Game Crashes During First Startup (Shader Download) & Then Every 10-15 Minutes

[Annathar de Carcharoth]

Integrity​

I have verified my game files (on Steam)​

Yes

I have disabled all mods​

Yes

Required​

Summary​

Game Crashes During First Startup (Shader Download) & Then Every 10-15 Minutes

Description​

I am experiencing consistent crashes in Victoria 3, which occur under two specific conditions:

During the first startup, while downloading shaders – The game crashes without generating an error log.
During gameplay, approximately every 10-15 minutes – The game forcefully closes, and this time, a crash report is generated.
I have performed extensive troubleshooting (detailed below), but the issue persists. I suspect that the initial crash may be causing corrupted shader or configuration files, which then lead to repeated crashes during gameplay.
I have ruled out hardware-related issues, as I experience no crashes in other demanding games. The problem seems to be specific to Victoria 3’s shader compilation, cache generation, or script execution.

Steps to reproduce​

Fresh install of Victoria 3 on Steam.
Launch the game for the first time.
The game starts downloading shaders, but crashes before it completes. No error logs are saved.
Relaunching the game multiple times eventually allows it to complete the shader download and reach the main menu.
Start a new game and play normally.
After approximately 10-15 minutes, the game crashes again, this time generating a crash report.
This cycle continues – the game crashes every 10-15 minutes consistently.

Game Version​

1.8.6

OS​

Windows

Additional​

Bug Type​

Crash to Desktop

Save Game​

View attachment autosave_4.v3

Attachments​

View attachment error.logView attachment error2.logView attachment debug.log

Player Pain​

10

 

[Werlenorth]

I have exactly the same problem. After loading and calculating shaders for a long time, the game simply crashes to the desktop. It is noteworthy that the game crashes Steam and other applications along with itself, sometimes I find myself with a black screen because the desktop application crashed.
The error logs say that there is not enough video memory, but my system works great with other games that are more demanding of video memory.
I've tried updating the drivers and increasing the amount of video memory, but nothing helps.

I conclude that the problem is on the side of the game and I am far from the only person who is facing this. Unfortunately, the developers ignore this and other bug reports.

 

[PDX_Sosanna]

Moving to Tech Support. QA department usually can't help much with hardware issues. In case of corrupted shader cache, you could try deleting it from Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria 3/shadercache, but if it's going to crash again while compiling shaders we'll need your DxDiag log file and the crash folders from Documents/Paradox Interactive/Victoria 3/crashes.

@Werlenorth If your logs mention that you are running out of video memory, then your crash is not the same as the OPs. Creating a separate thread and providing the files needed to troubleshoot the issue is always the recommended option.

 

[AndrewT]

Integrity​

I have verified my game files (on Steam)​

Yes

I have disabled all mods​

Yes

Required​

Summary​

Game Crashes During First Startup (Shader Download) & Then Every 10-15 Minutes

Description​

I am experiencing consistent crashes in Victoria 3, which occur under two specific conditions:

During the first startup, while downloading shaders – The game crashes without generating an error log.
During gameplay, approximately every 10-15 minutes – The game forcefully closes, and this time, a crash report is generated.
I have performed extensive troubleshooting (detailed below), but the issue persists. I suspect that the initial crash may be causing corrupted shader or configuration files, which then lead to repeated crashes during gameplay.
I have ruled out hardware-related issues, as I experience no crashes in other demanding games. The problem seems to be specific to Victoria 3’s shader compilation, cache generation, or script execution.

Steps to reproduce​

Fresh install of Victoria 3 on Steam.
Launch the game for the first time.
The game starts downloading shaders, but crashes before it completes. No error logs are saved.
Relaunching the game multiple times eventually allows it to complete the shader download and reach the main menu.
Start a new game and play normally.
After approximately 10-15 minutes, the game crashes again, this time generating a crash report.
This cycle continues – the game crashes every 10-15 minutes consistently.

Game Version​

1.8.6

OS​

Windows

Additional​

Bug Type​

Crash to Desktop

Save Game​

View attachment 1257344

Attachments​

View attachment 1257345View attachment 1257346View attachment 1257405

Player Pain​

10

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.
IF dxdiag.txt fails to attach here, rename it to dxdiag.log , or zip it up.

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