Game crashes during or right after Loading screen

[adjacentengels]

When loading the game, it will run through the Steam splash screen and start the loading screen, but after 10-15 seconds the game just exits. There is no error message or indication of what has gone wrong. In troubleshooting, I have tried reinstalling Steam, clearing the Civ 5 cache folder, removing the movie files, verifying the integrity of the game, and running the two DirectX files and VCRedist file as an administrator. When I run the D3D11Install file it says it already is installed and doesn't need to run, bot the other two say they ran fine. I've tried all of the recommendations I've seen except reinstalling Civ 5 entirely, but the same thing is still happening.

I bought the game a few months ago, and originally it worked. I have the full Civ 5 and expansions. It used to work with the various DLC I had, but I've also tried uninstalling all of the DLC without any change in behavior. Just before it stopped working, I hadn't played in about a week. When I logged into Steam, it needed to update, and it started updating. It started a second update, and both were running simultaneously, and only after the updates were finished did I realize there were two instances. After that is when Civ 5 started having issues. I don't think it's related to that, but just in case I uninstalled Steam and reinstalled it.

I've uploaded my DXDiag: http://pastebin.com/VTEB5FUN

I think that's everything that I've seen recommended and requested for assistance. Hopefully someone will be able to offer some additional advice. Thanks.

[mariaclotildesm]

Did you find the solution? I have the same problem :(

[donald23]

I'd recommend two things, first update your graphics driver. You need this one:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24870/Intel-Iris-and-HD-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-7-8-8-1-64-bit

When it launches, put your graphics settings to the lowest you can get. Best might even be to run the DX9 version.
While officially not necessary for the hardware, it will give a more fluent gameplay experience :)

[adjacentengels]

Thanks for the quick response, Donald. I'll give it a shot when I get home.

[adjacentengels]

I downloaded that driver and tried to install, but it said that the driver was not validated for this computer and "Setup will exit". It didn't give an option to install anyway, so I don't think I can install that driver. I've tried Windows Update, and it says everything is up to date.

I also just tried running it with DX9, just in case that helped, but it has the same behavior.

[donald23]

That's because OEM rarely provides the latest driver themselves but Intel loves somehow that they can block the official up to date driver.

In this case you have two options:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38826

or follow this guide to install the driver I linked earlier:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/2ripz4/enabling_intel_hd_graphics_control_panelupdating/

[adjacentengels]

I used the Reddit guide to install the driver. The only thing that was different is that the inf file was igdlh64.inf instead of kit64ics.inf, but that was the only inf file in the Graphics folder. After installing and rebooting, I tried to load Civ 5 with DX9, but it had the same problem of crashing back to the Windows desktop from the Loading screen.

I would prefer to avoid doing a full download and reinstall, but if that's a worthwhile step I could do it.

[adjacentengels]

I've continued to try these fixes over again. It was continuing to have the same issue. Then I read about deleting the cache folder ... instead of that, I deleted the entire C:\Users\...\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\ folder and let the game rebuild it. As soon as I did that, the game started working again. I reinstalled all of the DLC and it continued working. It works with all DirectX versions, and the game is back to working perfectly fine.

Hopefully all the info in this thread will be helpful to someone.

[Ross Tha Boss]

I am having the same problem i have tried everything here but i will try that one about deleteing the entire folder now

[GomeyTheHomey]

did it work? I'm having the same problem except i've just recently downloaded it so i've never gotten it to work yet