HZD Refuses to Load Benchmark or Load Game

[iPokemon]

Odd pickle I have here, thank you for 5 minutes of your time!
Recently I built a new PC to test out low-budget environments. I will post their details below. Horizon Zero Dawn is installed on a shared Hard Disk Drive (named X:).

When I played on my laptop or my workstation PC (both have Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs), it works fine. However, when playing on this Athlon build, it refuses to load. Deleting the file ShaderLocationDB.bin says the game crashed, but loaded the level in the benchmark, minus being able to load the stage (verified by RivaTuner, RAM monitoring).

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the example goes like this:
- Start the game
- Go to Settings
- Click on the last tab
- Load benchmarks
- infinite loading.

EDIT 2: I also forgot to mention it wasn't the loading screen, but this wheel on the bottom left hand corner, going infinitely.

More peculiarly, when bringing the drive back to either of the laptop or desktop, it crashes when playing on Borderless Windowed. Before running on the Athlon build, it worked flawlessly. This was fixed by deleting My Documents/Horizon Zero Dawn/Saved Game/profiles/.

These are the computer specs I have for all three:

Athlon Build
CPU: AMD Athlon 3000G, overclocked to 3.9GHz
GPU: Radeon Vega 3, overclocked to 1.7GHz
RAM: 16GB DDR4-3600, clocked at 3400MHz (64MB for video memory in BIOS)
Storage: Transcend SSD230S 128GB
MB: Gigabyte B450M DS3H (non V2)

Workstation
CPU: Intel i5-10500
GPU: Zotac GTX 1660S Twin Fan, overclocked core +195MHz, memory +700MHz
RAM: 16GB DDR4-2133, clocked at 2400MHz.
Storage: Samsung EVO 860 500GB
MB: MSI B460M Mortar

Laptop is Zephyrus Duo 15, non SE.

Do you guys think this is a hardware or software issue? I'm unsure - I've seen people run Horizon Zero Dawn on the Athlon build without a dedicated GPU.

And does anyone have a fix?

Thank you for reading, again!

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

Have you waited for the Optimizing Shaders to complete to 100%? Otherwise the game may load for a really long time.

Athlon 3000G has only 2 Cores, so it may be really long. On my i7-4790K 4.4 GHz first (the most important) Shader Optimization took 30 minutes. Without it, the game's load times were 3-4 minutes long. Now they take less than a minute.

[iPokemon]

Originally posted by 🉑 reznoR:

Have you waited for the Optimizing Shaders to complete to 100%? Otherwise the game may load for a really long time.

Athlon 3000G has only 2 Cores, so it may be really long. On my i7-4790K 4.4 GHz first (the most important) Shader Optimization took 30 minutes. Without it, the game's load times were 3-4 minutes long. Now they take less than a minute.

Strangely enough, there's no "Compiling Shaders" on the Main Menu!

And definitely. I've realized these two cores are slow as molasses.

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

Does the waterfall in the main menu stutter and CPU usage is 100%? This may mean that the Optimizing Shaders is still running, but doesn't show the progress somehow. It happened for me once. Some hardware configurations apparently don't see the message at all (developers' decision to hide it for some people since update v1.08 if I remember correctly).

Maybe try leaving the game to load for a few minutes, see if the progress bar is moving...

[iPokemon]

Originally posted by 🉑 reznoR:

Does the waterfall in the main menu stutter and CPU usage is 100%? This may mean that the Optimizing Shaders is still running, but doesn't show the progress somehow. It happened for me once. Some hardware configurations apparently don't see the message at all (developers' decision to hide it for some people since update v1.08 if I remember correctly).

Maybe try leaving the game to load for a few minutes, see if the progress bar is moving...

Nuh-uh on both. CPU usage tracked on RivaTuner is at idle percents (<=10%). Waterfall didn't even break a sweat.

I'm getting the feeling there ARE precompiled shaders - except they're not compatible with Vega. Which might as well be correct!

EDIT: and maybe they're hidden somewhere. Steam shows up nothing. Hypothesis discarded. Darn it!

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

I assume you already tried verifying integrity of HZD files on the Athlon build while the drive is connected to it?

I'm also curious if the fact of sharing Steam/HZD files/disk/save files/profiles/settings with other PCs has something to do with it.

How much Shared VRAM the Vega card is reporting through Task Manager?

[iPokemon]

Originally posted by 🉑 reznoR:

I assume you already tried verifying integrity of HZD files on the Athlon build while the drive is connected to it?

I'm also curious if the fact of sharing Steam/HZD files/disk/save files/profiles/settings with other PCs has something to do with it.

How much Shared VRAM the Vega card is reporting through Task Manager?

Integrity verified - didn't work.
Shared VRAM sits at 7GB! I've switched the dedicated VRAM to 2GB, no dice.
It might also be the case too, but I've decided to try and install HZD alone on that computer on an SD card. Still doesn't work.

By the way, thank you in advance for all the effort you're putting into replying to me!

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

No problem! 🙂 It is really interesting. But I ran out of ideas (for now).

Here are some things you can try, though:
https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/help/connectivity-and-performance/article/troubleshooting-technical-issues-on-pc/000061047
I like this, I know it's Ubisoft, but it applies to most games/software problems, and is put in a one clean list of step-by-step things to do.

7 GB should be okay, I think. It's "just right" when looking at the minimum requirements.

[iPokemon]

Originally posted by 🉑 reznoR:

No problem! 🙂 It is really interesting. But I ran out of ideas (for now).

Here are some things you can try, though:
https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/help/connectivity-and-performance/article/troubleshooting-technical-issues-on-pc/000061047
I like this, I know it's Ubisoft, but it applies to most games/software problems, and is put in a one clean list of step-by-step things to do.

7 GB should be okay, I think. It's "just right" when looking at the minimum requirements.

While these didn't work, thank you nonetheless! You're awesome. Giving your YouTube channel a sub!

[Bubba]

I realize this might be a little late and you may already have resolved the issue but.... I had same kind of issue. I would start game and wait and wait and wait for it to actually start. Then after a minute or two it would pop up an error message that "Unfortunately the game has crashed. Would you like to send an error report?" The exact moment this message appears the game would launch.

Solved this by moving the game folder to the same drive that Windows is installed on. Now loads the game instantly.

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

Originally posted by iPokemon:

While these didn't work, thank you nonetheless! You're awesome. Giving your YouTube channel a sub!

Thank you, I appreciate it! 🙂
Hope you'll manage to find a working solution.

[iPokemon]

Originally posted by Bubba:

I realize this might be a little late and you may already have resolved the issue but.... I had same kind of issue. I would start game and wait and wait and wait for it to actually start. Then after a minute or two it would pop up an error message that "Unfortunately the game has crashed. Would you like to send an error report?" The exact moment this message appears the game would launch.

Solved this by moving the game folder to the same drive that Windows is installed on. Now loads the game instantly.

I... Actually, have not!
But that sounds good!
Another part of it is that I found out Steam manages its OWN shader cache. I'm gonna try getting rid of that to see what happens...

[Komarimaru]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the simple fact, that a Vega 3 is extremely below Min Specs for the game.

For example, at 720p on High settings, it can't even run GTA 5, at 60 FPS. On Red Dead Redemption 2, at 720p lowest settings, 27 FPS with the APU overclocked to 1600Mhz, not far from 1700. And RDR2 is less demanding than HZD.

[iPokemon]

Originally posted by Komarimaru:

I'm surprised no one mentioned the simple fact, that a Vega 3 is extremely below Min Specs for the game.

For example, at 720p on High settings, it can't even run GTA 5, at 60 FPS. On Red Dead Redemption 2, at 720p lowest settings, 27 FPS with the APU overclocked to 1600Mhz, not far from 1700. And RDR2 is less demanding than HZD.

I'm well aware of it! But just because it's below "minimum specifications", it doesn't mean it can't run. I think it has the capability of running, else the game would've crashed *before* going into main menu. Maybe a shader clean or what @Bubba suggests might solve this issue.

[Komarimaru]

Originally posted by iPokemon:

Originally posted by Komarimaru:

I'm surprised no one mentioned the simple fact, that a Vega 3 is extremely below Min Specs for the game.

For example, at 720p on High settings, it can't even run GTA 5, at 60 FPS. On Red Dead Redemption 2, at 720p lowest settings, 27 FPS with the APU overclocked to 1600Mhz, not far from 1700. And RDR2 is less demanding than HZD.

I'm well aware of it! But just because it's below "minimum specifications", it doesn't mean it can't run. I think it has the capability of running, else the game would've crashed *before* going into main menu. Maybe a shader clean or what @Bubba suggests might solve this issue.

it's 1400% below min spec, though. You can get it to run with driver changes etc. But won't be enjoyable to play. But look for driver version 21.3.2, it's the most stable for HZD. Best of luck, since moment you leave the intro zone, 10-20 FPS is the average at 720p and 50% resolution scale.

[iPokemon]

Originally posted by Komarimaru:

Originally posted by iPokemon:

I'm well aware of it! But just because it's below "minimum specifications", it doesn't mean it can't run. I think it has the capability of running, else the game would've crashed *before* going into main menu. Maybe a shader clean or what @Bubba suggests might solve this issue.

it's 1400% below min spec, though. You can get it to run with driver changes etc. But won't be enjoyable to play. But look for driver version 21.3.2, it's the most stable for HZD. Best of luck, since moment you leave the intro zone, 10-20 FPS is the average at 720p and 50% resolution scale.

Haha, there are definitely ways to make it run - and enjoyable! My target is at least 30FPS. There is a resolution scale I can adjust - and if I can use the config files my life might be a bit easier.

Also will take note for the driver for AMD.

Until I solve the shader issues, however, it will refuse to run. For now, both options (clear shaders, install in C: drive) does not work.