturers don't advertise DDU more, and that it's 100% necessary in the first place.

I haven't had a problem even using Nvidia's express install... as long as I am just updating to the next or nearly next version of the same driver on the same GPU. I'd use DDU if I'm switching GPU vendors (or generations) or if I'm rolling back.

oh well yea just upgrading doesn't usually cause issues because they test that, however switching between a studio and a normal driver, or downgrading should always be prefaced with a DDU