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PSA - nVidia drivers newer than v442.92 will crash Fallout 4

msalaba

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Maybe put a PSA on the wiki for nVidia users. Currently nVidia drivers newer than v442.92 do not play nice with the Fallout 4 game engine. It is also worth noting that I experienced W10 updating my video driver last patch Tuesday. I was constantly crashing in the Concord area. After rolling back to v442.92, the problems went away.
There are scattered bits about this in the posts on the Buffout 4 Nexus page. There also is some info on this at the bottom of this page:
Maybe put a sticky on the help forum? Some of the reported issues might be related to this.
 
I'm going through past threads here and I don't see this in the wiki. Did it get added somewhere that I just haven't seen, yet? Known Issues would be the best place and it's definitely not there.
Mine works fine if not better with the newest Nvidia drivers
 
I'm going through past threads here and I don't see this in the wiki. Did it get added somewhere that I just haven't seen, yet? Known Issues would be the best place and it's definitely not there.
IIRC, This is one @BinaryMisfit could answer. I just found this on the Buffout 4 wiki. For some reason W10 decided to upgrade my video drivers for me and I started CTDing like crazy around Concord until I found this on the Buffout 4 Nexus page and rolled back my drivers. (running a GTX 1070 btw)

It was originally a thing for RTX cards, but a driver update in Dec. (guessing) started affecting some 10xx cards as well. I also saw a post saying the latest nVidia driver did not have this issue. The last I looked at the Buffout 4 posts on the Nexus, they were still saying to roll back to pre v445 drivers if you run into the nvwgf2umx.dll
crash.

I have not updated my drivers since this post was made so I can't say for sure. (don't have any new games that require it :cray )
 
I have not updated my drivers since this post was made so I can't say for sure. (don't have any new games that require it :cray )
:explode: GASP! You clearly need some new games, then!

Although, between the forums and github notices I'm seeing lately, I'd say your plate is overflowing. Hopefully you can try something new sometime soon. I've been enjoying a few new games lately... No Man's Sky is pretty cool, as is Satisfactory (which isn't really THAT new, but it's awesome), I like playing Fallout 76, but only when I have friends to play with. I also just got Valheim last month, but I also haven't played unless my friend is on who insisted that I get it. I would like to try Cyberpunk 2077, but I'm hesitating buying it.
 
I'm going through past threads here and I don't see this in the wiki. Did it get added somewhere that I just haven't seen, yet? Known Issues would be the best place and it's definitely not there.
There is mention of the 445 driver series in the Buffout 4 FAQs page: https://wiki.fireundubh.com/fallout4/buffout-faqs#upstream-issues

I don't know if the issue is still there with the newest drivers, but if someone has nvwgf2umx.dll in their crash log, they should update and see if that works, then downgrade if those crashes are still happening with the latest drivers.

Edit: msalaba was faster on the reply haha
 
IIRC, This is one @BinaryMisfit could answer. I just found this on the Buffout 4 wiki. For some reason W10 decided to upgrade my video drivers for me and I started CTDing like crazy around Concord until I found this on the Buffout 4 Nexus page and rolled back my drivers. (running a GTX 1070 btw)

It was originally a thing for RTX cards, but a driver update in Dec. (guessing) started affecting some 10xx cards as well. I also saw a post saying the latest nVidia driver did not have this issue. The last I looked at the Buffout 4 posts on the Nexus, they were still saying to roll back to pre v445 drivers if you run into the nvwgf2umx.dll
crash.

I have not updated my drivers since this post was made so I can't say for sure. (don't have any new games that require it :cray )
I have been using the latest 461+ drivers without issues for about a month using Buffout 4, High Speed FPS fix and an ENB. I would suggest doing the following:

  • Don't install GForce Experience - It's interface with the driver often causes isses.
  • Do an advanced install and make sure you tick the box to replace or completely remove the old driver.
I manually check for updates every month now.

The MOFAM team has also been running with the latest drivers without issues.

I am running a RTX2080 out of interest.
 
I've been trying to do a new playthrough but I would get CTD every time I tried to enter the Concord Museum. Buffout4 showed that I had the nvwgf2umx.dll problem. I could load older saves (where I'm like level 40+ and a bunch of built up areas) and could enter the Museum with no problem but was getting CDT in other areas. It's really frustrating when you can't progress with SS2 when you have no settlements yet.
Will try doing a clean driver install and see what happens. Don't really want to roll back driver due to other games.
 
I have the newest driver and I am not having issues that would scream driver issues. I get the usual crashes nothing out of the ordinary. (PNY GTX 970).
 
I rolled my display driver back to 442.74 and was able to enter the Concord Museum and continue plot lines with Jake. With that done I reloaded 466.11 and tried entering the museum at different save points. Tried entering at point from start of "When Freedom Calls" and CTD. Tried at a point where I had entered with other driver, cleared museum, got Power Armor and defeated Deathclaw but had not reentered museum to talk with Preston, CTD. Tried at a point were I talked with Preston again and his group had exited and headed for Sanctuary, No CTD.
So whatever was causing the CTD when trying to enter the Concord Museum had something to do with Preston's group being inside.
What's interesting is I checked the release dates of the drivers 442.74 and 445.75 (they both came out in March of 2020). I got my new system in Sep of 2020 and I didn't start play SS2 till Nov and I would have had a driver far newer than 445 and I never had a problem with the Museum until recently when I started a new (and hopefully cleaner) playthrough.
 
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It seems to affect certain GPUs but not others. The most common GPUs from people reporting this at least from when I've asked which GPU they had seems to be low-mid Turing series, RTX 2060, RTX 2070, GTX 1600s, Super versions included. RTX2080 & 2080ti seem to not be affected. So far on an RTX 3090 I've been unaffected by this.
 
It seems to affect certain GPUs but not others. The most common GPUs from people reporting this at least from when I've asked which GPU they had seems to be low-mid Turing series, RTX 2060, RTX 2070, GTX 1600s, Super versions included. RTX2080 & 2080ti seem to not be affected. So far on an RTX 3090 I've been unaffected by this.
Well if that's the case then I'm screwed as I'm using a RTX 2060 Super. As long as the problem doesn't show up often I should be fine. I can always downgrade the driver as needed.
 
Got another nvwgf2umx.dll CTD while loading a save. This save was in Sanctuary with Preston's group there. Had to use a trick I use of loading a save location that is some distance away then loading the newest save I want. It's a trial and error thing but works most of the time. Anyways the game had been running smoothly till this issue with Preston popped up again. I'm using the 466.11 driver right now.
 
i have 3070 and get ctd but no idea it's caused by mods or it's driver problem not often but still
 
Maybe put a PSA on the wiki for nVidia users. Currently nVidia drivers newer than v442.92 do not play nice with the Fallout 4 game engine. It is also worth noting that I experienced W10 updating my video driver last patch Tuesday. I was constantly crashing in the Concord area. After rolling back to v442.92, the problems went away.
There are scattered bits about this in the posts on the Buffout 4 Nexus page. There also is some info on this at the bottom of this page:
Maybe put a sticky on the help forum? Some of the reported issues might be related to this.
Thanks a million for this, constant crashing was killing me! Knew I shouldn't have updated my drivers.
 
In what way does it not play nice with Fallout 4? I have driver version 460.89 and it seems to work fine for me.
I've exclusively used NVIDIA cards for the last 13,14? years. ... and I have learned to NEVER download and install their 'new' driver when it's released. I always wait, like 6 months, before installing the 'new' driver. Why? I suspect they are crowd sourcing their final phase of bug testing. Perhaps not - but sometimes it sure seems that way.
(I know, I'm paranoid much? LOL)
 
It seems to affect certain GPUs but not others. The most common GPUs from people reporting this at least from when I've asked which GPU they had seems to be low-mid Turing series, RTX 2060, RTX 2070, GTX 1600s, Super versions included. RTX2080 & 2080ti seem to not be affected. So far on an RTX 3090 I've been unaffected by this.
Discord = "Messages failed to load"
 
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