[PC] Game hard crashes after 20-30 mins gameplay

Keith-hates-tax 

You experienced just one crash until now? 
Please add a new DxDiag. 

holger1405i got an entirely new graphics card, which seemingly fixed the problem for a few days. But it just happened again. It seems largely stable, but the hard crashing issue hasn’t gone away.

Keith-hates-tax 

Excellent! I am glad you figured it out. 👍
🤞 that the warranty processing goes smoothly. 

holger1405 

I got ahold of another pc with similar specs and began testing by swapping various components and can say with certainty that the issue lies with my gpu. I was able to reproduce the issue like clockwork on another pc after swapping just the gpu, and my pc stabilized while using the borrowed gpu. My gpu is less than 4 months from purchase, so I’m in the process of having it replaced by XFX.

This is definitely NOT a hardware issue!

If you check steam forums or right here (DATV crashing), you'll see numerous occurrences of this issue - on PC with various hardware configurations (nvidia, amd, ...) and consoles (xbox, playstation) as well.

The hard crashing is NOT happening with other titles - which also strongly implies that its a problem with this very game.
The issue has been present since launch, and has not been addressed in any of the 5 patches.
Since the development team seems to have been disbanded almost entirely (which I'm sorry for), it seems unlikely that it will ever be fixed. This is very unfortunate, as the issue prevents to play the game properly.

The issue might most likely be with VRAM management - which should have been fixed/patched after such a long time - but, alas, this ship seems to have sailed already...

Lowering the graphics settings severely and especially turning off "strand hair" mitigates the issue a little bit, but not to an acceptable degree.
Interestingly, there's a fix for linux/proton which addresses a VRAM issue with respect to "strand hair":

"Hair strand shaders write to a UAV, then read it back in the same workgroup, but misses a device memory barrier in places, leading to GPU hang"

Please see "Add workaround for Dragon Age: Veilguard." for vkd3d-proton - https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/commit/45e44534e9eebfc53dfbc84479af22a5f49f3517

Steam won't refund my copy, because my "play"-time (as in trying to fix the issue) has been too high...
With that and no prospective fix, I, as a customer, am basically f.. screwed. 

Keith-hates-tax 

There is always stuff we can try, but I doubt that software side solutions will help in this case. 
And troubleshooting on the hardware side has its limits over the Internet. 

holger1405 

So this is the end of our efforts? Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate you sticking it out with me. I just want to know if there’s anything left to try.

Keith-hates-tax 

I understand that this is frustrating, but as I said before, this is imho with a probability bordering on certainty not a game problem. 
(Other than that the game is taxing for the device it runs on, but that is normal for modern AAA games.)

You can of course ask EA support for a refund, but I can't tell you if they will grant it.  (Make sure you get into a live chat season with an advisory.)

For the problem, I still think a power problem is the most likely cause, but that is something that is very difficult to diagnose via the internet. 
If this happens with other games in the future I would recommend to seek help in a local PC shop. 

holger1405

If this continues to be an issue, what is my recourse? As far as the system requirements are concerned, I’ve met them all. And there are no indications of hardware problems anywhere else or with any other game. I feel as though I’ve upheld my end of the bargain as a consumer, but I’m not getting any return on it. Am I just going to have to eat the loss and live with an unplayable game? Because I was really excited about Mass Effect coming up but I certainly won’t be getting it if there’s a risk of this happening. 

Yes, I run Marvel Rivals and Cyberpunk: 2077 often with no issues. Also, but less recently, BG3 and borderlands 3