Matrix Games Forums

- Please make sure you are updated to the latest official update and check first to see if that resolves your issues.

- Please try the latest public beta update branch.

- Please try this new game setting:

If you still experience crashes with 1.0.6.4 or later, especially crashes in battle, please try the new DXVK rendering option in the game settings. This can be found under "Rendering Mode", which can be switched from DirectX 11 to DXVK. DXVK is only guaranteed to work with the SDR (Standard Definition Rendering) option in your game settings. It may work with some HDR (High Definition Rendering) settings, but we do not advise trying those at this time. The DXVK option willl likely resolve many issues caused by driver bugs or incompatibilities.

If you try this setting and the game does not launch, please note the command line option in the changes below to switch back to DirectX 11. (To force DirectX on launch, add --use-dx11 as a command-line argument to DistantWorlds2.exe)

- Please update your Graphics and Audio Drivers

IMPORTANT NOTE: If after the above you are having crash, performance or launch issues with DW2, we recommend taking the following steps one at a time prior to playing :

1. In your in-game Settings menu, please try turning off (one at a time) Particle Effects, Weapon Effects and the Damage Overlay. See if one of these solves your crash or performance problem (if it does, please let us know what worked for you!).
2. Delete the gamesettings and gamestartsettings files in the /data/ sub-folder of your installation directory (In Steam right-click on the game in your library, then choose Properties -> Local Files -> Browse. On GOG you can find this through Manage Installation -> Show Folder)
3. Verify all installation files (in Steam right-click on the game in your library, then choose Properties -> Local Files -> Verify Integrity of Game Files. On GOG it is Manage Installation -> Verify/Repair).
4. Delete any old saved games in the /data/savedgames sub-folder of your installation directory.

- Please uninstall any unnecessary third-party codecs. We also have a confirmed report that an older version of ffdshow caused a conflict and sound crash with DW2.

- Please uninstall any Nahimic software as this appears to cause a crash in DW2. This is a Nahimic issue.

- Please do not use Process Lasso with DW2 as this will cause a crash, this is a Process Lasso issue.

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There are additional reports and options to help troubleshoot any issues you are experiencing.

1. Please include a DxDiag report with your issue report. Instructions on how to generate a DxDiag are posted in a pinned thread in this forum.

2. There is a SessionLog.txt in the /data/logs sub-folder of the Distant Worlds 2 installation. This is also where any crash logs are located. If you are experiencing an issue, please include the SessionLog.txt and any CrashDump logs from this folder with the issue report.

3. There is a GameSettingsOverride.txt in the /data sub-folder of the Distant Worlds 2 installation. This can be edited manually and the game will respect these settings when launching. The settings here may help some players experiencing wrong GPU, resolution or black screen on load issue.

- On multi-GPU systems, GraphicsAdapterIndex allows you to manually adjust which GPU DW2 will run on, to see if that makes a difference
- GraphicsResolutionWidth and GraphicsResolutionHeight allow you to manually set your desired resolution for DW2 if it is not detecting it correctly when it launches.
- GraphicsResolutionFullScreeen can manually switch DW2 between the normal full screen or windowed modes (as otherwise set in the in-game Game Settings).
- GraphicsForceDedicatedFullScreen will force DW2 to launch in a normally hidden exclusive full screen mode without having to use the Alt+Enter work-around. This is not a normally supported mode and may have some other bugs, but it is available for those experiencing a black screen on start as a troubleshooting work-around.
- GraphicsStreamingMemoryBudget allows specifying video memory in Mb allocated for asset streaming.
- DisableFixedTimeStep: when set to true allows disabling fixed time step which locks FPS to 60 (results in higher FPS, but also higher GPU temperatures and power usage)

4. If you are experiencing performance issues use the key combination Shift + tilde to enable an overlay on the top left which will confirm for us which GPU DW2 is using on your system as well as other performance parameters. Please take a screenshot with this overlay on and share that with us.

As above, for performance issues please also try the following: In your in-game Settings menu, please try turning off (one at a time) Particle Effects, Weapon Effects and the Damage Overlay. See if one of these solves your crash or performance problem (if it does, please let us know what worked for you!).

5. These are the possibly useful command-line options for DW2:

--use-dxvk Use a packaged distribution of DXVK 1.x instead of native D3D11.
--use-dxvk2 Use a packaged distribution of DXVK 2.x instead of native D3D11.
--use-dx11 Force the use of native D3D11 for this launch.
--non-interactive Don't assume there is human input available.
--tool-mode Force enable tool mode and thus show a console.

Additional tips:

- Windows prefers to render on the device your monitor is plugged into. For instance, if you are on a desktop and your monitor is plugged into the motherboard's display port (instead of the discrete graphics card's port), it usually defaults to integrated graphics. This is a particularly complicated issue in laptops, as the built in display is usually wired to the integrated graphics, but some laptops feature a physical display switch. And external HDMI/DP/USB-C ports can be wired to either the integrated or discrete GPU.

- If you have an AMD GPU and are still experiencing issues after trying all of the above, please try the settings in the pinned thread here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1531540/ ... 340411619/
It's especially important that "Radeon Anti-Lag" and "AMD Freesync" are turned off for DW2.

- Please try turning Music and Sound in the Game Settings to 0% if you are having crashes and report if that helps.

- Please try turning Lens Flare to 0 in the Game settings if you are having crashes and report if that helps.

- If you have a black screen on startup, try launching the game several times to see if it continues. Please also try the DXVK rendering setting with SDR as described above.

- If you have repeated crashes, try switching to Windowed Mode in the Game Settings to see if that helps.

- Please try turning of all Map Overlays (bottom right) of any kind if you are having performance issues and report if that helps. Note that the diplomacy and exploration menus also turn some map overlays on by default.

- If you have any anti-virus/security software installer, especially IOLO System Mechanic or Game Booster, please try to disable it as a troubleshooting step.

- If you have the "Killer Intelligence Center" networking software installed, please try uninstalling it as a troubleshooting step.

*** If you cannot get the game working with the latest version, there is the option of going back to the previous Legacy branches per the pinned instructions on this forum.

Hi,

Applied all the steps in AMD instructions and updated to 1.0.1.8.

Still CTD as soon as I try to view a battle.

No logs created now when I crash, heres a link to old crash logs from 1.0.1.6 and DxDiag,

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Thanks,

Nic.

Hi,

Those shader files are not crash logs. Could you please include the sessionlog.txt and any other text files in the /data/logs sub-folder?

Hello! After the 1.0.1.8 (on 1.0.1.6 this didn't happen) the first time my game started with the 1280x960 resolution in a borderless window. After I set it to 1920x1080 in game settings - everything's fine, but after I exit the game and start again - the resolution becomes 1680x1050. Changing it again to 1920x1080 in game settings makes it go fullscreen FullHD again, but after restart it's the same 1680x1050. Setting the game resolution in GameSettingsOverride.txt didn't help - nothing changes.

I have an AMD RX 570 4GB, Windows 11.

Logs when starting the game without override - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1adcoo5eQO-WA9aE3YX8_dt53FarVKaY-/view?usp=sharing

Logs when starting the game with override - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SpFFOKwyVGW4Wwr656h6yZxdM2_GgLS8/view?usp=sharing

This is how the game looks after starting:


I've also tried setting GraphicsResolutionFullScreen and GraphicsForceDedicatedFullScreen to true, but that doesn't change anything.

Thank you for the update Erik! Unfortunately it seems that the crash on viewing battles for myself is still occurring, I've attached the crash dump, session log, and dxdiag to this post for your review.

Fixes attempted this time were:
Game updated to 1.0.1.8
AMD settings set per the AMD see here post
Sound and lens flare set to 0% in the options

Erik Rutins wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:12 pm Hi,

Those shader files are not crash logs. Could you please include the sessionlog.txt and any other text files in the /data/logs sub-folder?

Ah, well those were the only files in the data/logs sub folder :/

nicolasleb.leblond@gmail.com wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 8:50 pm

Erik Rutins wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:12 pm Hi,

Those shader files are not crash logs. Could you please include the sessionlog.txt and any other text files in the /data/logs sub-folder?

Ah, well those were the only files in the data/logs sub folder :/

It might be a bit confusing, but there are two separate log folders - one in <gamedir>/log and the other one in <gamedir>/data/Logs (on 1.0.1.8 or later). I don't think SessionLog.txt was there on 1.0.1.6.

Hi,

My game has crashed twice this morning but there aren't any crash dumps . I do have the following incase that can help at all.
Update: Crashed again, I had lens flare set to 0 and had updated my graphics drivers. Still no crash dump, I'm not sure why. I think after 3 crashes I will stop playing until there is a patch and then will try again

koralos wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 6:37 pm Hello! After the 1.0.1.8 (on 1.0.1.6 this didn't happen) the first time my game started with the 1280x960 resolution in a borderless window. After I set it to 1920x1080 in game settings - everything's fine, but after I exit the game and start again - the resolution becomes 1680x1050. Changing it again to 1920x1080 in game settings makes it go fullscreen FullHD again, but after restart it's the same 1680x1050. Setting the game resolution in GameSettingsOverride.txt didn't help - nothing changes.

I have an AMD RX 570 4GB, Windows 11.

Logs when starting the game without override - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1adcoo5 ... sp=sharing

Logs when starting the game with override - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SpFFOK ... sp=sharing

This is how the game looks after starting:


I've also tried setting GraphicsResolutionFullScreen and GraphicsForceDedicatedFullScreen to true, but that doesn't change anything.

I have the same resolution issue on start with 1.0.1.8

The 1.0.1.9 update is about to go live. I've just updated the first post with additional update information and changes related to that update. Please note this additional debugging tool:

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are experiencing performance issues use the key combination Shift + ~ to enable an overlay on the top left which will confirm for us which GPU DW2 is using on your system as well as other performance parameters.

If you are having issues with performance in-game, taking a screenshot with that overlay on and sharing it with us may be helpful.

I'm adding this post here and asking that any feedback after this post be based on the 1.0.1.9 update.

Hi again Erik! Unfortunately the 1.0.1.9 update seems to have made things a tad bit more unstable on my end of things. I've three separate and reproducible crash scenarios I've managed to catch so far including the crash when viewing a projectile impact in combat.

I've linked a drive folder with all three crash scenarios as well as uploaded a zip containing the crash logs, event viewer instances, and session logs, to this forums post. The crash viewing battle however does not have a DW2 crash dump as I could not get it to output a log despite repeated attempts however I did manage to get a screencap with the new display adapter information moments before the offending projectile crashed the game. Best of bug hunting!

Drive link; https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Thank you for these. I'm sorry it didn't help, but you can be assured we are working on it and will figure out a solution.

Fps improved a lot after the last update, I am no longer capped at 60 fps. I only get one crash that doesn't allow me to open the game without a restart. I tried restarting the drivers with Win + Ctrl + Shift + B keys, but it does not work, so after I restart the pc, the game will launch. Somehow the game manages to break the video driver. I have windows 11, 32gb ram 3200mhz, r7 5800x, and a vega 64. Keep up with the good work.

nicolasleb.leblond@gmail.com wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:08 pm Hi,

Applied all the steps in AMD instructions and updated to 1.0.1.8.

Still CTD as soon as I try to view a battle.

No logs created now when I crash, heres a link to old crash logs from 1.0.1.6 and DxDiag,

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Thanks,

Nic.

Hi, I have the same problem! As soon as the projectile hits the side of the ship, i've got CTD. before that the game was going nice.

Hello,

I have found an "error" or performance problem when selecting many units at once.
I can reproduce it 100% on my PC.
Video and savegame can be found here.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Spec
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
GPU: RTX 3080 TI
RAM: 32GB

First, it takes a very long time to select the units.
Secondly, my FPS are significantly lower than when I have nothing selected.

We were planning to release a new 1.0.2.0 update today which hopefully will resolve the battle crashes (and another try at the black screens) but unfortunately we just discovered a critical new issue with that update, which means it will have to wait until tomorrow while we work on it a bit more. Apologies to all for the additional delay!

Erik Rutins wrote: Tue Mar 15, 2022 3:27 pm We were planning to release a new 1.0.2.0 update today which hopefully will resolve the battle crashes (and another try at the black screens) but unfortunately we just discovered a critical new issue with that update, which means it will have to wait until tomorrow while we work on it a bit more. Apologies to all for the additional delay!

Thank you for the information Erik. I will be attaching additional information to my battle crash thread today for you.

I have an AMD RX 590 in my system and I did not experience any crashes until 1.0.1.9 and now the game is completely unplayable.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=381097

Started a new game on 1.0.1.9
CTD after about 30 mins whilst zooming out from an exploration ship that was selected. Can't replicate this crash. No crash log. Music was on and choppy.
Tired of this now. Feels like I'm bug hunting and have paid for the privilege. If this was early access wouldn't be as bad. Running on a laptop, which is perhaps where most users are having issues?

Updated the original post to 1.0.2.0, which is available now.