Constant crashing after returning to play the new DLC

[SupremeTerrific]

Problem Summary: After 3-5 minutes of gameplay, Victoria 3 spontaneously crashes. It doesn't freeze or hang—just instant crash.
Steps to Reproduce: None. There isn't just one thing that causes the issue. It even crashes at the country select screen while alt-tabbed.

I have taken the following steps to troubleshoot:

• Verified file integrity in Steam
• Monitored heat levels during play—all within norms
• Rolled back graphics drivers
• Updated graphics drivers
• Used Vulkan renderer—resulted in a crash before even loading to menu
• Reinstalled the game

I'm not really sure what to do next. I don't believe I'm experiencing the 24H2 problem, as neither my game nor my PC hangs or freezes, nor does it occur at game launch. My operating system is working fine throughout the crashing. There's no lag or issue with the system. The game crash is instant and the crash reporter is immediately waiting upon game exit.

 

[AndrewT]

Interesting that you see the game crash reporter come up, yet there is no crash in victoria3.exe recorded in that dxdiag!

What we do see is this:

Fault bucket LKD_0x141_Tdr:C_IMAGE_nvlddmkm.sys_Ada, type 0
Event Name: LiveKernelEvent

So let's do a clean update and reinstall of Nvidia - a new driver came out today:

- uninstall it with this tool https://developer.nvidia.com/cleanup-tool
- reboot
- update that Nvidia driver to July 2025 https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
- reboot again
- If GeForce Experience or the Nvidia app are running after doing that, exit them before starting the game.

If you still get this crash, a new dxdiag.txt please, plus:
Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/pdx_settings.json .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/crashes/ folder, attach here the latest (only!) exceptions.txt

Good luck!

 

[SupremeTerrific]

Interesting that you see the game crash reporter come up, yet there is no crash in victoria3.exe recorded in that dxdiag!

What we do see is this:

So let's do a clean update and reinstall of Nvidia - a new driver came out today:

- uninstall it with this tool
- reboot
- update that Nvidia driver to July 2025
- reboot again
- If GeForce Experience or the Nvidia app are running after doing that, exit them before starting the game.

If you still get this crash, a new dxdiag.txt please, plus:
Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/pdx_settings.json .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria3/crashes/ folder, attach here the latest (only!) exceptions.txt

Good luck!

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly! I got to testing again this morning and I fear I'm still crashing after doing all of this. Performance, heat, etc. are still all fine. I'm not experiencing problems in any other game titles. I've attached the files you requested. I hope they're helpful in narrowing down the issue.

 

[AndrewT]

Now we see another one of those, AND this one!

Fault bucket WRONG_SYMBOLS_X64_10.0.26100.4520.amd64fre.ge_release.240331-1435_TIMESTAMP_110907-101918, type 0
Event Name: LiveKernelEvent

amd64fre also seems to be part of the Nvidia suite. You mention not having a heat issue, but what actual temps are you seeing in CPU and GPU when you load the game? Anything up to or over 80c?

I see you are running at a very high refresh rate 240hz. Try this:
Right click on victoria3.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.
Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode, Vsync off, cap refresh rate at 60.

If that doesn't help, this may be another variation on the Windows 11 24H2 issue.

 

[SupremeTerrific]

Now we see another one of those, AND this one!

amd64fre also seems to be part of the Nvidia suite. You mention not having a heat issue, but what actual temps are you seeing in CPU and GPU when you load the game? Anything up to or over 80c?

I see you are running at a very high refresh rate 240hz. Try this:
Right click on victoria3.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable fullScreen optimisations" untick every other box in that dialog, Apply and exit.
Then in the launcher Game Settings menu, select fullScreen display mode, Vsync off, cap refresh rate at 60.

If that doesn't help, this may be another variation on the Windows 11 24H2 issue.

I thought this might've fixed it, but it appears not to have. I did everything you suggested, plus I went ahead with the registry edit from the 24H2 issue. I had a good 20 minutes of play earlier, after implementing your suggestions. Now it barely survives 30 seconds without crashing. There must be a variable I'm missing here that's provoking the crashes, but IDK what it is.

As for temperatures, the CPU is stable at 60°C or below. GPU averages 74°C, but occasionally rises to 77°C. In my experience, this is pretty normal for this card and doesn't provoke crashes in other games.

I'm attaching a few exception files, plus the logs you requested before. I noticed the exceptions are all different, thus the reason I've attached them.

 

[AndrewT]

Reducing the refresh rate to 60 should have reduced the GPU temperature markedly! Are you still seeing temps up near 80c when run like that? Do confirm that your fps does not exceed 60 now.


As to the Windows 11 24H2 possibility, A user has come up with another possible workaround
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...s-the-problem-with-computer-freezing.1774335/
Definitely worth a shot - let me know if that does help you! Note that to test it you don't actually need to use Processor Lasso, just Affinity in Task Manager (for testing purposes anyway).

And finally, in the game settings menu switch the renderer to Vulkan.

 

[SupremeTerrific]

Reducing the refresh rate to 60 should have reduced the GPU temperature markedly! Are you still seeing temps up near 80c when run like that? Do confirm that your fps does not exceed 60 now.

And finally, in the game settings menu switch the renderer to Vulkan.

I'm not sure which one worked, but something did. Maybe changing the refresh rate in the launcher didn't actually cap the framerate. Maybe changing to the Vulkan renderer in-game instead of in the Steam launch properties did it. I'm not sure.

Either way, I've now set the game to the Vulkan renderer and capped the frames in the game menu to 60. One of these appears to have fixed the issue. I just had a nice, long two hour play session with no crashes or performance issues. Thank you so much for your help!