[2.21] Random CTD "Fatal Error - video_vk.cpp", poss graphics settings - Improved by overclock removal

[Tindrem]

I have attempted all fixes at the appropriate posts here and here.

Here is a link to a dropbox folder with my dxdiag and other requested info.

The game appears to "freeze" randomly for a moment, and then CTD. When fullscreen, CTD = no error message, when borderless, CTD = x4crash_error.JPG in dropbox. The game will crash sooner on higher settings than without, however even on "low" settings these crashes still occur.

My specs:

• Win 10 Pro 64-bit
• 1080Ti 11GB, latest drivers 419.67
• i7-8700k @ 5ghz
• 16gb RAM @ 3200mhz
• Game installed on C:\ Drive on 1TB m.2 SSD
• Playing on the STEAM release of the game
• No mods or scripts installed, simply pure vanilla game files from current STEAM version

I have

• X4.exe set to run as administrator
• X4 Foundations folder "READ ONLY" disabled.
• Deleted settings files
• Ensured latest graphics card drivers
• Disabled all antivirus (windows defender, no other antivirus installed)
• Game is installed on 1TB M.2 SSD
• Confirmed File Compression is not enabled
• Steam Overlay is disabled for X4
• Ran vulkaninfo in cmd, no errors
• No onboard graphics to disable
• Once I switched to borderless and finally received the vulkan error "Fatal error has occurred" (x4crash_error.jpg in dropbox);
  • Completely uninstalled graphics drivers and removed vulkan.dll from system32
  • Restarted PC
  • Installed nVidia Graphics Driver 419.67
  • Restarted PC
  As outlined in the egosoft JIRA

My computer was purchased and built as is, there has not been any hardware upgraded/changed/otherwise replaced, so there is zero possibility of any AMD/nVidia software or driver crossover. Currently I am limited to playing on "Low" settings with MSAAx2 which still is unstable and will crash, however the game can stay open for longer than a minute. Unfortunately, there's seemingly no way to tell when it will happen or how to avoid it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated; ideally I would like to play this game on "Ultra" settings with whatever amount of AA is recommeded for my hardware. Currently my game will crash within 60 seconds of opening unless I get very lucky.

I'm very eager to hopefully get this issue solved so I can play uninterrupted (or as close to as possible), so I will be monitoring this post. If any further info or action is needed, I will have it for you promptly.
Thank you.

EDIT: I've been playing on the following settings for about an hour and, so far, no crash. However, I'd still like to find a way to play on higher graphics settings as my computer should be able to handle it. Any assistance in figuring out why I can't use higher graphics would be appreciated.

• GSYNC On
• 1920x1080 Resolution
• Borderless Window
• vSync (standard)
• LOW settings preset with NO modifications
• MSAA 2x

It seems like the issue may be caused by load on the graphics card? My GPU utilization is only around 43-44% on these settings, but my graphics settings in the screenshot provided in the dropbox link show my GPU being at 99% with just adding in a few settings to the LOW preset + high shadows (since normal is grayed out for some reason).

[Alan Phipps]

Unfortunately your DxDiag Windows Error Reports are filled with repeated serious LiveKernelEvent errors that are not attributed to any specific application, device or driver and those are not very helpful to me but might be of some concern to you if you have frequent issues outside of X4.

The DxDiag says your cpu is clocked at stock 3.7 GHz rather than 5 GHz - unless you know different.

I hope that the devs can check your Vulkaninfo and dmp files along with the shown Vulkan Error Report and help you out. Good luck.

[Tindrem]

Thank you for your reply. I have no issues outside of X4. Additionally, the issue only occurs inside of X4 when the graphics are on anything above "low" preset settings. I can set the game to ultra settings and MSAA x2 and still get 200+ fps constant, but the game will crash due to this error. Additionally, if I am in fullscreen mode, it will CTD without an error message. I only receive the "video_vk.cpp" error when running in windows borderless. Typically, I run fullscreen but have been running borderless at the suggestion in the diagnostic forum thread. Regarding the CPU clock in dxdiag, I'm not sure why it shows 3.7, but I noticed that as well. It's overclocked to "extreme" or whatever basic settings ASUS bios give. I'll double check it just to make sure there's nothing going on with that, but the PC has been stable at 5ghz when last stress tested. Thank you for spotting it out.

I had uploaded ResourceMonitor.JPG and the professionally named "Graphics_Settings_used_when_ResourceMonitorJPG_was_taken.JPG" which shows the 1080Ti 11GB card running stretched at 100% utilization @ 4.79ghz on slightly modified low settings, is this normal behavior? Would the "Serious LiveKernialEvent errors" potentially be causing extra stress? I should note that running the game at 1080p, MSAA x2 and "Low presets" only utilizes 44% of the 1080Ti. Just seems like a major discrepancy between the two graphical settings that aren't that far apart. I defer to your judgement.

Also, I noticed the dxdiag shows "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti" "Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (240hz)" - is it supposed to be running at 64 bit? I'm not too well versed in dxdiags/graphics card hijinx, I only know that x32 windows has a memory limit, and the crash only occurring when running at higher settings sounds like a lack-of-memory error. Regardless, thank you for reaching out. I will probably spend most of today googling these LiveKernalEvents to see if I can track anything down this that. I'll be monitoring the thread all day, can get you/the devs any info requested promptly.

Thank you.

EDIT: Is this the proper location to wait for potential dev investigation, or should I post this information elsewhere? Apologies, first time requesting technical support on this forum.

[timon37]

How consistent are the crashes at different settings?
E.g. can you get settings at which it happens with 90% probability preferably even within the start menu?
and settings at which it almost never happens even after 15min of game time?

Or is it much more random?

[Tindrem]

The game will always launch, I am always able to get to the main menu. On "Ultra" settings, 1080p, MSAA x2; the game can sit at the main menu for a few minutes, and then will crash resulting in the error I provided in the dropbox. Alternately, I can go in game and play for a few minutes, and then it will crash.

Yesterday, on "Low" settings preset with modified LOD "100" and Effect Distance "100", I was able to log in and play for 4-6 hours, and the game did not crash. I finished playing and saved, and then exited without issue. This morning, I set my graphics settings to "Ultra" and then turned Screen Space Reflections to "Low", and I was able to play for 20 minutes, and then it crashed with the same "video_vk.cpp" error. However 20 minutes is a lot longer than the 30-60 seconds it was before. The only difference is I opened my UEFI bios and made sure my overclock was still correct, which it is. Other than that, it's probably 10*F cooler in my room today than it was yesterday.

When playing on Ultra, my FPS is smooth and everything is running fine at a glance. 70+ consistently with a lot of stuff going on the screen. But it will crash. The game will CTD with this same "video_vk.cpp" error on any graphics setting that I attempt, EXCEPT for "LOW" preset + LOD & Effect Distance @ 100. Even then, I can't confirm that it won't crash, just that it didn't after 4-6 hours of straight gameplay.

So I'm continuing to play on the lowest settings, but I'd like to identify the error so I can upgrade to better graphics.

The correlation appears to be: the higher the demand on my graphics card, the quicker the crash. The lower the demand, the longer before it will crash. It's just confusing because I would assume an 11GB 1080 Ti would be able to handle the game without this issue, as others have reported being able to play 1440p on ultra with a similar setup to mine. It's very odd.

EDIT: TL;DR: Low settings means hours of gameplay without crashes. Ultra settings means guaranteed crashes within 20 minutes

[timon37]

Is the gpu overclocked as well?
Can you test after de-overclocking both the cpu and gpu?
I understand that it may be stable in everything else, but overclock stability can sometimes be sensitive to very specific workloads (e.g. sudden changes in the regions of a chip that get loaded).

[Tindrem]

timon, first of all thank you for your help.

The GPU was overclocked by +60 MHz GPU boost clock and +300 MHz Memory clock. I have removed the overclocking completely. I have also gone into my UEFI bios and removed my CPU overclock. I'm sad to see it go, but so far, I have been playing for approximately 30 minutes at 1080p, MSAA x2, and "ULTRA" graphics settings + low Screen Space Reflections (normally "OFF" on "ULTRA" default settings). vSync is set to Standard. So far, so good, but I'm proceeding cautiously. If this continues without issue, I would like to go in and remove vSync (by setting to "Triple Buffered vSync", because nVidia), but for now I will continue to test on this setting. Ideally I would like to remove vSync and up the AA if possible. Do you have any recommendations for AA/vSync settings based off of my hardware?

If something were to go wrong, or I were to crash again, should I create a new reply to this thread? I'm afraid if I just edit, it will not mark a new reply to let you know something has happened. Again, thank you to you and to Alan Phipps for your help. I've been hopelessly addicted to the game since I got my HOTAS setup and got started. It's been a fun learning curve, but the hardware issues I've been having have been a nightmare.

Regards

[timon37]

Personally I'd just pick the "worst" settings right away to see if it crashes asap (expecting it to crash, so being careful with savegames), if it does you know that didn't help, if it didn't after a longer than expected while you gain confidence that the overclock wasn't fully stable for X4.
But feel free to continue however you want to:)

Definitely report if it crashes without any overclocks, especially if you can find a very quick way of making it crash.
If it doesn't crash after a longer I'd also appreciate if you can report. Then we won't be left hanging;)
And yes, replying to this thread is the best.

Oh and thanks for testing without the overclock, I also hate to undo mine but sometimes it's necessary to limit variables;)

[Tindrem]

So far I've been running at the absolute maximum settings (no vSync, ultra settings + low screen space reflections, SSAA 4x) since my last post (I think two hours ago). So far, no crashes. Although, now without my overclocking, I'm running anywhere from the highs of 150 FPS in space down to 50 FPS in some station docking environments, or close to asteroids for crystal mining. I guess I'll have to downgrade from SSAA 4x to something else. What would be the "next best quality"? I have no idea how AA works besides "bigger is better" haha.

Any tips is appreciated to get best graphical quality, but otherwise, I think the crashes were most likely caused by either the GPU Overclock, CPU Overclock, or both. Probably the GPU overclock since the crash was seemingly related to the load % on my GPU in resource monitor (my uneducated opinion).

timon, thank you again for all of your help. Thanks to you I have a lot of empire building to do. I'll update this thread if the crash once again rears it's ugly head.

[CptAWatts]

I'd just like to chime in and say that I've also experienced issues with overclocking the gpu. I found lowering, but not completely turning it off has stabilized the issue(no more crashes). I'd love to be able to overclock higher though