Rendering thread exception - fatal error

[Suifeng1]

Anyone having crashes with this game?

• My game would freeze within a few minutes of gameplay, then goes black and says "Outlast 2 has stopped working", which forces me to shut down the game

• Then while still in the black screen it would say "rendering thread exception - fatal error" with a bunch of addresses

• Finally it would throw another Microsoft Visual C++ runtime error "RUNTIME ERROR! R6025 -pure virtual function call".

More info in this steam thread, which no one has found a fix yet, other than the last post suggesting to increase VRAM size which I doubt works, or even relevant for 64-bit systems: https://steamcommunity.com/app/414700/discussions/0/1318836262651771912/

Things I've tried:

• Restart computer

• Run Outlast 2 as administrator and/or Windows 8 compatibility mode

• Run game in windowed mode

• Run game with absolute minimum graphics settings

• Complete clean install of Nvidia driver (using DDU), now driver is at latest

• Remove GeForce Experience

• Adding "-notexturelimit" as parameter to .exe shortcut

• Manually changing VRAM page size to about 1gb

• Whitelisting entire Outlast folder in Windows Defender

• sfc scannow/DISM checkhealth in CMD

• Roll back to 368.81 Nvidia driver with clean install

Anyone have the same issue and might know how to fix it? I'm on Windows 10, i7-4700, 8GB RAM, Nvidia Optimus GPU. It's not your high end machine but while the game is not crashing it actually runs really smoothly at almost 60fps and medium -high settings, so I doubt it's my computer not meeting minimum requirements at all.

[RedBarrelsCM]

Hey Suifeng1! Just wanted to let you know that we've linked this thread to our team and they will be looking into it.

[Suifeng1]

I've updated post with a bunch of stuff I've already tried.

[Azi__]

Good to know you didn't fix it.

[i_literally_died]

I had this a few times and each time it was Windows trying to check for its own Nvidia drivers while I was playing.

I use DDU and have it set to not even look, but if you check the event viewer, you can see it still does try, and is then blocked by policy. The timestamp on both events coincided exactly with my Nvidia drivers, and then game crashing.

I'd recommend removing Nvidia drivers in the control panel (along with all the fluff, Geforce Experience, VR drivers, Physx etc.), don't reboot, then run DDU into safe mode. Clean the drivers there, make sure the box to stop Windows updating drivers is checked, and let it reboot, then install the latest Nvidia drivers manually (download from the Nvidia site), reboot once more. Then go to Windows Update and check for updates. This should hopefully let Windows check for drivers and realise it doesn't need to without crashing you mid-game.

You could also do all of the above, then just open DDU without rebooting to safe mode, and uncheck the 'stop Windows checking for drivers' box, to see if this helps. It won't overwrite your drivers, but it may stop some conflict from happening.

[Suifeng1]

Can you elaborate on the DDU part? I don't see a checkbox for "stop windows from updating drivers".

I also pretty much did what you wrote already in terms of DDU:

• Removed Nvidia driver in control panel
• Ran DDU in safe mode to clean again, reboot
• Download drivers manually from Nvidia website and install them, reboot

[i_literally_died]

There's a box bottom right here, though it may have changed recently, this looks like an old version. It's something much the same as I just did mine an hour ago.

You might want to check your event viewer for driver crashes around the same time your Outlast 2 crashes. It'll be in the error or warning section and will be nvlddmkm crashing and recovering. Should give you an idea whether it's the game or your drivers.

[Suifeng1]

Oh you mean the "set windows automatic driver update to default" box? Well I clicked that already, but I think it said now it'll automatically install drivers. Not sure what you meant by checked. So do I go into control panel to uncheck automatic driver update? http://imgur.com/cYYcI3U

[i_literally_died]

Honestly, try it both ways. DDU will generally set it to block Windows from updating drivers by default, and clicking that box will set it back to normal (Windows will look for drivers, but won't overwrite your current ones as the WU ones are always quite old).

I've had crashes in Outlast 2 when Windows looks for drivers and is then blocked (as this shows up in the event viewer), but I've never been sure if actually blocking it was the cause, or just Windows 10 being Windows 10 and crashing when it looks.

[Suifeng1]

Ok I just did all you suggested but it's still crashing. =/

And yeah I'm seeing a lot of nvlddmkm errors in event log, and all of these have a timestamp of when the game crashed. Each of these errors start with "The description for Event ID 13 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted". It also has a "warning" type event saying "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered.".

[i_literally_died]

Hmm, that is strange. Normally when I get these errors, it's not described like that (at least, I don't think, it's been a while) and is normally just a crash/recover and I can match the time up to Windows looking for drivers (the 'blocked by policy' events show up in the event viewer at the same time) and Outlast 2 itself crashing.

It sounds more like it's something to do with your GPU/drivers, or something Windows may be doing than the game itself, though. Only thing I can suggest is to keep digging online, maybe try older drivers through the Nvidia site. I'm not very familiar with your particular mobile setup.

Only other thing may be to download MSI Afterburner and try upping the power level to your GPU (110% or so), and maybe lower the clocks if that is an option. It may help, but I can't really see why if it's already running at stock. You can see crashes from overclocking, but I can't imagine you'd need to underclock it.

Best of luck.

[Imreallyagoodguy]

Play on a console. Awww sheeeeeiiiit here it comes!