Update October 2024

Intel has released some possible fixes as Microcode and BIOS updates. Please make sure your BIOS is updated to the latest version. Please note that Intel's fix is a bandaid and doesn't address the root cause and your CPUs are likely already defective, You will need to send them back for a replacement / RMA.

Intel should be replacing or refunding your CPU without costing any money, if intel is trying to scam you please reach out we try help you to put some pressure on Intel to make sure they actually RMA your CPU and don't scam you.

Contact us

For Help getting a RMA please see this link: How to RMA an Intel CPU

Original Post

My team at Alderon Games, working on the multiplayer dinosaur survival game Path of Titans, has been encountering significant problems with Intel CPU stability. These issues, including crashes, instability, and memory corruption, are confined to the 13th and 14th generation processors. Despite all released microcode, BIOS, and firmware updates, the problem remains unresolved.

We have identified failures in five main areas:

• End Customers: Thousands of crashes on Intel CPUs on 13th and 14th Gen CPUs in our crash reporting tools.
• Official Dedicated Game Servers: Experiencing constant crashes, taking entire servers down.
• Development Team: Developers using these CPUs face frequent instability while building and working on the game. It can also cause SSD and memory corruption.
• Game Server Providers: Hosting community servers with persistent crashing issues.
• Benchmarking Tools: Decompression and memory tests unrelated to Path of Titans also fail.

Over the last 3–4 months, we have observed that CPUs initially working well deteriorate over time, eventually failing. The failure rate we have observed from our own testing is nearly 100%, indicating it's only a matter of time before affected CPUs fail. This issue is gaining attention from news outlets and has been noted by Fortnite and RAD Game Tools, which powers decompression behind Unreal Engine.

Users are also receiving misleading error messages about running out of video driver memory, despite having sufficient memory.

Actions We Are Taking

To prevent further harm to our game, we are implementing the following measures:

• Server Migration: We are swapping all our servers to AMD, which experience 100 times fewer crashes compared to Intel CPUs that were found to be defective.
• Hosting Recommendations: We advise anyone hosting Path of Titans servers or selling game servers to avoid purchasing or using 13th and 14th gen Intel CPUs.
• In-Game Notifications: We are adding a popup message in-game to inform users with these processors about the issue. Many users are currently unaware of why their game is crashing and what they can do about it.

Resources

• Frequent Crashes in Fortnite on i9-13900K/KF/KS or i9-14900K/KF/KS CPUs
• RAD Game Tools Intel CPU Issues
• PC Gamers are Switching to AMD Ryzen as Intel 13900K/14900K Chips Continue to Crash & Fail
• Intel CPUs Are Crashing and It's Intel's Fault: Intel Baseline Profile Benchmark

We look forward to more information becoming available about these problems.

For Intel's sake, we hope they recall these CPUs and refund consumers. This post isn't a endorsement of AMD CPUs or any other PC company. Keep in mind any product can have defects and issues, we just want to let you know where these crashes are coming from and what is going on.

By Matthew Cassells

Founder of Alderon Games