1.5.1 GPU driver stops/crashes (AMD (Radeon VII 16gb) Thread - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

EDIT: POSSIBLY SOLVED; POSSIBLE CULPRIT: “ENHANCED SHADERS” ADDON

What happened then is this:

1. Game installed, no addons, dx11 runs well for short period I tested.

2. Series of current 1.5.1 addons added, including the ‘enhanced shaders'.

3. Crashes start and intensify. I have been starting and stopping the weather through debug menu a lot to test addons and graphic, not sure if related. Adding and removing addons to see if alleviated, changing to dx10, alas crash persists.

4. Removed ALL addons, restored gamedata folder from backup, purged shader cache, updated AMD drivers, but same crash now happens on stock Anomaly, causing my suspicion of this not being related to addons.

5. Finally, deleted the game and reinstalled from scratch. Tested to confirm it works, no crashes being experienced.

6. Brought in a curated collection of addons, including “Simplicity Graphical Settings” in place of the “Enhanced Shaders”, since it does just as good a job without messing with actual shader methods.

7. Everything seems to be working very smoothly so far, with great performance and amazing look (the ‘simplicity’ addon is absolute magic), so it may have been the ‘enhanced shader all along’. Fingers crossed but looking good.

OP ———-

All previous versions of Anomaly had run flawlessly for me. Modded, unmodded, dx11, dx10 – no problem.

With 1.5.1, unfortunately, constant GPU/driver stopped error messages from AMD adrenalin. May happen every 5, 10, 20 minutes, seemingly at random. Something clearly must have changed drastically since 1.5.1 that makes it stop the GPU driver like that. It only ever happened to Anomaly and then only ever to 1.5.1. no issues with any other game.

I can't recall the exact wording of the error message from the AMD Adrenalin software but the gist was that the 'gpu/driver stopped'. The crash would close anomaly and return to desktop without destabilising the system. I've tried updating drivers to newest ones, running in dx10 but nothing helps. I can't tell what causes it either, it seems entirely random.

DX9 as alternative is no alternative since the visual downgrade it too drastic to really continue enjoying the game; not to mention dx11 worked perfectly fine on all previous releases.

I'll try and follow up with the exact wording in comments below when I fire it up again in a few hours.

Edited by: RamseySparrow

This happens to me too. A driver Timeout or something with AMD GPU - every 20 mins or so. Im running a 5500 XT 8GB, 32GB Ram, Its on DX 10 since it happens more often on DX 11. I havent tried DX 9 yet, don't really want to though.

Edited by: blackmajik13

That’s exactly it – the driver time out; Glad to hear I’m not the only one experiencing it.

Can you confirm if you have been using any mods (aka addons)? Admittedly I did and My suspected culprit is an addon by the name of ‘enhanced shaders and colour grading’, but I believed it’s the base game since I kept experiencing issues after removal and restoration of the stock gamedata folder.

EDIT: UPDATED THE OP, I do seem to have solved the issue now (knock on wood)

I have no mods installed with Anomaly. I did find an application in .../Anomaly/bin folder called VerifiedDX11. I used this and was able to play for over an hour without any driver errors. It seems to work well but we'll see.

EDIT: I was able to play for over two hours, but then still a driver timeout, yet it only happens in The Garbage now so far.

Edited by: blackmajik13

Right, well it seems that the problem went away for me. Like I said, it took updating AMD drivers and reinstalling the game.

I'm now set with a combo of around 40 addons and it all works fine so far.

I hope it will work out for you eventually, no idea what's causing this, there seems to be no pattern.

I have done everything I can think of. reinstalling, updating drivers, running different DirectX versions, it just keeps doing it.

Sorry to hear this man. Try and hit up the Anomaly devs directly. For me it's now back to fully working, was something to do with shaders (not reshade) so keep that in mind. Good luck.

After re-installing to a SSD C: drive, Anomaly has become much more stable. I even put some mods on and still, stable for 2 1/2 hours+. This is good knowledge, we can help others if they may be having the same problem. Maybe, heh.

Edited by: blackmajik13

But are you getting a sort of error or something? Just CTD? The log what says? Have you looked in Windows events viewer?

Same problem here 1.5.1 AMD adrenalin software driver time out. I see this thread ... and at the end this solution (but its for Windows? or for Linux and Wine?). And why in 1.5.1 all seem broken: shadows (broken at the distance), bloom (really broken), DX9 (worst than others mods, think for example of DX9 in Dead Air: perfect, very good, smooth); I'm not complaining, it's an amateur game, a mod, where everyone spends time and contributes, little or a lot, and it's wonderful even with all the problems that exist, I just want to understand, and put order ... and I ask (to reason): if there is already the perfect DX9 from Dead Air, which could also be easily improved by adding something from OGSE (SoC), since we are still talking about X-Ray in 90% STALKER modification, why should you screw it up like this? in any case, I wish nothing but good and good continuation of work to those who develop changes, to those who use them, to everyone.

For me the adrenalin driver timeout happens everytime I try and use the enhanced shaders, SSR and other such addons. Without them, never a problem.

I also found that when installed on a 7000mb/s uber-fast nvme ssd, Anomaly... stutters like crazy. Installed on a slower 3000mb/s nvme, it works flawlessly. LOL, no idea why that would be.

I was near the elevator next to that cave opening in the first area of the game with a translucent anomaly that kills you instantly, I was quicksaving and then my screen goes black and I'm greeted with a AMD driver timeout message. Funny thing, I checked the PC reliability menu to see what the cause was and it said it was a hardware failure, something that would cause a blue screen, but My pc remained stable and did not shut down or restart. After a few minutes my AMD Driver died again but after that everything went back to normal. This was also on the 1.5.1 build using enhanced DirectX 10 version. I also can't seem to get the launcher to work either. And for further information, my computer is above the specs for minimal and recommend hardware and plus I'm playing without ANY mods installed. I think it might have something to do with the FPS limier since I set it higher than 140 or 145, maybe that's why cause earlier today, I didn't experience any crash or issue.

Did you ever fix this? Kind of funny I am on my first night of playing Anomaly and consistently having the exact same issue as you. Freezing up, black screen, game audio only, then crash to desktop.

And wouldn't you know it, I have the exact same GPU as you.

DX9 is probably the only solution.

Great_Day wrote:

DX9 is probably the only solution.

sure, but Anomaly DX9 suscks for real

There might be a solution; I am quoting from Grok's troubleshooting channel for his G.A.M.M.A. addon pack.

GPU device instance has been suspended Fix

If you have an AMD GPU, different issues can arise, from random crashes to add-ons not working after a small stutter (NVG not working, animations being broken...). If you suspect your AMD GPU being involved, here's an easy fix:

Modify the registry entry to increase the GPU processing time.

- Open the windows start menu and type regedit. Click the Registry Editor app to launch it.
- In regedit search GraphicsDrivers under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\GraphicsDrivers or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers
- After clicking GraphicsDrivers add a new QWORD (64 bit) and name it TdrDelay on the right panel.
- Double click on TdrDelay and add 8 for the value data
- Restart Windows

A possible AMD GPU fix is to check BIOS to make sure the GPU is running on PCI GEN 3.

I haven't spent enough hours playing Anomaly to be certain (I think I have played just around 2 hours), but I haven't had any crash/black screen issue since I followed these instructions. You can try it out.