Games Freeze / Crash
Games Freeze / Crash
Hello there!
Looking at my setup:
OS: Windows 10 Pro
CPU: Ryzen 9 3900X
GPU: MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G
PSU: Corsair 750W, CX750
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR4 32GB 3000MHz (2x 16GB)
SSD: 970 Evo Plus M.2 1TB
Mainboard: Prime X570-P
The system is roughly five years old, though the graphics card is four years old.
Recently, I've encountered issues with most games. Initially, I believed the problems stemmed from poor console compatibility (like RE Village or Days Gone), but this week I played several titles that previously worked perfectly and still experienced the same glitches.
Problem: Games randomly freeze, causing the video to stop completely while audio continues. I have to close the game using Task Manager. Only one game produced a crash report stating:
"Unreal Engine is exiting due to D3D device being lost."
I observed in Task Manager that during freezes, the graphics card section would spike to 100% and then drop to zero. This was the trigger for the game to freeze. In Windows Event logs, I saw the message:
"the display driver 'nvlddmkm' did not react and was recovered."
To be honest, I’m unsure if this matters much—I still receive regular error messages, including Kernel-EventTracing errors.
I attempted various solutions:
- Updated all graphics card drivers from 2018 to 2021.
- Reinstalled hardware drivers (including BIOS).
- Ran Memtest64 for 30 cycles without errors.
- Used DDU for a clean driver uninstall.
- Performed a full SSD wipe and reinstalled Windows.
MemoryTest64 ran successfully; the CPU performed well.
Heaven Benchmark 4.0 showed good performance with DirectX 9 (average 300 FPS), but DirectX 11 caused an immediate crash (similar to the 3D spikes).
I also tried underclocking GPU and memory in MSI Afterburner:
- Underclocking both resulted in no crashes (tested for 6 hours).
- GPU base clock and memory underclocked led to crashes after about 15 minutes of gaming.
- Keeping both at normal settings maintained stable temperatures (under 74°C).
Personal takeaway:
It seems my graphics card might be failing, but I’m not sure if this is urgent. Someone in the community might have useful tips to try.
Given current GPU prices, I’d prefer a longer lifespan, even if it means tolerating some underperformance.
If you need any additional logs or details from specific programs, feel free to ask!
Thanks ahead and enjoy your weekend!
You might consider adjusting the window power configuration to high performance, maintaining the GPU at standard levels (without overclocking), turning off antivirus programs, and confirming the game files are present in the Steam library.
Thanks for the ideas, I’ll attempt everything at once (including disabling Win Defender too) except the Steam files part since I currently use the Epic Games Launcher.
If it functions, I’ll adjust each setting one by one, if it still causes crashes, I’ll be back right away.
EDIT: It worked for 1 hour and 40 minutes without any issues and without underclocking, though sometimes it lasted up to 4 hours. I’ll do more testing tomorrow evening (CET). Thanks a lot!
I’ll keep everyone informed.
Unfortunately, it crashed once more after only five minutes in the game menu.
Are there any older graphics cards available to test? Did you find any records in computer management under critical events with details about the issue? Since adjusting your memory speed helped with the GPU, try testing one RAM stick at a time while gaming to determine if the problem is with the GPU or both sticks. You've covered most troubleshooting steps I know of.
If I only adjust the memory speed then crashes continue to happen, sorry for the awkward phrasing in my message.
Only when I lower my GPU's clock to around 50MHz do crashes stop, but if I just reduce it to 30MHz they still occur.
I plan to try a different GPU that I have (not sure if it will work) from a friend next week.
You can run smoothly by lowering the clock speed to 50mhz, using any memory or core clock configuration.
Main Display Time
- This represents the initial configuration phase using MSI Afterburner