This may be true, but there is no solution to the issue, other than this, at this time. The sad truth it is not only Hogwarts Legacy and Cyberpunk 2077 are having these issues. A fair amount of games are having this issue, with the 12/13 + gen cpu's and quite frankly Intel has placed it on the companies like CDPR, to alter the software to recognizes the new architecture of the 12/13+ gen cpu's have. Read it right on Intel's forums.
Again, I need to stress that the issues stated in the OP of this thread are not indicative of any hardware issue. The crashing is too particular. That doesn't mean it can't be caused by that, but it's almost 100% guaranteed not to be, since the crashing is so exact and re-creatable. Exactly the same spots every time.
But, what you're saying on the other side of that coin is exactly the type of thing I mean as far as identifying and fixing the real issue. Different scenario:
Let's say someone was receiving system-wide crashes, on all games, at random times, and perhaps also while doing less intensive things, like typing in MSWord or surfing the net, but those crashes were not as frequent. They then undervolt their CPU a bit, and everything seems to become more stable. THAT would be indicative of hardware issues. By all means, undervolt. In this case, I would strongly recommend people get that system checked out at a shop and figure out if their 13/14 gen Intel CPU is suffering from the "microcode" issue, and how many cores have already been fried. (Then, I'd work on replacing that chip.)
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One or two games, only, always crashing in roughly the same spots (or in
exactly the same spots) every time, while other programs remain stable: that doesn't sound like hardware in any way, shape, or form. That sounds like a drivers that are failing to handle certain type of call being made to the GPU, or an API that isn't cooperating with a driver, or there might be an issue with the installation package on a certain platform resulting in corrupted data. Whenever a crash is easy and straightforward to re-create, it's almost always software. It can just be very tricky to pin down exactly which software or combinations of software are responsible.
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There's also a third scenario here. It's both. There is a software issue between the game, API, and drivers...
and there's hardware issue somewhere in the system. It doesn't even need to be that the 13 / 14 gen Intels are suffering from the voltage/degradation issues, as it apparently is only about 20% of the chips produced. The other 80% are apparently fine even with the microcode goof. True, the microcode fix is still needed, as that type of voltage will eventually decrease the lifespan of the hardware for essentially no reason. But it's not unheard of for there to be something with a processor design (the way it handles threading...the way it handles big data calls...the way it handles lots of little, rapid data calls at the same time...) that conflicts with the design of a particular GPU or driver package. It could literally just be a hiccup with a few games on those particular
combinations of hardware / firmware / API / software...and have nothing to do with the other problems on 13/14 gen chips.
Why is CDPR the only company I delt with who suggests a clean reinstall right off the get go. Others, in a nutshell, will tell you, to make sure the drivers are up to date, but reinstall ONLY as a last resort.
Because the updatesincluded in the next-gen patches to Cyberpunk and The Witcher 3 did not just "tweak graphics" and "fix bugs". They introduced a complete re-working and rebuilding of large swaths of the games, both what is apparent to the player and even bigger things under the hood. (I can't provide specific details or examples because I don't know the specifics. But the CLEAN installation thing was a very important part of the release and support.) Basically, you'll rarely see this sort of update from other studios. If they suggested something like this to their producers, the response would probably be, "Hell, no! We're not spending that sort of time and money on a game released 3-5 years ago." It would be a "remake/remaster edition" sort of venture and would be re-sold as a different product.
But the nature of such a massive update on this scale creates a real potential for the game's existing installation to have become littered with problems: file conflicts that may have occurred over multiple updates or data corruption while replacing so many critical files (due to bandwidth issues, the power going out, etc. while the game was trying to compare, verify, and update so many.) Because of the popularity of modding, especially, it would be extremely likely for modded installations to result in a next-gen update that didn't manage to get everything installed correctly.
Hence, the CLEAN installation (all caps -- extremely important.)
Also, who tells you not to reinstall a game? I would most certainly not start with that, and I wouldn't rush to it as a third or fourth option. But if you're seeing glaring issues with a game, cannot seem to find the problem online, and the studio doesn't seem to know...reinstall the game. A reinstallation is not in any way harmful. Especially if you're aggressively modding, you'll be reinstalling all the time when (not if) things get botched.
