New computer - Game crashes whole system

[Culpeo]

Hi,

I've recently bought a new computer and am trying to get Crusader Kings III up and running, but no chance. Once I'm in the game, the whole system shuts down after 10 seconds to 2 minutes, when I'm just on the map clicking around on things. Yes, the system just turns off. :-(

That would normally hint at a problem with the system, but it's stress-tested and runs much more demanding games like Cyberpunk without problem. The temperature is not a problem. I'm running on Windows 11 23H2, so I should not be affected by the 24H2 problems either. I already tried:

- move any valued save games elsewhere
- "uninstall" in Steam-CK3
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Crusader Kings 3 AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Crusader Kings III/ folders - In particular make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam CK3 or Documents CK3 locations, before installing again.
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add CK3.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.

THEN Right click on ck3.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.

I also tried the recommended changes for 24H2, including the registry change - no improvement. Windows event logs don't show anything suspicious.
Drivers for CPU, GPU and BIOS are all up-to-date.
Running it on lowest graphic settings might help, but I haven't been able to test it properly yet.

I uploaded some files, but the system.log is empty and the exceptions.txt doesn't exist.... Any idea what's going on?

 

[AndrewT]

Update that Nvidia driver to May 2025 https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
If GeForce Experience or the Nvidia app are running after doing that, exit them before starting the game.

THEN Looks like you've disabled Vsync but not capped the refresh rate to 60 - please try doing that.

We also see a bunch of save game errors in that log - are they old ones from previous patches perhaps? Try moving them all out of the /save games/ folder while we work on this.

 

[Culpeo]

Thanks for your help, AndrewT. Good news, I have followed your advice and had two 10 minute sessions where I couldn't reproduce the error anymore I'll need to play a bit longer to see if it's really gone though. This is what I did:

- I installed the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver from nvidia.com
- I have uninstalled the Nvidia app completely, because it just restarted itself after closing it
- I have disabled cloud saves, which made the old save games disappear in the game and in the error log. It's true, these were old ones with previous patches and lots of mods installed. It's surprising though that they appeared in the error log.
- I also set the refresh rate in the launcher game settings and the in-game settings to 60. However, the launcher resets its refresh rate to 144 after every start, that's a bit annoying.

I will play and test a bit more and will then write my findings into this thread. Again - thanks so far!!

 

[Culpeo]

I had a longer session on Friday evening without any problems. Then I played around with the settings today and it crashed again. The difference to the last runs is that while the refresh rate was set to 60, all other graphic settings were high instead of the default after I reinstalled the game. I also realized that the fan often starts running faster before the computer shuts down. That being said, the crash happened with 30% fan speed and 55°C GPU temperature, so that shouldn't be the problem. I attached the pdx_settings and the error.log, system.log is still empty.

Not sure if anything can be done here, I'll try and continue playing on medium settings.

 

[AndrewT]

I don't see any other known cause of this problem in those files, unfortunately. You're on Windows 11 but NOT the notorious 24H2 version; do make sure you do NOT apply that update! It is still very broken.

You may as well update that Nvidia driver to mid-May 2025 https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
If GeForce Experience or the Nvidia app are running after doing that, exit them before starting the game.

I also realized that the fan often starts running faster before the computer shuts down. That being said, the crash happened with 30% fan speed and 55°C GPU temperature, so that shouldn't be the problem.

Fans only spin up due to high temperatures. If that was not the GPU it must be something else, suspects would be the CPU, memory, PSU, then other parts of the system board. If you have a way of monitoring all those please do so, otherwise try SPEEDFAN http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php
and/or Speccy https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy/download

 

[Culpeo]

I already installed the latest GPU driver from mid-May 2025. And no, I won't install Windows 24H2, otherwise I have two issues instead of one.
I wasn't able to get any other temperatures than the GPU temperature, neither with Speedfan nor with Speccy - no idea why. But I used the installed "AMD Software: Adrenalin edition" (which might be another source of error) to monitor some other values. CPU Utilization, System Memory Utilization, GPU Temperature and GPU Power Consumption are all low when the PC shuts down. The PC is barely warm when this happens.

Are there any known issues with RTX 5090 GPUs or AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D? Again, it seemed to be more stable with lower graphic settings, so I will set the settings to medium and send another update if this works better. There was a similar complaint on Reddit two months ago, from a user with a 9800X3d and an RTX 5080. Could be related, maybe not:

https://www.reddit.com/r/crusaderkings3/comments/1jedwv3/ck3_crashing_my_pc

EDIT: Nevermind, I crashed it now on medium settings as well...

EDIT 2: I now switched the GPU in the settings to "AMD Radeon (TM) Graphics" and completely avoided using the GPU. This was a painful experience, very low FPS on mid settings but the system didn't shut down. I'm wondering if the GPU is the issue.

 

[AndrewT]

I'm not aware of any known issues like this with the Nvidia 5000 models, but I dont' keep up with hardware issues in general. Might be worth checking with Nvidia support!

Good luck!

 

[Culpeo]

Final update. I managed to play the last two months without any problems on medium settings, 60 FPS max.

I switched to very high settings today to give it another try, but the computer just turned off after 30 seconds. Disappointing. The system drew 340W at that time and the fan was barely running, so it's not a power or temperature problem.

The only other time where this ever happened outside of Crusader Kings was once, when I ran Age of Wonders 4 and an LLM at the same time and pushed the system to the limits. Not sure if I have a hardware problem, but it's weird that it's CK3 of all the games where the system breaks down.

I give up, will just continue playing the game on medium settings. I really don't understand what the issue is, I just hope it gets fixed sometime.

 

[AndrewT]

This will be another Win11 24H2 issue, I'm pretty sure. A user has come up with a possible workaround

Potential Windows Freeze workaround

Victorians! We have discovered a possible workaround for those affected by the Windows Freeze issue we have previously mentioned in our 1.9 known issues thread. This method, while it seems to work on our end, needs to be applied every time you...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

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).





Good luck!