Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Will not start

No luck so far, if I try and start the game with Vulkan it starts minimized and when I click it the game freezes on a black screen and shuts down.
If I start it with DirectX 11 it start as normal but only a black screen and after a few seconds it freezes and shuts down.

Any tips or tricks?

Don't have any tips or tricks. But I can say that I have the exact same problem (so you're not alone, yay?)

Bump, same problem, what details will help in solving this issue?

Same here. Tried updating drivers, running without the launcher, running the game in windowed mode(which did not work apparently), running it with admin rights enabled, but no luck.
Edit: It's the gog version btw.

Another one with exactly the same problems here. I'm running windows 7 and downloaded from GoG, in case it makes any difference

Same issue here. Get a quick 2-3 second black screen and then it crashes and the crash reporter pops up. Once I saw the cursor change to a hand/gauntlet for half a second before the crash.

Hi. I have Steam, when I am forwarded to Larian log in page and press play I get the crash report right away. I have Win 10 and I tried both Vulcan and Direct X with the same crash right away. When I try to start from folder, I actually see a system error message: bg3_dx11.exe, saying the code cannot be executed, because VCRUNTIME140_1.dll is missing. Not sure if it helps.

SOLUTION: I successfully managed to solve the problem. Manually reinstalled my NVIDIA Geforce Experience, and updated all driver. Apparently there was a new driver issued at the 28th of September. Then, I manually downloaded and installed Vulkan. Afterwards game started and running properly now.

I have Steam and Win 10.
As soon as I push log in ---> instacrash.
<3

UPDATE: Norton is Blocking BG3.

Bump for the same

Crashed on start. Direct11 works but it's flashing like hell.

When I start the game with Vulkan, it directly crashes; I don't even get an opening screen. When I start it using DirectX 11, it goes to a black screen, at which point nothing happens and I have to force it to shut down via the task manager.

Game won't start with Vulkan, crashes at start. Permanent black screen when game is started with DX11. Steam version, Windows 7, gtx 980 with latest drivers. Still happening after system reboot.

EDIT: spam clicking the play button it eventualyl launched.

EDIT2: game crashed after opening cinematic.

crashes on launch, windows 10, everything updated, antivirus off. going to get refund until they solve it

I'm one of these many unlucky people that can't login due to black screen >_>

Now I'm getting "further" into the game when I try playing... Instead of black screen and 2-3 second before crash now I get maybe 7-8 seconds and get past the Larian logo and the Nvidia logo before it crashes... This is on Vulkan. On DX11 I still get 2-3 seconds of only black screen before crash.

I seem to have the same problem as everyone. Vulcan crashes after few seconds, Dx11 gives only black screen. Windows 7, GOG

The LariLauncher displays, I press "PLAY" and get just a pure black screen for 1 second, then pure white screen using Vulkan, or just pure black using DX11.

Never see any text, logo, or anything. Total blank. Task Manager reports bg3.exe as running, but not using any CPU time.

Fails running from Steam and from desktop.

WIndows 7 64-bit system. I had to install .NET Core as part of the installation process, otherwise nothing significant happened during install.

Not impressed.

Had crash with Vulkan, works for me with DX11

Edit: works with vulkan now, seems like I hade enabled global reshade with Vulkan through the ReShade setup...

I press play from the launcher, it goes into the game, shows the larian/nvidia logo, starts the loading screen, gets about halfway and then quits the game. No crash report. Tried unsintalling/reinstalling but same issue.

Mac 10.15.7

Same problem here. Straight to black with both DX11 and Vulkan.
Downloaded the game twice with same result.
Tried install Visual C, but no success.
Updated drivers, no success.

Everytime I hit play I get a crash report. Tried Direct X and the other.

I have seen on steam forums that it is missing Microsoft visual C. Trying that now.

Edit : visual C worked for me.

Ich hatte das gleiche Problem: Crash direkt nach dem clicken des Play Buttons.
Bei mir lag es wirklich am Microsoft Visual C+++
Downladen des aktullen Files von Microsoft hat geholfen.

Ok, I was so excited about the game finally working, that i didn’t realise, that this is an English Forum.^^

What I was trying to say:

My Game crashed instantly after pressing the play Button. No Black screen, I just got the error Massage.
I had fixed it by installing the latest Microsoft Visual C+++ App. I downloaded it by the link below.


https://support.microsoft.com/de-de/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads

Well, same issue. Only i have managed to run the game once, almost got through the caracter creation and then the game crushed. After that only the black screen. The update of Microsoft Visual C++ didn't help.

Same here, white/black crash screen. Visual C don't help.

Same issue here, white/black (vulkan/dx11) crash. Visual C didn't help at all.
Any better suggestions out there?

Same problem here =/

Same here. Steam. Both DirectX11 and Vulkan.

Visual C++ didn't help. Latest NVidia drivers didn't help.

GTX 1080Ti
AMD3900X

I was having a problem where any time I pressed play, the launcher immediately crashed. After some tinkering, my friend and I found that the Microsoft redistributable files were missing from my system, specifically the 2015-2019 files. After redownloading them, the game launched immediately.

Could you please post more details on the files and where to find them? I think that would help a lot of users.

The Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable (x64) did not work for me. Still getting blank, white screen.

He means the ones here -> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads

Select x64: vc_redist.x64.exe

Note that these did NOT work for me. Good luck.

Having the same problem here,
hit play and with Vulkan, minimised before crashing, Directx11 black screen then crash.
i've tried the things sugested in the thread but nothing worked, so i'm adding my voice in the hope that larian spots it faster :)

Exact same problem here. Black screen after launching in both modes.
Settings: Win 7 64bit, I7 4790, 8 gb RAM and Nvidia 980 4gm.

Edit: Installed the C++ archives from the link posted in this thread and worked fine. Game Is running perfect now.

Same deal. Vulkan instantly crashes, switching to DX11 loads a black screen, but then freezes. Installed C++ redistx64, updated to latest nvidia drivers, no luck.
Windows 7
GTX 1060

Same problem. Tried Visual C++ re-download, updated drivers, starting from folder without Steam and all the other stuff in this thread as well. Didn't work. Windows 7 btw.

Gentlemen/ladies, I have mine through steam. What worked for me was finding the exe in the programfiles (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/baldursgate3/bin folder....or where ever similar you may have manually installed it.

Once there, clicking on bg3.exe to select/highlight first, I then held SHIFT and right clicked on it again to bring up the menu to choose "Run as Administrator". The game launched properly from there.

Give it a go, hope that works.

THat was the answer for me, Thanks Bitterman.
I installed new Nvidia Drivers.
New C+ redistributable x64 drivers.
No luck
I even ran the shortcut as "Run As Administrator". No Luck
But for GOG install, go to your *\bin\ folder from wherever you had the game installed. You will find the "bg3.exe" and "bg3_dx11.exe" files.
Right click on them and running as Admin will not work.

YOU HAVE TO use "shift+right-click" and then select "run as admin" for it to work.

***EDIT: And oddly enough, you have to keep pressing down on SHIFT button while you click on the "run as administrator" for it to work. If you let go of SHIFT key, before you click on the "run as admin" it will also fail to run.
yeah, this is crazy. Esp considering that most of us are probably local admins on our machines.

Smh, i was so close to making some stupid comment about how that this isn't how computers work and that there is no way for this to do anything at all. But, i swear to god it actually works. Much thanks to you.

I tried it and it worked for me too. I have no idea HOW or WHY it worked but it did!

The shift + "run as administrator" works for me too. It's absurd, right button "run as administrator" dont work but with shift works. Thank you!

For anyone with crashes, check in the games installed folder/bin. There, at least for mine, is a dump file. You will need something to open dmp files, since it is not normally an openable file. It should be gibberish if you try with notepad.

I have found that I can get it to work if I update my NVIDIA driver and use DirectX 11.

Thank you!!! I was losing the wyll to live. Very odd that you have to hold down shift to get this to work, but it does! I'd been trying for hours to get this game to load, was about to buy it for a second time on stadia.

I had to use the RIGHT shift button, but yea...I'm at the menu now. Strange.

what is "funny", is that even changing the executable's COMPATIBILITY property (right-click the bg3.exe or bg3_dx11.exe, and then select properties, then select Compatibility tab) and selecting the option at bottom to "run as administrator" doesn't work. Still locks on black screen with application returning "not responding".

The only method that seems to work is the Press Shift AND HOLD+Right-click and select "run as admin".

Welp, guess this is one way to get people to sign up for a forum account.

Yeah, that doesn't work for me.

Also tried installing Virtual C, nothing. Tried the press Shift AND HOLD+Right-click and select "run as admin", nothing

Didn't work for me.

Adding myself here as I have the same issue....SOS.... HALP

Thanks Bitterman and Schuesseled, LeftShift+Run as Admin works for me too.

One thing I did to start off with was to download the most recent Nvidia driver v456.55, yours may be different vendor. I then installed it custom, not express, and had it install FRESH.
This driver for me caused my "explorer.exe" to crash and I had to load Ctrl+Alt+Del, and then File>New Task-RUN and typed in "explorer.exe". Once I had my icons and Start button back, I then restarted my system.

Also, check to see if you Administrator account is enabled. If not, enable it, then give it a password that you know. Sometimes programs do not like to do the "run as admin" if the administrator account is not enabled. Just a thought.

This was the only thing that worked for me. So strange that holding down shift makes any difference but it works! Thanks!

Nothing is working for me.

LOL Holding shift while launching worked! Thanks for the solution. Never seen a bug like this before:D

That work-around worked for me, thanks a lot captainfish!

I haven't seen any official explanation about why it is necessary to maintain the shift key pressed, I suppose it's a security measure.

In any case, it's very surprising we have to run this as admin (and were not told to do so...). I don't really feel comfortable with it, not knowing exactly what elevated access this program requires. I hope Larian can clarify this point.

Worked for me as well. Thank you both bitterman and captainfish

Needing to hold Shift goes against my views about how computer works so I investigated the issue and found the article from Microsoft ifself: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20140624-00/?p=673

"In Windows 7, the “Run as administrator” option was moved to the primary menu, so you no longer need to hold the shift key to get it. Well, except that sometimes you still need to hold the shift key. The deal is that there are two “Run as administrator” commands. One of them is for running shortcuts to regular applications as administrator. The other is for running shortcuts to MSI applications as administrator. Shortcuts to MSI applications are weird because they aren’t shortcuts to EXEs but rather are shortcuts to an entry in the MSI database. When the decision was made to move the “Run as administrator” command from the extended menu to the primary menu, the person who made the change moved only one of the “Run as administrator” commands (the one for regular application) and forgot to move the other one (the one for shortcuts to MSI applications). As a result, you still need to hold the shift key to run MSI applications elevated.
The problem is fixed on the Windows 8 Start menu. "

So, if I understood correctly just running as Admin only allows this application to have privileges and holding Shift also give it access to other applications or something. I bet it have something to do with 3-party launcher or DRM - it can't be started separatly and breaks the process. And it's Win7-specific problem which they didn't really test so it makes sense. Win8+ must work by default (different issues).

Unfortunately, this thick with shift+run as admin does not work for me (neither left or right shift)

Keep pressing that SHIFT until the game starts showing you logo of Laria or until you see mouse cursos; gauntled hand. Didn't need to "run as administer" or right click it or nothing. Just hold that SHIFT down and normal double clik on bg3.EXE or dir11.EXE. That finally worked for me in my win 7

Shift (left, right, no shift, run as admin, change compatibility properties, etc.) running bg3.exe and bg3_dx11.exe both just open up the launcher for me. Launching from the launcher crashes after a few seconds. I cannot bypass the launcher.

Win10 v2004

Hey all,

I found my issue yesterday.

I am running BG3 from GOG and my GPU is an RTX 2070, I updated my drivers to Driver Version: 456.55 - Release Date: Mon Sep 28, 2020. After several failed attempts and changing other settings, I rolled back my drivers to 451.67 which is from May. Hope this helps someone.

Shift+Running BG3.exe as admin worked for me.
Thanks a bunch to those of you who posted this fix! You are legends

Cheers Polishmafia, this did the trick for me. I found that both DX11 and Vulkan were loading the game as I could hear the music, but I was just getting a blank screen.
Oddly I did get the dx11 version working once, but after a game crash I wasn't able to get a display again.

I did a clean install of version: 451.67 - Release Date: 2020 July 9 and after a reboot, the game is working fine on DX11 AND Vulkan.

RTX 2080ti if it helps.

It worked for me! However this is ridiculous and absurd!

Get it fixed Larian!

Literally none of these fixes worked for me. The Windows Defender one even made the game crash earlier lmao.

The shift click run as admin on bg3 doesn't work for me I get an error - "VCRUNTIME140_1.dll was not found - trying reinstalling the program". I have already re-installed once.

Win7 on Steam, black screen at launch with both the Vulcan and DX11 versions, updated to the 7 Oct Nvidia drivers, checked program integrity, still not working.

Win 7, GOG Galaxy. Black screen at launch.

What works for me:
1. Hold SHIFT (or any other key) + click Play button from Larian Launcher and keep holding SHIFT until the game loads. (no need to launch from exe, or messing with administrator rights)
2. Click Play button from Larian Launcher and keep fast clicking anywhere within the Larian Launcher window until the game loads in the background.
3. Click Play and keep spamming Alt+Tab until the game loads.

It seems that the game crashes if the game window is focused when launching.
But it works when you keep the game window (out of focus) in the background while it is loading - else by spam clicking, or holding keyboard keys.

There's a hotfix, unfortunately no release notes (on GOG at least). There is a post in the forums here, but from the look of it, they are not aware of the problem because they only mention selecting DX11, not the admin work-around (and indeed, I saw no response from them here)

I HAD the SAME problem.

Here's my solution. Before clicking PLAY - > HOLD the SHIFT Key of your keyboard. And keep it HOLDED until the game launch correctly (I'm not kidding)


Try it out and let me know.

PS: Using Windows 7 for my part.

This is kinda homeopathic levels insane but indeed it did work for me too. WTF??!??
I'm curious for a dev's explanation of that bug.

Might as well add my trouble to the list. I'm also crashing on startup.

OS: Windows 10
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
GPU: Radeon RX 5700

Drivers and Windows are up to date and I've tried switching between DirectX and Vulcan. No matter what, the game crashes every time during the initial loading screen. It's not hardware failure or anything like that because I can still play lots of games that are demanding on the hardware.I have verified the files and tried starting with the firewall turned off as well.

Same

Steam version, Windows 10, NVdia

Played game 11 hours yesterday and today it crashes on startup.

Here is what I've tried per suggestions and game still crashing:

-Switching from Vulcan to DX11
-Reinstalling
-Updating drivers
-Install C++
-adding exceptions to firewall
-run as admin (this actually worked for a bit but upon trying to startup after exiting game it is crashing again and now nothing works)
-holding down Shift and pressing "Play", hold down Shift continuously and pressing "Play" , hold down Shift, press "Play" and alt-tab to try to load game in background

Same problem here - it crashes instead of starting, with either Vulcan or DirectX11, from desktop or Steam.
Do i need to register somewhere to play the beta? Cuz I've looked everywhere I can think of.

Hey guys, was having the same problem and Shift + Right click did not help.

I did tinker with Windows Event Viewer and noticed that it pops an error suggesting it did screw up stack pointer during launch. After digging into the settings I've noticed that my core affinity was not set to all cores (I am using the Process Lasso to divide system processes,games etc between 2 chiplets on Ryzen) but rather to the last 12 threads, same issue with first 12 - It did cause crashes. When sI've switched CPU affinity to defaul all (0-n) threads it suddenly worked both for Dx11 and Vulcan, no need for admin rights either.

I know affinity can also be changed in Windows Task manager, so you might want to try that if you did tinker with affinities manually (for example for Steam app as a whole).

@Raze
This tweak also resolved my issue with the Divinity 2 Original Sin - DE which was not launching with the same crash on startup. I remember you posting a lot of troubleshooting suggestions on the forums when I searched for solution, but I do not remember this one. Thought you might want to know of this.

Cheers.

It was working fine for me up until the first crash (like 5 minutes in) and now it keeps triggering my antivirus, when I allow it, I get Vulkan errors or black screens.

I use Process Lasso also, and I suspected it. However shutting it down did not help. Assigning bg3.exe and bg3_dx11.exe in Process Lasso to 0-23 also didn't help.

WAIT! I had turned off Process Lasso's "core engine". When it turned it on, along with the above .exe changes, it worked. Holy crap.

So how come it didn't work even after I shutdown Process Lasso? What is Process Lasso doing after I've shut it down?

THAnks a lot - that was it - holding shift for starting it as admin

Following these instructions caused the game to launch in a debug mode. I couldn't use my regular profile and therefore couldn't continue my save game. I guess I'll just wait until they patch this problem.

The shift trick only worked once and when I had to log off for a bit and came back game crashing again and shift doesn't work now

I ran into the issues above none of the fixes worked, however i did find an interesting work around, navigate to where ever your game is installed IE X:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Baldurs Gate 3\bin change the compatibility as above to admin for all users on both EXE files "BG3" and "bg3_dx11" then run steam and the launcher

instead of using the play on the launcher tab over to the windows browser where the EXE files named above are hold Shift and Select both exe's simultaneously right click and hit open, this will try and launch them both at the same time, and prompt the ( allow run on this system (admin ) both games should flash and try to run, at this point usually but not always the DX 11 version will eventually crash, but the Vulcan version will now run normally.

Sometimes the other way around (Vulcan will crash dx 11 will succeed). If you tab between them you will see which one launched successfully then you can force end the one that has crashed or will eventually crash from the task manager and play away, this is the only reliable way to open the game that has worked for my windows 7 machine. best of luck!

I bought this game within the first few hours on it being released and I cant get it to start up. I have tried uninstalling it multiple times before and after restarting steam and my tower and i have tried verifying the integrity of the files downloaded. Every time I get the same thing MISSING GAME FILES- this is exactly what it says when I hover over the words. please someone help me with this I truly want to play and game test this game!

C:\Program Files (x86)Steam\steamapps\downloading\1086940\Launcher\CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess.exe

I was able to load yesterday (once)after multiple attempts by using DX11. Was able to create a character and start the game. Tried loading today probably about 50 times and nothing that I tried worked - updated drivers etc and switched from DX11 to Vulcan . My Profile and savegame are in the system files so the game did work at some point. I'm on steam and there was a hotfix today - perhaps it "unfixed" my game. BTW I did report each crash to Larian

I was able to load yesterday (once)after multiple attempts by using DX11. Was able to create a character and start the game. Tried loading today probably about 50 times and nothing that I tried worked - updated drivers etc and switched from DX11 to Vulcan . My Profile and savegame are in the system files so the game did work at some point. I'm on steam and there was a hotfix today - perhaps it "unfixed" my game. BTW I did report each crash to Larian

Deleting my profile in the Documents folder allowed me to start the game again with no problems.

I tried your solution, it worked! Did a dozen times just to be sure, with both 'bg3.exe' and 'bg3_dx11.exe'.

But in my case there was a peculiar thing: in my tests, when I clicked 'Run as Administrator', I had to quickly close the Explorer window, otherwise the game would crash as before.

Well, so far so good.

Thank you and gather your party before venturing forth.

EDIT:



Tried this, and worked too. It's hilarious this rascaldom of solutions that is actually the only way to play tha game.

this is stupid... this forum post is stupid.... game still not running from the hotfix yesterday larian... plz help guys

Deleting the PlayerProfile Folder is what fixed it for me after trying everything else everyone has posted, started the game in vulkan as well and now i'm playing again!

Still no reaction from Larian on this issue?

The SHIFT+run as admin doesn't work every time here, it's about 50%, sometimes I even have to do it 3-4 times in a row

EDIT: scratch that, the success rate is much, much lower than 50%

I have a Win 10 CyberPower PC, purchased the game from Steam, and all Windows updates have been installed. I have disabled the AMD Radeon overlay, however the game still will not launch. I receive an error message asking me to check if Windows updates have been installed, if the drivers have been installed, and to disable SLI/CrossfireX.

I can not find where SLI/CrossfireX is. AMD Radeon is also up to date.

Suggestions?

Add me to the din of people where holding down shift and right click to run as administrator FINALLY worked for me. Just in time for my Steam refund to come through, OH WELL. Got to create a character at least.

A friend gave me the game a few hours ago, I was able to play 1 hour, then I did chores around the house and when I returned the game no longer opens.

For me it only works when launching directly via the bg3_dx11.exe file and I have to verify integrity of game files on steam before every launch.

@MTGPackFoils crossfire/SLI is only if you have dual graphics cards working at the same time. If you only have 1 card its not on for you.

I still can not log in. It doesn't matter if I choose the default option, or the DirectX 11 option. If I choose the latter both of my monitors turn black, and my computer reboots. If I choose the default I receive the following message:

"The game has encountered an unrecoverable Vulkan error and will shut down.
This error may be triggered by reasons that are not related to Baldur's Gate 3.

Please try the following before restarting:
-Disable any screen recording software you may be running
-Make sure all your Windows updates have been installed
-Make sure you have the latest graphics drivers installed
-Disable SLI/CrossFireX

You could also try contacting developer support with your gold.log and your vulakninfo.txt.
If you make significant changes to your system (like installing updates or drivers), please send us before and after versions of those files. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

So...now what do I do if I have done all of this?

For ASUS motherboard users, this may sound silly but it worked for me.

Download ASUS Armoury Crate from their website, and use it to update your drivers. I had updated my drivers through device manager as an earlier attempt, but the game would still not launch without crashing.

After using the Armory Crate software to update, I was able to launch in Vulkan and DX11 without issues. I realize this is not for everyone, but hopefully it will help someone.

bump...

This seemed to work for me after black screen issue at launch via Vulkan and DX11

Machine specs = Win7, Intel 4790k, GTX108

Many tanks captainfish!

good luck lads

I have uninstalled, and reinstalled from Steam.

Same problems. What do I do now? I have a CyberPowerPC on Win 10 with dual monitors.

For me and many others, Double-clicking bg3_dx11.exe and immediately holding down left Shift works.

I did not need to do shift+run as administrator (although I will note that I am running from an admin account already), or select both executables. Good luck figuring this out, QA department.

I've had this problem also with it only managing to launch properly once in more than a dozen tries at this point.


Run as admin worked once, the first time I tried it and then not again.

Still not solved in hotfix 2, and I think their support has not seen this 5-page thread, I'm not sure how to report that to them.

I was able to launch today - once - game was really pixelated (is that a word - was able to create character etc and start the game. I chose to try to exit and reload since the graphics were really distracting. I could not load at all - multiple attempts

same here - all drivers updated - I have been able to load 3 times once per day Oct 6, 7 , 8 - last time was really pixelated - I tried to reload and absolutely no luck - goes to black with both - it is early access so I am patient and was really happy that it loaded today (once) and I was able to create a character and was able to choose magic missile...

You can try and just insist with the SHIFT+admin start describe earlier, kill the process and try again. Now for me it only launches correctly once in ~5-10 attempts, I don't know what kind of black magic was used so we have to jump through all those hoops but it's really strange.

Well so far I have it working. I've played about 20 minutes, watched the opening cut scene, and no issues.

I had to uninstall AMD Radeon, and reinstall it (and update it...AGAIN) for the game to work.

So if the game is not working for you essentially unplug your graphics program, and plug it back in. That at least worked for me.