Intel Arc A770 Baldur's Gate 3 Crashes and BSOD

[Drangueforde]

I am experiencing crashes which result in a black screen with upper portion of monitor displaying partial in game image speckled with distorted pixels of various coloration until computer crashes and experiences a forced shutdown and reboot, usually accompanied by audio distortion and sometimes a BSOD claiming video internal scheduler error.

Here is the information you requested:

1. I am currently using Beta Drivers

* Version 31.0.010.4669
* It is a clean driver installation using DDU in safe mode
* I have tried the Pro driver already

2. Baldur's Gate 3, which you can get on Steam

3. I've included the SSU Report

4. Play the game like you would normally on DirectX11 and enjoy unpredictable crashes that seem to occur with no rhyme or reason. Crashes can occur between 5-30 minutes of game play or you can have hours of uninterrupted game play with no crashes whatsoever. I don't know how to recreate it reliably.

5. It happens so unpredictably that I am never able to capture on video, even if I try to record the same series of events I just did after rebooting and trying again as then the game works without issue as if it knows I am watching it and waiting.

As an added bit of information, you can play the game using Vulkan, but I have already tried that and the crashes still happen. In fact, the game runs worse in Vulkan than it does on DirectX 11; including various display abnormalities such as pixels not rendering (they are not dead pixels, just not being rendered and are just a solid blue color or whatever) strobbing effects in cinematic dialogue tied to lighting, and flickering black boxes.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello Drangueforde

Thank you for posting on the Intel® ARC™ Graphics Communites.

Could you please check if the same issue still happens on the latest driver 31.0.101.4672? Perform the installation using Display Driver Uninstaller as well to ensure the cleanest installation possible.

Also, checking the log file you shared with us, I see you have an iGPU, Please let's try disabling it either through BIOS or device manager to make sure there are no conflicts with the Arc graphics.

If the issue persists, please share with us a screenshot of your in-game graphics settings in case we need to test the game we can do it in the same conditions.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Drangueforde]

Hello and thank you for your reply.

As requested, I have removed the old drivers in safe mode with DDU and installed the 4672 Beta drivers. I have also disabled the integrated graphics in the bios. I'll include an updated SSU Info to show that I have done these steps and will test with the game and report back if the issue persists.

Fair warning, because they are inconsistent and I have no idea what is causing it so I have no reliable method of reproducing it, it could be hours before you hear back from me.

Thank you and have a good day.

[Drangueforde]

Update.

That didn't take long. No more than 5 minutes into the game and it crashed, went to BSOD, and then self rebooted.

The steps to generate the crash in this instance was starting the game, loading the game file, going to camp, and talking to various NPC's at the camp, during one conversation the game crashed.

I noticed in the SSU it mentions a minidump file that had been saved but I can't seem to include that file as an attachment so you can view it. Nor can I include it as an attachment even if I compress the file in a zip.

How do I go about getting this file to you, should you need it?

Edit: Nevermind, it did go through, just didn't show it as being on the list. Okay, whatever.

[Drangueforde]

I think I might have inadvertently discovered how to replicate the issue.

While I was waiting for a reply, I decided to take my Intel Arc A770 and swap it to the second PCIEX 16 slot on my motherboard. After doing so, I noticed the crashes stopped completely and the game was very stable. I thought that was weird and mentioned it to a friend who suggested I put the card back into slot 1, but then go into the BIOS and change the PCIEX16 Link Mode from Auto to Gen 4. After saving and rebooting, I started up the game and discovered the crashes stopped even while in PCIEX 16 slot 1. I went through the camp site, talked to various NPC's, went all over the city of Baldur's Gate, did everything I could think of to try and get the game to crash and it didn't crash, just like it didn't crash when it was in PCIEX 16 slot 2.

I'm not tech savvy enough to understand what this means, but my friend suggested I bring this up as it could be something involving your drivers and how they are interacting with the ASUS motherboard or vice versa. I'll include some screenshots of the relevant BIOS settings, which are what they were before I made any changes to them and back when it was crashing on PCIEX 16 slot 1 and while it was stable on PCIEX 16 slot 2.

I'll also include the in game video settings I am using in Baldur's Gate 3.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello Drangueforde

Thank you for sharing your findings. It is interesting that the PCIe settings do not get automatically set up by the BIOS. I believe it would be good to test this for a couple more days to make sure it is completely resolved so we can pass the information on to the corresponding team.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello Drangueforde

I wanted to check back on this, now that some days have passed, Have you had time to further test if there was any other crash in Baldur's Gates 3? Or, Is the issue completely resolved after changing the PCIe link mode from Auto to Gen4? Please share with us your findings and feedback.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Drangueforde]

Hello,

So after playing over the weekend and such to check for stability I noticed the game has been running pretty stable. I ran the game on fairly high settings, I made sure my fan controller was disabled to keep fan speeds at their normal, automated curve, and I even streamed the game play to put additional stress on the card. It played without incident and continued to do so until 09-11 when it crashed while in game rather unexpectedly. I was leaping to an upper area from a mushroom, had to do 3 perception checks upon landing, then the game crashed. I checked the drivers, noticed new ones had been released, grabbed and updated them cleanly via the safe mode with DDU method, and went back into my game. Repeated the same actions and it didn't crash, so it might have been one of those few genuine crashes from the game itself as I hear Act 3 can be like that. Since then, no crashes while playing the game.

I'll include the SSU and dmp file of the day it did crash and a new SSU from today along with my in game video settings. As far as I can tell, it is a lot more stable now, though I am a little confused about a lot of the chatter in the SSU log file. For instance, I'm not sure why it said it crashed today, when the only thing I can think of is booting it up, stepping away, noticing the monitor didn't come on, turning on the other monitor to get it to pop on the main monitor.

But you guys are the professionals, so feel free to have a look and see what you make of whatever it is trying to say.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello Drangueforde

Thank you for sharing the information. I see that since changing the PCIe mode settings the game has crashed only once, Was this crash exactly the same as the original issue you described "black screen with upper portion of monitor displaying partial in game image speckled with distorted pixels of various coloration until computer crashes and experiences a forced shutdown and reboot"?

I would also like to know if you have tested any other game besides Baldur's Gates 3 and if the same issue can be reproduced with another game? We want to make sure if this is a GPU issue or a game-specific problem.

In addition, I want to let you know there is a new driver version 31.0.101.4824, please update to the latest version and check if the same issue can still be seen. Use Display Driver Uninstaller for the installation as well.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Drangueforde]

The crash on 9/11 occurred in a similar manner, yes; including a BSOD before it automatically rebooted.

Prior to playing BG3, I didn't have many issues with the Intel Arc A770 but I also didn't play very demanding games. I do remember that back when I tried out the benchmark for Blue Protocol it crashed during one instance. This was many months ago and I remember little else about that incident. Other games that I played without any issue are Project Zomboid, Noita, Core Keeper, Stardew Valley, Don't Starve Together, Limbus Company, and Persona 5 Royal. However, after I started crashing in BG3, I had a similar crash occur in Limbus Company, which I thought was odd but it hasn't occurred since.

Thanks for letting me know, I'll update the drivers when I am able to do so.

[Drangueforde]

Another crash and same result nearly. Black screen, multi-colored artifacts across the top upper portion of monitor, audio persists as if game is working but both monitors turned off, then after about 30-60 seconds the sound froze and a BSOD appeared before rebooting. Crash happened while inside of the House of Hope, immediately after talking to the Loyal Eternal Debtor and panning the camera around slightly.

I had forgotten to update the drivers, so I did that just now. I'll let you know if persists.

Game settings were unchanged. Still in PCIE x16 Slot 1. Bios still set to manually set Link Mode to GEN 4.

Here is another SSU file and dmp file.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello Drangueforde

In this case, we will give time so you can test and check if the crashes still happen in driver 4821. Taking a look at the dump files you have shared so far the are some modules that point out to a potential driver/GPU issue and we might need to test the game to check if the issue can be replicated on a different setup to make sure if the problem is isolated to your system or a general game issue, Could you please check if the issue can be reproduced from your side at the beginning of the game? And if possible, please share a short video showing the issue so we can take a look at the crash.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Drangueforde]

I do not remember the issues occurring during the very beginning of the game, but I remember them happening later in Act 1 around the Underdark and the Mountain Pass. The Underdark is where it first occurred, I remember it happened when a mysterious voice starts to communicate with you down near where you first encounter the two minotaurs by the Zhentarim outpost.

Trying to catch it on video will be tricky. I have reload a save after it crashes, repeated the same actions that caused the crash, only for it to not crash. It happens so seemingly at random that it usually catches me by surprise too. But I can try to be mindful of places it has crashed in the past and see if I can capture anything then. This will take some time, but I'll let you know if it crashes and when.

[Drangueforde]

Okay, so I was getting things set up, launched the game, started a new game, selected the difficulty, hit Esc to skip the introduction cinematic, and then ended up in character generation screen, the game says "Who are you?" and then it crashed.

If it can crash like this during character generation on a new game, then I think it is safe to say it can crash at any time while playing the game. I didn't catch it on video because who expects the game to crash immediately like that, we're talking not even 5 minutes from launching. My plan was to start recording after I did character generation, so much for that.

All I say is that this is very annoying and frustrating. The only thing that has changed since I changed the link mode in bios are the driver updates you've rolled out since then. I think it's been 3 driver updates? I did have to reboot my computer prior due to a Windows update, that could also be something to consider.

Here is the SSU and the dmp file of the latest crash.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello Drangueforde

We appreciate the information you have shared so far. I see the game can be replicated from your side since the very beginning so we might go ahead and test it to make sure. Please allow me to review all of the information with our team and we will get back to you once we have an update for you.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Drangueforde]

Hello,

I just wanted to let you know that this problem is indeed happening in other games that I play. I experienced the same type of crash while playing Project Zomboid, within 5 minutes of launching the game. I'll include the SSU and the dmp file of that incident, but it crashed pretty much in an identical manner to how it did in Baldur's Gate 3.

I wish I could do more thorough testing, but I do not have another power supply I can get my hands on, slap into this computer, and test with. And it seems no matter what version drivers are released, the problem I am having persists. I'm at my wits end, especially since I cannot seem to use this computer I got specifically for gaming to game without having these crashes because I decided to see what the Intel Arc A770 could do.

I want to make it clear that prior to getting this computer, I had experienced no crashes of this nature and my old computer was using a 1GB Geforce GTX 750. I cannot help but wonder if I should slap that into this new computer, just so that I can have the peace of mind to game without these issues.

Project Zomboid is not a demanding game and the Intel Arc A770 should be handling it with no problems. What gives?

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello Drangueforde

Based on your last post we now have 3 games that have crashed in a similar way so far which are Project Zomboid, Limbus Company, and Baldur's Gate 3. This might indicate that this is not a game issue but more of a driver/hardware-related problem

If you have another GPU from Nvidia and are able to take the time to install it and test it, it would be great to discuss possible OS corruption issues.

We have included some fixes for Baldur's Gate 3 in our latest driver 31.0.101.4826 which I see you already have installed from the latest SSU log, Can you check if it is still crashing from your side?

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Drangueforde]

Hello,

I just checked and it didn't take long to reproduce the crash. I started the game, saw the Larian logo, got to the screen where it tells you to hit a button to start, where it shows the city in the background and the statue of Balduran and it crashed. It didn't even take a minute for it to crash.

It didn't produce a dmp file, so all I have is the SSU, which I'll provide.

I also want to add that after it crashed, when it rebooted, neither of my monitors were detected, despite the computer having rebooted, which forced me to shut it down again via the case.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello Drangueforde

Thank you for testing the driver and informing the issue still exists. We just wanted to test the driver since some improvements were made to Baldur's Gates 3 in version 31.0.101.4826, however, based on the troubleshooting we have performed so far and the crashes you have had in other games the issue seems to go beyond Baldur's Gate itself. Allow me to continue reviewing this problem and will get back to you as soon as we have more information.

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Hugo_Intel]

Hello Drangueforde

We have reviewed all of the dump files that you have shared with us and along with all the troubleshooting you have performed so far in order to rule out a possible Operating System issue we would like to advise that you do a clean OS installation, however, if the issue persists the best next step would be to proceed with warranty since there is a high probability the GPU is defective. So if the issue still happens after you perform a clean installation of the Operating System, please contact your place of purchase to process a replacement for the GPU, in case there is any issue processing the warranty with your place of purchase you can contact us directly so we can explore available warranty options:

U.S. and Canada: Intel Customer Support 

Europe, Middle East, and Africa: Intel Customer Support EMEA  

Asia-Pacific: Intel Customer Support APAC  

Latin America: Intel Customer Support LAR   

Best Regards,

Hugo O.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

[Drangueforde]

Hello,

I have wiped my computer and reinstalled my OS, except I went back to Windows 10 instead of sticking with Windows 11. This new installation was performed on 09/29/2023. I am taking a break from Baldur's Gate 3, because I beat the game and it took me around 280 hours to get through it. I am exhausted and will test Baldur's Gate 3 some other time. I have played Project Zomboid a few times and so far I have experienced no crashes.

I will update you if that situation changes. Thank you for your help and I'll be in touch. When I feel up to it again, I'll test Baldur's Gate 3 out and report my findings. Thank you for your patience and understanding.