Baldur's is "SOMETIMES" unplayable for me, and I can't figure out why.

[Kana]

Hi y'all, and if you clicked on the title, first and foremost, thank you for trying to help.

If, on the other hand, you joined because you're experiencing the same issue I do, my condolences.

TLDR; Game freezes, audio goes on, I get a couple frames of movement every few minutes, anyone in my game session experiences no lag, but game is unplayable for me. And worst of all, it just happens some days.

Here's the longer explanation:

I've been playing the game since release, on Ultra, with no issues on freezing nor lag. Except the one time where I accidentally blew up all the Bibberbang around Baelen (oopsies). The issue started on the 16th, when playing with a friend on coop, she tried to use a mod to augment her stats to try and get Kith'rak Voss drop his Silver Sword Blade.

She tried that, we laughed, she loaded a previous save where no stats had been modified, and we kept playing for like 30 minutes. And then it started. My game would freeze, but audio went on, and I could even move my mouse around in real time. She was still playing, experiencing no lag.

I had to kill the process through Task Manager and launch the game again, and from there on, Larian launcher took ages to load, game as well, and the freezing issue was present even on the main menu. So I began troubleshooting, and searching high and low on the internet. I couldn't fix it that day. The next day I launched the game and it worked fine. I played for hours. On the 18th I played again, this time with me as the host and it happened again. No matter what I tried the game would not get fixed that day. On the 19th I was able to play again, with no freezes and no stuttering.

And here it began, my Baldurs Gate is now a random roulette where some days I'll be able to play without issues, some days I can play for a few hours before it starts acting up, and some days it will just crash the moment I click play on the Larian Launcher.

Here are my Specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7 @ 3.70GHz
RAM: 16.0GB
Motherboard: ASUSTeK ROG STRIX Z370-G Gaming
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070
Drives: 931GB KINGSTON SNV2S1000G (SATA-2 (SSD))
931GB Seagate ST2000DM001-1CH164 (SATA )
489GB Crucial_CT525MX300SSD1 (SATA (SSD))
931GB Crucial_CT525MX300SSD1 (SATA )

And the things I've already tried:

Verifying Files.
Removing %appdata% and documents folder.
Making a clean reinstall on the Local Drive.
Making a clean reinstall on any other drive.
Making a clean reinstall of my GPU drivers.
Disabling Steam Ingame Overlay.
Bypassing Larian launcher to try and launch the game straight away.
Crying in bed for a bit. Surprisingly, this one didn't work.
Giving bg3.exe and bg3_dx11.exe high priority on my cpu (through task manager)
Making both bg3.exe and bg3_dx11.exe 'Run this program as an administration'.
Lowered the graphics to low.


And I'm probably missing some, but at this point, my brain is mushier than Baelen's.

Thank you for reading and making it this far. Even if you didn't just... thank you for clicking on the topic.

I need help. Haha.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Kana:

Baldur's is "SOMETIMES" unplayable for me, and I can't figure out why.
Hi y'all, and if you clicked on the title, first and foremost, thank you for trying to help.

If, on the other hand, you joined because you're experiencing the same issue I do, my condolences.

TLDR; Game freezes, audio goes on, I get a couple frames of movement every few minutes, anyone in my game session experiences no lag, but game is unplayable for me. And worst of all, it just happens some days.

Here's the longer explanation:

I've been playing the game since release, on Ultra, with no issues on freezing nor lag. Except the one time where I accidentally blew up all the Bibberbang around Baelen (oopsies). The issue started on the 16th, when playing with a friend on coop, she tried to use a mod to augment her stats to try and get Kith'rak Voss drop his Silver Sword Blade.

She tried that, we laughed, she loaded a previous save where no stats had been modified, and we kept playing for like 30 minutes. And then it started. My game would freeze, but audio went on, and I could even move my mouse around in real time. She was still playing, experiencing no lag.

I had to kill the process through Task Manager and launch the game again, and from there on, Larian launcher took ages to load, game as well, and the freezing issue was present even on the main menu. So I began troubleshooting, and searching high and low on the internet. I couldn't fix it that day. The next day I launched the game and it worked fine. I played for hours. On the 18th I played again, this time with me as the host and it happened again. No matter what I tried the game would not get fixed that day. On the 19th I was able to play again, with no freezes and no stuttering.

And here it began, my Baldurs Gate is now a random roulette where some days I'll be able to play without issues, some days I can play for a few hours before it starts acting up, and some days it will just crash the moment I click play on the Larian Launcher.

Here are my Specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7 @ 3.70GHz
RAM: 16.0GB
Motherboard: ASUSTeK ROG STRIX Z370-G Gaming
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070
Drives: 931GB KINGSTON SNV2S1000G (SATA-2 (SSD))
931GB Seagate ST2000DM001-1CH164 (SATA )
489GB Crucial_CT525MX300SSD1 (SATA (SSD))
931GB Crucial_CT525MX300SSD1 (SATA )

And the things I've already tried:

Verifying Files.
Removing %appdata% and documents folder.
Making a clean reinstall on the Local Drive.
Making a clean reinstall on any other drive.
Making a clean reinstall of my GPU drivers.
Disabling Steam Ingame Overlay.
Bypassing Larian launcher to try and launch the game straight away.
Crying in bed for a bit. Surprisingly, this one didn't work.
Giving bg3.exe and bg3_dx11.exe high priority on my cpu (through task manager)
Making both bg3.exe and bg3_dx11.exe 'Run this program as an administration'.
Lowered the graphics to low.


And I'm probably missing some, but at this point, my brain is mushier than Baelen's.

Thank you for reading and making it this far. Even if you didn't just... thank you for clicking on the topic.

I need help. Haha.

I am surprised crying in bed did not help you with the issue. Anyroads, I like to ask for some clarifications before I can make a deduction

When you wrote removing %appdata% and documents folder - what exactly did you mean by that? Which folders exactly?

When you wrote clean reinstall - did you use RevoUninstaller and its advanced options?

Did you use mods too? Has your friend still mods installed when you play together?

Apply first Gamer's Tip and also Step 21
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3027526886
Step 8, 9, 11 and 14 I recommend if you have not done it already before the issues have started

and this
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3031161135

It might be related to the mod used, it might be not. Hence the questions for clarifications.

[Kana]

Thanks for the timely reply! It was my first time using this discussion thingy and I had no idea how long it would take. I should've checked this sooner, lol.

Alright, as for the clarifications you asked for;

One of the troubleshooting I found on the internet said to go to the AppData/Local/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3 and delete everything, as it would force the game to redownload everything. That didn't work either.

Regarding the clean reinstall, yes, I used RevoUninstaller. It even said that using it would probably remove some files from games that were using the same directories, so I even removed those games and made a clean installation of all of them just in case. (Thank god for optic fiber.)

Did I use mods? Yes, once or twice. I've used some mods to skip the early bit of the nautiloid story because I have started the game so many times with so many friends, I wanted to skip that bit and make a solo run to explore the story at my own pace. This mods have since been removed and I haven't reinstalled nor used any since the issue started happening.

And honestly, I loved your answer. If nothing else because that gamer tip was amazing to read and I love learning new stuff. I love my computer and I want to take care of it to the best of my ability so... Thank you!

=========================================

After having tried all the options and steps given, I am sad to report the game won't even launch now. I click play on Steam, the Larian Launcher shows up, and when I click Play on the launcher, the crash report window pops up.

I will remove BG3 with Revo and I'm seriously considering formatting my computer at this point.

I will also add that I asked my brother for help, logged into Steam in his computer and launched BG3 on his computer, to play around with my saves. It worked fine in his computer (which has lower specs than mine), but I wanted to, at the very least, make sure it wasn't the saves that were corrupted.

Thanks again though. I really appreciate you taking the time to give such a thorough answer!

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Kana:

Thanks for the timely reply! It was my first time using this discussion thingy and I had no idea how long it would take. I should've checked this sooner, lol.

Alright, as for the clarifications you asked for;

One of the troubleshooting I found on the internet said to go to the AppData/Local/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3 and delete everything, as it would force the game to redownload everything. That didn't work either.

Regarding the clean reinstall, yes, I used RevoUninstaller. It even said that using it would probably remove some files from games that were using the same directories, so I even removed those games and made a clean installation of all of them just in case. (Thank god for optic fiber.)

Did I use mods? Yes, once or twice. I've used some mods to skip the early bit of the nautiloid story because I have started the game so many times with so many friends, I wanted to skip that bit and make a solo run to explore the story at my own pace. This mods have since been removed and I haven't reinstalled nor used any since the issue started happening.

And honestly, I loved your answer. If nothing else because that gamer tip was amazing to read and I love learning new stuff. I love my computer and I want to take care of it to the best of my ability so... Thank you!

=========================================

After having tried all the options and steps given, I am sad to report the game won't even launch now. I click play on Steam, the Larian Launcher shows up, and when I click Play on the launcher, the crash report window pops up.

I will remove BG3 with Revo and I'm seriously considering formatting my computer at this point.

I will also add that I asked my brother for help, logged into Steam in his computer and launched BG3 on his computer, to play around with my saves. It worked fine in his computer (which has lower specs than mine), but I wanted to, at the very least, make sure it wasn't the saves that were corrupted.

Thanks again though. I really appreciate you taking the time to give such a thorough answer!

*yawn* just woke up before I have to travel with the train... 4:30am over here...

Let me see...

Whatever troubleshooting you found on the internet is nonsense. That is not how it works with local AppData. I have to get ready for my journey so I keep it brief. The local AppData is like a combination of placeholder location and where your settings are saved etc.

The issue you have now that it does not even launch might be related to the latest patch, if you did nothing new.

I might need to check it more when I am more awake, but it sounds like the typical "patched while task was still invisibly running in the background" launcher files corruption.

Hm...

The cleanest path would be:
- uninstall the game using RevoUninstaller and make the advanced options search for any leftover files
- beware to make a backup of your savegames, as it eventually will delete those as well
- delete the whole installation folder in your Steam Library as well
- then apply this
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3018203217
once done - reinstall and it should be all back to vanilla as how things are supposed to be and you are able to start and play the game normally again

The rough path would be:
- checking first if the game works and if it is a launcher issue at the moment
- best, to avoid misunderstandings you restart your PC first
- once PC restarted, exit Steam fully
- launch the game using the executable
- if the game can launch like that, restart your PC and apply this
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3018203217

in both cases never launch as administrator at first, considering you are using Windows 11

I cannot outrule that your savegames might be corrupted. Once savegames are affected by mods you cannot revert them back to vanilla, so they will be always incompatible unless you either freeze the game version or the mods authors keep supplying you with updates. That is why I recommend to beginners this
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3029018792

Anyroads, let us see you can play the game first then see later how the changes affect your game, whether we need to take a closer look on your overall setup. Like: never. ever. run. a. game. in. fullscreen. in. Windows 11.

note: this post was actually delayed almost a day because I was not allowed to post anything