Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems black screen and windows freezes on startup

Hello

I have spent the better part of my evening trying to debug issues, but I'm seeing different results than a lot of others.

When I try to play either through the executable or from the larian launcher, or from steam to the larian launcher, I see the larian logo, then a loading screen, then a black screen with some music playing, then my entire computer freezes. Ctrl+alt+delete, nor task manager are responsive and I am forced to hard reboot whenever trying another configuration. This makes it extremely hard for me to try switching a configuration because it requires a reboot everytime I try launching the application.

Here is what I have tried:

I tried the driver available from Sept 28, and the driver from today Oct 7, as well as an older driver from back in June. None worked. Also have tried running as administrator. Also tried running as administrator with shift key held down (a windows 7 fix even though im on 10). Also have tried verifying my files via steam. Also have downloaded several redistributables (the ones steam packaged as well as me manually getting them from microsofts site). Also have tried disabling geforce overlays as well as discord overlays as well as terminating both applications before running altogether. have tried both vulcan and direct x. have tried lowering all settings in nvidia control panel specifically targetting the dx version (i couldn't be bothered configuring everything a second time for the vulcan launcher). i updated all windows updates I could possibly add. I'm not using crossfire or SLI, only a single gfx card. I'm not running any screen capture software. I am not overclocking my gpu.

Right now, steam has tracked me of playing baldurs gate for 4 hours now and i have yet to even get to a character select screen.

My system falls under thecurrent specifications (the medium point I believe, but please correct me if I am wrong)

My current stack:

Intel i7-6700k @ 4.00ghz
16gb ram
nvidia gtx 980ti
windows 10 (64 bit)

edit: I figured I'd go ahead and copy paste my logs here too. Sometimes instead of completely freezing I'd get a windows popup saying a crash occurred with the error log, but this happened maybe 2 out of the 50+ times I tried running the app.

---------------------------
DEVICE_LOST
---------------------------
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 vulkaninfo.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.


---------------------------
OK
---------------------------
[3:47 PM]
[07-10-2020 19:42:24:829][D:\Jenkins\workspace\Repo\FW4\EA\Stable\LSProjects\Apps\Gustav\Code\EoCClient\Client\GameStateThreaded.cpp 32 ecl::GameStateThreaded::GameStateWorker::DoWork]: Client Thread start: ClientInit
[07-10-2020 19:42:25:336][D:\Jenkins\workspace\Repo\FW4\EA\Stable\LSProjects\Apps\Gustav\Code\EoCClient\Client\GameStateThreaded.cpp 59 ecl::GameStateThreaded::GameStateWorker::DoWork]: Client Thread ended: ClientInit
[07-10-2020 19:42:25:399][D:\Jenkins\workspace\Repo\FW4\EA\Stable\LSProjects\Apps\Gustav\Code\EoCClient\Client\GameStateThreaded.cpp 32 ecl::GameStateThreaded::GameStateWorker::DoWork]: Client Thread start: ClientLoadModule
[07-10-2020 19:42:31:072][D:\Jenkins\workspace\Repo\FW4\EA\Stable\LSProjects\Apps\Gustav\Code\EoCClient\Client\GameStateThreaded.cpp 59 ecl::GameStateThreaded::GameStateWorker::DoWork]: Client Thread ended: ClientLoadModule
[07-10-2020 19:42:31:122][D:\Jenkins\workspace\Repo\FW4\EA\Stable\LSProjects\Apps\Gustav\Code\EoCClient\Client\GameStateThreaded.cpp 32 ecl::GameStateThreaded::GameStateWorker::DoWork]: Client Thread start: LoadMenu
[07-10-2020 19:42:31:726][D:\Jenkins\workspace\Repo\FW4\EA\Stable\LSProjects\Apps\Gustav\Code\EoCClient\Client\GameStateThreaded.cpp 59 ecl::GameStateThreaded::GameStateWorker::DoWork]: Client Thread ended: LoadMenu
[07-10-2020 19:42:35:235][D:\Jenkins\workspace\Repo\FW4\EA\Stable\LSProjects\Framework\Code\RenderFramework\dx11\D3D11RenderFrame.cpp 694 rf::dx11::RenderFrame::HandleDeviceRemoved]: IDXGISwapChain::Present failed! Device was removed or reset!
Error: DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED
Description : Hardware device removed.

DeviceRemovedReason:
DXGI_ERROR code: 0x887A0005
Error: DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED
Description: Hardware device removed.

---------------------------
DirectX Error
---------------------------
The game has encountered an unrecoverable DirectX 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 DxDiag.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.

Error: DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED
Description: Hardware device removed.
Reason: DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

still unable to play or get past loading screen

is anyone else experiencing anything like this?

Yes, I found a work around on the Steam forums, go to the actual exe file for the game in the bin folder and start it from there while holding the Shift key down while it loads. This has worked for me.

I included in the post that I have tried this. It did not work @Libertine.

I have experienced this as well, submitted multiple crash reports over to Larian studios.

I have noticed a better chance of success however when accessing the game through it's location rather than through the Larian launcher?

Not quite sure if this really matters if it simply accesses the same file. But maybe?

Tonyko is your entire windows becoming unstable during the crash? I'm literally losing complete control without access to even task manager. or keyboard/mouse support.

bump. i still cannot play the game and i've updated all 3 hotfixes but the game still freezes for me when i hit play.