Game Not Starting / Incorrect Operation
Restart Steam.
Having problems; restart steam. Not seeing game updates or hotfixes? Restart steam.
If steam has been running awhile, has been downloading for hours, or you have been playing other games or have been cruising the store pages or discussion boards, and you now want to start a critical gaming session? Why not restart steam; it isn’t going to hurt.
Unlike most windows applications, the tittlebar button at the upper right that appears as an X does not close steam. It only closes the window, not the application. The steam icon appears in the notification area or the hidden notification icon area. You must choose the exit steam menu item to close the steam application.
To start steam, use a desktop shortcut if you have one. On Windows 7 or earlier, you can also bring up the start menu and go to “all programs”. From there, select the steam folder and then click the steam application.
Note: you may have also chosen to participate in beta versions of the steam client (check the steam settings under account). The beta version could be causing issues.
Verify Grim Dawn Game Files Using Steam.
When you install a game, steam downloads all game files automatically, and by default, automatically downloads updates when it notices them. Sometimes, something goes wrong and a few files are missing or corrupted. If an update occurred, maybe part of the update is missing.
Open up the steam window. Select Library. Find Grim Dawn and bring up the context menu by right clicking. Choose Properties. Select the Local Files tab and click the Verify Integrity of Game Cache button. This will bring up a dialog box that shows progress. It can take some time. If steam finds that there are any missing files or files that don’t match its master copy, it will queue them for download. If this occurs, wait for the files to be downloaded before starting grim dawn.
Install Recent Video Card and Sound drivers.
If your drivers are more than a year (or maybe 6 months) old, you should install more recent drivers. Typically, video card drivers are more important than sound drivers. Sometimes an old video card can benefit by continuing to use an old but stable driver. Games utilize more features of a video card in more demanding ways than the desktop and office applications. Sometimes the latest driver or a beta driver will have a problem and one will have to uninstall that driver and install a slightly older version.
Download official drivers from reputable locations. For video cards, this is usually Nvidia, ATI, or Intel’s website. For sound cards, go to the company’s website. For integrated audio, go to the website of your laptop, prebuilt computer, or motherboard. If you know what company or chip is used to provide integrated sound, you can also use a generic driver provided by that company – this driver may be more up to date, but in some cases, may be missing some special customizations what allow microphones, speakers, or audio ports to work as intended on your computer. In general, I don’t recommend using windows update to install video or audio drivers.
Install/reinstall Dependencies
Games sometimes require other software components that need to be installed. Normally, steam downloads these when you install the game and then installs them the first time you run the game.
Sometimes things can go wrong with the installation of the dependencies. You may be able to resolve the problem by manually installing these dependencies. If not, error messages might appear that would be useful.
First, why not verify the game files. In fact, why not verify the game files before starting the first time?
Verifying the files make sure the install files are there and correct.
To manually install the game files for Grim Dawn, you should use an administrator account. Using the windows (file) Explorer, go to the install directory for Grim Dawn. This is usually, C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Grim Dawn. The subdirectory, _CommonRedist contains the dependencies. Install the following items:
vcredist_x86.exe in subdirectory _CommonRedist\vcredist\2010
vcredist_x86.exe in subdirectory _CommonRedist\vcredist\2012
DXSETUP.exe in subdirectory _CommonRedist\DirectX\Jun2010
If the installer detects that the item is already installed, it may ask you to either repair or cancel. If you hit repair, you may want to check for windows updates.
Are You Current with Windows/Microsoft Update?
Manually check for updates. Go to the control panel and bring up the windows update. If you receive updates for windows only, you should consider also receiving update for other Microsoft products. The dialog box indicates that you can receive updates for other Microsoft products and has a link to learn more.
Install critical and important updates. Install optional “updates” if those are updates or fixes to windows components or Microsoft applications that you already have and are not some extra stuff that you don’t want.
If you have downloaded and installed a bunch of updates, reboot. If the update was only an update to Microsoft security essentials virus updates, you can probably skip the boot.
A person reported an issue while playing Grim Dawn (related sound and multiple sound devices) on a system installed with Windows 7 without Service Pack 1. Installing Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 resolved the issue.
Run The Grim Dawn Repair Tool
The Repair.exe utility could solve your crashes on launch.
It is normally located at:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Grim Dawn
When Needed, Create Directories for Grim Dawn Settings and Save Data.
If you have tried other suggestions to allow grim dawn to start and it still does not, and there are no obvious error messages or crashes to report, then look at the following, especially if a window is being generated and it is black or appears to be the wrong size or at an incorrect location on screen.
Go to your user’s Document (or My Documents) folder. Look for a “My Games” subdirectory. Then look for the “Grim Dawn” subdirectory in that directory and finally the “Settings” subdirectory in the grim dawn directory.
If these some of directories don’t exist, create them under your user’s Documents (or My Documents) folder. You should end up with “My Games\Grim Dawn\Settings”.
If you created some of these directories, try to start Grim Dawn again.
If the directories already existed or after trying to start grim dawn again, take note if there is an options.txt in the Settings subdirectory described above.
You may need a boot strap options.txt. Download and place it in the Settings directory. Try to start Grim Dawn.
If you needed to perform any of these actions, the problem should be reported. A DxDiag.txt file would be helpful.
Antivirus/Firewall/Security Product Issues.
If the security product has a way to temporarily disable it or a way to temporarily disable realtime protections, that might be an easy was to check if it is an issue before entering trying to enter exclusions.
Antivirus/firewawall/security products interfaces often have a way to exclude the applications/game executables and game data save areas from realtime protections. Excluding the game install from periodic virus scans and scans when game downloads/updates occur might also be necessary. Your security product might not be able to provide separate exclusion settings for real-time protections and antivirus/anti-malware scans.
It is possible that you will have to try entering exclusions and then test the game. If exclusions do not resolve the problem, it is best to remove them.
Note: once you change settings in your antivirus to resolve the issue, it is recommended that you verify the integrity of the Grim Dawn’s game cache by using options within Steam.
Antivirus programs often delete suspect files or move them to a quarantine location. Security products can fail to restore files even when the user indicates they are to be allowed. Verifying the game cache will detect any missing files and download them again.
Firewalls may, of course, block network communications to and from Grim Dawn. When Grim Dawn supports multiplayer, one may need to check to see if the settings are correct.
Grim Dawn (B19) does not appear to be compatible with Microsoft Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit 5.0. (EMET 5.0)
Windows User Account Control UAC
Under normal conditions, Grim Dawn installs and runs fine with Windows User Account Control on the highest setting.
It has been noticed that Grim Dawn can be sensitive to interruption while loading. If for some unknown reason UAC felt the need to put up its prompt while Grim Dawn is running or loading, it could impact Grim Dawn and cause a hang or crash. If the situation does occur, it may be caused by some other software or utilities on your system.
Avoid Extraneous Events During the Initial Load
During the alpha, it was noticed that Grim Dawn can be sensitive to extraneous events during the initial load sequences. The game could hang or crash. Don’t click on the window, or desktop or attempt to adjust other application windows when Grim Dawn is loading. People have also indicated that using keyboard multimedia controls, such as those that adjust the volume of audio output, can cause problems as well. It has been noticed that the problems are more prevalent when using windows 8.1.
Alt Tabbing Away – Loss of Full Screen Focus
If the game is running in full screen mode, every time it loses focus, it loses exclusive access to the graphics card/GPU and many of the resources it has prepared or sent to the GPU. The game must recognize the device was lost and cleanup any bookkeeping on the resources it lost. When it regains access, it has to load and prepare the resources it needs again. Theoretically, it should all work but bugs can cause crashes or memory leaks.
When it does work fine, it is possible that performance could be better. The reason lies within the clearing out of resources when the device is lost and the reload and repreparation of the ones needed at this moment in the game.
The user can switch to the desktop or other windows in several ways and other programs and utilities could steal focus or somehow temporarily cause focus to be lost.
Overclocking the CPU or GPU
You knew it was risky, right? Errors caused by overclocking and overheating can be unpredictable and inconsistent. Heat isn’t the only problem.
When you overclock and things seem to work, you may forget that you did it or start to think it cannot be the problem.
Does anyone have a clue but you? No, unless they guess you overclocked something.