Overlays are the single most common cause of crashes in CONTROL Resonant — not your graphics card, not your drivers, and not the game itself. Steam, Discord, Nvidia GeForce Experience, AMD Software, Xbox Game Bar, MSI Afterburner, RivaTuner, and any tool that paints a UI over your game: all of them hook into the rendering pipeline. CONTROL Resonant’s engine does not tolerate that hook gracefully. The result is the “out of video memory” error, DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG, crashes to desktop, and black screens.
The fix is simple: disable every overlay. You do not need to uninstall anything. This guide covers exactly what to turn off, where to find it, and why a clean launch environment matters more than any convenience an overlay provides.
One session's worth of lost progress outweighs the few seconds it takes to alt-tab.
Why Overlays Trigger Crashes
Overlays work by injecting themselves into the DirectX or Vulkan render loop. They intercept present calls to display their own data — chat, frame rates, friend lists. That injection is fine with most AAA titles, but CONTROL Resonant uses a sensitive rendering setup that can stall when another process tries to share the pipeline.
The source material across multiple troubleshooting guides is consistent: “These applications generally hook into the rendering process and conflict with an update or anti-cheat component.” The result can be a GPU timeout, a VRAM allocation failure, or a complete driver reset. In community reports, the “out of video memory” error appears most frequently when an overlay is active during the game’s initial asset loading phase.
There are at least eight distinct overlay applications known to cause these conflicts. Disabling all of them removes the most common variable that separates a stable session from a crash loop.
The Eight Overlays and How to Kill Them
Steam Overlay
Open Steam. Go to Library, right-click Control Resonant, select Properties. Under the General tab, uncheck Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game. Close the window. That is it. The game will still launch through Steam; the overlay just will not load.
Discord Overlay
Open Discord. Click the gear icon (User Settings) at the bottom left. Navigate to Game Overlay. Toggle Enable in-game overlay to off. Also check the Activity Privacy tab under Activity Status — having Discord broadcast what you are playing can sometimes trigger a hook even if the visual overlay is off. For safety, disable that too.
Nvidia GeForce Experience / Nvidia App Overlay
If you use the old GeForce Experience: open it, click the gear icon, scroll to Overlays, and toggle In-Game Overlay off. If you use the newer Nvidia App: open it, go to Settings, find the Overlay section, and disable it. Leave the driver itself installed — just stop the overlay service.
AMD Software Overlay (Adrenalin)
Open AMD Software. Click the gear icon (Settings), then the Overlay tab. Toggle Overlay Off. Restart the PC to ensure the hook is fully cleared from memory.
Xbox Game Bar
Press Windows + I to open Settings. Go to Gaming > Game Bar. Turn off Game Bar. Then under Captures, turn off Record in the background while I’m playing a game. The Game Bar hook is surprisingly aggressive for a built-in tool.
MSI Afterburner and RivaTuner Statistics Server
These two are often installed together. Close both applications completely. If RivaTuner loads at startup, open Task Manager, go to Startup, and disable it. The on-screen display hook remains active even when the window is minimized — full exit is required.
Performance Monitoring Overlays (FPS monitors, CPU temp tools)
Any tool that draws frame rates or hardware stats over the game — including HWMonitor overlay, Fraps, and OBS preview — falls into the same category. Close them. If you need performance data, use the game’s built-in benchmark mode or a second monitor.
Other Game Capture and Streaming Overlays
OBS Studio, Twitch Studio, and ReLive all can inject an overlay. OBS users should run the game in fullscreen exclusive mode (if supported) and disable the preview window during play. For OBS, go to Advanced Audio Properties and uncheck any global hotkeys that might hook into the game window.
The Strongest Counterargument: “But I Need Overlays”
The most common pushback is that overlays serve a real purpose — screenshots, Discord chat, live frame rate monitoring, or streaming controls. Those are valid conveniences. They are not essential. You can take a screenshot with Print Screen and paste into Paint. You can switch to Discord on a second monitor or phone. For performance data, task manager tells you CPU/GPU usage in a pinch.
The trade-off is stability versus a minor workflow change. CONTROL Resonant crashes repeatedly with overlays active. One session’s worth of lost progress outweighs the few seconds it takes to alt-tab. And if you stream, you should capture the game window with a hardware encoder that does not inject an overlay — OBS in game capture mode runs fine without its own overlay enabled. The real convenience is a game that actually launches and stays running.
Step-by-Step: Verify a Clean Launch
- Disable every overlay listed above.
- Restart your PC to clear any lingering hooks.
- Launch CONTROL Resonant directly from Steam — not from an overlay shortcut.
- Play for at least 10 minutes. If no crash occurs, re-enable overlays one at a time, testing each with a session. This isolates the culprit.
If the game still crashes after disabling all overlays, the problem is elsewhere (drivers, virtual memory, mods). But for nine out of ten crash reports, overlays are the root.
Beyond Overlays: The Same Principle Applies
The hooking mechanism that overlays use is not unique to games. Any system-level tool that injects into the rendering pipeline — RGB control suites, macro programs, virtual joystick emulators, even some antivirus modules — can cause the same crash pattern. After overlays, check for software like Razer Synapse, Logitech G Hub, or Corsair iCUE. Disable their hardware-accelerated overlays specifically. The principle holds: CONTROL Resonant expects an uninterrupted GPU output, and anything that touches that output without permission can and will break it.
- Why do overlays cause crashes in CONTROL Resonant?Overlays inject themselves into the rendering pipeline, and CONTROL Resonant's engine does not tolerate that injection, leading to crashes like 'out of video memory' errors.
- How to disable the Steam overlay for CONTROL Resonant?Right-click the game in Steam Library, select Properties, and uncheck 'Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game'.
- What to do if disabling all overlays doesn't fix the crash?The problem may be elsewhere, such as drivers, virtual memory, or mods. Check for other system-level tools like RGB control suites.
- Which overlays are known to cause conflicts?At least eight overlays are known: Steam, Discord, Nvidia GeForce Experience, Nvidia App, AMD Software, Xbox Game Bar, MSI Afterburner, and RivaTuner.
- What is the 'out of video memory' error?It is a crash error that occurs most frequently when an overlay is active during the game's initial asset loading phase.
