So, this seems to be something that hasn’t just happened to me. This does NOT happen to any other game and I run the game at fairly good FPS all the time, suddenly this started happening as of past week, crashes have been happening, suddenly the FPS goes low and -crash- (these crashes may freeze my whole PC for a good while till it restores itself) - Also yes I have seen the pinned Thread about this issue.
What I have tried/done:
- Checked for any Windows Update and did them.
- Updated Graphics Driver (Now current version is: 436.48).
- I went to NVIDIA Control Panel and set the following: ‘Power management mode’ to Prefer maximum performance ; ‘Threaded optimization’ to On ; ‘Triple buffering’ to Off ; ‘Vertical sync’ to Off. (all this for Overwatch).
- Repaired Overwatch game files.
- Reset Overwatch Video Settings and Restarted game (I did put my previous Settings back).
- I created a game shortcut and put it on the Desktop so I don’t load Overwatch through the Launcher.
- Enabled and Disabled Superfetch (On and Off problem still occurred, by default it was ON and now I have disabled it for now since it seems to help on other games).
- My GPU is not Overclocked and I checked.
- I checked and rechecked if my GPU is overheating, it never goes above 70C and I even set it up so if it ever reaches 71 the fans will go to 100%.
- I used System File Checker (DISM and then sfc scannow) till both finished.
- Discord Overlay is not enabled.
- Only things I normally run in the background could be Discord (Hardware Acceleration is off) and some Twitch Stream.
- Power Plan is set to “High performance”.
- Checked Startup Applications and disabled anything that I do not need.
- Virtual Memory is set like so: Initial Size (MB) to 16384 and Maximum size (MB) to 24576. (This has been like this for a goood while)
- Xbox DVR is disabled.
- Deleted the Battle net cache.
Oh and here’s my Specs:
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CPU: Intel Core i7 4770k (With the Cryorig H7 - CPU Cooler)
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GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti
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RAM: 16GB DDR3
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Motherboard: MSI Z87-G45 GAMING (MS-7821)
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Storage: 1TB Western Digital WDC (SATA)
Can I do… anything at all to fix this? Any suggestions or anyone that has fixed this issue after trying everything I did?
Heya, thanks for this breakdown. Can you try reducing the render scaling in the game? Head to Options > Advanced > Lower Render Scale to 100%. That might do the trick.
Also you can try disabling fullscreen optimization. To do that, navigate to overwatch.exe, right click and select Properties and then Compatibility. There you can check “Disable fullscreen optimization”.
On a software side of things, check if you have Razer Chroma enabled and if you do, try to uninstall it and check the game then.
If that doesn’t help, we would need your system files. Here you can find out how to get them and you can use pastebin to attach them to your reply.
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Hello,
Thank you for the fast reply!
I already by default have the Render Scale set to 100% but since you wrote “Lower” I’ll assume you meant to lower it to 75% (I do not wish to play with it lowered but for the sake of this I’ll do it to see if it does anything 
)
I didn’t remember about disabling fullscreen optimization, I now have it disabled.
I do have Razer Peripherals but I do not have Chroma, even so, I have checked if I have the Software and I do not. (I do have Razer Synapse Installed and I have now updated it in case it had anything to do with it)
I’ll leave a reply update after I test Overwatch for a while, I’ll keep my eyes open on this thread though.
Edit. 15 Arcade games in (I can’t leave a reply cause it says to let others participate too), didn’t crash yet! But problem does seem to come and go randomly(at times it might do it multiple times in a row) soo I might need to keep trying the next day and see if it happens (Maybe it may do it upon System Restart) or I can try switching to 100% Render Scale and see if it occurs? (Oh also I’ve noticed that my GPU Temp is always 50-65C and never goes above that which is neat)
Well when it happened to me it was my mouse driver from Logitech. After i deleted it and reinstalled it worked perfectly again.
I just now had the issue happen, at first it had some lag all the sudden on hero selection (I have been playing for a while without any problems really) and my Discord audio went out/mute, it would still detect my Microphone and others would light up after the lag stopped, I had to restart Discord itself BUT after a bit the game fully froze with PC too, and after a few minutes it restarted itself.
I will now attach my MSInfo and DxDiag:
DxDiag - https://pastebin.com/fuNsHhsc
MSInfo - https://pastebin.com/3SRTGs7c
Original Topic - "Rendering device has been lost." - GTX 660 ti
I did a topic for this but I cannot reply to it anymore since I haven’t received any reply on it from the Customer Support that was supposedly dealing with it, so here I am creating another Topic (apologies for that) since it seems I got ignored on my original…
Continuation:
Since I didn’t get any reply on my issues I reset my PC (Windows Reset) meaning windows was reinstalled and updated.
This seemed to have solved the issue for quite a while till I had the crash and today I had another one and here I am again on the forums with the attempt to fix whatever this is, the crash was: Game does freezes for 1 second, whole PC Freezes but audio keeps playing, the audio in game is like I am standing still and I hear ambient sound, I do not hear players going around and combat, my Discord Voice audio is working and people could hear me and I could hear them, discord did crash by itself and restart and put me back into the call apparently and I could still hear them and they could hear me, but the PC is completely frozen and I had to force reboot.
Overwatch was ‘recently’ installed and had no issues really till suddenly it happened 2 times in 2 different occasions, here’s my updated DxDiag & MSInfo right after I force rebooted:
DxDiag - https://pastebin.com/BpbzrXut
MSInfo - https://pastebin.com/u3FD4wLm
- Discord Overlay is disabled
- Fullscreen optimizations is off
- Game DVR & Game bar are disabled
- I have 500gb+ Free Space
- Graphics Driver was updated
- I’ve reset ingame settings and put everything to what I wanted again
- I’ve made a shortcut outside of the games folder so I do not need to run it through the launcher
- Everything is set to lowest
- GPU Temps is not a problem, I never go above 65c
Hello LazP,
I’m sorry to see the problem persists. Please first try to do the following and make a test afterward:
- Remove completely Avast Antivirus you may need to use the removal tool you get from the Avast webpage
- Seems you may have a Tablet attached please keep it disconnected as that may also cause crash issues with Overwatch
- If you have any Overclocked component please bring it back to the factory clock rate
- Disable or completely uninstall Razer Synapse which is also known to cause crashes with our games
Also you mentioned the fact that the problem was sorted initially, see if you can remember what you did the first time and if you changed anything back to what it was before, so you may narrow down the possible cause.
If the problem persists please reply here and provide a new MsInfo, generated after all the steps/tests above, always via Pastebin.
Also provide the Overwatch Error log:
- Open your Documents folder. This folder is typically accessed in the Start menu.
- Open the Overwatch folder.
- Open the Logs folder.
- Open the Errors folder.
- Find the latest Overwatch.txt file. This is your error report. Upload a copy of it on Pastebin as usual
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Hello,
I have not removed Avast due to not knowing what to replace it and other reasons… but:
- I have now disabled Razer Synapse.
- The tablet attached is disconnected and will stay that way + the program driver that was always running is not running now.
- Nothing on my System seems to be overclocked.
So far I did a few games and I had no issues, but this problem for me seems to be a random occurrence now, compared to before, which was more regular.
I do not have an “Errors” folder where you indicated, but, I do have a .logs on the “Logs” Folder:
https://pastebin.com/Sg68jESU
Edit:. 21h after, something happened, editing post to update info
Well, I’ve been playing here and there without problems BUT today I was in the middle of a competitive game, my PC did a freeze for half a second and it automatically rebooted itself, when the Windows Logo showed up it stayed stuck there for a good while and I was forced to make it restart again, which did load up windows but… only my second monitor was running(all icons from desktop went to second monitor too), everything was grey colored and big icons, the resolution went down a lot, pictures for reference:
https://imgur.com/a/OJ3eEUY
I did a “Shutdown” through Windows once after this, same issue, I was thinking the worse was gonna happen which would be I wouldn’t be able to run my PC normally… anymore… fortunately after I did a “Restart” through windows it loaded all up normally. Now I am here posting about it and I will provide everything once more just in case.
.Logs from Overwatch: (only these showed up)
[10208] [ERR] [bnl] [External(0)] [External()] [2020-02-13T15:06:12.364Z]: PathOps: [20200213T15:06:12] {2724} ERR: .. is the leading path component: /../.build.info
[10208] [ERR] [bnl] [External(0)] [External()] [2020-02-13T15:06:12.364Z]: PathOps: [20200213T15:06:12] {2724} ERR: path normalization failed: /../.build.info
MSInfo - https://pastebin.com/dCBQsBQG
DxDiag - https://pastebin.com/TM6AJzuM
Thanks for the logs and the details included with your reply - this is highly appreciated.
I reviewed them, alongside all crash reports Overwatch was able to upload from your computer over the past few months - and I am sorry to say that this is unfortunately not looking great.
To give a bit of context on this: a “lost rendering device” basically means the video card (or its driver) stopped responding to the operating system and Windows had to re-initialize the card to prevent a full systemic crash. By and large this works pretty reliably, and the computer usually will quickly recover from this, but unless the underlying cause for the device to go unresponsive is resolved things will generally not get better but keep on deteriorating with new (seemingly random) troubles cropping up all over the place, very much like the progression of trouble you’ve been describing from your original post onwards.
With that information in mind: from the data included in the crash-logs it appears the reason for the video card to cease its function was that it suffered from insufficient voltage supply, which indicates that either the power supply unit (PSU) or the motherboard may have trouble (since the card draws power from both components). Voltage issues are of course extremely hard to locate/confirm as it can be excessively tricky to reproduce them thanks to their somewhat random nature - but it would not be unheard of for a PSU to degrade in reliability over time, especially if it may not have been a super-high-end component initially.
If you have the option and don’t mind getting your hands dirty you may want to try using a different PSU (maye you could borrow one from a friend) and see if that improves matters for you - if it does not, or replacing the PSU is not feasible, it’d be time for a local technician to take a look.
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Thank you for the answer, I’ve had a problem before where when this issue happened I unplugged the power cord (from the PSU) cause I had intentions of cleaning up the PC, but before I opened it up to clean, I plugged it back just cause and the PC refused to turn on, lights were not turning on(GPU Lights and so on) and one time just waiting for a long time and unplugging/plugging back in, turning it on and off on the PSU Switch suddenly made things show light and it turned on normally, at this point I started thinking my PSU may be getting faulty…
I have been told maybe a BIOS update ‘could’ do something even tho it’s risky, probably shouldn’t consider it now.
The thing is… I’ve played heavier games, I did hours and hours of GTA which this problem only happened once on that game, I’ve ran a benchmarking program a few times and the FPS were low due to my GPU being bad for it but I counted that as stressing the GPU(also the benchmark did some things for the CPU too) but it didn’t turn off/crash/etc… the problem didn’t occur, I repeated the benchmark a few times too. (Guess this is what you mean by it being tricky to reproduce)
My PSU is: XFX PRO 650w Core Edition (Since 2013, if this info helps at all)
In the mean time I am unable to test with another PSU the way you suggested due to the lack of friends, I might very well send it to a Technician… one day, when I can afford the costs.
If any other information can be given I would totally appreciate it, or anything to add.
I’m just going to directly call the elephant in the room here: much as I’d like to say otherwise, it is unfortunately very unlikely that a BIOS update (as useful as those can often be) is going to fix this for you.
The PSU you listed is actually a fairly decent one but if it has been in use for 7 years - yeah, I could well imagine it slowly getting unstable. The symptoms you described would definitely fit the theory very well: a PSU has a number capacitors that (among other things) are used for the initial “jolt” of power involved in booting up a computer, so if these capacitors are no longer charging properly (or take much longer than they should) this would also be a rather common symptom of the device being on its way out. That does not mean that you will immediately see trouble everywhere, or that said trouble will always manifest in the same way - by some random stroke of luck game A may still run reasonably well while game B won’t even launch anymore, but this is unfortunately generally a slope that only leads downwards. Once the physical deterioration of a hardware component has begun it’ll almost never improve anymore, and the problems will eventually become more and more prominent.
Ultimately the only real test for this, outside basically disassembling the PSU and going to town with a voltmeter (which is a highly risky thing to do, and should very much be left to certified professionals), would be to replace the device and see if the problems suddenly disappear afterwards. There is unfortunately no real other way to diagnose this with any degree of certainty as this type of issue by its very nature would only happen now and then, so unless the test happens to be performed just as things go south the problem may otherwise often remain undetected.
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Hello,
What you said makes a lot of sense, I don’t think anything else needs to be added really, it seems to be hardware issues(which I will resolve one day + check on it) and that has nothing to do with the Game, I really appreciate the feedback and help- You guys are awesome.
I do have a few last questions but it’s more personal and there’s no need to answer but since we’re on the topic here I go:
- Is it fine(better or not) to think about upgrading my PC, as in, replace the PSU if faulty, replace the GPU and so on? or should I think about getting a whole new PC due to the age mine has and probably more beneficial but there’s the cost of course.
Cause I was thinking about upgrading it to future-proof it(+VirtualReality) even tho it aged well and all but I am afraid other parts will have problems too since it does have 7 years, what’s your opinion? (considering also I would only upgrade to parts that I know there’s compatibility)
For reference this is my current setup:
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CPU: Intel Core i7 4770k @ 3.50GHz (Boosts to 3.90GHz by itself)
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GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti
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Motherboard: Z87-G45 Gaming (MS-7821)
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HDD: 1TB Western Digital Blue (WD10EZEX-00KUWA0)
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RAM: G.Skill F3-12800CL9-4GBXL(4gb)(x2) DDR3 ; Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9(4gb)(x2) DDR3 - total of 16gb(1600Mhz due to XMP on Bios)
Hoo boy, those are some good questions right there, and as with almost anything tech-related - there is no single “true” answer to it. 
Generally speaking the “weakest link” principle does apply to computers - meaning each computers performance will only be as good as its weakest component ultimately allows for. As such doing incremental upgrades on relatively old hardware, even if the new components are rather high-end, can sometimes yield comparatively low performance gains if there is another “bottleneck” that keeps holding back the new device.
With that in mind: there are upgrades that could be done that would still have major impact on system performance. Replacing the PSU may be needed for sheer risk of it failing anyway, but beyond that replacing the video card with a more recent model and possibly adding an SSD harddrive or two (ideally a small one to just boot Windows from, and a bigger one for your favourite games) would definitely have a notable effect. Exchanging the RAM may also be worth a thought - the board can handle up to 32GB of 3000mhz DDR3 (versus the current 16GB at 1600mhz), and since DDR3 modules have somewhat fallen out of favor after DDR4 was released you may be able to get a good deal on those.
A few final thoughts: when it comes to VR games you’ll definitely want a more beefy video card, but your CPU (despite its age) is likely going to still hold up reasonably well (back when it was made it was one of the best around). If you do want to replace the CPU with a newer one - which in turn would need a different motherboard and different RAM - then going for a fully new setup is probably going to be the more sensible approach in the end.
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Thank you so much 
I hope you have a great day and thank you again for helping me out. In the mean time I am going to try to hold out with the system I currently have till some $$$ is available for decisions :3 (Probably will get a new System entirely, I did build this one myself and that helped with Costs so if there’s a new one I’ll do the same~)
same problem with gtx 650
I just bought the game 2 days ago, and I’m having this same rendering device lost error very frequently. I also have an older system with a 660TI. I’ve tried the recommendations in this thread, but it looks like either my issue is slightly different (I’m not getting any better results after making changes) or my situation is worse. I don’t play too many games on this machine anymore, most recent was the Witcher 3; it ran great.
Specs:
HD1 Samsung 840 PRO SSD (boot drive)
HD2 ST4000 - 1H4168 HDD (stores the game)
Graphics - GTX 660 TI (in use) and HD Graphics 4000 (not in use)
CPU - i7 3770k 8 Cores
Motherboard - AsRock Z77 Extreme4
PSU - Rosewill CAPSTONE-650 - 650-Watt Active PFC Power Supply - Continuous @ 122 Deg. F (50C), 80 PLUS Gold
RAM - 2 sticks of 8GB 1333
Logs:
[12012] [ERR] [bnl] [External(0)] [External()] [2021-07-15T00:05:37.210Z]: PathOps: [20210714T20:05:37] {c64} ERR: … is the leading path component: /…/.build.info
[12012] [ERR] [bnl] [External(0)] [External()] [2021-07-15T00:05:37.210Z]: PathOps: [20210714T20:05:37] {c64} ERR: path normalization failed: /…/.build.info