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

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