Known Issues & Crash Fixes

Four problems were reported against the demo build, and the demo could not receive retail fixes. Here is what each one looks like, why it happens, and the order to fix it in — plus the launch questions about DRM, offline play and pre-orders that nobody has answered plainly.

Read this before you act on anything below

These four issues were reported against the demo. That build went offline on 8 September 2026 and could not receive the retail optimisation, balancing or bug fixes, because the developer's own posts confirm the demo levels were a separate reconstruction. Which of these survive into the retail game is genuinely unknown, and nobody who tells you otherwise has played it either. Treat every entry here as a fix path for a symptom, not as a confirmed retail bug list.

The four reported issues

Crash during level load with FSR enabled
CriticalInference
Reported in: Demo build (patch 1.03); Nvidia hardware with FSR enabled
Symptom The game closes or hard-locks while a level is loading, specifically with AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution switched on rather than DLSS or native rendering.
Why it happens Upscalers hook the swapchain and the frame resource allocation. On a build that is still being optimised, the interaction between an upscaler's internal render resolution and the level-streaming allocation is the most common place for a modern renderer to fail hard, and it is the one failure mode that reproduces on specific vendor hardware but not others.
Fix path, in order
1. 01Switch the upscaler off entirely for one session, get into the level, then re-enable it. This isolates whether FSR is the trigger rather than merely present.
2. 02If you are on Nvidia hardware, use DLSS instead of FSR. An upscaler that matches your GPU vendor has a much shorter path to the driver.
3. 03Update the GPU driver to the current release rather than the version you installed last.
4. 04Verify the game files through Steam before trying anything more invasive. A partially written shader cache produces exactly this symptom.
5. 05If it still crashes, cap the frame rate and drop the render resolution one step. This reduces the allocation the loader is asking for at the moment it fails.
Loading hang or freeze
HighInference
Reported in: Demo build (patch 1.03)
Symptom The loading screen never advances. It may eventually recover, or it may sit indefinitely.
Why it happens Two different things look identical here. A genuine asset-streaming stall usually resolves; a stalled shader compilation does not. Knowing which one you have decides whether waiting is worth it.
Fix path, in order
1. 01Give it a full three minutes before you kill it. If it recovers, you have a streaming stall and the fix is storage speed, not settings.
2. 02If it never recovers, install to an SSD. The published requirement asks for 50 GB of space and this is a streaming renderer; a mechanical drive is a genuine cause rather than a superstition.
3. 03Disable overlays one at a time (Steam, Discord, vendor capture tools). Overlay hooks sit between the renderer and the compositor, which is exactly where a load stall manifests.
4. 04Delete the shader cache and let it rebuild. First launch after that will stutter, then settle.
5. 05Check that the game is not being scanned by real-time antivirus during load. Streaming 50 GB through a scanner is a real cause of hangs.
HDR interface display problems
MediumInference
Reported in: Demo build (patch 1.03)
Symptom Menus and HUD elements look washed out, over-bright or inconsistently toned with HDR enabled.
Why it happens UI layers are composited in a different colour space from the world render, so a mismatch between the game's HDR calibration and the display's own tone mapping shows up on flat UI elements first. Text and thin lines make tone-mapping errors visible in a way that 3D geometry hides.
Fix path, in order
1. 01Run the in-game HDR calibration again with HDR already enabled in Windows. Calibrating while Windows was in SDR is the single most common cause.
2. 02Try windowed or borderless instead of exclusive fullscreen, and vice versa. The swapchain colour space is set differently per mode.
3. 03If you are on a monitor with multiple HDR modes, set the display to its game or reference preset before launching.
4. 04As a last resort, play with HDR off. The game's art direction is high-contrast enough that SDR is not a significant loss, and this is the one issue on this page with no performance cost to giving up.
DirectX 12 error on launch or mid-session
CriticalInference
Reported in: Demo build (patch 1.03)
Symptom A D3D12 error dialog, often accompanied by a device-removed or device-hung message.
Why it happens A device-removed error means the GPU stopped responding to the driver, not that the game asked for something invalid. Almost always one of four causes: an unstable overclock, a driver crash, a feature-level mismatch, or an overlay interfering with the swapchain.
Fix path, in order
1. 01Remove any GPU overclock, including factory overclocks and memory XMP profiles, before anything else. Device-removed errors are the classic symptom of marginal memory stability.
2. 02Update the GPU driver, and do it as a clean install if the previous driver crashed.
3. 03Confirm your GPU supports DirectX 12 feature level 12_1. The published requirement is DirectX 12, but the feature level is the part that actually matters, and it is a hardware limit rather than a settings problem.
4. 04Disable overlays and capture software. Frame-capture hooks are a common trigger for device-removed errors.
5. 05If you are on a laptop with switchable graphics, force the game onto the discrete GPU in Windows graphics settings rather than letting the driver pick.

The launch questions nobody answers plainly

There are no pre-orders, and that is deliberate

Confirmed

The publisher answered the pre-order question directly: no pre-orders, no pre-purchase, no pre-order bonus. A consequence nobody has spelled out is that there is also no pre-order preload. You install it when it unlocks, which for a 50 GB download means the moment you can actually start playing depends on your connection rather than on a timer.

DRM, offline play and what is actually documented

Confirmed

Here is the honest position. The Steam store listing carries no third-party DRM notice in any of the sources we checked, and the developer's own news feed never mentions DRM, anti-tamper or anti-cheat. That is not the same as a confirmation that there is none: a store notice can be added or removed at any time, and publishers do not usually announce DRM in a development update.

Check it yourself Open the game's Steam store page, scroll to the right-hand information panel below the language list, and look for a line reading 'Third-Party DRM'. If it is absent, none was declared at the time you looked. That is the only authoritative check, and it takes ten seconds.

Common misconception: A launcher being present is not DRM. Steam itself is not third-party DRM. Neither tells you anything about whether the game will run offline.

Offline play and cloud saves

Reported

Steam lists single-player as the only player mode and the game supports Steam Cloud. Offline mode in Steam normally works for a single-player title once it has been launched online at least once, but a game that checks in on launch will not start without a connection. We cannot confirm which it is until launch day, and anyone claiming otherwise before then is guessing.

What it actually takes to run

The published requirements stop at memory, DirectX and storage, which tells you almost nothing. The only methodical across-resolution measurement of the demo we could find is below, and the number in it that matters most is not a frame rate.

Valor Mortis (Demo) on RTX 3080Ti - Another Optimized UE5 Title in 2026? | 4K, 1440p, 1080pThe only methodical across-resolution benchmark of the demo we could find, and the source of the real VRAM ceiling figure that no written coverage publishes.

RTX Gaming · published 2026-06-16 · verified through the YouTube oEmbed endpoint

Extraction note: These are demo-build measurements from one machine, taken before launch. Frame-generation figures in particular are the tester's own judgement calls rather than our measurements.

Demo performance measured on an RTX 3080 Ti with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D
Resolution	Upscaler	Measured	Read
4K	Native (DLAA)	Roughly 26–31 FPS	Not playable at this setting. The tester expected worse and was pleasantly surprised.
4K	DLSS Performance	Roughly 55–61 FPS	Borderline. Reaches 60 in lighter scenes.
4K	DLSS Ultra Performance	Roughly 65–72 FPS	Playable, and the tester judged the upscaled image crisp.
4K	FSR 3 + frame generation	Around 100 FPS	Rejected. Visible softening and noticeable input latency, which is the worst possible trade in a game with a tight parry window.
1440p	Native (DLAA)	Roughly 49–56 FPS	Close enough that quality-mode upscaling clears 60.
1440p	DLSS Quality	Roughly 70–77 FPS	The tester’s recommendation. He called quality mode all you need.
1080p	Native (DLAA)	Roughly 75–81 FPS	Max everything at 1080p.

Test machine: RTX 3080 Ti with 12 GB of VRAM, Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 64 GB of DDR5-6000, no overclocks, driver 610.47. Demo build, June 2026, before launch and before any day-one patch. Treat every number as an upper bound on uncertainty rather than a prediction.

Measured frame rate on one machine

These are demo-build measurements taken before launch on an RTX 3080 Ti, and they are a shape rather than a promise: they tell you that the upscaler is the only lever that matters here, that quality settings barely move anything, and that frame generation buys a number at the cost of the input latency the parry window depends on. The tester's own conclusion was that 1440p with DLSS on Quality is the setting to aim for.

Clears 60 — what the tester treated as playable
Below 60 — not viable for a tight parry window
Reference — 60 FPS, the tester’s stated floor
Rejected — high number, bad latency

The number that matters is VRAM, not frame rate

At 1440p on the highest quality settings the measurement sat around 10 GB of VRAM in use. That is the single most useful buying signal anyone has published about this game, and it is not on the store page. The published requirement asks for 16 GB of system memory and says nothing about how much video memory the renderer actually wants. On an 8 GB card you should expect to drop texture quality hard, and the frame rate at 1440p may not be the thing that stops you.

Specific CPU and GPU requirements you may have seen are not verified

Several videos and aggregator pages circulate a detailed minimum and recommended specification with named processors and graphics cards. We checked the Steam listing directly on 8 October 2026 and it lists memory, DirectX and storage only, with the minimum block still reading “TBD for final release” and no CPU or GPU line in either column. Either those figures come from somewhere we cannot see, or they are guesses. Do not budget a new graphics card against them. The VRAM figure above and the VRAM on your own card are a better decision than any list we have not been able to verify.

PC discipline that prevents most of this

01
Update the GPU driver before you troubleshoot anything else. Most launch-day crashes are a driver from three months ago.
02
Install to an SSD. This is a modern streaming renderer in a 50 GB install; a mechanical drive is a real cause of hangs, not a superstition.
03
Turn off every overlay for your first session. Add them back one at a time.
04
Verify game files after any crash that closes the process outright.
05
Remove overclocks, including memory profiles, if you see a device-removed error.
06
Do not judge performance in the first five minutes. Shader compilation is still running and every game of this shape stutters until it finishes.

If it still will not run

The last step is the boring one and it is the one that works: verify the game files, then start the game with every other application closed. Most reports of a game that “just will not start” end with an overlay, a capture tool or a background anti-cheat from a different game. If none of that helps, use the publisher's own support channel rather than a guide site. We have no access to their bug tracker, and anyone who claims to does not either.

Full PC requirements and platform support Settings, assists and dynamic FOV Offline play, DRM and co-op status

Troubleshooting questions

Why does Valor Mortis crash when a level loads?

The one crash reporters singled out in the demo happened with AMD FSR enabled on Nvidia hardware. Turn the upscaler off or switch to DLSS, update the GPU driver, and verify the game files before trying anything more invasive.

Does Valor Mortis have Denuvo?

No third-party DRM notice appeared on the Steam listing in any source we checked, and the developer never mentions DRM in its own posts. That is not a confirmation of absence, because store notices change. Scroll to the information panel on the store page and look for a Third-Party DRM line: that is the only authoritative check.

Why does the loading screen hang forever?

Two different failures look identical. A streaming stall recovers if you wait a few minutes; a stalled shader compilation does not. If it never recovers you are almost certainly on a mechanical drive, and installing to an SSD is the fix rather than a superstition.

Reported against the demo build by community documentation, cross-checked against the developer's own posts. When the retail game produces its own issue list, this page will replace the demo reports rather than stack on top of them. Official Steam feed