Fatal Error Genuine Fix

[oubaasusa]

Are you tired of fatal errors yet? Sick of setting up custom page files, Alt+Tabbing to Task Manager to raise the executable's priority, or reading lists of things that "might help" that contain ideas that actually make the problem worse? Are you dismayed at lowering your graphics settings to try to prevent the dreaded "Fatal Error"? Well, let's see what we can do about it. This really worked on my PC. Hopefully it will work on yours.

I like to race quads in Sport mode on the USA map. But prior to this, if I dared to click on quads and Sport mode, I'd get a fatal error almost every time, before I could go race. You could rely on it like you can rely on the sun rising in the east every morning,

And on those rare occasions when the game allowed me to play, if I had the temerity to try to watch a replay, a fatal error was guaranteed the instant that I clicked the Replay button.

But, after doing what I did, I've been happily racing and watching replays over and over again, with NO fatal errors. None. Nothing else worked for me. But this does. It works without lowering my graphics settings or doing anything else.

The problem is shader compiling. In Sport mode, there's beacons, flow arrows, other vehicles running around that have nothing to do with the race, bots that you're racing, helicopters flying over, all sorts of stuff, all happening in an open world. With shaders compiling during game play, it would crash a bank of Cray supercomputers.

So let's fix it.

Right-click on the game's title in the Steam interface. Under "Launch Options", enter this:

-dx12 -xgeshadercompile

Now close that dialog.

Next, navigate to the game's configuration files in AppData. By default, this would be located in:

C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Dakar2Game\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor

In this location you will find a file named, "engine.ini". Add this with a space in-between these entries and the stuff that's already in there.

[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
niagara.CreateShadersOnLoad=1

Then press, "Enter" to add another space after these entries. Save the file and go play.

The first time that you launch the game after doing this, it will hang, and Windows will panic and say it's, "Not Responding" if you touch anything. The game is busy compiling shaders. Be patient. It's not frozen. Eventually, your controller will respond and you can go about your business, i.e., go race.

On subsequent launches it won't hang, it has already compiled the shaders during that initial, post tweak launch, You may get occasional stickiness if new shaders come into play, but the more you race, the smoother things will get, until you don't get any stickiness.

So there you have it. I have no more Fatal Errors. I hope that this will help others. By the way, this trick will help any game that runs on the Unreal 4 engine, if you're having stuttering or other issues. Have fun! Now go race.

[<Blank />]

I was hoping this would finally fix my career so I could continue, it hasn't. I added the launch options

I tried putting

[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
niagara.CreateShadersOnLoad=1

at the top of the ini, at the bottom of the ini, after the core thing, literally nothing changed.

[oubaasusa]

Originally posted by <Blank />:

I was hoping this would finally fix my career so I could continue, it hasn't. I added the launch options

I tried putting [/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
niagara.CreateShadersOnLoad=1

at the top of the ini, at the bottom of the ini, after the core thing, literally nothing changed.

Damn! Sorry to hear it. I was afraid of that. The Internet s full of solutions that seem to work for a few people, but not others. There are also a lot of reports of the error going away for a while, then reappearing. My game is working fine now, but I'm wondering if or when the fatal error is going to come back.

There seems to be a variable involved. There has to be a universal solution. If my error comes back later on, I'm going to keep working on it. There are a lot of clues. I have never had a fatal error in Free Roam mode, only in competition modes. That means something. It has to be solved.

[<Blank />]

We shouldn't have to find ways to fix this, the developer should. They at least would have more than some idea of what's causing it in the first place.

The shame is that the game really provides a good arcadey dakar experience and makes a pretty good alternative game for people who like games like motorstorm but want a more grounded in reality theme. It's a fun game. But the devs broke it. And they refuse to fix it.

I recently got Dakar 18 running again with some launch instructions and I'm having a blast with it, but sometimes I just want to yeet across the map without much care in the world and watch vehicles get shredded spectacularly when they mess up. Nah, can't do that, 'fatal error'.

Also Dakar 18 with this games graphics and rosters would be amazing. This game with Dakar 18s simulation and route lengths would be amazing. But we can't have nice things.

[oubaasusa]

Originally posted by <Blank />:

We shouldn't have to find ways to fix this, the developer should. They at least would have more than some idea of what's causing it in the first place.

The shame is that the game really provides a good arcadey dakar experience and makes a pretty good alternative game for people who like games like motorstorm but want a more grounded in reality theme. It's a fun game. But the devs broke it. And they refuse to fix it.

I recently got Dakar 18 running again with some launch instructions and I'm having a blast with it, but sometimes I just want to yeet across the map without much care in the world and watch vehicles get shredded spectacularly when they mess up. Nah, can't do that, 'fatal error'.

Also Dakar 18 with this games graphics and rosters would be amazing. This game with Dakar 18s simulation and route lengths would be amazing. But we can't have nice things.

Yeah, I think we can forget about the devs ever getting after it. We're on our own. But the community might be able to eventually fix it. It has happened with other games.

I tried my game this morning and it's still working. But I feel like I'm walking through a mine field every time I play. I keep waiting for that fatal error.

Agree on Dakar 18. I play it a lot. Excellent fun!

[Lone Ego]

Originally posted by oubaasusa:

I tried my game this morning and it's still working. But I feel like I'm walking through a mine field every time I play. I keep waiting for that fatal error.

Agree on Dakar 18. I play it a lot. Excellent fun!

It is sad to not be able to fully enjoy the game due to fearing it crashing. May I ask your PC specs? Perhaps there is some answer there as to why the fix works for you but not others.

[oubaasusa]

Originally posted by Lone Ego:

Originally posted by oubaasusa:

I tried my game this morning and it's still working. But I feel like I'm walking through a mine field every time I play. I keep waiting for that fatal error.

Agree on Dakar 18. I play it a lot. Excellent fun!

It is sad to not be able to fully enjoy the game due to fearing it crashing. May I ask your PC specs? Perhaps there is some answer there as to why the fix works for you but not others.

Yes, here they are:

Intel i9 10900K @ 3.70 GHz
nVidia RTX 3060 w/12GB Memory
32 GB RAM
2 x 1 TB SSD
1 x 8 TB Mechanical Drive

The game is running off of one of the SSDs. I've got RTX DLSS set to balanced, Dynamic Vibrance at 50, and Reflex set to Enabled + Boost. I'm running the game at Epic with a resolution of 2560 x 1440.

That's about all that I can think of as far as system and settings go. I've run a lot of races with all the different vehicles, and it hasn't crashed yet. But I'm still apprehensive every time I play.

[professionalF1merchant5]

So i own the game on Epic Games, its a shame that developers destroyed the game and when we try to contact them they just straight up copy paste a template "reply" i submitted a report about the Fatal Error LAST YEAR but no. No respond. Shame on you Saber.

[[Yamete!>_<] Mr Tom]

Originally posted by oubaasusa:

Are you tired of fatal errors yet? Sick of setting up custom page files, Alt+Tabbing to Task Manager to raise the executable's priority, or reading lists of things that "might help" that contain ideas that actually make the problem worse? Are you dismayed at lowering your graphics settings to try to prevent the dreaded "Fatal Error"? Well, let's see what we can do about it. This really worked on my PC. Hopefully it will work on yours.

I like to race quads in Sport mode on the USA map. But prior to this, if I dared to click on quads and Sport mode, I'd get a fatal error almost every time, before I could go race. You could rely on it like you can rely on the sun rising in the east every morning,

And on those rare occasions when the game allowed me to play, if I had the temerity to try to watch a replay, a fatal error was guaranteed the instant that I clicked the Replay button.

But, after doing what I did, I've been happily racing and watching replays over and over again, with NO fatal errors. None. Nothing else worked for me. But this does. It works without lowering my graphics settings or doing anything else.

The problem is shader compiling. In Sport mode, there's beacons, flow arrows, other vehicles running around that have nothing to do with the race, bots that you're racing, helicopters flying over, all sorts of stuff, all happening in an open world. With shaders compiling during game play, it would crash a bank of Cray supercomputers.

So let's fix it.

Right-click on the game's title in the Steam interface. Under "Launch Options", enter this:

-dx12 -xgeshadercompile

Now close that dialog.

Next, navigate to the game's configuration files in AppData. By default, this would be located in:

C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Dakar2Game\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor

In this location you will find a file named, "engine.ini". Add this with a space in-between these entries and the stuff that's already in there.[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
niagara.CreateShadersOnLoad=1

Then press, "Enter" to add another space after these entries. Save the file and go play.

The first time that you launch the game after doing this, it will hang, and Windows will panic and say it's, "Not Responding" if you touch anything. The game is busy compiling shaders. Be patient. It's not frozen. Eventually, your controller will respond and you can go about your business, i.e., go race.

On subsequent launches it won't hang, it has already compiled the shaders during that initial, post tweak launch, You may get occasional stickiness if new shaders come into play, but the more you race, the smoother things will get, until you don't get any stickiness.

So there you have it. I have no more Fatal Errors. I hope that this will help others. By the way, this trick will help any game that runs on the Unreal 4 engine, if you're having stuttering or other issues. Have fun! Now go race.

Hey - thank you for sharing this. I'd left this game for nearly 2 years but decided to give it another go now with Dakar being on IRL.

But just to check, and for others, the second stage of your fix (where you go to the files in WindowsNoEditor, for the code you posted (starting '[/script...'), is it meant to be in Engine.ini? My reason for asking, when I looked within engine.ini, the structure of the file wasn't the same as what you posted above. However, I did some exploring and found within the file 'RuntimeOptions.ini' (same folder) that the contents are in the exact same format as what you posted.

Anyway, I posted it in RuntimeOptions (exactly per your instructions with spaces). First time I have loaded the game since and no crashes yet. That said, I tried the game before doing the above and it was running in places where it used to crash for me (2 years ago) but subsequently crashed FE in other places, hence me trying your fix. So I will continue to play the game to see if I have any other issues and report back.

But thanks for sharing mate. It's such a shame the devs abandoned this game, the underlying gameplay is good.

[oubaasusa]

Originally posted by Yamete!>_< Mr Tom:

Originally posted by oubaasusa:

Are you tired of fatal errors yet? Sick of setting up custom page files, Alt+Tabbing to Task Manager to raise the executable's priority, or reading lists of things that "might help" that contain ideas that actually make the problem worse? Are you dismayed at lowering your graphics settings to try to prevent the dreaded "Fatal Error"? Well, let's see what we can do about it. This really worked on my PC. Hopefully it will work on yours.

I like to race quads in Sport mode on the USA map. But prior to this, if I dared to click on quads and Sport mode, I'd get a fatal error almost every time, before I could go race. You could rely on it like you can rely on the sun rising in the east every morning,

And on those rare occasions when the game allowed me to play, if I had the temerity to try to watch a replay, a fatal error was guaranteed the instant that I clicked the Replay button.

But, after doing what I did, I've been happily racing and watching replays over and over again, with NO fatal errors. None. Nothing else worked for me. But this does. It works without lowering my graphics settings or doing anything else.

The problem is shader compiling. In Sport mode, there's beacons, flow arrows, other vehicles running around that have nothing to do with the race, bots that you're racing, helicopters flying over, all sorts of stuff, all happening in an open world. With shaders compiling during game play, it would crash a bank of Cray supercomputers.

So let's fix it.

Right-click on the game's title in the Steam interface. Under "Launch Options", enter this:

-dx12 -xgeshadercompile

Now close that dialog.

Next, navigate to the game's configuration files in AppData. By default, this would be located in:

C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Dakar2Game\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor

In this location you will find a file named, "engine.ini". Add this with a space in-between these entries and the stuff that's already in there.[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
niagara.CreateShadersOnLoad=1

Then press, "Enter" to add another space after these entries. Save the file and go play.

The first time that you launch the game after doing this, it will hang, and Windows will panic and say it's, "Not Responding" if you touch anything. The game is busy compiling shaders. Be patient. It's not frozen. Eventually, your controller will respond and you can go about your business, i.e., go race.

On subsequent launches it won't hang, it has already compiled the shaders during that initial, post tweak launch, You may get occasional stickiness if new shaders come into play, but the more you race, the smoother things will get, until you don't get any stickiness.

So there you have it. I have no more Fatal Errors. I hope that this will help others. By the way, this trick will help any game that runs on the Unreal 4 engine, if you're having stuttering or other issues. Have fun! Now go race.

Hey - thank you for sharing this. I'd left this game for nearly 2 years but decided to give it another go now with Dakar being on IRL.

But just to check, and for others, the second stage of your fix (where you go to the files in WindowsNoEditor, for the code you posted (starting '[/script...'), is it meant to be in Engine.ini? My reason for asking, when I looked within engine.ini, the structure of the file wasn't the same as what you posted above. However, I did some exploring and found within the file 'RuntimeOptions.ini' (same folder) that the contents are in the exact same format as what you posted.
Anyway, I posted it in RuntimeOptions (exactly per your instructions with spaces). First time I have loaded the game since and no crashes yet. That said, I tried the game before doing the above and it was running in places where it used to crash for me (2 years ago) but subsequently crashed FE in other places, hence me trying your fix. So I will continue to play the game to see if I have any other issues and report back.

But thanks for sharing mate. It's such a shame the devs abandoned this game, the underlying gameplay is good.

My pleasure! Now, having looked at this, the scripting does seem to be a better fit in RuntimeOptions.ini. So I'm going to try that.

Here's what I'm running at this point, and it seems to have stopped the stutters and eliminated the fatal errors:

>>Steam Launch Options<<

"C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Dakar Desert Rally\Dakar2Game\Binaries\Win64\Dakar2Game-Win64-Shipping.exe" %COMMAND% -dx12 -xgeshadercompile

>>Engine.ini<<

[TextureStreaming]
r.UseShaderCaching=1
r.Shaders.Optimize=1
r.Shaders.FastMath=1
r.UseShaderPredraw=1
r.UseAsyncShaderPrecompilation=1
s.AsyncLoadingThreadEnabled=True

>>RuntimeOptions.ini<<

[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
niagara.CreateShadersOnLoad=1
D3D12.PSO.DiskCache=1
D3D12.PSO.DriverOptimizedDiskCache=1
r.ShaderPipelineCache.Enabled=1
r.Vulkan.PipelineCacheFromShaderPipelineCache=1

That seems to be working for smooth game play without errors. Is it all in the right place? Well, I hope so, LOL!

[moyer4487]

i just started getting crashes halfway through a stage with any vehicle. i don't know why as of yet either. maybe i will try this fix and see. Saber is the same people that make Mudrunner and Snowrunner right? they did so good with those games. Why the problems with this one? And it seems abandoned too?

[Goose]

Originally posted by moyer4487:

i just started getting crashes halfway through a stage with any vehicle. i don't know why as of yet either. maybe i will try this fix and see. Saber is the same people that make Mudrunner and Snowrunner right? they did so good with those games. Why the problems with this one? And it seems abandoned too?

Different developer, this company is originally BigMoon Entertainment who made Dakar 18, they got aquired by Sabre and rebranded to Sabre Porto, the only real affiliation with the Snowrunner team is the crossover DLC they did for Dakar.

[<Blank />]

Originally posted by Goose:

Originally posted by moyer4487:

i just started getting crashes halfway through a stage with any vehicle. i don't know why as of yet either. maybe i will try this fix and see. Saber is the same people that make Mudrunner and Snowrunner right? they did so good with those games. Why the problems with this one? And it seems abandoned too?

Different developer, this company is originally BigMoon Entertainment who made Dakar 18, they got aquired by Sabre and rebranded to Sabre Porto, the only real affiliation with the Snowrunner team is the crossover DLC they did for Dakar.

It's a shame because Dakar 18 is pretty much the superior game, and they already had south america map assets, they'd have to rework the map for open world but it would've been great if we got the south american location as well and then the USA dlc and an Australia and/or Africa dlc on top of that to really cover the whole world rally raid experience.

This game could've been really special, but it's kind of a mess.

I also wish I could turn up the AI on sport mode. I vastly prefer playing this game in sport mode and playing Dakar 18 as a rally raid sim.