SOLVED Witcher 3 Persistent Freeze, Needs Hard Reboot, No Similar Cases Found - Please Help

[AyeBraine]

Witcher 3 Persistent Freeze, Needs Hard Reboot, No Similar Cases Found - Please Help

I'm battling a serious bug in Witcher 3. My version is 1.31 GOTY, bought from GOG under this account.

The error is as follows:

1) At a random time, ===controls stop responding=== (if a key was pressed at the moment of the glitch, it is treated as pressed indefinitely). No input from mouse or keyboard.
2) At the same exact moment, ===sound disappears completely===.
3) Ctrl-Alt-Del, Win key, Alt-F4 etc. do not work. The only way to unfreeze the machine is do a ===hard reboot=== with forced PSU shutdown (4+ seconds of pressing the Power button).

Details:

4) If it happened during gameplay, visually the game may continue for minutes as if nothing happened (enemies attack, NPCs act, Geralt continues moving). OR sometimes the game may freeze in about 20 seconds.
5) If the freeze happened during an engine cutscene (which is quite often), the cutscene plays out without issues! But both in a cutscene or in-game, if there is a next scene or transition to/from gameplay, it won't load (anything after a fade to black).
6) The bug appeared after at least 30-50 hours of playtime without issues (I have about 150 hours logged now). The bug appeared in Novigrad and was most often there. It now happens everywhere, sometimes as often as several times an hour.

===Here's the answers to most questions and what I've tried.===

REINSTALLATION: Tried reinstalling the game several times.

DID YOU USE MODS? Yes, I used mods, although very uninstrusive ones. These are:
- Unification Patch 1.31 / GOTY
- Friendly HUD
- Instant Tooltips
- Nitpicker's Patch

But to exclude this reason I just did a trial run. Reinstalled the game without mods (also deleted config files), played, saved and loaded a few times, then waited for the bug to appear — and the crash happened again in about 1 hour. So it does happen without mods. Besides, I consider at least the Friendly HUD mod essential.

DRIVERS: Installed the most recent stable AMD Radeon drivers as of one week ago (May 17.4.4, now the stable version is July 17.7.2). Resinstalled cleanly using DDU. I will try the 17.7.2, but it seems the issue is not graphics-related.

GRAPHICS SETTINGS: tried forced external V-Sync, V-Sync in-game on, in-game off etc. The game runs perfectly well on High and Ultra settings, no stutter or hang-ups, no visual artifacts (including during crashes).

LOGS: Windows Event logger does not show anything at all out of the ordinary - only the fact that Windows terminated abruptly. No other logs I'm aware of, the game starts like normal. Can I log the Witcher 3 game somehow?

TEMPS: GPU and CPU temperatures are well within parameters (even if I let the game "play out" after the crash) — 50-75°C. I've used the Heaven benchmark to stress test the GPU, no problems.

BACKGROUND PROGRAMS: I've tried shutting down almost every resident program or service (like Punkbuster service and Computer Browser windows service), and I don't have that much (no firewalls, no antiviruses). All that's loaded right now is Radeon Settings, Realtek HD sound control panel and Yandex Disk client.

FIXES: Tried turning off the automatic reboot in Kernel settings (startup and recovery), checked if Witcher runs with administrative privileges (yes), overclocked and underclocked the GPU.

PC CONFIGURATION: Here's the DxDiag output log: https://yadi.sk/d/f63q6Lyc3LSnfB
Intel i5-3350P 3.1GHz, 8GB RAM
Sapphire Radeon RX480 OC Nitro 4GB VRAM
Kingston HyperX Fury 240GB SSD drive (Windows is installed on Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB SSD, there are 3 HDDs besides).

The game is installed to a new SSD drive. GOG Galaxy is installed (only did it for Gwent), but is prevented from running on startup, so it's not present when I play Witcher 3.

=======

Please, please help me. I love the game, but constant and unpredictable crashing gets worse and worse (I guess with the amount of stuff I already done / abilities I have?). Yesterday after finishing main quest for the 1st time, I tried turning on Death March for DLC's, and I couldn't finish one Monster nest for hours — because if I didn't die, the game crashed before I could save.

UPD: Here's a link to a save file just before the crash, in an umodded installation (although the playthrough itself had mods installed for a large portion of it). https://yadi.sk/d/M7WiJZnf3LT6Ga

 

[WalteriusMaximus]

It sounds to me like it may be a problem with your power supply not being able to provide enough power to your hardware components. What is the wattage on your PSU? Either it is not a powerful enough unit or it may be faulty.

If that's not the problem, then it may be something else like motherboard failure.

Best you can do is to test on a different (equally demanding) game and see if you get the same problem.

If you do, then it is a hardware problem. If not, well....still worth looking into your PSU.

 

[SigilFey]

AyeBraine

Welcome to the Forums! (Love the nickname!) Sorry, that stupid, computer stuff is getting in the way of important Witcher business, but look at it this way:

It's still better than having to deal with both Zoltan and Lambert drunk at the same time!

Best you can do is to test on a different (equally demanding) game and see if you get the same problem.

This is a good first step. Play something that's demanding in more ways than just graphical fidelity. (e.g. playing Call of Duty would not be very helpful. Playing ArmA 3 would be a great comparison.)

I would also run a battery of tests on your RAM and VRAM. It seems that certain things function just fine while other things get stuck...that's indicative of potentially bad RAM sectors. Start by ensuring each of the RAM sticks are firmly seated in their slots (and might as well check all the other connections on the motherboard while you're at it.)

1.) Hit Windows Key + R, then type mdsched.exe.

2.) Choose to run the test at restart, then restart the PC.

3.) Don't worry, you didn't BSoD, that's the test. Let the test run without interruption (very important), as if it encounters problems, it may seem to hang or stop responding. This can potentially go on for more than an hour if it encounters any issues (though normally it only takes a few minutes). Any problems will be reported and logged.

 

[AyeBraine]

WalteriusMaximus SigilFey

Thank you both very much! I will look into the avenues you've shown me. The video card is indeed new to my rig, and despite running GTA V, Hitman, and Far Cry 3 perfectly, the issue of underpowered GPU / PSU may still be valid. I will also check my RAM. I have to say for the record that I also tried reinstalling the game via GOG Galaxy, doing a clean boot, etc.

I also have to say that I only extensively tested my old (continued) saves, that were subject to listed mods at some point. I have yet to verify a new unmoded game has the freeze. But these mods are among the most popular ones...

Again, thanks for taking the time. I promise I will update the topic when the results are in.

 

[AyeBraine]

No Title

WalteriusMaximus saw to the root of the problem!

I've tried quite a few things advised to me by tech support and here - reinstalled via GOG Galaxy, did a clean boot, checked the memory, checked if a crash occurs in a new game without mods... Then I've finally pinpointed the problem - luckily, it has nothing to do with mods or corrupted saves.

It seems that the crashes were caused by the video card drawing too much power from the PSU. I've checked this, as per advice, by playing another resource-intensive game (MGS V) and getting the same crash. Good news is, I've significantly reduced the frequency of crashes by turning the "Power limit" in AMD Settings Wattman down -25%, and eliminated them at -40%, with a bit of frequency underclocking. Over 10 hours game session with no crashes - and performance at Ultra settings haven't taken the slightest hit!

Of course this means I better buy a new PSU. It actually managed fine before, with the same games, so apparently it began to deteriorate. Live and learn.

UPD: Just in case: the PSU model is OCZ ModXStream Pro (MXSP) 500W, several years old.

Thank you for your help!

[SOLVED]

 

[WalteriusMaximus]

Fantastic, glad you got it sorted! Luckily, new Power Supply units are fairly cheap, so you can get yourself a quality beefy one!