How does TDR work?
Timeout Detection and Recovery
Windows Vista and later operating systems attempt to detect situations in which computers appear to be completely "frozen". They then attempt to dynamically recover from the frozen situations so that their desktops are responsive again. This process of detection and recovery is known as timeout detection and recovery (TDR). In the TDR process, the operating system's GPU scheduler calls the display miniport driver's DxgkDdiResetFromTimeout function to reinitialize the driver and reset the GPU. Therefore, end users are not required to reboot the operating system, which greatly enhances their experience. The only visible artifact from the hang detection to the recovery is a screen flicker. This screen flicker results when the operating system resets some portions of the graphics stack, which causes a screen redraw. Some legacy DirectX applications (for example, those DirectX applications that conform to DirectX versions earlier than 9.0) might render to a black screen at the end of this recovery. The end user would have to restart these applications.
The following sequence briefly describes the TDR process:
1. Timeout detection
The GPU scheduler, which is part of the DirectX graphics kernel subsystem (Dxgkrnl.sys), detects that the GPU is taking more than the permitted amount of time to execute a particular task. The GPU scheduler then tries to preempt this particular task. The preempt operation has a "wait" timeout, which is the actual TDR timeout. This step is thus the timeout detection phase of the process. The default timeout period in Windows Vista and later operating systems is 2 seconds. If the GPU cannot complete or preempt the current task within the TDR timeout period, the operating system diagnoses that the GPU is frozen.
To prevent timeout detection from occurring, hardware vendors should ensure that graphics operations (that is, DMA buffer completion) take no more than 2 seconds in end-user scenarios such as productivity and game play.
2. Preparation for recovery:
The operating system's GPU scheduler calls the display miniport driver's DxgkDdiResetFromTimeout function to inform the driver that the operating system detected a timeout. The driver must then reinitialize itself and reset the GPU. In addition, the driver must stop accessing memory and should not access hardware. The operating system and the driver collect hardware and other state information that could be useful for post-mortem diagnosis.
3. Desktop recovery:
The operating system resets the appropriate state of the graphics stack. The video memory manager, which is also part of Dxgkrnl.sys, purges all allocations from video memory. The display miniport driver resets the GPU hardware state. The graphics stack takes the final actions and restores the desktop to the responsive state. As previously mentioned, some legacy DirectX applications might render just black at the end of this recovery, which requires the end user to restart these applications. Well-written DirectX 9Ex and DirectX 10 and later applications that handle Device Remove technology continue to work correctly. An application must release and then recreate its Direct3D device and all of the device's objects. For more information about how DirectX applications recover, see the Windows SDK.
Komt van het Nvidia forum.
Kort samengevat crasht de driver van nvidia en hersteld het zich automatisch zonder bluescreen of reboot. Maar het is verschrikkelijk vervelend...