PC rebooting while playing only Valheim - game became unplayable

[Chas 3 Sticks]

Hello,

I am hoping to get the eyes of the Devs on this one. This is a serious bug that my PC is running into ONLY when playing Valheim. It does not occur when playing any other game.

PC specs here:
CPU: i9 9900k
GPU: RTX 2080Ti
RAM: 32gb
MOBO: ASUS ROG Maximum XI Hero
PSU: 1000w EVGA SuperNOVA

Randomly while playing Valheim my PC will power down, screen goes black, GPU fans scale to 100%, then it will power down and reboot, all within a second or two.

I have confirmed my PC PSU is not faulty by voltage testing
I have confirmed all my cables to the mobo are firmly connected
I have ran other CPU/GPU load intensive games (cyberpunk, battlefield, call of duty, to name a few) for hours on end with no reboot issue.
I have up to date windows and drivers

If I run Valheim for close to 30 minutes now it pretty much results in the same issue of a sudden forced reboot with no warning. I am not connected to a UPS but I have confirmed that I am not running into issues with my outlet power stability or supply.

Has anyone else had this issue? It has rendered the game unplayable for me.

[Chas 3 Sticks]

Any devs see this?

[Anorax]

Originally posted by Chas 3 Sticks:

Hello,

I am hoping to get the eyes of the Devs on this one. This is a serious bug that my PC is running into ONLY when playing Valheim. It does not occur when playing any other game.

I have almost exactly the same issue. This is an extract of my bug report I emailed the devs:
----------
A location inside my home base in a solo save will cause a GPU non-recoverable crash. Crash causes both monitors to go black and GPU fans spin to 100%. To recover I must force a PC shutdown and restart using the power button.

System: i7-10700KF, RTX 3090, DDR4-3200 32GB ram (no OC on CPU or GPU)
nVidia Driver version 461.72
Windows 10 version 20H2 OS Build 19042.804
The above computer system has been tested with CP2077, Valhalla, 1 hour Unigine Superposition stress test, 3D Mark Timespy, RDR2, and Ark Survival.
----------

These are not isolated cases either. Many users with 2000/3000 series and Radeon RX owners are having the same issue. The symptom is always black screen and 100% fans. When it occurs I can still talk to people in DIscord as it is basically a GPU crash/failsafe.

Here is a Reddit thread for the same issue:
https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/ld51is/valheim_crashing_whole_pc/

An extensive thread on Valheim's own bug report website:
https://valheimbugs.featureupvote.com/suggestions/158466/fix-the-crashing

The common denominator is most of these crash reports are by players with very demanding power hungry GPU's.

My friend with a 2080Ti also has the same type of crash in Valheim that I get, ie. black screen and 100% fans and can still hear people on Discord.

We have both been monitoring our GPU's using GPU-Z Sensors and logging the values and we both notice the same unusual behaviour just before the GPU crashes. Basically the game is running the GPU at its full speed and then depending on what objects you are looking at and how complex your Valheim builds and terraforming are the GPU then starts clocking down severely, framerate plummets, and then the GPU clock speed drops to 700 to 900 MHz.

Then once this happens if you start moving, or opening storage boxes, or move outside the building Valheim demands full GPU power again. In my case it drives the GPU from 700 - 900 to 1950 within a fraction of a second, power draw skyrockets, and then the GPU crashes or goes into failsafe mode.

As I noted above my system runs the latest games and benchmarks without issue but these do not constantly ramp up and ramp down the clock rate on the GPU. To see if I can alleviate this issue I have ordered a new 1000W PSU to replace my 7 year old 860W PSU to see if it handles the power draw changes better.

The Unity engine in this game seems to be the main culprit here as it does not seem to handle changes in detail and objects well. It is possible the Valheim devs have used a very inefficient process to draw and process objects which might explain these wild swings in GPU load usage during gameplay.

The other culprit is high end GPU's do not handle massive power draw changes well depending on the PSU used.

As for fixing this issue I doubt we will see any fix for a very long time due to the fact only one programmer is currently looking at the bug reports of 6 million users. My fear is the above issue can only be fixed by completely re-writing the game engine to smooth out GPU power demands and stop the wild swings in GPU load.

[Anorax]

Originally posted by Chas 3 Sticks:

Hello,

BTW I have changed one setting in the nVidia drivers since last night to try and stop the wild changes in GPU frequency and power which might alleviate the power spikes causing the GPU crash.

1. Go into NVIDIA Control Panel
2. Select "Manage 3D settings"
3. Select "Program Settings"
4. Set "Select a program to customise: Valheim.exe" (or add it if it does not appear in the list)
5. Scroll down and change "Power management mode" to "Prefer maximum performance"
6. I also changed "Max Frame Rate" to the max set in my resolution settings and my game
7. Select "Apply"

What this has given me is a consistent GPU clock that does not fluctuate wildly or drop below 1755Mhz when playing Valheim especially when I am walking around our servers very busy village or inside one of our buildings. More testing required of course but I am hoping this will be a viable workaround for this issue.

[Chas 3 Sticks]

If this works you are a god. Testing it on my system now. Will report back after significant testing.

[gay rat dad]

any luck?

[Anorax]

Originally posted by Jerreh:

any luck?

Hopefully OP had a good result. I just ran the game at max detail for 2.5 hours on my solo saves and on my clan server and so far so good. GPU was stable but more testing needed to be sure.

[Chas 3 Sticks]

I was able to run it successfully for 1 hour with this before I got too tired and had to go to bed. I am going to attempt to run it for multiple hours today and if I make it to that point I will report back here on that.

[Chas 3 Sticks]

I am currently at 1 hour and 12 minutes of run time with no disruptions. I am shooting for a 3 hour window to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this workaround is successful.

I am also not just idling, I am building, flattening terrain, sailing, playing the game as intended, etc.

[Chas 3 Sticks]

Originally posted by Anorax:

Originally posted by Jerreh:

any luck?

Hopefully OP had a good result. I just ran the game at max detail for 2.5 hours on my solo saves and on my clan server and so far so good. GPU was stable but more testing needed to be sure.

Wanted to let you know that I have successfully run the game for nearly 3 hours and so far so good. GPU is stable and no performance impacts to my knowledge. I am going to discontinue testing now but will have a longer game session tonight, likely near 4-6 hour play time.

Thank you for the workaround, I hope the Devs see this and can add it to their list of fixes!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sisco]

this exact same thing happened to me. both monitors turned black for a couple seconds then crashed. happened RIGHT when I was about to kill Yagluth after pounding him with arrows for 20 minutes by myself

[Anorax]

Originally posted by Psykhedelic:

this exact same thing happened to me. both monitors turned black for a couple seconds then crashed. happened RIGHT when I was about to kill Yagluth after pounding him with arrows for 20 minutes by myself

Try my workaround mentioned above and let us know if it helps.

General technical comments:
It is possible the Unity engine as implemented in Valheim is incorrectly aggressively throttling down GPU's to a low performance P5 power state which leads to the instability some of us are suffering.

Most 3D game engines like Unreal Engine, Unigine, Decima, and Anvil will run GPU's at or near maximum performance state (P0/P1) 100% of the time and the GPU adjusts GPU Core as max TDP or power cap kicks in to stop the GPU from overheating or running out of power.

I have seen the black screen 100% fan behaviour in one other game I have previously played. The game is "GreedFall" and it also uses a proprietary game engine "Silk Engine". It exhibited a similar behaviour when switching to the map screen the GPU was throttling down to a low power state and then when switching back to full 3D the GPU would throttle up to max and crash. This issue also occurred on my 1080Ti when I was still using that GPU.

I suspect this has not been an issue in previous years due to GPU's not requiring massive watt and power draws. Also the percentage of RTX20xx/RTX30xx/Radeon highend users compared to the overall GPU userbase playing Valheim is still very small and therefore we are only seeing relatively few reports of this issue.

The above comments are based on my own observations and research. I am certainly no expert on game engine design and how it affects GPU power operations. The other issue is the black screen crash can be a very intermittent issue making it incredibly difficult to fault find. The only people that can investigate this properly are the Valheim programmers working with the game engine and GPU companies.

[Sisco]

Originally posted by Anorax:

Originally posted by Psykhedelic:

this exact same thing happened to me. both monitors turned black for a couple seconds then crashed. happened RIGHT when I was about to kill Yagluth after pounding him with arrows for 20 minutes by myself

Try my workaround mentioned above and let us know if it helps.

General technical comments:
It is possible the Unity engine as implemented in Valheim is incorrectly aggressively throttling down GPU's to a low performance P5 power state which leads to the instability some of us are suffering.

Most 3D game engines like Unreal Engine, Unigine, Decima, and Anvil will run GPU's at or near maximum performance state (P0/P1) 100% of the time and the GPU adjusts GPU Core as max TDP or power cap kicks in to stop the GPU from overheating or running out of power.

I have seen the black screen 100% fan behaviour in one other game I have previously played. The game is "GreedFall" and it also uses a proprietary game engine "Silk Engine". It exhibited a similar behaviour when switching to the map screen the GPU was throttling down to a low power state and then when switching back to full 3D the GPU would throttle up to max and crash. This issue also occurred on my 1080Ti when I was still using that GPU.

I suspect this has not been an issue in previous years due to GPU's not requiring massive watt and power draws. Also the percentage of RTX20xx/RTX30xx/Radeon highend users compared to the overall GPU userbase playing Valheim is still very small and therefore we are only seeing relatively few reports of this issue.

The above comments are based on my own observations and research. I am certainly no expert on game engine design and how it affects GPU power operations. The other issue is the black screen crash can be a very intermittent issue making it incredibly difficult to fault find. The only people that can investigate this properly are the Valheim programmers working with the game engine and GPU companies.

that actually helped a lot, haven't had any crashes in a while. thanks!

[Chas 3 Sticks]

Wanted to update you all. I think there may be something wrong with my solo world because I just played for about 3 hours on a group world with some friends, no issues or crashes, went back into my solo world and crashed within 30 minutes. However this time my PC did not reboot but instead the game just hard froze and crashed.

Don't know if it's the same issue but still very concerning.

[Anorax]

Originally posted by Chas 3 Sticks:

However this time my PC did not reboot but instead the game just hard froze and crashed.

Did the game or windows event record any log evidence of the crash? This may be the "access invalid address" or the "Exception code: 0xc0000005" crash which a lot of people are experiencing. Check here:
%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Temp\IronGate\Valheim\Crashes\

[SiEgE]

Originally posted by Chas 3 Sticks:

Hardware issue. Possibly overheat.