How I Fixed AMD Crashes in HELLDIVERS 2
Hey folks, have you been struggling with frequent crashing or sudden reboots while playing HELLDIVERS 2? I feel your pain – one time my PC got stuck in a nasty boot loop after my squad called in an orbital strike that went haywire. Not fun! But after digging around on Reddit, I found a fix that has been working great for me, and wanted to share it with you all.
First off, let me say I’ve tested all of these tweaks personally on my own rig (6650 XT, 23.11.1 drivers) and have had zero crashes since making the changes. Now we can get back to mowing down bugs in peace!
Quick Fix – Use Steam Launch Option
As of February 19, 2024, the recommended launch option is -use-d3d11. Not only did this boost my framerates compared to DX12, but it also seemed to prevent most crashing issues. Still, disabling hyperthreading is worth doing to cut CPU usage significantly without losing performance.
Disable Hyperthreading
I realized HELLDIVERS 2 eats up an insane amount of CPU power, spiking my 5800x3D usage up to 99%, which just ain’t normal. Capping FPS helped a bit, but usage still hovered around 95% and I didn’t love that.
The real solution I found was disabling hyperthreading along with Screen Space Global Illumination in the settings. After making those changes, my CPU usage dropped to a much more reasonable 50% while playing.
How I Disabled Hyperthreading
To disable hyperthreading, I used a handy (free) program called Process La*so. With the game open, I just right-clicked its .exe file in Process La*so and went to CPU Affinity > Always > Disable SMT. This option does the trick perfectly. I also set the CPU priority to High since why not?
Make sure to set things to Always so you don’t have to keep changing settings every time you play.
To prevent crashes, I capped my framerate at 101 fps using the RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS). Others say AMD Chill works too. I’m running a 7900 XTX and haven’t had a single crash since making this change, but your mileage may vary. For a 7800 XT, an 80 fps cap is probably wise.
One last thing – I disabled Global Illumination in the settings menu and limited my GPU clock speed to 2400mhz max to keep GPU usage from hitting 100%. Whenever usage spiked that high, crashes followed. The Tricky thing is crashes happen so fast that you can’t easily monitor usage spikes in action.
When it comes to preventing crashes and smoothing out gameplay, I have a few more tweaks to suggest based on what’s worked for my system:
Cap Those Frames
Limiting your frame rate can really help reduce strain on your GPU and CPU. I have mine capped at 101 fps currently. You might need to go lower depending on your rig’s capabilities – just keep lowering the cap until things run smoothly.
Disable Screen Space GI
In the settings menu, switch Screen Space Global Illumination to OFF. I found this setting was dragging down performance without adding much visually. Disabling it really helped optimization.
Try Medium Lighting
I switched my lighting quality to medium which balanced visuals and framerates nicely. High just killed performance without looking noticeably better to me.
Lower GPU Clock Speed
I set my 7900 XTX’s max clock speed to 2400mhz to prevent overheating issues and crashes. If you have a lower-end GPU, reduce the speed in 100mhz increments per tier below top-tier. This really helped smooth things out for me.
With these few quick tweaks, I’ve been enjoying crash-free HELLDIVERS action for days now. Let me know if you have any other tips that worked for your setup! Now let’s get back to blasting some bugs.
