Game continues playing, but can't click buttons

[thatsacut]

I haven't seen anyone else talking about this specific issue. Ever since I got the game (about a month ago), the interface will partially freeze up several times a play session--the game keeps playing, but I can't press interface buttons. This happens at seemingly completely random times. Sometimes I can play for 30 minutes with no issues, sometimes I'll load in, and the game will freeze like this in 5 minutes.

During this partial freeze, several things happen:
1) The game keeps playing, I can click on in-game things like barrels and characters, pick up items, etc. BUT none of the interface buttons are pressable. I can't press action buttons, I can't click the X to close inventory screens, or press game menu button options. I CAN open a crate and click on items to loot them individually, but I CAN'T press the loot all button or X out the window.

2) Keyboard commands continue to work. I can press ESC to close a crate window. And I can press hot keys, like F5 to quick save, or ESC to pull up the game menu or close an inventory screen. If I press ESC to open the game menu, I can't press any of the menu button options. I can still move the camera around with the mouse and keyboard. Creatures in the area continue moving around. All the audio continues like normal. If I loot some items, and hit F5 to quick save, the game will load at the point of save, with those items looted and the interface unfrozen (for the time being).

3) the camera direction always re-aligns north when I click to move. So if I face the camera south, I can click on a point in the distance, and the camera will swing around back to north and my character will start walking a similar distance, but north, not south (the completely wrong direction).

PARTIAL WORKAROUND:
Since this is some sort of interface freeze and the game keeps playing, if I'm just walking around, I can still click on in-game items like loot or companions and I discovered if I engage a companion in a dialogue, It will go to the little cut scene, and then I can leave that dialogue and regain control of my game. But if I'm in the middle of a fight, then that is not possible and I have to CTRL+ALT+DEL and End Task the whole game. I suppose I could press F5 to save and it would load back into the fight, but I haven't tried that, and you would end up with a lot of random saves cluttering your save slots.

I've had the game about a month. It's been happening since I first started playing. I reported this to Larian, but have not received any suggestions. I've updated Nvidia Drivers, (and have tried Studio and Game drivers). I'm running the game on a Windows 11 Alienware M15R3 with 32GB ram, Nvidia 2070 Super, and plenty of hard drive space.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by thatsacut:

Game continues playing, but can't click buttons
I haven't seen anyone else talking about this specific issue. Ever since I got the game (about a month ago), the interface will partially freeze up several times a play session--the game keeps playing, but I can't press interface buttons. This happens at seemingly completely random times. Sometimes I can play for 30 minutes with no issues, sometimes I'll load in, and the game will freeze like this in 5 minutes.

During this partial freeze, several things happen:
1) The game keeps playing, I can click on in-game things like barrels and characters, pick up items, etc. BUT none of the interface buttons are pressable. I can't press action buttons, I can't click the X to close inventory screens, or press game menu button options. I CAN open a crate and click on items to loot them individually, but I CAN'T press the loot all button or X out the window.

2) Keyboard commands continue to work. I can press ESC to close a crate window. And I can press hot keys, like F5 to quick save, or ESC to pull up the game menu or close an inventory screen. If I press ESC to open the game menu, I can't press any of the menu button options. I can still move the camera around with the mouse and keyboard. Creatures in the area continue moving around. All the audio continues like normal. If I loot some items, and hit F5 to quick save, the game will load at the point of save, with those items looted and the interface unfrozen (for the time being).

3) the camera direction always re-aligns north when I click to move. So if I face the camera south, I can click on a point in the distance, and the camera will swing around back to north and my character will start walking a similar distance, but north, not south (the completely wrong direction).

PARTIAL WORKAROUND:
Since this is some sort of interface freeze and the game keeps playing, if I'm just walking around, I can still click on in-game items like loot or companions and I discovered if I engage a companion in a dialogue, It will go to the little cut scene, and then I can leave that dialogue and regain control of my game. But if I'm in the middle of a fight, then that is not possible and I have to CTRL+ALT+DEL and End Task the whole game. I suppose I could press F5 to save and it would load back into the fight, but I haven't tried that, and you would end up with a lot of random saves cluttering your save slots.

I've had the game about a month. It's been happening since I first started playing. I reported this to Larian, but have not received any suggestions. I've updated Nvidia Drivers, (and have tried Studio and Game drivers). I'm running the game on a Windows 11 Alienware M15R3 with 32GB ram, Nvidia 2070 Super, and plenty of hard drive space.

It is not a graphics cards driver issue or whatever you think, it is a process issue and therefore related to your CPU and OS.

F5 then F8 works as workaround.

The best way to "avoid" that issue is not allowing it to happen, which means avoiding actions inside and outside the game which could encourage the game to glitch out on purpose.

[thatsacut]

What actions do I need to avoid inside and outside the game that encourage the game to glitch? That's oddly phrased. Are you thinking I'm doing something to make the game glitch on purpose? I have not modded the game, and the only other programs I have running are whatever random internet browser windows I've had open, which when not in use, I believe do not take up much in the way of processes. I guess, Bitdefender and other normal background processes are running in the background as well. I've checked the Bitdefender logs and there is nothing noteworthy that I can see there.

[EDIT: also, just wanted to report that F8 loads your last quick save, but if you freeze, and then F5, and then F8, the problem persists after the quicksave reloads (but if you force quit the game, and load that same quicksave the next time you start the game, it will not be frozen. Super strange.]

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by thatsacut:

What actions do I need to avoid inside and outside the game that encourage the game to glitch? That's oddly phrased. Are you thinking I'm doing something to make the game glitch on purpose? I have not modded the game, and the only other programs I have running are whatever random internet browser windows I've had open, which when not in use, I believe do not take up much in the way of processes. I guess, Bitdefender and other normal background processes are running in the background as well. I've checked the Bitdefender logs and there is nothing noteworthy that I can see there.

You are on the right track. There a bunch of factors. I have not assumed you would use mods, otherwise I would have ignored your thread from the very beginning.

As mentioned before, it also depends on the OS and different browsers have different processes which might or might not run when idle. For example I use Google Chrome in combination with Windows 11 Pro, and the efficiency mode used by the OS can hamper with programs so strong that it causes the issues you have been describing.

There is no universal solution to the matter aside of getting better hardware.

The game tends and will glitch out when the queue of commands becomes unsynchronised and you start to see the multiple process layers (or you do not see because not many are used to see that). That happens especially but not exclusively when

- skipping dialogues
- pressing command keys very fast repeatedly in short time (e.g. often observed during people quicksaving -> savegame corruption as result)
- teleport

What you have here is basically that the game has a smart mechanic of you not seeing it is still loading when you do things. It is also related to post-patch issues where the cache becomes unsynchronised with the actual game due to updates if the cache was not purged before.

Turning off background apps can help. What help more is

a) run the game in windowed mode and use Borderless Gaming (free app @ github), especially on Windows 11

b) give the game high priority via task manager

c) clean your levelcache regulary; that is why I suggest RAMDisk for levelcache in my guides for advanced users

d) have a generous amount of virtual RAM (pagefile) of 24-32 GB

But that too is no guarantee that the issue cannot appear if your CPU is not strong enough when skipping dialogues and such.

Last but not least: never. ever. turn. off. a. security suite. for the sake of gaming especially. Do not do that. Let BitDefender do its job. It should not be a burden on your PC when it is doing that in the background. If it is a burden on your PC while it does something in the background then you are in need of an upgrade strongly.

[IvyMoonPip]

i have the same issue, it is quite strange. any sollutions found yet?