Whenever you launch your game or play the game, you receive the following error message.
”Video driver crashed and was reset! Make sure your video drivers are up to date. Exiting…”
That can be frustrating. But not to worry. You can fix it with one of the methods below.
You can try the below four methods one by one until the problem is resolved.
Method 1: Reinstall the graphics card driver
Method 2: Update the graphics card driver
Method 3: Disable DirectX 12
Method 4: Enable Debug Mode in NVIDIA Control Panel
Method 1: Reinstall the graphics card driver
The problem can be caused by corrupted graphics card drivers. Reinstalling the graphics card driver may help resolve the problem. Here’s how to do it:
First, uninstall the graphics card driver.
1) Right-click on the Start menu button at the bottom left corner of the desktop and select Device Manager. Then the Device Manager window will pop up.
2) At the Device Manager window, double-click on Display adapters to expand it, then double-click on the graphics card device to open the Properties window.
3) At the Driver tab, click the Uninstall Device button.
4) Tick the box next to Delete the driver software for this device then click Uninstall to confirm the uninstall.
Once the driver is uninstalled, restart your computer to allow Windows to install the driver again.
Relaunch your game and check to see if you’re still experiencing the video crashing error.
If the error persists, continue to try Method 2.
Method 2: Update the graphics card driver
If reinstalling the graphics card driver doesn’t work, you can try updating the graphics card drivers.
You can go to your device manufacturer’s website to download the latest version of graphics card driver corresponding to the Windows version you have. Generally, drivers can be downloaded from the Support, Drivers or Download section.
Alternatively, you can perform a search with your favorite search engine. Open the search engine and search the keywords “device model + driver”, then you can easily find the official driver download page from the search results.
Tip: To update drivers more easily, you can use Driver Easy. Driver Easy can scan your system to detect any missing or outdated drivers, and allows you to update drivers with a few clicks.
Method 3: Disable DirectX 12
The “Video driver crashed and was reset” error can occur if your game doesn’t support DirectX 12. If that’s the case, disabling DirectX 12 (turning the game back to DirectX 11) can help fix the error.
You can disable DirectX 12 from the game files. The game file and its location depends on the game developer. You can perform a Google search or contact the developer of the game to ask.
I’ll take Fornite as an example here. If you encounter the “Video driver crashed and was reset” error while playing Fortnite, you can follow these steps to disable DirectX 12.
1) On your keyboard, press the Win+R (the Windows logo key and the R key) at the same time to invoke the Run box.
2) Type “%localappdata%” into the Run box and click OK. Then the C:\Users(username)\AppData\Local folder will open.
3) Open FortniteGame -> Saved -> Config -> WindowsClient -> GameUserSettings.ini.
4) On your keyboard, press Ctrl+F to invoke the Find box and search for “bPreferD3D12InGame”.
5) Change bPreferD3D12InGame to False.
6) Save the file.
7) Relaunch Fortnite and check to see if the “Video driver crashed and was reset” error still occurs.
Method 4: Enable Debug Mode in NVIDIA Control Panel
For NVIDIA graphics card users, you can try enabling Debug Mode in the NVIDIA Control Panel to fix the error. The Debug Mode feature will downclock and factory overclocked graphics card to NVIDIA reference clock speeds. It can help determine problems with the graphics card.
To enable Debug Mode, just open the NVIDIA Control Panel, then click Help in the top menu and check the Debug Mode option. After that, relaunch your game and check to see if you’re still facing the “Video driver crashed and was reset” error.
Note: You can’t overclock your GPU while the Debug Mode feature is enabled.
Hopefully you find the article helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to drop a comment below. I’ll get back to you ASAP.