Unplayable - constant graphics glitches and regular fatal errors

[Estrellia]

I have a pretty long post on Reddit about this (https://www.reddit.com/r/avowed/comments/1istru9/fatal_error_a_rant/), but I wanted to bring it over here to the official forums as well.

TLDR: It took me 3 hours of troubleshooting to even launch the game, but now it's effectively unplayable due to graphical glitches and "fatal error" crashes.  It's not my system, because I'm able to play games like WoW and Veilguard on max, and 3DMark gives me a high-percentile rating on my system (https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/126335795?).

I love Obsidian, and I'm excited for this game.  But I'm about to do my first ever full refund with Steam because this is unplayable.  Check out what the game looks like in the attached images.  I have many more screenshots that are equally bonkers.

Here's my system: i7-13700 KF, RTX 4070 TI, 32 GB RAM, ASUS ROG STRIX Z790-E GAMING WIFI I.  You can see all of this detail verified in the 3Dmark link I've posted.

Here's all the troubleshooting I've done:

1. BIOS update to address Intel issues.
2. Fully updated Nvidia drivers.  Reinstalled them multiple times.
3. Ray tracing off.
4. NVidia input lag and upscaling off.
5. Frame limited to 60 fps.
6. Launched with -dx11 tag in Steam (always fatal crashes if I don't do this)
7. All graphical settings to Low.

I'm able to launch the game, and cutscenes play beautifully.  But the actual gameplay is what's fcked.  Once I got it to launch, I've been able to adjust graphics settings up and down and use basically all of them, but the errors just keep compounding.  The textures look terrible, the bodies on the beach look comically bad, with bulging eyes that are uncanny valley.  When I move the camera, faint square artifacts appear and the slowly fade, which effectively leaves afterimages as I move around.  My character and the initial companion look great!  Menus look great!  But everything else is completely awful.

I doubt folks here can help crowdsource a solution; this feels like problems with Obsidian QA and code.  But if anyone has further thoughts on troubleshooting, I'm open.  But I don't feel great about spending hours of my life just to get a $90 triple-A game into a playable state.  Studios are literally training me to wait a year to buy their titles when they release things in this state.

 

[Riknar]

I had exactly the same problem. Since the early access, I've been trying to find a solution.

First, I used DDU to completely remove the Nvidia driver in windows safe mode.

After restarting, I installed the Nvidia driver version 561.09. Since then, no more CTDs (crashes to desktop). I came across this through a reddit post. It wasn't about Avowed, but another game with the same engine and a RTX 4070 Super card.

So far, I've tried the epic graphic preset with DLSS 3, without Nvidia Reflex and Ray Tracing=off. VSync=on and a 120 fps cap (set via the game settings).

I still need to test other variations regarding stability.

Hope it helps you.

 

DDU: https://www.wagnardsoft.com/content/Download-Display-Driver-Uninstaller-DDU-18093

Nvidia 561.09: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/drivers/results/232544/

[Estrellia]

Thank you, I will give this a try!  Have you experienced these crazy graphical glitches, as well as the crashes?

I had multiple crashes in the very beginning when the game was building the initial textures (or whatever that activity is when you first fire up the game).  I wonder if that screwed up my textures specifically... maybe I need to reinstall the game entirely.

[Donny Blade]

I've done the DDU but I re-installed the latest version, not the older 561.09. I will try that as well.

Until then...

The thing that helps many people is not using DLSS (using TSR instead) and turning off Ray Tracing. This reduced my own Alabama Fatal error crashes to once every few hours now, which is a massive improvement. This may be easier to try first.

I will try the older Nvidia drivers to see if that removes them altogether, but wanted to mention the above in any case.

[Kekec]

Exact same problems. What helped me was turning reflections to lowest. That got rid of the white artifacts. 
Also had to turn post-processing to low to not crash when entering dialogue for some reason.

BUT now I get these weird textures out of nowhere. They block vision but you can walk through them. 

Nvidia 4070ti if it helps.

[Donny Blade]

 

20 hours ago, Riknar said:

I had exactly the same problem. Since the early access, I've been trying to find a solution.

Reverting to the older Nvidia driver after DDU as an administrator in Safe Mode only made this worse. Keep in mind, this is happening on AMD as well, so I don't think it's a driver issue...

The only thing that has allowed me to play for at least a few minutes at a time is turning off/lowering graphics settings... on a 4090. I'm going back to that until someone can fix this, as it is extremely frustrating.

[Beyondtool]

Just posting to share I'm also at my wits end with this error. Using Gamepass version with a 3070, Ryzen 5600  32 GB system with Windows 10. I've tried everything, changing game settings, turning raytracing off, using afterburner, or not, updating Nvidia drivers, making aggressive system cooling settings, repairing the install, updating my BIOS. The further I get in the game the worse the crashing is. I'm lucky to play for 30mins now without a crash. Otherwise my system is rock solid. It's Avowed that seems to be causing the error.

[Beyondtool]

Bah! I had completely forgotten that while I was troubleshooting issues originally, I installed the Optimized Tweaks AVD Mod for Avowed. This was causing the fatal error issues for me, I suspect since the game patches have been released.

[Lemurnipples]

Reading your trials and tribulations here. I have been struggling too but somewhat different.

I get fatal errors just trying to log into the game. This has happened every time they have patched it. Up until this most recent patch (1.3.1), I was able to spend several hours tweaking the removing and re-downloading the game.

This last time, no such luck. Slightly different error code this time but one I can't work around. So far, it has stumped the IT people at Obsidian also.

So, $80 wasted....if they can't fix....I hope to get a refund

[Leptera Detrys]

same issue, happens w/ D4 also all of the sudden after the last nvidea update, which I can't rollback and fix. Elden Ring works fine, so it's not the system. W/ Avowed, it's "fatal error," w/ D4 it's "failed graphics check," which I don't get, maybe checking the graphics card 7000x per second isn't really necessary. Used the DDU, set system to run on performance, turned off ray tracing, dlss, limited fps to 60, all settings at medium or off. worked better, but still stalls for .5s, then burps up the "fatal error," which usually it will give a code, but this doesn't. Was enjoying the D&D feel it has which other games don't so much. Hope we can get this running again at some point. I won't ask for a refund since I'm not pressed for time. nvidia 4070 Ti, alienware aurora r16.

[Leptera Detrys]

This page fixed it for me: https://www.videogamer.com/guides/avowed-errors-and-how-to-fix-them/