For anyone crashing on start up - possible fix

[mippet]

Tried playing the game yesterday and it would crash after choosing my language option and whether or not I wanted subtitles, just before the first intro. This is using a 4090, an i9-13900k and 64GB 5600 DDR5 Ram, running Windows 11 Pro.

This was the error i'd get in windows event log,

Faulting application name: HorizonZeroDawn.exe, version: 1.0.11.14, time stamp: 0x61e6871c
Faulting module name: USER32.dll, version: 10.0.22621.1928, time stamp: 0xf615ee3f
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x0000000000001067
Faulting process id: 0x0x14C0
Faulting application start time: 0x0x1D9C04C1FBAD095
Faulting application path: E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Horizon Zero Dawn\HorizonZeroDawn.exe
Faulting module path: C:\windows\System32\USER32.dll
Report Id: 43f4ef2d-d421-4329-bc09-050e23961e51
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Anyway, after going through numerous possible fixes, like verifying the integrity of the game files, uninstalling/reinstalling, installing on different hard drives, updating my graphics card drivers, allowing the .exe in windows security and defender, disabling steam overlay and NVIDIA overlay, running the .exe in admin mode, increasing my pagefile size and even disabling XMP in my bios, and none of it working, I was almost ready to request a refund, before trying one last thing and running the .exe in compatibility mode for windows 8 and it finally works and hasn't crashed since. So yeah.. if anyone has the same issue as me, to save you any time and effort, try running it in compatibility mode first for windows 8 and hopefully it will work.

[mippet]

Originally posted by Xenophobe:

what about windows 10 compatibility mode? or does that not exist for windows 11?

It doesn't exist. There's only vista, windows 7 and windows 8.

[† flux]

Cheers fella, was about to lose my mind, seems to fix all the issues I was having. Much appreciated bro.

[cerealkeller]

That worked, thanks, after that I was able to switch it back to Win10, had to launch it once. I have pretty much the same specs as you, 4090, 13900K, 32 GB DDR5 7200

[Janred]

The game first crashed on me like every 20 minutes. I then did the "fix" where you have to delete the profile folder, cloud sync off/on etc. That worked for 18h then it kept crashed again. So I did the same steps again, worked fine for another 10h or so, crashed... I thought I would give Windows 8 compatibilty mode a chance, didnt really work still crashed sometimes. Then I tried limiting to 60 FPS which kinda hurts... But it still crashes sometimes.
I am about 34h in and had at least 15 crashes already. If there was a quicksave button it wouldnt be a big deal... but the game wants me to run back to a campfire after every bigger fight? Hell no.
I'll repeat the cloud sync, delete profile folder and revert back to more than 120FPS. I hope I will be able to finish this game since apart from the crashes it is really good.
Win 11, 13700KF. RTX 4080 at 4K res with DLSS Quality and HDR...

Edit: just tried again after deleting profile etc, crashed after 5 minutes...
Next I turned res down to 1440p without DLSS and HDR off, graphics settings to lowest besides textures and quality to high. Looks crap but seems to run without crashes - but who knows.

[isombrinia]

Well I just earned my first achievement: "Made it past the first cutscene!" Sadly, I failed to earn the second achievement: "Make it 30 minutes in without the game crashing"

"Hey, let's make the save points in our super-crashy game be really, really sparse!"

[newtype*]

didnt work for me :(

[Cyclelegs]

It worked. Almost given up. Thank you for this fix.

[A6N6T6ON]

It worked. And for everyone - this solution can be provided by Windows Troubleshooter. It helped a lot of time. Recommend it.