Lack of Progress Report

(unexpected from me) delay + but how is this even possible + ETA

Greetings. It's me.

I'm fighting my computing machine again. I'll try to be more specific, because just two months after my SSD died, I wouldn't believe myself either. Sorry this post is so long and isn't really about the game, but I want to be transparent.

My iGPU driver started crashing horribly around last week. Even while writing the previous post, I've been restarting my PC every 10 minutes or so. I didn't mention it because I thought it was just a matter of reverting some firmware packages to older versions until they're fixed - not my first time, not a big deal. But in reality, this week I've been only kind of working on the game and constantly crashing - sometimes it took less than a minute after a restart, sometimes it could last an hour or two.

This loop is the reason I didn't post about it a couple of days earlier (apart from the fact that I kept feeling optimistic):

1. It crashes

2. I ask the global "Internet" network or clank*rs (absolute last resort)

3. You're absolutely right! The issue is now clear as day. Here's a solution that will 100% work (verified)

4. I try to fix the issue, revert or update packages, maybe try another boot option

5. Looks like it works? Cool, I can make it in time, no need to post about it

6. It crashes again after a couple of hours. I need to fix it ASAP to make everything in time. Go back to 1

My bad. I finally escaped this loop last night and am now making a post.

Yesterday I finally found (at least I hope so) a temporary workaround - manually locking my iGPU frequency to lower values - and it hasn't crashed since then. I can tolerate this performance drop and non-fatal artifacts, but I can't stand not being able to rely on my tools. I need to file an issue and wait until it's fixed in the upstream (to stop worrying about it entirely) and maybe find alternative hardware for the time being. Or even install windows - last resort as well + it won't help if it's a hardware issue.

If you're curious what kind of errors I've been getting - "ring timeouts" followed by GPU driver resets. If the reset is successful, only the software I was using crashes, and if not, I need to force a restart. These "ring timeouts" can be caused by numerous issues - firmware regressions, OpenGL, kernel, RAM, iGPU power management features, failing hardware, decoders, encoders, BIOS, DMUB, DMCUB, DPM, SMU, DVFS, DC, D4C, KC, Marvel, TMNT, T*en Titans Go!, AoT, JJK, AFK, BRB, BPM, DnB, ABC, XYZ, etc etc. And that's just for AMD iGPUs.

From what I've seen on forums, this has happened to a lot of people recently, but it looks like all similar issues are now marked as fixed on bug trackers. I'm very glad it's fixed for everyone but me. Since I've tried reverting packages to older versions that previously worked fine and tested many different combinations unsuccessfully, I can't rule out hardware failure, even though the issue became widespread (again) only recently. Another possible reason is a government spec op specifically targeted at nuk*ng indie H-dev PCs (joke stolen from the FXXz*ne thread)

The new ETA depends. If my temporary solution holds until the game update, I'll need around one more week to finish the update - the week I lost to diagnostics and fixing attempts. If not, I'll make another post in advance to keep you updated. Once again, I'm sorry, and a huge thank you for your patience.

That's all for today. Thank you for your support. Until next time!