Question EVERY game, but ONLY games, crashes

Oct 6, 2021
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Hello everybody, nice to be here again!
I assume this is the right place for my question, but not sure

I have a strange issue: every game I try to play crashes, every time. It can be after a few minutes of playthrough (usually), it could be after some hours (most rare). The PC keeps running smoothly, it's only the game which closes itself. It does not metter what kind of game it is, if it is a resource consuming or a small indie game.

I used to play cool games on this machine with no problems at all (Red Dead Redemption II, Skyrim, Assassin's Creed Odissey...) at medium - high graphic settings
I regularly use graphic and video editing softwares (DaVinci Resolve, Photoshop etc) on this very machine with no problems at all
I made a clean format of windows to try to solve the problem
I tested both Gaming and Studio drivers for my Gtx 1070
I turned off Real Time Protection from Windows Defender
I ran some banchmark like FurMark, scoring above average
I tried installing and running the games "As Administrator"
I ran out of ideas



Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

this is recorded on event viewer when crashes happen
 
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Welcome to the forum :)

First thing: what changed just before the problem started happening—hardware or software?

Second: the experts here will need more info about your system, so please supply as much as you can per this:
 
Oct 6, 2021
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Thanks for the kind answer, and for the welcome message.

After some deeper research, I found that my actual problem is this, as reported on my logs from "event viewer":

"Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

I googled it, but couldn't understand what I found, nor was I capable of finding a solution.


My machine is
PSU Corsair RM750x
MOBO Gigabyte AB350 Gaming (bios F50d)
CPU Ryzen 5 1600
Memory 2x G.Skill FlareX 8GB DDR4 3200 (which I run on x.m.p. at 2933, 3200 works perfectly too)
GPU Gigabyte GTX1070 Gaming
OS win10 on dedicated m.2 ssd
games on dedicated ssd


plz help me if you can, I'm pretty desperate :*)
 
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Hi, I'm no expert on this stuff but I've done my fair share of troubleshooting for myself using the powers of Google and old tech forum posts :) Lets see if its anything common.

I'm fairly sure its your graphics card causing the problem. Its worth trying to roll back to an earlier driver from the Nvidia website. It may be an issue with the newest one, as you havent had trouble before.

You can find older drivers here. Try a few different ones.


If that doesnt help try the other things on this list except for the the last one. Thats one to try last, as it means your GPU has degraded (worn) and may possibly on the way to a slow end.


Before underclocking the card using MSI Afterburner, you can try, one at a time and testing each in games before moving to the next..

- Resetting your RAM to default, non XMP setting of 2667 MHZ

- Moving the Graphics card to another PCI-E slot on your motherboard

- Different PCI-E Cables from the motherboard (You should be using two cables, not one split in two.)

- Different set of PCI-E power ports on the PSU if available.

- A different SATA cable to your games SSD. (Dont ask me why, worked for me one time)

- A different SATA port on your motherboard for your games SSD. (Again dont ask me why, it shouldn't do anything but its cause weird stuff for me in the past).

Thats all I have for now. As I say I only have experience of messing with my own cards and a few others over the years so I may have missed something, but those are some basic things that I've had trouble with before.

Hope something helps!
 
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@Kaamos_Llama Great answer!
I'm fairly sure its your graphics card causing the problem
This is what put me off thinking it's the G card:
I regularly use graphic and video editing softwares (DaVinci Resolve, Photoshop etc) on this very machine with no problems at all
Thinking that G card problem would surface there too—those are pretty demanding apps graphically.

So wondering if it's something which only gaming uses:
Overlay, eg from Nvidia or Steam;
Microsoft tech for gaming only—maybe DX12 or DirectDraw or… I don't know which ones are gaming-only;
A controller, or custom mouse profile;
Plugging in something else for gaming—headset, microphone, Discord… @Sitchin disable anything like that and see if it helps.

games on dedicated ssd
Try installing one of the failing games on another drive, just in case the dedicated SSD is the problem.
 
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Oct 6, 2021
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5
15
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@Kaamos_Llama Great answer!

This is what put me off thinking it's the G card:

Thinking that G card problem would surface there too—those are pretty demanding apps graphically.

So wondering if it's something which only gaming uses:
Overlay, eg from Nvidia or Steam;
Microsoft tech for gaming only—maybe DX12 or DirectDraw or… I don't know which ones are gaming-only;
A controller, or custom mouse profile;
Plugging in something else for gaming—headset, microphone, Discord… @Sitchin disable anything like that and see if it helps.


Try installing one of the failing games on another drive, just in case the dedicated SSD is the problem.


That's pretty smart too, and thanks for the help.
I'm oriented on a software problem, for the same reasons you pointed out and also because it got really worst after the second-last win-upgrade and got a little better with the last one. Now I'm testing on the same game I was struggling with (Pathfinder:Kingmaker), starting from the lowest graphics setting and maxing one at the time. I've experienced no crash up to now, but.. never say never :**)
Do you guys think this could be a reasonable way to test my graphics software?
 
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