What is the Windows video driver Timeout Detection and Recovery delay (TdrDelay)?

Question

Aida64 sent me the following warning when opening the System Stability Test (window with all the graphs):

I want to know more about that TdrDelay, what is it? Also, should I accept Aida64's suggestion?

Answer 1

This is a documentation from Microsoft website:

Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR)

In Windows Vista and later, the operating system attempts to detect situations in which computers appear to be completely "frozen". The operating system then attempts to dynamically recover from the frozen situations so that 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.

Here is some more explanation:

TDR stands for Timeout Detection and Recovery. This is a feature of the Windows operating system which detects response problems from a graphics card, and recovers to a functional desktop by resetting the card. If the operating system does not receive a response from a graphics card within a certain amount of time (default is 2 seconds), the operating system resets the graphics card.

You can adjust the length of time before TDR kicks in and kills the driver. The default length is 2 seconds, but if you know that you need more time that can be increased. Basically thats delaying the TDR

Tweaking the value

Click Start, type regedit in the Search box, and then double-click regedit.exe from the results above. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Browse to and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers

On the Edit menu, click New, and then select the following registry value from the drop-down menu specific to your version of Windows (32 bit, or 64 bit):

For 32 bit Windows Select DWORD (32-bit) value. Type TdrDelay as the Name and click Enter. Double-click TdrDelay and add 8 for the Value data and click OK.

For 64 bit Windows

Select QWORD (64-bit) value. Type TdrDelay as the Name and click Enter. Double-click TdrDelay and add 8 for the Value data and click OK. Close the registry editor and then restart your computer for the changes to take affect.

NB: I used value of 8, but you can always customise it. But in your case I notice you already have a tool to do that automatically for you.

More reading: Working around TDR in Windows for a better GPU computing experience