Junior Member
Hi everyone, new player here.
I was having some intermittent issues with enabling DX12 rendering causing crashes in The Division at the loading screen (ticking 'clock'). It will hang, change from fullscreen to windowed mode and then crash and report home to mama (the devs) or at least want to... so I got suspicious of my NVIDIA Experience setting its "optimal" stuff without knowing what was going on. While it wouldn't do this every time, I decided to do some systematic testing of The Division on my PC to see if I could isolate when The Division crashes under certain graphics settings. PASS equals game started w/o hanging at clock sequence and also ran at character screen and in-game.
TLDR: DO NOT ENABLE NVIDIA-specific SETTINGS UNDER SHADOW DETAIL CATEGORY IN GRAPHICS TAB. Your mileage will likely vary, but I found the use of NVIDIA Experience hindered my ability to know exactly what was going on with graphic settings, so I choose to uncheck it under custom installations of NVIDIA drivers so it does not install.
PC basic info:
Intel i7 5930K @ 3.5GHz Haswell (OC to 4.2 GHz) w/ Corsair H100i CPU liquid cooling
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 on NEC Multisync PA302W 30" monitor @ 2560x1600 resolution (solid 60 fps 95% of time)
16MB DDR4 on Asus X99-Deluxe motherboard
Samsung 850 Pro 512GB Boot Drive with Windows 10 Pro
Samsung 840 Evo 1TB Drives (2) for Steam/Games
All graphics settings were enabled from The Division menus, not through NVIDIA experience.
Also, per Gabe's info, re-installed latest downloaded Nvidia driver with Custom Mode and "clean install" prior to testing.
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Testing sequence:
MEDIUM graphics with DX12 enabled, started and ran OK = PASS.
HIGH graphics - same
ULTRA graphics - same - USED AS BASELINE SETUP
Saved The Division config files (10) as suggested to remove by Massive with crashing; v1.0
Format:
(GRAPHICS: NAME OF SETTING ENABLED - PASS/FAIL)
Post FX AA: SMAA1x LOW thru ULTRA added, one at a time; all PASS. Left at SMAA1X ULTRA setting.
Reflection Quality: HIGH - PASS
Ambient Occlusion: ULTRA - PASS
Object Detail: From 60% to 100% - PASS
Saved all The Division config files; v1.1
Ambient Occlusion: NVIDIA HBAO+ - PASS (w/ conditions, noted below)
Saved all The Division config files; v1.2
Shadow Quality: NVIDIA PCSS - FAIL (did not try second NVIDIA setting)
Removed and replaced the 10 config files per instructions from Massive with v1.2 files of last known good.
STILL CRASHES AT CLOCK SEQUENCE
Removed 10 config files, no replacements (to let game recreate config files itself)
RESET AND RESTART, ALL OK AT CLOCK AND IN-GAME.
Replace 10 config files with v1.1 above.
RESTART, ALL OK with last graphics setting added (Object Detail 60% to 100%) - PASS
STOPPING POINT OF TESTS
Conclusions:
While these tests are only on my PC, it sure seems that avoiding using NVIDIA's experience optimization app out-of-game as well as avoiding using NVIDIA-specific settings in-game under Ambient Occlusion and Shadow Quality (the ones with NVIDIA in caps) is one way to get the DirectX 12 renderer to work as it should without crashing The Division.
NOTE: (6-17 update) I enabled Ambient Occlusion: NVIDIA HBAO+ permanently soon after making this first entry. I found that the game runs well despite the occasional crash from our friend the "ticking clock" loading screen.
UPDATE (3/19 1930 EDT): Total of 11+ hours in-game and no crashes yet.
UPDATE (3/22 2130 EDT): w/ 378.92 driver, logged 5 hours in-game, no crashes. Have not tried testing further settings yet.
UPDATE (3/25 2000 EDT): no changes from above, additional 4 hours in-game logged.
UPDATE (6/17): Using latest driver 382.53 and working OK. I still cannot use any Shadow Quality setting higher than Ultra. Use of HBAO+ has been working fine for me since last update here, with occasional fail to start game. All I have to do is try a second time and The Division starts normally. I have also reduced some settings through reading and applying the lessons from the NVIDIA website article linked in later post here and have gained a few FPS.
Hope this helps some of you Divison players out there who are trying to make use of DX12 and failing. Maybe Massive can make use of it as well, so I have included system files for my PC below. The only changes to the graphics settings are minor reductions in a few categories based on the NVIDIA GeForce article on the game mentioned elsewhere.
DXDIAG File
NVIDIA System Info File
Cheers!
Community Developer
Member
I first thought that it would be the nvidia specific settings but they just reduce the crashing. Seems that the more you lower the settings the less you crash. With the nvidia specific settings the crashing is at horrible levels and i get to try something like 7 times to get into the game and in game i crash in 5 minutes for sure. With the nvidia settings disabled i might get an hour or two even but i might also crash a couple of times in an hour.
Member
Both these drivers & the new ones out today are having problems with the division. I found its the DX12 renderer. If you play it on DX11, you can max everything out fine, with the DX12 renderer on you crash at login. So I found changing from HBAO+ setting to Ultra everything is fine. So for some reason these last couple of Nvidia drivers are messing with the DX12 rendering in the division...
Junior Member
I just downloaded and installed the NVIDIA 378.92 drivers released today myself; I will be testing The Division with them and updating here with any significant info.
Sorry to hear you guys are still having some problems. I tend to think the specialized NVIDIA settings are perhaps not quite ready for primetime, but it could also be the way The Division handles them too, who knows?
Member
I don't know if the problem is with the game or with nvidia drivers. I don't have a problem with crashes (sometimes but very rarely) but with stuttering. When Dx12 and latest nvidia drivers it's massiveOriginally Posted by pdubya_64 Go to original postespecially in LMS. With little bit older drivers on 980Ti - no problems, with latest - stuttering. When I changed GPU to 1080Ti I had to use latest drivers. Dx12 - massive stuttering. Dx11 - OK. I checked 378.92 today. Same situation Dx12 - stuttering, Dx11 OK. So, I dont know if is game or drivers.
Senior Member
same hereOriginally Posted by lukeluke1977 Go to original postI don't know if the problem is with the game or with nvidia drivers. I don't have a problem with crashes (sometimes but very rarely) but with stuttering. When Dx12 and latest nvidia drivers it's massive
Junior Member
Could you also pass on the CPU heat issue and memory leak as well.
Originally Posted by Ubi-gabelikes Go to original post
Junior Member
Junior Member
Starting this afternoon (3-26) I am going to push the testing a bit further and try adding Ambient Occlusion setting NVIDIA HBAO+ under 378.92 and run some tests in-game. No other changes made as I want to try this out longer term. It worked for me most of the time, but occasionally crashed at start, so we shall see this time around.
TEST ONE: Starting from current settings (see first post) enabled HBAO+ and saved.
Quit and restarted from UbiPlay.
Started to load, once at 'Ticking Clock', game hung after a second or so, then dropped from fullscreen to windowed mode and crashed (w/ msg). = FAIL
Deleted 10 config files, let The Division create new ones with relaunch of game.
Ran fine in current settings same as start of this test.
Replaced 10 config files with saved ones from last known good setup.
Started The Divison, enabled HBAO+ a second time.
Quit, restarted The Division = PASS
Played approximately 4.5 hours today with HBAO+ enabled. No problems in-game other than slight lag and fps drop (severe when indoors in an apartment looking at window drapes swaying back and forth. I have not seen this previously).
I will test the same setup again asap.
