Arc Apex Legends Crashing DX12 - 4826 and 4824

[Rejex15]

Hello.

I am experiencing a consistent, reproducible crash when attempting to play Apex legends using DX12.

I would like to play it on DX12 as the performance is markedly better when using an Intel Arc card.

Relevant Specs:

Intel Arc A770 16GB - (4826 drivers currently)

I9-9900K (non OC) - Re-BAR Enabled

650W PSU

Windows 11 - Latest Updates applied

The game crashes when attempting to load the legend select menu. I am able to load into firing range and play for extended periods stably.

Things I have tried:

• Disabling XMP
• Undervolting GPU
• Reinstalling Apex
• Reinstalling Windows 11 on clean drive
• Changing in-game settings
• Disabling Full Screen optimizations
• Running game in compatibility mode (Win 8/Win7)
• Reinstalling Easy Anti-cheat
• Running all relevant executibles as administrator
• Disabling hyperthreading
• Modifying Page File - has been reset to default settings as of now
• Disabling all overlays/antivirus (Xbox game bar, steam, arc control)
• Disabling game optimizations within Arc Control

This issue seems to be quite resilient, none of these has had any effect on the issue itself, the game still crashes on legend select every time.

I suspect the issue may be related to Windows 11, or the arc drivers. As the game ran fine before updating to latest drivers/windows 11

I have been in a discord thread in the official intel insiders discord attempting to resolve this issue with other Intel Arc Users, the only commonality I can seem to find is that the users experiencing this crash are on Windows 11, and are using an Intel CPU (why i attempted to disable hyperthreading).

I am about at my extent of knowledge when it comes to troubleshooting, and wanted to post here in the hopes someone who knows more than me can help out. I have attached the results of an analysis via windbg of the .dmp file produced by Apex. I tried to attach the raw DMP file but the forum would not allow me to.

[lash444]

So since you have tried everything else, I will tell you what I think may have fixed my issues with Fortnite.
Like you, I had nearly a flawless run of Fortnite and Diablo 4 for around the first 4 or 5 months of the card.  Then seemingly out of nowhere I started having pretty frequent crashes.

What I believe happened, is that while Intel was trying to fix issues with these cards and ASPM, they inadvertently did something to the firmware of the cards that has caused the cards to crash much more frequently.  I posted about it in the IntelArc reddit, but haven't heard anything in response there.

If you google:
"IntelArc Firmware Matrix", you should see a couple posts.  One with a matrix of what firmware versions were done in their corresponding driver updates.  After I used the "Arc Firmware Tool" that a user provided in there to flash back to the DG1.3206 version of the firmware for my a770 I haven't had another crash since.  I have probably put about 100 hours into Fortnite since then on DG1.3206.  I'm trying DG1.3251 again as prevoiusly my favorite driver for both fortnite and d4 was the 4382 driver version for both games.  Also on 1.3206 my system started having the issue where coming out of sleep it/reboots it stays on a black screen.  Hopefully 1.3251 doesn't have that, but I wanted the most stable firmware first and they used 1.3206 for many months. I think either in 1.3252 or 1.3253 they mucked something up.  You don't need to flash ANYTHING except that firmware version file to fix the issue.  

I will also state that if you open up the installer for the NEW driver versions with either 7zip or WINRAR, you can overwrite the SOC.bin file there for new driver versions so the new updates do NOT put the latest version of the firmware on the card.  That is what I did with the latest 4826 driver version and things have been running great. 

Please post here if you do this and you have success.  Intel needs to know about it. 

[Rejex15]

Thank you, I have not heard this suggestion yet, I am currently at work but would definitely like to try it when I get home in ~5hrs.

When flashing firmware, is there anything I should know? Does the model of my specific card matter? I currently have the Acer model card.

[Darklegion1978]

@lash444 

Thank you for the Hints

Use now also the FW DG1.3206 with latest Driver with my Acer Predator A770.

Fortnite with Performance Mode is working without any issues now

With the new FW 1.325x it crashed randomly, sometimes after 1 Round, sometimes directly after the game starts.

But now i played a lot of Rounds with Perf. Mode and nothing happened, it works and playing makes fun as before.

Really happy that i see your Post and gave it a try.

Big big Thx and Greetings

[Rejex15]

I have since attempted to flash the firmware to FW DG1.3206

Unfortunately it did not resolve my particular issue, still causes crashes on legend select.

Thank you for the suggestion

[Jean_Intel]

Hello Rejex15,

Thank you for reporting your issue in the Intel Communities. We will be more than glad to help you with the crashing issues playing Apex Legends on DX12.

Based on your issue, we recommend you run the Display Driver Uninstaller to eliminate all drivers and leftover files from previous driver versions, then install driver 31.0.101.4824. Check How to Use the Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) to Uninstall an Intel® Graphics Driver for instructions.

In case the issue remains, please provide us with the following:

• What distribution service do you use to install the games? ( Blizzard, Epic, Origin, Steam, Xbox, Ubisoft connect)
• Is there any error message when the game crashes?
• If you use the game using DX11, do you experience any issues?
• We want to ask for a report for more details about your system. Please create a system report using the Intel System Support Utility (Intel SSU):
  • Open the application and click "Scan" to see the system and device information. By default, Intel SSU will take you to the "Summary View."
  • Click on the menu where it says: "Summary" to change it to "Detailed View."
  • To save your scan, click "Next"; and then "Save."

Best regards,

Jean O. 

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Rejex15]

Thank you for the reply.

I ran the DDU and installed 31.0.101.4824 as requested. It did not resolve my issue.

I will answer each bullet point in order

• I used Steam to install the game
• There is no error message when the game crashes
• When using DX11, the crash no longer occurs, however performance is quite bad (frequent stuttering, VERY bad when first loading in, gets better after caching occurs I assume, but the performance issues still persist after that)
• I have attached the SSU log to this post 'log.txt'

I am also aware of a few users in the discord thread that have said they have no issues, both of these users who have no issues are currently using AMD processors (both on 4824 and 4826). There are two other users in the thread who are experiencing this issue and are also using Intel CPUs (i3-10100, and i5-9600k).

I also think I may have not had this issue when using Windows 10, and suspect it may somehow be correlated to Windows 11, but I am just speculating.

I have also just recently noticed that both users who are not experiencing issues have no integrated graphics on their CPU, I will try disabling my integrated graphics when I get home in about ~5hrs

I am not sure if either of these are related to the issue, but if there is some sort of pattern that may answer what the issue is, I want to try to show it.

Thank you again.

[Jean_Intel]

Hello Rejex15,

Thank you for sharing this information. You already mentioned a Discord thread where multiple users are reporting the issue. Could you share with us the conversation link so we can check for further details?

Also, the Intel SSU report didn't list any information about your Integrated graphics; maybe the iGPU was disabled in the BIOS after you installed the Intel ARC card.

There is a new graphics driver version available on our website. We recommend you try our new 31.0.101.4826 driver. Keep in mind that it is always recommended to maintain your system up to date.

It would be ideal to inform you that based on the system requirements for Intel Arc A-Series Graphics, we recommend using 10th gen or newer processors so you can get the best performance from your Intel Arc A-Series Graphics.

Best regards,

Jean O. 

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Rejex15]

Here is the discord link

https://discord.com/channels/554824368740630529/1150847651324100798

I was originally using 4826 and can confirm that the issue persists when using 4826

As for the processor being 9th gen, there is a user in the discord experiencing the issue on a 10th gen processor (i3-10100)

Thanks again

[Jean_Intel]

Hello Rejex15,

Allow us some time to look into this matter internally, and we will post back as soon as possible.

Best regards,

Jean O. 

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Rejex15]

Hello,

Just wanted to follow up on this and see if anything new has been discovered

[Jean_Intel]

Hello Rejex15,

Thank you for jumping in the thread to know if there is any information. We would like to let you know that we are currently testing the game, and trying to replicate your issue. Unfortunately, there isn't any information we can share at the moment. We continue to look into this matter, and we will be back once we have more details.

Best regards,

Jean O. 

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Jean_Intel]

Hello Rejex15

Thank you for your patience, and we apologize for the delay in our response. We have been looking into this matter internally, and we tried to replicate it, but we had no problems you can take a look at the video of our test. We also noticed that the DX12 is a BETA feature, and the best course of action is to report this to the game developer for additional support.

Best regards,

Jean O.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Jean_Intel]

Hello Rejex15,

Since we have not received a response, we will proceed to close this thread. Please note that our recommendation is to report this issue back to the game developer, as the DX12 option is still in BETA.

If you need more details, please open a new question since this thread will no longer be monitored.

Best regards,

Jean O.

Intel Customer Support Technician