CTD when initialising game

[Randomblaofdoom]

summary
When launching via 'continue' on the launcher, loading a game from the main menu or starting a new game from the main menu the game crashes itself (and steam) straight to desktop. sometimes it will cleanly crash to desktop (without also crashing steam) when loading the main menu.

version
game: 1.2.7
launcher: 2023.5

mods
none enabled.

attempted remedies:
verification of game files
re-installing the launcher
re-installing the game
clean driver-install
installing latest x86 and x64 distributables
and of course the various reboots and run-as-admins that these processes require

Attatched files
several crash reports, which it writes on occasion (maybe about 5-10% of the time?).

 

[AndrewT]

Has this game ever worked on this machine? Or never yet?


From that error log the issue is in the video area somewhere (probably DirectX11), although your hardware is more than adequate for the game. Please try this:

- uninstall your nVidia driver and all other nVidia software
- reboot
- install April 2023 https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
- reboot again

THEN 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 those don't help:
DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.

Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Vic3/pdx_settings.json .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Vic3/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log , exceptions.log

 

[Randomblaofdoom]

Has this game ever worked on this machine? Or never yet?


From that error log the issue is in the video area somewhere (probably DirectX11), although your hardware is more than adequate for the game. Please try this:

- uninstall your nVidia driver and all other nVidia software
- reboot
- install April 2023 https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
- reboot again

THEN 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 those don't help:
DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.

Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Vic3/pdx_settings.json .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Vic3/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log , exceptions.log

This machine has run the game for about 100 hours total more or less since launch without major changes.

I tried the suggested method twice (wasn't sure whether I got the order of operations right the first time) and neither time yielded the hoped-for result. The game launcher is also oddly insistent that I cap the framrate at 165 and not 60, but checking in the main menu (which does at least seem to load consistently now) does confirm it can be set at 60, even if you have to tell the launcher every time. Games can still not be started or loaded without the game and steam crashing.

The requested files have been attatched, except for exceptions.log which is not in the specified logs folder. There is an exceptions folder one level up, but it is an empty folder.

 

[AndrewT]

The game launcher is also oddly insistent that I cap the framrate at 165 and not 60, but checking in the main menu (which does at least seem to load consistently now) does confirm it can be set at 60, even if you have to tell the launcher every time.

What actual frame rate are you getting in the game? I've just remembered a report that the cap did not work with this game, and they had to use an external utility to cap it at 60.


The end of that error log shows some save games with erroring mods. You do have ALL mods disabled while we work on this, is that right?


We still see one crash in an nVidia module in that dxdiag, with the exact same crash codes as the ones in Vic3 there. Not quite sure what to make of that, to be honest!


If you run Victoria3.exe directly from File Explorer does it still crash in this way? If so is any Windows error shown then?

 

[Randomblaofdoom]

What actual frame rate are you getting in the game? I've just remembered a report that the cap did not work with this game, and they had to use an external utility to cap it at 60.


The end of that error log shows some save games with erroring mods. You do have ALL mods disabled while we work on this, is that right?


We still see one crash in an nVidia module in that dxdiag, with the exact same crash codes as the ones in Vic3 there. Not quite sure what to make of that, to be honest!


If you run Victoria3.exe directly from File Explorer does it still crash in this way? If so is any Windows error shown then?

Actual framerate is hard to check at the moment, since it's stopped consistently loading into the main menu like it was previously (I don't know why, I've not changed anything since posting yesterday prior to the following). - But using the nvidia control panel to cap refresh rate and/or framerate at 60 (both with g-sync off and on) did not change things.

Same old save games have had mods enabled, but I've not run the game with mods enabled since 1.2 so this should not effect my ongoing saves, nor should it stop me from starting new saves (when I still could get into the main menu).

When run directly from File Explorer it still crashes to desktop, without error message.

 

[AndrewT]

I think then this is another case of a likely crash bug. I've sent a few users to Bug Reports on this, so I think it's time to send you there too. Sorry for that problem!