[0.16.45] Flickering and then black display

[irwinclockmeyer]

I'm running on a beast of a machine with a i9 7980 cpu and MSI 1080ti gaming x card. I'm using a CTL X2800 4k monitor running at 3840x2160. I'm thinking performance is not an issue. .

I'm running into flickering, tearing and eventually a blank screen after a few minutes to an hour of play. Turning the monitor off and back on will recover the display. I've tried different cables and connections. Doesn't seem to make much difference.

Might be similar to this?: viewtopic.php?f=49&t=58774&p=350363&hil ... er#p350363

It doesn't crash factorio.

Logs are attached.

I've tried just about every combination of settings I've seen recommended here and a few of my own: vsync on or off. Use the nvidia sync settings and turn Factorio's off, more or less memory, etc. etc.

I'll note that turning factorio vsync off and nvidia's on as I saw recommended here somewhere definitely makes it worse. There might be a slight increase in the behavior with the gpu temperatures, but that might be my imagination. I also tried forcing d3d or opengl. Didn't make any difference.

Using a lower resolution like 1920x1080 seems to make the problem go away, or much more rare. I haven't seen it happen at that resolution - no flickering or tearing.

UPDATE: Tried it at 2560x1440, too. Haven't been able to reproduce the problem there, either.

I'm not experiencing this with any other programs or games, including those that are much more gpu intensive (Astroneer in particular). I'm also running multiple virtual machines and remote desktop sessions without any problems. It definitely seems isolated to Factorio.

Thoughts? I'm even thinking of swapping out the card and/or monitor for something more stable if anyone has opinions.

Thanks,
Irwin

[irwinclockmeyer]

Sorry, forgot the save. On my google drive:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vmdk20 ... sp=sharing

[kovarex]

Could you try to reinstall graphical drivers and restart the computer?

[posila]

While there have been many reports about performance problems when playing at 4K resolution, nobody mentioned weird behavior like this, which makes me think there is something wrong with your HW (maybe GPU or CPU something is overheating?) I suggest you to play on lower resolution or in window until 0.17 is released.

[irwinclockmeyer]

Okay, sorry for the delay. Didn't have time during the week to do this.

I did a thorough uninstall and reinstall of the NVIDIA drivers:

1. Did a regular uninstall of the display driver and reboot
2. Uninstalled all the other NVIDIA stuff, finishing with GeForce Experience.
3. Reboot into Safe Mode
4. Use DDU to clean up anything left over and reboot.
5. Reinstalled the latest NVIDIA drivers (397.93). I did not install their 3D vision or audio stuff. I just installed the regular driver and Physx.

Unfortunately it appears you now HAVE to install GeForce Experience. The checkbox for it is disabled during install.

Sorry, still flickering and tearing in Factorio.

In the process I checked what resolution I was running Astroneer at and found it was only running at 1920x1080. I changed that to full resolution (3840x2160). Played for about an hour and there was no flickering or tearing or blank screens. The card also runs much hotter in Astroneer than it does in Factorio, so pretty sure the temps are not causing any issues.

So, the problem is still isolated to Factorio. At least for me.

However, I've been doing a bunch of searching around for similar issues and found that other folks are also seeing similar symptoms with NVIDIA cards (not just the 1080 ti). The general consensus is that this is an NVIDIA driver issue. There were some hints that NVIDIA is aware of the issue and that there may be a fix in the works. However, if so, it's been in the works for a LONG time (over a year, I think). I'm seeing that a lot of folks are very impressed with NVIDIA hardware, but ...dissappointed... with the quality of their drivers. Driver updates are apparently a real crap shoot in terms of quality.

Thanks,
Irwin