[HELP] Random crashes.

[Lone Wolfe (Hoover1979)]

I bought this game the other day and have had an issue with crashing from day one. When Dishonored 2 crashes, there is no error message, the screen goes black for a second and I then get returned to the desktop. Furthermore when I go to Windows Event Viewer there is no infomation about any crash. It's like the game is quitting itself rather than crashing.

When I had an overclock on the crashes would happen every 5 mins, and there were spots in which the game would keep crashing in the same areas. I completely removed all overclockes (including the factory overclock) so the core clock is at +0 and the VRAM clock is at +0, while the power limit is at +150% (as I have a beefy PSU), and I have an aggressive fan curve to keep the temps down on the GTX1080's Radiator.

I just almost finished the Clockwork Mansion, and was literally just about to save Anton Sokalov when another crash ruined my day. I hope this isn't a case of a spot where the game will keep crashing.

I really don't want to underclock my GPU, as I already had to lock the FPS to 60 via RivaTuner/D3DOverrider as the camera sensitivity is tied to FPS and my system can do 60, but with an unlocked FPS it fluctuates between 60FPS, 100FPS and occasionally 120FPS and occasionally drops a bit under 60FPS in some areas where a lot is happening and a lot of scenery are present, so if I leave the FPS unlocked I get more fluctuation in camera sensitivity and aiming becomes more of a chore. I am worried if I underclock my GPU even by a small margin the game will be unplayably slow.

I have all the details set to ultra, except for "camera motion blur" which I have disabled as I absolutely DESPISE motion blur (which I think is a cheap way of masking low FPS on Consoles and isn't needed on PC's), and I have set the TXAA to max sharpness and have Vsync enabled in the Driver instead of the game (I find in 99.9% of occasions ingame Vsync has more input lag than driver forced Vsync). I am running in 1920x1080 in Exclusive Fullscreen (Borderless Window always runs worse than Exclusive Fullscreen, since getting a GTX1080, for some reason, when Borderless Window seemed to perform better than Exclusive Fullscreen on my old GTX970).

Any Assistance would be appreciated.

My PC Specs:

Windows 7 Professional 64bit on Kingston HyperX Fury SSD (120Gb)
ASUS Z97-k Mobo
Corsair HX850i Platinum Grade 850w PSU
Intel i7-4790k in turbo mode 4.4Ghz via BIOS XMP settings
Corsair H115i Liquid CPU Cooler
32Gb Corsair Vengeance pro 2400 DDR3 RAM (set in XMP mode)
8Gb Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming GTX1080 OC PCIe Waterforce GFX Card
latest WHQL Nvidia Display Drivers
Sound Blaster Zx PCIe Sound Card
Logitech Z906 THX Certified 5.1 Surrond Speakers and LFE
Seagate 8Tb Internal HDD
WD 4Tb internal HDD
WD Caviar 1.5Tb Internal HDD
WD Elements 1Tb External USB 3.0 HDD
WD Elements 3Tb External USB 3.0 HDD
ASUS VG278 27" 120Hz 3D Monitor with Nvidia 3D Vision 2 (tm)
AVERMedia Volar Green USB2.0 HDTV Tuner
Targus Bluetooth 4.0 Adapter
Microsoft Xbox One S Controller connected via MicroUSB to avoid Win10 requirement
Logitech K260 Wireless Keyboard
ASUS PCE-AC68U AC1900 PCIe WiFi Card paired with:
ASUS RT-AC68U AC1900 Dual-Band Router on 5ghz band
Fractal Design XL-R2 Full Tower ATX Chassis

[Zekiran]

I'd suggest:

Disable Vsync, Disable AA or lower it, and try running in full screen. Just try that for a bit, it's possible that something among those options is messing up, but... your rig is nice and beefy, nothing I can see would really be bottlenecking. Overclocking, however, is not my favorite thing and tends to lead to issues. It might be something you want to keep in check ;)

[Lone Wolfe (Hoover1979)]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

I'd suggest:

Disable Vsync, Disable AA or lower it, and try running in full screen. Just try that for a bit, it's possible that something among those options is messing up, but... your rig is nice and beefy, nothing I can see would really be bottlenecking. Overclocking, however, is not my favorite thing and tends to lead to issues. It might be something you want to keep in check ;)

Thanks for the reply.

I will try changing TXAA for FXAA, I hope Vsync isn't causing the crashes as I hate screen tearing, and I already run in fullscreen as I lose performance in Borderless window (it was on my old GTX970 where I always preffered Borderless). I also removed all overclocking as with any level of OC (even the factory OC), no matter how slight the crashes would happen every 5 mins, with no OC the crashes happen every 20-30mins.

[Zekiran]

that's pretty weird. Are you sure that this isn't a firewall / virus scanner thing? Just to make sure. Anything beyond this and it's over my head for troubleshooting unfortunately. Hopefully if any of it doesn't help someone else will be around to help.

[Lone Wolfe (Hoover1979)]

This is getting beyond a joke!

I disabled ingame antialiasing and forcred FXAA through the driver, and only used Rivatuner to limit the framerate and used the ingame Triple Buffering instead of D3DOverrider, In the driver I set texturerendering to max performance and had another go, in less than falf an hour I got the same crash, black screen for a second, then back to desktop and once again no log in event viewer.

I'm starting to really lose my patience here, as this is frustrating given my hardware I should not be getting these ****ing crashes. I still have the overclock completely disabled too.

I wonder if Denuvo is stopping Windows Event Viewer from informing me about the crashes (To disguise that Denuvo may be the cause of these crashes?)

[Lone Wolfe (Hoover1979)]

I think I solved my crash issues

but the solution was rather drastic.

I went into BIOS and disabled XMP then I disabled Turbo Mode on my i7-4790k to set it from 4.4Ghz to 4.0Ghz and finally I underclocked my ram from 2.4Ghz to 1.86Ghz as with XMP disabled 2.4Ghz RAM exceeds the mobo's voltage restrictions.

I played Dishonoerd , for over an hour with no crash and quit myself as I was both stuck on a puzzle and having cramps on my right thumb.

but to go from crashes every 15-20mins to no crash at all even after over an hour of play is great.

[[e-mail]@arcA770]

i still have crashes every 5 sec ;c . (ryzen5 1600 rx570)

[Lone Wolfe (Hoover1979)]

Originally posted by GorillazBe:

i still have crashes every 5 sec ;c . (ryzen5 1600 rx570)

"Prior to its launch, Dishonored 2 was hotly anticipated, which makes the serious performance issues at launch somewhat surprising. I realize we're right in the middle of the holiday shopping spree, but putting out a game that runs like crap, even on relatively powerful hardware, is never a good idea. AMD graphics cards in particular are having a tough go of things in the game, but there are many facets of what's going on"

http://www.pcgamer.com/why-dishonored-2-is-running-so-poorly/

[Electric Gigolo]

I just had a crash to desktop during mission 2 Edge of The World. The chick in the alley way asking for me to get her a body.

Nvidia GTX 970
i7 4790K 4.5GHz OC
16GB Ram.
Corsair SSD
Latest Nvidia Driver 385.69

[Lone Wolfe (Hoover1979)]

Originally posted by Electric Gigolo:

I just had a crash to desktop during mission 2 Edge of The World. The chick in the alley way asking for me to get her a body.

Nvidia GTX 970
i7 4790K 4.5GHz OC
16 Ram.
Corsair SSD
Latest Nvidia Driver 385.69

try going into BIOS and disabling Turbo mode and get your CPU down to 4.0Ghz. We have the same CPU and this helped me big time. Also what is your mobo and RAM? if you have a z97-k mobo and 2.4 Ghz DDR3 and in BIOS XMP is enabled, disable XMP and underclock the RAM to 1866Mhz. I had to do that to to kill the crashes and be able to play for well over an hour before I quit myself due to thumb cramp.

DDR3 can only be set at 2,400Mhz on a z97-k in XMP mode, otherwise it exceeds the voltage limits by a small fraction which can also cause instabilities accross the board, not just in Dishonored 2.

But again this is if your RAM is 2,400Mhz and your Mobo is a Z97-k with XMP enabled in BIOS.

When my CPU was OC'd to 4.4Ghz I was crashing out every 15-20mins, when my GPU was also OC'd I crashed out every 3-5mins. It seems like this game absolutely despises all forms of overclocking.

[Erebus]

I found my antivirus Bitdefender was flagging the DRM software built into the game as potential ransomware, I just added the .exe file to the exceptions list and it's all good now. Windows 10 64bit (no compatibility mode needed)