GW2 has encountered an unrecoverable graphics driver error and must terminate

[Chaba.5410]

9 hours ago, Raizel.8175 said:

Any news on this? I'm having the same problem - just like the other people exclusively with GW2. It goes so far that I'm getting BSODs because of GW2. Hardware is B550 Asrock Taichi, Ryzen 7 5800X3D, Nvidia RTX 3060 and 4 x 8 GB Corsair Vengeance RGB RT (Ryzen Optimized).

Edit: Just to be clear: Every other game runs fine. Even Cyberpunk 2077 is perfectly smooth with a far shorter loading screen than any GW2 map. Has to be some weird GW2 error - probably due to spaghetti code or whatever.

A BSOD is something quite different from a GW2 crash due to an unrecoverable graphics driver error. It doesn't matter necessarily about the game. GW2 may merely be triggering something that's not functioning properly on your system.

You'd get better help if you started your own thread in the technical help forum rather than this bugs forum and included what errors the BSOD gives you.

[Razadune.9260]

On 12/8/2022 at 5:12 PM, Raizel.8175 said:

Any news on this? I'm having the same problem - just like the other people exclusively with GW2.

I've been getting it for a couple of weeks now (minus the BSOD's). I get the popup for the "unrecoverable graphics error" and the game doesn't launch.    

The worst part of is that the game does actually work just fine... once I finally get it to actually launch. It just takes 3 or 4 of these crashes to finally start, but if it manages to get as far as the character select screen I have no issues at all at that point and I can play without a problem.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Razadune.9260

[DemonAtTheWheel.1804]

I'll throw my hat in on this one too.... I have been getting this error for several months now, and wondering if it is somehow related to DX11, as I never saw it in the last nearly 8 years of playing over multiple computer configurations. Current config is Ryzen 5950X and 3080ti on Win 10 Pro version 22H2 (though issue was same on 21H2)

In my case, I have only had it halt my game play while actively playing twice. I regularly leave my game client up in the background (at the character select screen) if I plan to play again soon. Most of the time, I see the error when I come back to continue playing. 

Interestingly, the error appears when the window is being moved from minimized to viewable. It is not actually crashing while minimized. When you have the client minimized and mouse over the task bar icon, it shows only a single window is running. When you then click on it to bring it back to the foreground, if the error happens, there are two windows, one for the client and one for the error message.

Also interesting, at least in relation to this specific thread, every person who listed their specs is on a Ryzen CPU and Nvidia GPU. While this is a relatively small sample size, one would think at least someone would be on alternate hardware.

[Chaba.5410]

6 hours ago, DemonAtTheWheel.1804 said:

a Ryzen CPU and Nvidia GPU. While this is a relatively small sample size, one would think at least someone would be on alternate hardware.

Please tell me you are not overclocking your CPU and/or GPU and naturally all drivers are up to date.

The Ryzens just really don't need overclocking.  They are already efficient and don't have big headroom for overclocking (doing so only gets like a 0.05% increase in performance).  Leave XMP set to auto and let it do it's thing.

Edited December 26, 2022 by Chaba.5410

[DemonAtTheWheel.1804]

52 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Please tell me you are not overclocking your CPU and/or GPU and naturally all drivers are up to date.

The Ryzens just really don't need overclocking.  They are already efficient and don't have big headroom for overclocking (doing so only gets like a 0.05% increase in performance).  Leave XMP set to auto and let it do it's thing.

naw man, I'm running the whole thing on a custom LN2 cooling and cranked to 6GHz with a power shunted GPU 

In all seriousness, while I think overclock ability is interesting, in the case of bragging rights and whatnot..... I do not see the minimal gains from *most* of the modern hardware as a good trade-off for the significantly reduced stability that many overclockers deal with. It is "neeto" but not worth my time and the hassle to get it stable (IMHO).

Besides, if your Ryzen is adequately cooled, on a good board, it auto-overclocks itself. Similarly, if you get a good video car design (EVGA FTW3 Hybrid) it is factory overclocked and will often surpass the advertised spec. The bios, firmware, and logic behind modern hardware has mostly made overclocking obsolete beyond bragging rights on a leader board. 

[Chaba.5410]

3 hours ago, DemonAtTheWheel.1804 said:

naw man, I'm running the whole thing on a custom LN2 cooling and cranked to 6GHz with a power shunted GPU 

In all seriousness, while I think overclock ability is interesting, in the case of bragging rights and whatnot..... I do not see the minimal gains from *most* of the modern hardware as a good trade-off for the significantly reduced stability that many overclockers deal with. It is "neeto" but not worth my time and the hassle to get it stable (IMHO).

Besides, if your Ryzen is adequately cooled, on a good board, it auto-overclocks itself. Similarly, if you get a good video car design (EVGA FTW3 Hybrid) it is factory overclocked and will often surpass the advertised spec. The bios, firmware, and logic behind modern hardware has mostly made overclocking obsolete beyond bragging rights on a leader board. 

Thank God you're a fellow convert!

It's entirely possible that doing a general clean-up of GW2 may fix the issue you're having.  There's the standard -repair option, then clearing the GW2 cache, and lastly some players find success deleting the stuff in %AppData%/Guild Wars 2.  If you run the game with any add-ons, might want to double-check any folders those created too.

Clearing the GW2 cache:
https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/201863008-Repairing-the-Game-Client

1. Open your windows explorer browser.
2. In the navigation bar, type %temp% to open your temporary folder.
3. Search for any folders that begin with “gw2cache-“ followed by a string of numbers.
4. Delete these folders.
5. Open Guild Wars 2

 

Note that removing stuff in %AppData% can reset your graphics settings and keybindings and other stuff in F11 options.  Take a screenshot of those in-game before you do.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Chaba.5410

[Zifrian.2843]

I'm encountering the same issue with a new PC build I just finished yesterday. Game ran fine on old system.

 

Win 10

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X

NVIDIA RTX 3060

Radeon RX 6700 XT

 

Got this three times now just playing the game generally. Someone posted that the winter's presence skin might be the issue and I have that on, so I'll disable to see if that helps.

Turned off the skin and played for about an hour with no crash. Will update if it happens again.

1/5/2023 update - Tried raiding...spent about an hour with no issues then 3 graphics fails within 10 minutes. 😕

2/5/2023 update - SOLUTION - I've narrowed down my issue to my RAM. First steps I took were to reseat it while blowing out the connections, and checked my installation to ensure it was correct. Then I ran memtest86. It would fail certain tests (7 and 8 mostly) with 2 sticks installed. Installed one stick and it ran fine. Looked around on the web and this type of RAM isn't very good (I got it free with a bundle) and someone mentioned the RAM isn't set to the right voltage in the BIOS. I edited it to "overclock" it to the recommended values. After doing that, I seldom have a crash. I have to play probably 4-5hours straight to get one. This I chalk up to crap ram again, which I'll be replacing.

Anyway, if you get this error, check your RAM by running memtest86. Hope this helps!

Edited February 5, 2023 by Zifrian.2843

[Paintedawg.3740]

Hi so I too had been getting this crash almost multiple times a day. Tried a few things but nothing was working.

A week ago I was just thinking of anything I could try to to lessen the workload on my GPU(RTX 2070). Saw my FPS under graphic settings was set to unlimited.

For the hell of it I set it to limit of 60 FPS. I have not had a crash for a week and a half now. Anyone having this maybe try that.

[ViriAkaNight.3472]

Hi, ive been having this exact issue too - my situation/my attempts: (crash around every hour)

-) All Drivers up to date
-) Fresh Reinstall, Cache emptied twice
-) Windows 10
-) Specs: i7-8700K, 1080Ti, 16GB
-) Also never had the issue for many years, started only ever half a year ago
-) The Error never seems to appear on and Launcher (low graphic alts tho)
-) Enabling DX9 Rendering somehow made it run for longer periods (but can't use DpsMeter then)

Gradually decreasing graphic settings to trial and error potentially a specific setting rn.

Edit: I had these crashes (unrecoverable graphics driver error) every hour.

Sidenote: Storymission in Istan specifically crashed me at the same time every single time. (i had to redo the mission every time since i got kicked out of the instance and hence lost progress)

Edited April 14, 2023 by ViriAkaNight.3472
Frequency of Crashes added.

[ViriAkaNight.3472]

On 4/12/2023 at 7:51 PM, ViriAkaNight.3472 said:

Hi, ive been having this exact issue too - my situation/my attempts:
....
 

o) 1. Update:
-) Tried if framelimiter could fix this issue (previous post), seemed to work initally when set to 60 but after a restart (cuz a day passed, so it worked for a day) i had a full crash, not just the game dying but completely blackscreening, but for some reason alt+tab/win+tab seems to show up windows - even my soundports died and the sounds came out of my monitor??? the windowsbutton seemed to work and pop out the menu so i could restart my pc - (graphic driver restart with the shortcut didnt help)
 

To note: After it worked for a couple hours with framelimiting to 60, i felt confident that its probably the issue so i set my graphsettings back to highest. (could maybe be connected to me crashing)

Monitoring if keeping at highest graphsetting while framelimited will crash me again or if its a onetime crash due to the new boot up.

Edited April 14, 2023 by ViriAkaNight.3472
Info to next steps added.

[Chaba.5410]

1 hour ago, ViriAkaNight.3472 said:

o) 1. Update:
-) Tried if framelimiter could fix this issue (previous post), seemed to work initally when set to 60 but after a restart (cuz a day passed, so it worked for a day) i had a full crash, not just the game dying but completely blackscreening, but for some reason alt+tab/win+tab seems to show up windows - even my soundports died and the sounds came out of my monitor??? the windowsbutton seemed to work and pop out the menu so i could restart my pc - (graphic driver restart with the shortcut didnt help)
 

To note: After it worked for a couple hours with framelimiting to 60, i felt confident that its probably the issue so i set my graphsettings back to highest. (could maybe be connected to me crashing)

Monitoring if keeping at highest graphsetting while framelimited will crash me again or if its a onetime crash due to the new boot up.

It almost sounds like some overclocking issue.

Sound coming out your monitor is the system switching to use the Nvidia HDMI audio, no?

 

Edited April 14, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[ViriAkaNight.3472]

21 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

It almost sounds like some overclocking issue.

Sound coming out your monitor is the system switching to use the Nvidia HDMI audio, no?

 

Its all stock, never OC'd anything - and about the second part, not sure i never faced this with any other game but guild wars 2 after kicking me, it overall happened to that extent 4 times now.

[Chaba.5410]

4 minutes ago, ViriAkaNight.3472 said:

Its all stock, never OC'd anything - and about the second part, not sure i never faced this with any other game but guild wars 2 after kicking me, it overall happened to that extent 4 times now.

You might want to review your BIOS settings anyway to see if your system is using Intel's automatic overclocking system ("Turbo Boost Technology") and maybe it isn't configured well.  These modern auto-overclocking technologies are considered "stock" these days.  Most of the time you can leave all settings as "auto", but may have to manually set the RAM speed so it doesn't mess with those.  Other games don't hit a CPU as much like the GW2 engine does.

The other thing you'll want to check is that your system isn't limiting power usage to the Nvidia card.  Make sure Windows is using a high power "performance" power plan.  Also in the Nvidia driver settings is "power management mode".  Try changing that to "Prefer maximum performance".

[Chrome.6798]

I am receiving a unrecoverable Graphic driver error. I've looked online how to simplify things and follow all protocalls to fix this and im still receiving this error no matter what i do Im about to just uninstall the game cause its just gw2 no other game gives me this error

[Winter.3485]

On 4/12/2023 at 7:51 PM, ViriAkaNight.3472 said:

Hi, ive been having this exact issue too - my situation/my attempts: (crash around every hour)

-) All Drivers up to date
-) Fresh Reinstall, Cache emptied twice
-) Windows 10
-) Specs: i7-8700K, 1080Ti, 16GB
-) Also never had the issue for many years, started only ever half a year ago
-) The Error never seems to appear on and Launcher (low graphic alts tho)
-) Enabling DX9 Rendering somehow made it run for longer periods (but can't use DpsMeter then)

Gradually decreasing graphic settings to trial and error potentially a specific setting rn.

Edit: I had these crashes (unrecoverable graphics driver error) every hour.

Sidenote: Storymission in Istan specifically crashed me at the same time every single time. (i had to redo the mission every time since i got kicked out of the instance and hence lost progress)

Did the issue go away?

[Algoz.9786]

Same problem here, i cant find anny way to fix this.
Almost a 8 mounths with this problem

[Xenomorph.7532]

Exact same issue and it even happens with graphics on lowest settings, but it just happens far far less when on lowest settings. Before the compulsary DX11 update the game ran fine without errors on DX9 or dx12proxy. 

System specs:
Win 11
32gb ram 3600hz
i9 9900K @ 3.6Ghz
Nvidia RTX 3090

I'm urgently looking for alternative graphics injection mod to bypass this begrudging error. GW2 is the main game I play on my PC with maybe or 1 or 2 other AAA games when they come out on occasion.

N.B. I have done Clean installs and even tried rolling back graphic drivers to older ones. The issue seems more DX11 related than anything else but then again I  do not have a single other game that crashes using DX11 or newer which are newer games from less than a year old on max settings. 

Edited June 24, 2023 by Xenomorph.7532
Added NB.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Whilst you await a 'fix', you could use the command line argument, -dx9.

Good luck.  

[SlayerDiogo.2389]

Hello guys, been having this issue since Dx11 has become mandatory.

But today I decided to look into the problem and started to mess with my 3d card,

So I opened me Nvidia Control Panel(not the Experience) and noticed my Physx options

was set to ''automatic''. After switching it for my 3d card the problem has disappeared.

Hope that helps you all out.

[BubbleTopDuke.1609]

Moved from ryzen 1600x to 7600x and set it expo to 6000 memory frequency. And the game started to crash every 30 seconds. After turning off to auto, everything disappeared. I advise you to turn off RAM overclocking if you have it.

Edited July 1, 2023 by BubbleTopDuke.1609

[Xenomorph.7532]

On 6/28/2023 at 10:44 PM, SlayerDiogo.2389 said:

Hello guys, been having this issue since Dx11 has become mandatory.

But today I decided to look into the problem and started to mess with my 3d card,

So I opened me Nvidia Control Panel(not the Experience) and noticed my Physx options

was set to ''automatic''. After switching it for my 3d card the problem has disappeared.

Hope that helps you all out.

So I tried this and unfortunately still the same problem. thanks for the suggestion though.

[Xenomorph.7532]

On 6/25/2023 at 7:43 AM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Whilst you await a 'fix', you could use the command line argument, -dx9.

Good luck.  

No, Game seems to ponder every 10 sec, hang and run for 5 sec. It's no better than it crashing every now and then randomly. Seems the game now even has DX9 issues when using this mode. I do not understand how this updated game runs worse than games with more intense/higher graphics settings without issues. And it's JUST gw2 that does this, not a single other game. 

[Chaba.5410]

1 hour ago, Xenomorph.7532 said:

No, Game seems to ponder every 10 sec, hang and run for 5 sec. It's no better than it crashing every now and then randomly. Seems the game now even has DX9 issues when using this mode. I do not understand how this updated game runs worse than games with more intense/higher graphics settings without issues. And it's JUST gw2 that does this, not a single other game. 

If running with DX9 doesn't work for you, I suggest looking elsewhere for a cause.  Windows configurations can interfere.

Also, just be aware that this thread is about the unrecoverable graphics driver error.  Is that the error you are getting?

[Algoz.9786]

https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/requests/8943220

here the list of things that i already tried, nothing work, even 3d, low grap clean reinstal, 30 fps, nvidia change 

[Xenomorph.7532]

On 7/2/2023 at 9:07 PM, Chaba.5410 said:

If running with DX9 doesn't work for you, I suggest looking elsewhere for a cause.  Windows configurations can interfere.

Also, just be aware that this thread is about the unrecoverable graphics driver error.  Is that the error you are getting?

That is the exact error I'm getting. The hang state issue is what I get when I try the alternate solutions. Just to add I even used a clean windows profile install and it kept happening. I still can't see how the system can be blamed if Every other game runs flawlessly while only GW2 have this issue ONLY when they permanently moved to DX11. As i said, with dx12pxy the game even ran buttersmooth on max settings.