This is a long post…please bear with me I beg you.
To preface this, I played Darktide yesterday (after the family holiday fun) into the wee hours of the morning; 3amish EST. No issues with Darktide playing.
Today, I cannot play at all due to some “issues” which I’ll explain and I hope beyond hope someone can help me out.
In August this year I upgraded my GPU to a new EVGA 3060 XC card (previously a 1060). A big upgrade for me and the price was pretty darn good on Amazon so I had to bite.
Previously, the 1060 was doing well for me for 100% of my games and I had no issues to complain about. I picked up BF2042 when it came out and played that for a while as well with no issues. When their big update came for season 1, this is when all the trouble started. Occasionally I’d have moment when my displays (dual display, both the same monitor) would freeze up for a moment, then go black a moment later, and then return to whatever I was doing at that moment. This was generally when I has 2 different pages open on 2 either screen, or when video’s were open on both screen, or a combination of both. I wasn’t to worried at the time because it really wasn’t a big deal.
Then, I suddenly couldn’t play BF2042 with any consistency: lock-ups, crashes, freezes while in game, all ending with me Ending Task on the game and having to restart the game. Rather annoying and a complete PITA to play with my friends.
I came to find out (Event Viewer) that I keep having a recurring error labeled: nvlddmkm. Apparently this is a display driver error for the Nvidia Graphics Card. Here are a few reasons why the nvlddmkm driver fails:
- Corrupted system files
- An issue with the graphic driver
- Overheated graphic card
- Conflicts with third-party application
- Faulty memory module
- Issue with Power Supply
I tried a ton of things to fix the issue to no avail; Reseating the card, uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers, and anything else I could find as suggestions to fix this error to no avail.
Today I even used DDU to completely rid my system of everything Display Driver related and once done I installed, or re-installed, the latest NVIDIA drivers for my GPU.
I’ve also checked out all of the other issues listed above. I’m up to date with Windows 10 updates and found no issues with any scans I’ve done to find corrupted system files. I’ve monitored my temps and have found no problems with the GPU or CPU. I’m not aware of any third-party application conflicts that would cause any issues. A lengthy check of my memory showed everything is ok (32 GBs), and I do not have any problems with my PSU (850w).
Now today, I cannot play Darktide at all. Every time I start the game and get into the playable area at the start (just after character selection) anywhere from 5 to 15 seconds later the game locks up and crashes.
The Event Viewer indicates that each and every time this happens it is an NVLDDMKM error.
I’m at my wits end now. I have plenty of other games on my PC that I can play with no issues like this what-so-ever. Many of them are just as heavily graphics-oriented as Darktide and BF2042. From Fallout 4 to Icarus to many of the Assassin Creed games and Far Cry games that I have. No problems and no issues.
I cannot for the life of my fix this problem.
Question: Could my GPU be the issue itself? Could there be something wrong with the card and if so, aside from this recurring error, how can I find out for sure without purchasing another GPU (the exact same one) from another source (lets say Newegg.com)?
If you’ve experienced this issue please chime in. If you’ve experienced this issue and know a tried and true solution, PLEASE chime in.
ANY help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. If ya’ll need more info, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Current PC Stats:
CPU: Intel I5-7600k @3.8ghz
GPU: EVGA RTX 3060 XC
MEM: 32gbs DDR4 3200
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 850W
OPSYS: Windows 10 64bit
