RivaTuner causes the editor to crash randomly.

[KnightNine]

Tested versions

4.4.2.rc

System information

Windows 11

Issue description

Got a new eGPU, and I downloaded MSI afterburner with RivaTuner Statistics Server to mess around with overclocking. Then I was noticing that Godot was crashing consistently in my large project and inconsistently in when testing a new project, and this was happening regardless of which GPU i was using.
Retracing my steps i found that RivaTuner was the culprit.

This isn't necessarily something that needs a bugfix, but you could add it to your FAQ as a potential cause of instability.

Steps to reproduce

N/A

Minimal reproduction project (MRP)

N/A

[smix8]

Not sure why it should be Godot's responsibility to add warnings for all third-party tuning tools in existence that are well known for being hardware stability hazards.

The list of unstable tinker software apps is endless and is very much a user responsibility to be self-educated on all the issues those software tools cause before even using them.

[bruvzg]

RTSS (and other similar broken layers) should be already blocked from the editor, but it's possible something was changed in the layer config.

godot/main/main.cpp

Lines 1974 to 1989 in d61cd91

	LocalVector<String> layers_to_disable = {
	"DISABLE_RTSS_LAYER", // GH-57937.
	"DISABLE_VULKAN_OBS_CAPTURE", // GH-103800.
	"DISABLE_VULKAN_OW_OBS_CAPTURE", // GH-104154.
	"DISABLE_SAMPLE_LAYER", // GH-104154.
	"DISABLE_GAMEPP_LAYER", // GH-104154.
	"DISABLE_VK_LAYER_TENCENT_wegame_cross_overlay_1", // GH-104154.
	// "NODEVICE_SELECT", // Kept as it's useful - GH-104592.
	"VK_LAYER_bandicam_helper_DEBUG_1", // GH-101480.
	"DISABLE_VK_LAYER_bandicam_helper_1", // GH-101480.
	"DISABLE_VK_LAYER_reshade_1", // GH-70849.
	"DISABLE_VK_LAYER_GPUOpen_GRS", // GH-104154.
	"DISABLE_LAYER", // GH-104154 (fpsmon).
	"DISABLE_MANGOHUD", // GH-57403.
	"DISABLE_VKBASALT",
	};

[KnightNine]

Not sure why it should be Godot's responsibility to add warnings for all third-party tuning tools in existence that are well known for being hardware stability hazards.

The list of unstable tinker software apps is endless and is very much a user responsibility to be self-educated on all the issues those software tools cause before even using them.

Because people who don't know that they're hardware stability hazards may blame Godot for crashing randomly and post the Nth "Godot is crashing randomly" bug report. It could be a generic statement about third-party tuning tools, not all of them need to be listed.

[smix8]

Because people who don't know that they're hardware stability hazards may blame Godot for crashing randomly and post the Nth "Godot is crashing randomly" bug report.

Come on, it is 2025, the world has internet, people can find that info in less time than the tool download if they care to search for any info at all. RivaTuner is a well known process injector that fills the entire internet search engines with issue pages, it is basically the poster child and encyclopedia entry for unstable.

[AThousandShips]

In my experience most users who make those kinds of reports don't read the documentation or search the forums etc. anyway so I don't think this will help for those cases

[akien-mga]

Can you check and share the JSON for the RTSS Vulkan implicit layer? Should be listed in the registry in Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Khronos\Vulkan\ImplicitLayers or similar.

4.4.2.rc

Which commit exactly? The actual HEAD commit of the 4.2 branch explicitly tries to address this: 46f1627

[KnightNine]

@akien-mga

I already uninstalled RTSS. hold up I'll install it again.

Not sure which exact commit i downloaded, but I downloaded it on 10-06.

I can confirm that main.cpp has this code in it:

#ifdef TOOLS_ENABLED
	if (!project_manager && !editor) {
		// If we didn't find a project, we fall back to the project manager.
		project_manager = !found_project && !cmdline_tool;
	}

	{
		// Synced with https://github.com/baldurk/renderdoc/blob/2b01465c7/renderdoc/driver/vulkan/vk_layer.cpp#L118-L165
		LocalVector<String> layers_to_disable = {
			"DISABLE_RTSS_LAYER", // GH-57937.
			"DISABLE_VULKAN_OBS_CAPTURE", // GH-103800.
			"DISABLE_VULKAN_OW_OBS_CAPTURE", // GH-104154.
			"DISABLE_SAMPLE_LAYER", // GH-104154.
			"DISABLE_GAMEPP_LAYER", // GH-104154.
			"DISABLE_VK_LAYER_TENCENT_wegame_cross_overlay_1", // GH-104154.
			// "NODEVICE_SELECT", // Kept as it's useful - GH-104592.
			"VK_LAYER_bandicam_helper_DEBUG_1", // GH-101480.
			"DISABLE_VK_LAYER_bandicam_helper_1", // GH-101480.
			"DISABLE_VK_LAYER_reshade_1", // GH-70849.
			"DISABLE_VK_LAYER_GPUOpen_GRS", // GH-104154.
			"DISABLE_LAYER", // GH-104154 (fpsmon).
			"DISABLE_MANGOHUD", // GH-57403.
			"DISABLE_VKBASALT",
		};

[KnightNine]

@akien-mga
Here is the RTSSVkLayer64.json:

{
  "file_format_version" : "1.0.0",
  "layer" : {
    "name": "VK_LAYER_RTSS",
    "type": "GLOBAL",
    "library_path": ".\\RTSSVkLayer64.dll",
    "api_version": "1.3.224",
    "implementation_version": "1",
    "description": "RTSS overlay hook bootstrap",
    "functions": {
      "vkGetInstanceProcAddr": "RTSSVkLayer_GetInstanceProcAddr",
      "vkGetDeviceProcAddr": "RTSSVkLayer_GetDeviceProcAddr"
    },
    "disable_environment": {
      "DISABLE_RTSS_LAYER": "1"
    }
  }
}

[KnightNine]

Come on, it is 2025, the world has internet, people can find that info in less time than the tool download if they care to search for any info at all. RivaTuner is a well known process injector that fills the entire internet search engines with issue pages, it is basically the poster child and encyclopedia entry for unstable.

The youtube installation tutorial didn't inform me that was the case, and I would've gone on never knowing that this was the case until an issue such as this brought it to my attention. I only found out since I knew Godot was working on my system before and could retrace my steps; I'm not sure how long i would be searching for a fix if that wasn't the case, and I had to take shots in the dark trying to figure out what was causing "MEMORY_CORRUPTION_LARGE_c0000005_memory_corruption!D3D12Core.dll". Maybe not that long but maybe longer.