Game randomly freezes anywhere between 1-30 minutes

[Indrasil]

I've started experiencing this in the 3.x.x patches, haven't played since 2.7.
For now, I'm running the latest version of the game,
It happens regardless of whether I have the latest Nvidia 511.65 February drivers or the 472.84 version from December 2021.
My specs are 3900X, 2080Ti, 32GB of DDR4 memory, and an M.2 1TB SSD, with good power balance and cooling capacity.
Screen resolution is 3440x1440p, and no mods installed or even subbed to.
In order to freeze the game, I don't need to do anything in particular, as it happens seemingly randomly.
I did the usual: reinstalled the game, verified file integrity, restarted my PC, updated drivers. Nothing works.
Here's the crash dump attached.

 

[AndrewT]

If this is the same machine you used to play on, Please do a full **clean** re-install:

- move any valued save games elsewhere, and user_empire_designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races.
- "uninstall" in Steam-Stellaris
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Stellaris AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris folders
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add stellaris.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.
- start the game with no mods active and test

In particular you need to make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam Stellaris or Documents Stellaris locations, before installing again.

If that doesn't help, right click on stellaris.exe , properties, compatibility. Tick "disable desktop optimisations", untick everything else in that page, Apply and exit. Then in the launcher-game settings menu choose fullScreen, Vsync off, refresh rate 60.


If still no goodXDIAG 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/Stellaris/settings.txt and pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log .

 

[Indrasil]

Thanks for a quick reply!
The first approach didn't help, so I moved on to the second one.

Ticking "disable fullscreen optimisations" caused an issue where I couldn't click anything in the game, so I ticked it off.
However, going fullscreen, disabling Vsync and setting FPS to 60 in the Launcher settings alleviated the problem.

Thanks a lot!
We can close the thread.

 

[Indrasil]

Okay, it started happening again, so I'm attaching the files you've requested.

 

[AndrewT]

Very odd that it was okay for a while then the problem resumed. That might indicate a problem form outside the game.

Ticking "disable fullscreen optimisations" caused an issue where I couldn't click anything in the game, so I ticked it off.

And THAT should definitely not have happened, that's a standard Windows setting. I fear there's something deeper wrong here.

You're getting a few Windows update errors in that dxdiag. If you run the Updater manually does it go okay? Find anything to apply?

And you may as well update that nVidia driver to Feb 2022:

Download The Latest Official NVIDIA Drivers

Download the latest official NVIDIA drivers to enhance your PC gaming experience and run apps faster.

www.nvidia.com