Texture/shader issue

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Technical Support
1

Issue Type (Required):

Other

Issue Description (Required):

I’m seeing a repeatable issue after Patch 1.12.0 where textures appear blurry / low resolution during play and frame pacing feels worse, especially in 1% lows. On exit, the game also briefly opens a small command window, and the console log shows a D3D12 pipeline state Crashify exception before serializing the pipeline library.

System:

Windows 11
Ryzen 7 9800X3D
RTX 5080, 16 GB VRAM
32 GB RAM
Game installed on NVMe SSD
Rendering backend: DX12
Game version: 1.12.0-b747675
NVIDIA driver as reported by log: 61047

I tested this with:

Mods disabled
Steam launch options cleared
Frame Generation disabled
Ray tracing disabled
Texture Quality set to Medium
Mesh streamer left at default / enabled
Deleted before launch: shader_cache.hans, shader_library.pso_lib, state_stream_library.pso_lib

After deleting the PSO/cache files, the log correctly reports that the PSO libraries cannot be opened at startup, then later reports:

PSO cache loading finished, current fail rate 2/3775 (0%)

So the session appears to start clean. However, after playing and exiting normally, the log reports a high PSO fail rate and then serializes the pipeline library anyway. Examples across clean tests:

PSO fail rate 553/4326 (13%)
PSO fail rate 519/4292 (12%)
PSO fail rate 644/4417 (15%)
PSO fail rate 593/4366 (14%)

I also tested a few common workarounds:

Medium textures: did not resolve it.
Disabling mesh streamer: made portraits/icons slow to load and did not resolve it.
Increasing texture streaming buffer values: subjectively felt a little smoother, but did not resolve the PSO fail rate on exit.

I do not see classic GPU device-loss errors such as DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED, DEVICE_HUNG, D3D12 device lost, GPU crash, or out-of-memory in the logs. This seems more like the game starts with a clean PSO cache, accumulates failed PSOs during the session, then serializes the library on shutdown with a 10–15% fail rate.

There are also repeated unmodded UI/notification exceptions related to new item types, for example:

ConstantElementNotificationFeed
Item type “GADGET” is not defined in UiSettings.item_type_localization_lookup
Item type “WEAPON_MELEE” is not defined in UiSettings.item_type_localization_lookup
Item type “WEAPON_RANGED” is not defined in UiSettings.item_type_localization_lookup
Item type “TRAIT” is not defined in UiSettings.item_type_localization_lookup

Those may be separate, but they also seem tied to Patch 1.12 item/reward handling.

I can provide full console logs if needed. I wanted to flag this because it reproduces cleanly without mods, without launch options, and after deleting shader_cache.hans plus both PSO library files.

[PC] Do You Use Mods? (Optional):

Yes, and I’ve tried disabling them

Reproduction Rate (Required):

Constant (100%)

Platform (Required):

PC - Steam

2

Hi Wagner, Hi Clanking, I’d recommend removing your AppData entirely; it’s important to disable Steam Cloud Saving prior to this, otherwise the AppData will be restored on launch, Please be aware will reset any custom options.

Failing that, let me know, and I’ll pop it in to our database.

Step 1: Disable Steam Cloud Saving

If Steam Cloud saving is enabled for Darktide, this may automatically restore the AppData and consequently cause the issue to resurface.

  1. Navigate to your Steam library
  2. Right-click Darktide
  3. Select ‘Properties’
  4. On the ‘General’ tab, scroll down to ‘Steam Cloud’
  5. Disable ‘Keep game saves in the Steam Cloud for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide’

Step 2: Delete AppData

NOTE: By deleting your AppData, operative loadouts and custom keybindings will be reset. You may wish to make a back-up of the directory in the event deleting your AppData does not work to resolve the issue.

  1. Press the Windows key + R
  2. Enter %appdata% within the search input and select ‘OK’
  3. Navigate to: AppData\Roaming\Fatshark
  4. Delete the entire ‘Darktide’ directory

Step 3: Verify Integrity of Game Files

You will then need to use the ‘Verify Integrity of Game Files’ option, which is accessible via the Steam client and will ensure the installation is complete.

  1. Right-click Darktide in your Steam library sidebar
  2. Select ‘Properties’
  3. Select the ‘Local Files’ tab
  4. Select the ‘Verify Integrity of Game Files’ button
  5. When complete, close and reopen Steam
3

Try setting your textures to medium

4

Came to say I’ve been having the exact same issue ever since the addition of Rotten Armor.

I have tried setting textures to medium instead of high, changing values in settings_common.ini, disabling the mesh streamer,

Escalating to

Deleting AppData, DDU fresh install of multiple different Nvidia Driver versions, Reinstall of the game, reinstalling the game on a different ssd, and even a fresh install of the game on a new pc have not resolved the issue.

It seems tied to either x3d processors or something to do with upscaling, maybe both.

However, this texture streaming bug seems pretty well known by now. Has there been any new info to share on any possible fix? @FatsharkJulia

Old PC: 3080, 5800x3d, 32gb ddr4 ram, Win 10, Gen 3 Nvme ssd

New PC: 5080, 9800x3d, 64gb ddr5 ram, Win 11, Gen 5 Nvme ssd

image
image1080×604 185 KB

image
image1080×603 156 KB

5

Mentioned in the OP. Doesn’t help with the failed pso when closing the game but it does seem to help with texture loading.

7

I tried the full AppData reset with Steam Cloud disabled then verified files on Steam. The game generated a fresh Darktide AppData folder. This was unmodded. Startup PSO cache loading was clean at 2/3742 (0%), but after gameplay and normal exit the log reported PSO fail rate 723/4463 (16%) and then serialized the pipeline library. So the issue still reproduces after the full AppData reset.

8

Another update:

On the first fresh run, the game was unmodded with DX12, Medium preset/textures, RT off, and Frame Generation off. Since the AppData folder was fresh, the PSO libraries were missing at startup and had to be rebuilt. Startup PSO loading was clean:

PSO cache loading finished, current fail rate 2/3742 (0%)

However, after gameplay and a normal exit, the shutdown log reported:

PSO fail rate 723/4463 (16%)

followed by:

Serialized pipeline library

So the high PSO failure rate still reproduced after the full AppData reset in a clean/unmodded state.

As an additional follow-up, I then played a longer normal session after the PSO library had already been serialized/rebuilt. In that session I re-enabled my usual mods and played several missions. That later run started with:

PSO cache loading finished, current fail rate 0/3784 (0%)

and ended with:

PSO fail rate 88/4546 (2%)

followed by:

Serialized pipeline library

So the issue seems much worse immediately after a fresh AppData/cache rebuild, then improves substantially after the pipeline library has been rebuilt and reused. I do not think mods are the primary cause, because the high 16% PSO failure reproduced first in the clean unmodded AppData-reset test. But the later lower 2% result suggests there may be a cold-cache issue? Unsure.

9

Yeah I just noticed this starting this update. Im using a 9800X3D, 64 gb of ram, a 4080 super 16gb card. The textures just randomly, turn poor. Has there been any update on this by chance? I saw turning textures down to medium rather then high, but when I came to this forum it sounded like that doesn’t help anymore.

11

In my experience switching to Medium does alleviate the issue some. However you’ll still get instances of blurry low res textures randomly. Most notably on your weapons. And textures will still take a second or two to fully load in.

Feels like I’ve tried everything at this point.

9800x3d, 5080

12

Do you think it will ever be fixed? I know it sounds crazy but those little things really take away from my experience with the game when I see a monstrosity show up and it looks terrible lol

13

I feel the same way. It makes me jealous whenever I see anyone’s game looking amazing without any of the zfighting and slow loading/blurry textures I have. I mean, the entire reason I upgraded my pc was to max this game out.

And honestly at this point I have no idea. I’m always checking around just to see if anyone’s found anything. It’d be nice to get something official though, because this has been a fairly long standing issue.

14

Is this issue being looked at? I understand it says its acknowledged and tech support is on it, but I havent seen anything officially stated that this is being looked at.

15

Same I upgraded my pc so I could play this game to its fullest. Crazy thing is I was fine until this update. I saw where someone suspected it might be X3D processors but another person said they have Intel and it happens to them as well. I have hope they will fix it, I mean it seems like alot of people are in fact having issues.