Crash On Startup + No Mods + New Red Screen

[CYBORG777]

Hello, I'm new to the forums so I appreciate your patience. I've looked around, and while I saw some threads that helped, the solutions involve either doing something I don't seem able to do (roll back my driver) or involve just ignoring the problem (telling the game to not show redscreen) so I'm hoping to see if there are alternative solutions.

 

I recently tried to play XCOM 2: WOTC again after several months. At first, it was able to run but experienced severe lag and an overheating CPU while viewing the map. After a while, XCOM 2: WOTC would get past the opening logos, play the main menu music, but then CTD upon trying to load the menu itself.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling in a drive with more memory and tried running with all mods disabled. XCOM 2 ran fine, but WOTC crashed upon opening the main menu again. I tried running in compatibility mode for Windows 8, and I got a redscreen error for a few seconds before the CTD.

 

I finally figured that the crash was likely related to how I updated my NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER driver recently, so I went into my gaming settings and told the system to use the power saving Intel driver instead, and I ran the game again. This time, the game didn't CTD, however the redscreen still showed up and the menu looks nothing like it used to. Several new buttons had shown up on the Right hand side of the screen, and there wasn't a button to exit the game like I thought I remembered there being.

 

The Redscreen, though I heard only shows non-fatal errors, has me worried because it never used to show up before. This is what the error said:

 

"ERROR: UXComParcelManager: GetValidPlotsForMission - Excluding Plot Map: 'Plot_Multiplayer_Test'. Unable to find associated package."

 

Writing it out, this might be due to XCOM 2 having multiplayer support pulled, but I'm not fully sure.

Any advice would be welcome. Either regarding the redscreen error, or regarding how to fix the constant crashing. I'm not so sure "power saving" graphics driver will support the game, and I can't seem to roll back my NVIDIA driver, so I'm open to other options.

[Dragon32]

 

 

"ERROR: UXComParcelManager: GetValidPlotsForMission - Excluding Plot Map: 'Plot_Multiplayer_Test'. Unable to find associated package."

I'm pretty sure I've been getting that error message since the game launched

 

 

 

I finally figured that the crash was likely related to how I updated my NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER driver recently,

How did you update your drivers that would have such a catastrophic effect?

 

 

 

so I went into my gaming settings and told the system to use the power saving Intel driver instead, and I ran the game again. This time, the game didn't CTD, however the redscreen still showed up and the menu looks nothing like it used to. Several new buttons had shown up on the Right hand side of the screen, and there wasn't a button to exit the game like I thought I remembered there being.

You probably started the xcom2.exe directly rather than through the launcher? That sounds like the developer front end. Not sure what the Intel chipset is but it's probably incapable of running any 3D games. Similarly, starting the game from the launcher should hide redscreen errors by default (they're usually non-fatal).

 

 

 

it was able to run but experienced severe lag and an overheating CPU while viewing the map

Very low FPS (not input lag, that's a different thing) on the geoscape is usually indicative of a mod conflict rather than seen without mods, you sure you've no mods running?

 

As this is happening without mods I'm not too sure what to suggest. Assuming you're on Steam try using its "Verify Files" function.

[CYBORG777]

Thank you for responding!

I updated my driver to the GeForce Game Ready Driver v516.94 in order to play the new Spider Man game. I'm not sure what's up with that driver that's having such an effect, but it isn't letting me roll back the update or install any older versions of the driver!

The Redscreen error is new for me. Should I just tell the game to ignore it?

Yes, I did start the game directly to test whether the Intel UHD Graphics Driver would prevent the CTD. So if running the application directly puts it into a kind of Dev mode, that would make sense for that issue.

The low FPS was happening back before I deactivated the mods. I didn't run the game after deactivating the mods because the error I was trying to fix was happening on startup.

So it seems I might just need to roll back the driver an launch from the Alternative Launcher, but it won't let me do the rollback. Do you know how to install older versions of the GeForce Game Ready Driver by any chance?

[Dragon32]

I just tried and 516.94 loads to the main menu for me (3080).

 

Ignore the redscreen error. If you're starting the game via a launcher (AML or 2K's) you shouldn't even see them as they will start the game with the -noRedScreens command line argument

 

For the problem you're having with no mods I'd strongly recommend running Steam's Verify Files function.

 

After that if you still crash on start-up then copy and paste your launch.log (from XCOM 2 WotC folder in My Games) to pastebin.com and post a link here, I'll take a look but in 90% of cases it doesn't help.

 

[Edit: Just updated to 517.48 and that gets me to the main menu fine. I've not tried a driver rollback in years. I'd imagine you'd use something like DDU - https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html - and download whichever older driver from the vendor's site]

[CYBORG777]

I just tried and 516.94 loads to the main menu for me (3080).

 

Ignore the redscreen error. If you're starting the game via a launcher (AML or 2K's) you shouldn't even see them as they will start the game with the -noRedScreens command line argument

 

For the problem you're having with no mods I'd strongly recommend running Steam's Verify Files function.

 

After that if you still crash on start-up then copy and paste your launch.log (from XCOM 2 WotC folder in My Games) to pastebin.com and post a link here, I'll take a look but in 90% of cases it doesn't help.

 

[Edit: Just updated to 517.48 and that gets me to the main menu fine. I've not tried a driver rollback in years. I'd imagine you'd use something like DDU - https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html - and download whichever older driver from the vendor's site]

 

I just updated to the newest graphics driver, and whatever happened with the last one seems to have been fixed. I managed to get to the main menu.

 

While I haven't tested it in game yet, this is promising. I also discovered you can in fact find older versions of the driver if you specify an exact version in your google search... Even if there isn't an easy way to get to it through normal channels, you can get to it directly from a search engine.

 

Edit: Once I reinstalled the mods, the game crashed again. I checked the logs and saw it was waiting for the GPU to respond, so I was back to square one. I then tried setting the game to use the Power Saving graphics card/driver from Intel, the Intel® HDU Graphics card. I was worried that the Power Saving graphics card wouldn't be able to handle it, but it handled it just fine. There was a bit of lag, but I chalk that up to the mods I had installed.

Edited September 28, 2022 by CYBORG777

[Dragon32]

So things are working okay? Good.

[CYBORG777]

Yeah, though I'm still concerned about why the shiny new version of the shiny advanced graphics driver can't handle a 5 year old game like XCOM 2 while the power saving card handles it fine.

 

You'd think NVIDIA would keep backwards compatibility in mind when updating drivers, but I guess there's plenty of reasons it might be failing here.

[Dragon32]

Yeah. not sure. Like I said the latest version is working fine on my 3080. It maybe worth contacting 2K Support if you haven't already?