[CLOSED/Cross-Posted & Resolved by Tech Support] CK III - Constantly Freezing/Crashing to Desktop - Unplayable

[Old Game Geek]

Short summary of your issue
Constantly Freezing/Crashing to Desktop - Unplayable

Game Version
1.6.1.2 (Castle) Checksum 3579

What OS are you playing on?
Windows

What platform are you using?
Steam

What DLC do you have installed?
Royal Court,

Do you have mods enabled?
No

Have you tried verifying your game files (Steam only)?
Yes

How much "pain" is this causing you?
10

Please explain the issue you experienced in the most condensed way possible
Game randomly and frequently freezes (no response on map or in-game selections) and then crashes to desktop or game will just crash to desktop with no apparent symptom prior to crash.

Please explain how to reproduce the issue
Seems to frequently happen at game startup with initial map load or any attempt to save game but also occurs randomly (unable to correlate with any specific action). Haven't been able to play longer than 5 - 10 minutes without a crash occurring.

Is there anything else you think could help us identify/replicate the issue?


I have attached a save game
Yes

Upload Attachment
File(s) attached

 

[Old Game Geek]

Additional info and dxdiag file attached for reference.

Have continued to play in attempt to correlate actions and crashes. The following actions seem to frequently correlate to a crash. However, some crashes occur without these actions and the listed actions do not always result in a crash.

1) Saving game - Have tried with both Cloud Save selected and Cloud Save off. Have had crashes in both cases. When this occurs, file is not saved.
2) Initial map load on startup - Map begins to load showing colored areas for empires but empire names do not load and then game crashes to desktop.
3) Zooming in/out and panning the map - While zooming or panning, map will freeze in position and then game crashes.

Will add further conditions if I am able to determine any possible correlations.

 

[livixbobbiex]

This is happening to me too sine 1.1.6.1 and its driving me insane. Havent been able to play the game for weeks.

 

[Old Game Geek]

@livixbobbiex: FYI, I ended up also posting this in the Tech Support forum since the more I thought about it didn't necessarily seem to fit the idea of a bug (e.g. stat x isn't working properly in empire y). Anyway, moderator in Tech Support forum reviewed files and suggested uninstall, manually delete CK3 folders under Steam and under Documents, then do a clean re-install from Steam and validate the files after the re-install. Once done, start a new game (no mods) as opposed to loading a save and see if the problem is corrected. In my case, this FIXED THE PROBLEM!

In subsequent checking, I noted that some of the graphics settings were changed from what I was normally running before -- specifically Anti-Aliasing had been set to OFF and Map Objects and Mesh LOD were set to Medium. Previously AA had been set to MSAA 4x and the other 2 items set to High. This had always worked fine for me in the past but that was several CK3 updates ago and before the latest Nvidia driver release (June 28). As soon as I selected the prior graphics settings CK3 crashed. So, there appears to be some problem with latest CK3 updates and Nvidia (GTX) graphics driver since my video card should be plenty capable of running with the previous settings.

In any case, I'd recommend trying the uninstall/re-install process even if your files current validate as it forces some reinitialization of parameters during the initial start up loading and startup process of the game following install. Also, if running an Nvidia GEForce GTX card be aware of possible graphics settings problems.

Hope that helps get you up and running. Good luck!