Technical Reason for GFX driver updates making game modified?

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DarkCarnifex
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Technical Reason for GFX driver updates making game modified?

Post by DarkCarnifex » Thu, 30. Mar 23, 03:25

What is the technical reason that driver updates flag the game as modified? This has been a recurring issue for me where every time I update my RTX 2080S the game flags as modified. With how often Nvidia pushes graphics driver updates this basically breaks my game every other week. I perform the recommended steps, which solves the issue, only for it to come up again next update. This seems like an unnecessary problem when driver updates, normal system maintenance for PCs, keep causing this.

Aside from removing the old driver and GeForce experience then performing a manual update and clean install what can be done to permanently resolve this issue?

Edit to add: I'm just under 1k hours in the game but this issue is making it so hard to keep playing. Which is a real bummer because the game is amazing outside of this problem.

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Re: Technical Reason for GFX driver updates making game modified?

Post by Incinerator » Thu, 30. Mar 23, 06:00

Maybe its the shaders that are recreated with new driver updates, which the game detects as modified files, since they differ in memory?

CBJ
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Re: Technical Reason for GFX driver updates making game modified?

Post by CBJ » Thu, 30. Mar 23, 09:15

It is not normal behaviour for graphics driver updates to make your game modified, and it's not something I've seen reported by anyone else. I would suggest thoroughly checking your drives for errors, and performing a thorough malware check, then excluding the game folder from your malware protection's live scanning. That would eliminate the main causes for false positives on modified checks.

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Re: Technical Reason for GFX driver updates making game modified?

Post by Alan Phipps » Thu, 30. Mar 23, 11:23

If you are updating your graphics driver 'every other week' then it sounds as though you are using all the beta drivers as opposed to WHQL ones (which Nvidia call 'game ready') since those are far less frequent in release. There may be beta bugs to be ironed out in those other drivers.

Still, as CBJ says, I can't see how that would mark your game as modified and suspect that the problem lies elsewhere but is being triggered by the bigger changes being made on your system by significant game and driver updates.
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Re: Technical Reason for GFX driver updates making game modified?

Post by Skeeter » Thu, 30. Mar 23, 14:39

verify files on steam?
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Re: Technical Reason for GFX driver updates making game modified?

Post by alt3rn1ty » Thu, 30. Mar 23, 21:58

DarkCarnifex wrote:
Thu, 30. Mar 23, 03:25
~ With how often Nvidia pushes graphics driver updates this basically breaks my game every other week. ~
The stable WHQL updates do not occur that frequently, are you talking about beta versions of the drivers?

Personally I have never had an NVidia WHQL driver update cause X4 to become modified.
Though I also never allow the Geforce Experience app to install either, maybe thats messing with something aswell as applying crap game settings recommendations which are sourced from the public crowd but not ideal for every individual machine.
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DarkCarnifex
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Re: Technical Reason for GFX driver updates making game modified?

Post by DarkCarnifex » Fri, 31. Mar 23, 02:19

alt3rn1ty wrote:
Thu, 30. Mar 23, 21:58
DarkCarnifex wrote:
Thu, 30. Mar 23, 03:25
~ With how often Nvidia pushes graphics driver updates this basically breaks my game every other week. ~
The stable WHQL updates do not occur that frequently, are you talking about beta versions of the drivers?

Personally I have never had an NVidia WHQL driver update cause X4 to become modified.
Though I also never allow the Geforce Experience app to install either, maybe thats messing with something aswell as applying crap game settings recommendations which are sourced from the public crowd but not ideal for every individual machine.
https://www.nvidia.co.uk/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-uk
I have been allowing the automatic download but not the install so that very well might be the culprit. I don't follow public recommendation for settings or anything like that, as you pointed out each PC is different and each piece of hardware has subtle differences regardless of being sold as a standard

DarkCarnifex
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Re: Technical Reason for GFX driver updates making game modified?

Post by DarkCarnifex » Fri, 31. Mar 23, 02:21

CBJ wrote:
Thu, 30. Mar 23, 09:15
It is not normal behaviour for graphics driver updates to make your game modified, and it's not something I've seen reported by anyone else. I would suggest thoroughly checking your drives for errors, and performing a thorough malware check, then excluding the game folder from your malware protection's live scanning. That would eliminate the main causes for false positives on modified checks.
I'll try this. I can definitely say it isn't a malware issue but excluding the folder from live scanning is worth a try. Thanks.

DarkCarnifex
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Re: Technical Reason for GFX driver updates making game modified?

Post by DarkCarnifex » Fri, 31. Mar 23, 02:30

Alan Phipps wrote:
Thu, 30. Mar 23, 11:23
If you are updating your graphics driver 'every other week' then it sounds as though you are using all the beta drivers as opposed to WHQL ones (which Nvidia call 'game ready') since those are far less frequent in release. There may be beta bugs to be ironed out in those other drivers.

Still, as CBJ says, I can't see how that would mark your game as modified and suspect that the problem lies elsewhere but is being triggered by the bigger changes being made on your system by significant game and driver updates.
This is probably my issue then. I do not have the beta driver option selected so it is only "Game Ready" drivers that should be getting pushed. Like I mentioned above though I had been allowing GeForce to perform automatic downloads. Nvidia's GeForce Experience program does push out updates quite often so it seems I just have to be more selective in which ones I update to. This is the only game I've ever had this issue with so it's just frustrating to be fighting with an unknown problem that prevents me from playing a great game.

Thanks for the help, hopefully these suggestions will fix it.

DarkCarnifex
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Re: Technical Reason for GFX driver updates making game modified?

Post by DarkCarnifex » Fri, 31. Mar 23, 02:32

Skeeter wrote:
Thu, 30. Mar 23, 14:39
verify files on steam?
Sadly I've done this many times and it never resolves the issue. Last time this went all the way to submitting the save, config, and sys reports to Egosoft. Only the clean install process resolved it, until the next graphics update.

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