Video driver crashed and was reset

Development Platform & Builds
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1

I get a message “Video driver crashed and was reset”. That happens in two cases: when I’m trying to use that fancy ball stand for material testing (which crashes the engine entirely) and when I try launching a project in “standalone game” mode (a good thing is that engine still works after that). i3 2.4GHz, 4Gb, GeForce GT 720M? MS-Windows 10 Pr. Project has just two features: day-night cycle and custom post-process being tested on default level.

P.S. A new version of that material testing stand is lame.

2

Hey Alex,

We have a ticket up for the crash with your specific stack. You can find the issue logged here: Unreal Engine Issues and Bug Tracker (UE-40807)

We still haven’t been able to reproduce this crash internally but we will update the ticket as more progress is made. If you have any additional information you can add, like detailed steps to reproduce the issue in a blank/template project, project logs, or stacks, feel free to leave a comment.

!

Ed

3

Hey!

There is a possible workaround that we are investigating. The GPU crash may be related to microsoft’s Timeout Detection & Recovery(TDR) feature. You can find out more about it here: Timeout detection and recovery (TDR) - Windows drivers | Microsoft Learn

Basically, it detects if your GPU is hung up and if it passes a certain amount of time Windows will automatically reset the GPU resulting in the crash. This is done to prevent a freeze forcing a hard reboot of the system.

Sometimes you need to add a little more time for your GPU to process before Windows causes the reset. To do this you need to change the TDR delay.

I have two suggestion on how to do this you can do it manually yourself OR you can download a tool that will do it for you. However, I haven’t used the tool that much myself but it does appear to work. (Use at your own risk)

4

Method 1 (manually):

  • Go to the this link:
    Testing and debugging TDR during driver development - Windows drivers | Microsoft Learn

  • There you will find a section called TdrDelay it gives you all the information you need to create a registry key that will change the delay time

  • To open your registry open your start menu and type “run” once the window is open type “regedit” and hit OK

  • Now you should have Registry Editor open this is where you will use the info at the website I just linked.

  • First navigate the key path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers

  • Right click on GraphicsDrivers and go to new> DWORD (32 bit) value

  • You will see a new key appear make sure to name it “TdrDelay”

  • Right click it and select “modify”

  • Under Value data enter 10 (this is the number of seconds to delay) make sure you have Decimal selected as the base

  • Hit okay and restart your system

Method 2

5

Looks like I missed this post. A user (IronicParadox) suggested that going into the content browser pane > click the little eye that says “View Options” and uncheck “Real-Time Thumbnails.” made the engine much more stable.

This has helped many others so it is worth trying.

6

Thank you. That was helpful, even though the problem wasn’t solved completely. I tried editing registry - with your instruction even a dummy could do that. I put material testing stand into my test level and played with materials a bit. Engine survived. But “Standalone Game” mode still crashes. Interesting, how far I can stretch this?