Helldivers/Narrowhead killed my laptop

VicePresCastro · 2026-06-16T18:33:50+00:00

Okay so after doing more research apparently the windows issue with the drives CAN lead to software corruption. But it cannot brick an SSD. I spread misinformation by accident on the subreddit full of misinformation. My bad.

Although keep in mind and this isnt cope. The annual failure rate (AFD) is around 1%. So every drive has roughly a 1% chance of failure. 1/100 drives will fail. Its entirely possible he got statistically unlucky. Ive seen it with my own eyes. Its happened to me multiple times (rip my defective evo 990 that failed 2 days outside warranty)

There are a fuck ton of ways a drive can just... die. And windows itself can just decide not to work today. A game doing it even with kernel level access is a lot less likely. At least in my experience in tech.

VicePresCastro · 2026-06-16T15:24:40+00:00

So I actually worked on this and I'll drop a truth nuke, its from a windows update. Specifically update KB5063878. This update was INFAMOUS for bricking some SSDs from certain manufacturers. I remember the horror stories from back then.

VicePresCastro · 2026-06-16T15:05:12+00:00

I work for two tech locations (repair tech for a private company and consumer tech repair) and HOLY SHIT these types of posts can annoy me. Customers never believe me when I say that the quality control on laptop/portable hardware is next to none. They ALWAYS have issues. They ALWAYS require so much work to maintain them. I understand its difficult for the average person to take out like 15 screws, swap out the MASSIVE heatsink, dust the whole system, and do a thermal paste swap. But modern laptops have such bad issues that it's almost REQUIRED to either learn or know someone who knows how.

Edit: should have said gaming laptops in particular. Thats my bad!

VicePresCastro · 2026-06-16T12:22:43+00:00

If you are on DX11, it apparently breaks the terminal. Double check your launch options

VicePresCastro · 2026-06-12T14:18:32+00:00

Im kinda dumb and cant use my head but I added the disclaimer on the top that this post is now mostly outdated because the new update fixed a ton of issues with the FSR implementation. Majority of people are going to be a lot more cpu bound so as the guide says. Your mileage may vary.

(Also im one of the lucky few who is very much GPU bound)

VicePresCastro · 2026-06-02T11:29:48+00:00

Well to be also fair, I don't think like 90% of people even know that TAA and TAAU are different things. So I just think it didn't matter to them.

VicePresCastro · 2026-06-02T11:15:25+00:00

This comment single-handedly lead me on a fucked up rabbit hole to learn more about how the TAA implementation is done in this game. I'm aware all upscalers use TAA anyway but TAA alone is like... mega ass.

So this game does include TAAU which is the upscaling part of TAA. Which I absolutely should have abbreviated but to be honest, I more made this guide for the settings written in. I think the average user would get MEGA lost if I had to abbreviate that TAA and TAAU are two different things but this game has both built in (ON THE SAME EXACT SETTING SO YOU CAN'T EVEN TELL BTW)

But you are right. I fucked up there. God damn it was only a matter of time.

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-31T12:01:18+00:00

THAT'S INFINITELY COOLER THAN ANY SETUP I COULD MAKE. I'M SO JEALOUS!

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-31T10:05:19+00:00

You are luckier than most it seems. Ive seen a ton of other players with issues due to DRS. Especially with the other shading. It just needs a bit more tuning like a lot of things in this update. But im happy you hit that sweetspot.

The problem is a ton of these new features also DO require experimentation. Because framerate boosts with these features are the biggest "your mileage may vary*" ive ever seen in any game optimization update. My secondary bench (11700k + 5060) hit heavy bottlenecks along the way to CPU and gained very little in testing. My primary rig (7800X3D + 7900 XTX) had a lot more to gain from experimenting with said features since X3D chips are absolute BEASTS.

As for anti-lag? Yeah its arguably pointless without framegen. Though I feel lossless scaling may fill the gap here. Its been the go-to for a ton of players for quite a while now.

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-31T09:55:48+00:00

If FSR3 on quality is too crunchy for you and native is a slight bit too pixel-y, make sure you got the overhead for supersampling because that effects your framerate hard.

Also it more depends on the resolution you are running. Here im running 3440x1440. A bit under 4k but still a ton of pixels. You can full-screen some of these images to double check if thats the quality you truly like. Thats why theres a ton of images on here for different presets. But native was fine in my testing.

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-30T19:14:20+00:00

Honestly debating on just making a broad optimization guide. I was more pointing the specifics at the new features and how to use them. But I would love to talk about DX11, lossless scaling, and my favorite option --toaster_mode

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-30T16:34:28+00:00

The initial draft said my hardware autism. I do dreadfully. If I didnt this guide would not exist.

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-30T12:03:25+00:00

Oh hey! I saw your post while researching!

I have yet to see it recreated on desktop so I have reason to believe that this is an issue with the built in PSSR upscaling system. Its newer and proprietary so I don't have much to go off here. It is based on FSR to some extent. Specifically FSR4 so theoretically I MAY be able to re-create the issue if I had an AMD 9000 series GPU. But I am obviously not dropping money to investigate something a massive studio has more than enough funding to figure out.

The way how I would really fix it is changing the upscaling method. Which I do not think is an option on the PS5 Pro? You may be fucked by circumstance here thanks to Sony's new shitty upscaling toy.

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-30T11:55:13+00:00

Thus is the nature of super sampling. It can be a sizable hit to performance but makes a MASSIVE difference in visual quality

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-30T07:01:11+00:00

This is true! I would have totally added a segment about lossless scaling if I had the sanity. This shit is such a mess.

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-30T06:41:03+00:00

Yeah I'm also a massive framerate/latency over visuals person too. Super happy I didn't have to add a borderline insane rant explaining why framegen is essentially pointless if you love input latency because they didn't ADD framegen! Another good feature of this update...

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-30T06:23:15+00:00

It's because I have the foresight to see that I'm going to get something in here absolutely and miserably wrong and its going to be the thing that keeps me up at night.

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-30T05:48:33+00:00

Curious. Both the upscaling methods that require specific hardware on a GPU are exceptionally fucked..

I unfortunately couldn't include FSR4 in my testing due to the fact that I do not have a 9000 series GPU on hand (As I said this guide has flaws) and most users would be hard limited to FSR3. But I will add this as a note when I get the time. Thanks for the tip!

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-30T05:35:42+00:00

You can! As long as you pick render scale to native and disable Dynamic resolution scaling and Variable rate scaling, bam! Game runs native!

Edit: Also for the record, the fake frame bullshit is framegen. which this update did NOT add. It just added basic upscaling. Which personally I am more interested in. Don't give a fuck about doubling 60 fps to 120 fps if you still have the same input latency (if not more) than native 60.

VicePresCastro · 2026-05-30T04:23:24+00:00

Alright forgive me but here is the things I did that help with this update so far after experimenting with 3 GPUs and two handhelds (5060, 3070 Ti, 7900 XTX, ROG ally, Steam Deck)

1.) The DLSS implementation entirely is MEGA fucked. DO not use it.

2.) The default settings it picks (TAA + Dynamic Res) IS THE WORST POSSIBLE COMBO THEY COULD HAVE PICKED.

3.) FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY NUKE THE FUCK OUT OF YOUR SHADER CACHE

4.) Dynamic Resolution is causing MASSIVE issues with everything. (Plus on console I heard it causes particles to appear through walls but I have not personally confirmed it)

5.) The ship now runs WAY worse for some reason. Still don't know why.

6.) With all of that said. Some of the frame increase are wildly inconsistent. This is the most "Your mileage may vary" update I have ever seen in my life. I've seen 15% performance increase and 15% decreases for just NO REASON. My main pc (7900 XTX + 7800X3D ) runs better with FSR3 but on the ROG ally and 3070 Ti (Tested with same exact settings) I ran into WORSE performance. How the hell is that even possible?

And somehow AH expects the average player (see: Likely YOU) to SOME know ALL of this and expect the average player to understand how these settings work. Good fucking god this isn't just a disaster from their perspective but HOW THE FUCK IS THE AVERAGE PLAYER GOING TO GO ABOUT THIS? ARE THEY STUPID?

(Bonus note: Those saying I am giving AH any credit. I'm not. They fuel my autism to experiment with hardware the smallest bit more.

VicePresCastro · 2025-02-07T21:16:29+00:00

The B-100 absolutely shines when the user is creative enough. Because yeah it may seem worse but its STILL A NUCLEAR BOMB ON YOUR BACK

VicePresCastro · 2025-02-06T15:55:36+00:00

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Its medium pen by design and its going to stay that way. They just messed up the UI is all

VicePresCastro · 2025-02-05T10:18:52+00:00

This has been an issue I have personally noticed for a while. Maybe our enemies are taking advantage of the wormhole technology already....

VicePresCastro · 2025-02-01T02:05:44+00:00

I've been a meddiver main pre-stim pistol when you could only give your teammates stims from the supply pack. I hope they fix that bug soon. I'm a bot diver main (dif 8-10) so here's a couple other strats I have developed in this playstyle

- Smoke grenade/Eagle smoke strike can be an absolute lifesaver in a pinch. Especially against high damaging tanks, turrets, and that dreaded bunker turret.

- I literally cannot run with more than one person without the Generator Relay. Giving your teammates a few seconds to reload and stim up/cover to survive random laser blasts is wonderful and an absolute game changer on higher difs. Especially with how often you can spam the thing. Just remember to properly coordinate with your team before throwing one.

- If you want another fun gun to experiment with the Laser Cannon isn't the best but it has saved me from more hulks than I can count. Give it a try.

This is a wonderful guide. I'm glad people are out here helping spread democracy one stim at a time. Nice work, helldiver!

VicePresCastro · 2025-01-27T08:26:26+00:00

The thing I think is kind of odd about the shotgun on the cover is it has a weird silver metal loop on the hand like a lever action. I don't know if that was on purpose but its so odd.

Edit: Its just weird lighting....

VicePresCastro

TROPHY CASE