The latest released Nvidia drivers are causing VAM to randomly freeze and it appears to be affecting only VAM

[Shadow Venom]

The latest released Nvidia graphics card drivers appear to be causing VAM to randomly go into a frozen state. However, it doesn't affect any other games or applications. Myself and some other users have encountered similar issues, and we've had to downgrade our graphics card drivers to previous versions. The affected graphics card models known so far include RTX 4090, RTX 3080, and others. The specific problematic driver version is:

Version:	545.92 WHQL
Release Date:	2023.10.26
Operating System:	Windows 10 64-bit, Windows 11

I think this issue might be something the VAM developers can't do much about, but because it seems to only affect VAM, and we don't know if this problem will persist in future driver updates, it could potentially impact many users in the long run.

 

[DJ]

A new driver was released today. If you had issues with the previous driver, please try out the new one and report back. Hopefully the issue has been fixed.

 

[Shadow Venom]

A new driver was released today. If you had issues with the previous driver, please try out the new one and report back. Hopefully the issue has been fixed.
View attachment 302186

To report back, I updated to the latest version mentioned above, and after using it for a few days, it's been quite stable without any recurrence of VAM freezing issues. However, I did encounter a blue screen crash, which I haven't experienced in years while using VAM. It's possible that there are still some driver issues, but at least it doesn't affect regular and continuous use.

Thank you for your attention and help.

 

[BlueHorizon]

My VAM has started to turn into a slideshow randomly, never had this issue before, but it happened multiple times when I was working on a scene yesterday, and this was a very bare scene with 1 model and a few plugins running. Loading different scenes doesn't help, have to restart VAM. This is with a 4080 and the latest Nvidia drivers.

 

[HolySchmidt]

Sometimes old drivers are the better drivers ?

 

[Saint66]

To report back, I updated to the latest version mentioned above, and after using it for a few days, it's been quite stable without any recurrence of VAM freezing issues. However, I did encounter a blue screen crash, which I haven't experienced in years while using VAM. It's possible that there are still some driver issues, but at least it doesn't affect regular and continuous use.

Thank you for your attention and help.

There was also a hotfix release some days after, search for the 546.08 drivers

 

[Awd]

Had the same problem with my NVIDIA 3060ti and eventually rolled back to 537 drivers which work faultlessly, as of Nov 19 2023 (so far ).

 

[Shadow Venom]

Had the same problem with my NVIDIA 3060ti and eventually rolled back to 537 drivers which work faultlessly, as of Nov 19 2023 (so far ).

The latest driver no longer causes VAM to freeze, but it randomly leads to a blue screen of death, sometimes just by browsing the web. After downgrading to a version from September, everything is now running normally. Indeed, sometimes the old drivers are better.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

I was running a very old version of the drivers. On a lark, and knowing I could always downgrade, I loaded up the 546.17 version. I've had no problems. YMMV as they say...

 

[Zenrox]

I have the latest drivers installed and I have a couple of days with this error, I have not had any blue screen, just the game freezes, and the whole pc also, the only solution is to turn it off from the button on the case

 

[Saintjah]

Good thing I found this thread, exact same thing has been happening to me! So the best solution is to roll back to an older driver? Currently on Nvidia 546.17 and I get the mentioned freezes and slow downs.

 

[Zenrox]

Good thing I found this thread, exact same thing has been happening to me! So the best solution is to roll back to an older driver? Currently on Nvidia 546.17 and I get the mentioned freezes and slow downs.

I have rollbacked the drivers to version 537.58 and the problem seems to be solved, I've been using VAM for a while and it hasn't frozen. Hopefully they will fix the problem soon.

 

[Shadow Venom]

Currently, the most stable driver seems to be the version released during September. Versions released during October may have various impacts on VAM...

 

[Awd]

Good thing I found this thread, exact same thing has been happening to me! So the best solution is to roll back to an older driver? Currently on Nvidia 546.17 and I get the mentioned freezes and slow downs.

I rolled back to the 537 driver released in August and seems back to normal .Actually tried other fixes first including reinstalling ,resetting RAM timings ,all kinds of stuff then by chance read Shadow venoms message . I'm using an ASUS 3060Ti if that helps and as I say the problem seems to have gone away

 

[Shadow Venom]

A new driver was released today. If you had issues with the previous driver, please try out the new one and report back. Hopefully the issue has been fixed.
View attachment 302186

It appears that Nvidia may not have noticed this potential bug, as it seems to have persisted in new driver updates. I'm not sure if there's a channel to bring this to the attention of Nvidia's driver engineers.

 

[Saintjah]

545.84 also had problems so now im rolled back to 537.58.... lets hope that fixed it.

 

[Saintjah]

Seems they know there has been a problem with the 540 drivers.... https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...ce-grd-54617-feedback-thread-released-111423/

 

[Sally Whitemane]

For a while I've been on 546.17 and the previous version. All the never versions seem less stable to me.
It's not like these version crash all the time, but I do have occasional problems like:

• rare (1-2 per week?) driver crashes. Windows / the driver does recover successful. It reloads everything.
• today the monitor resolution was randomly set to 800x600
• rare VaM crashes (could be from me to doing to much experimental stuff too)
• Opera tabs in title bar corrupt (could be from recent software updates too)
• Chrome showing black artifacts on websites for a split-second (the most concerning for me)
• Chrome showing the same black artifacts for a split-second while streaming Netflix
  (which does not surprise me, it's well known that the copy protection and HDCP is garbage)

Had enough of this. Spend some time diagnosing if there is something wrong with my GPUs.
Downloaded Nvidia's leaked test tools - MODS & MATS (v455 for RTX 3000 series) and tested them.
MATS result: PASS ... I'm no expert with these tools, but from following various hardware repair video guides on how to use it - it seems VRAM is working perfectly normal.

Downgraded to driver version 537.42 now. If it doesn't get better I have to reinstall a clean OS I guess ?. Current install is from 2019.

 

[Awd]

Hi, add endless trouble with NVIDIA 546 series drivers on my i5,Windows 11 RTX 3600ti .Litterely tried every other thing, RAM timings ,VAM HD Cache tweaks etc., before downgrading driver to 536.40 and have had no problems with VAM since . (late October till now 12/24/23) I believe the 537 drivers are Ok too ,but not quite ready to take the risk .

 

[Zenrox]

any updates?

 

[Tompa]

This driver works for me. Nvidia Studio Driver 546.33

 

[Electra95]

I used to have a pc with a radeon RX5700 gpu... not the fastest thing on earth but i never had any issues with VAM. Unfortunately my computer stopped working and i bought a waaaaayyyy too expensive DELL XPS 8960 with a RTX 4090 gpu... since then my life with VAM has been miserable. I have tried all the drivers you guys mentioned but i keep on getting the blue screen of death... at this point, i am seriously considering buying an old used computer just to run VAM... just terrible. Is anybody running VAM with RTX 4090 out there? what drivers are you useing? thanks.

 

[murn]

I used to have a pc with a radeon RX5700 gpu... not the fastest thing on earth but i never had any issues with VAM. Unfortunately my computer stopped working and i bought a waaaaayyyy too expensive DELL XPS 8960 with a RTX 4090 gpu... since then my life with VAM has been miserable. I have tried all the drivers you guys mentioned but i keep on getting the blue screen of death... at this point, i am seriously considering buying an old used computer just to run VAM... just terrible. Is anybody running VAM with RTX 4090 out there? what drivers are you useing? thanks.

You may have a memory, BIOS or hard drive problem. Make sure the bios is on its latest version and you may have to use older versions of the gup drivers if the latest isn't functioning well for you, just keep trying any from at least two years back at most since what may work for others may not work for you. The down side is that if you play games or do video production that may require updated gpu drivers, well ouch, as you'll have to choose between vam or work. I got a new nvme ssd for my laptop that kept blue screening like hell.

 

[Awd]

I had endless grief a while ago trying to get a Nvidia RTX 3060ti to run VAM . tried all the various RAM timing and other theories for instability then eventually rolled back to Driver version 537.34 and have never had an issue since . this driver came out mid 2023 I think .