Game crashes on launch benchmark

['Twas By Design]

Subject: Critical Crash During Benchmark – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Hello,

I'm experiencing a critical issue where Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 causes a full system crash (hard shutdown, no BSOD) during the benchmark phase on first launch. This happens 100% of the time, and I’ve exhaustively ruled out system-side causes.

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🖥️ System Info:
- Windows 10 (latest updates)
- GPU: 3090 FE
- CPU: AMD 9800X3D
- PSU: Corsair 1500W (new)
- RAM: Corsair 6000MHz 64Gb
- GPU Drivers: 566.36 (stable) Tested new drivers, didn't work.
- Other games: Monster Hunter: Wilds, God Of War Ragnarok, FurMark, 3DMark – all stable under full load

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❌ Symptoms:
- Game launches, reaches “running benchmark” step, then instantly crashes the entire system (no BSOD, just reboot).
- No crash logs are generated.
- Event Viewer shows only Kernel-Power ID 41 and fallout errors (System Guard Runtime Broker, etc.)
- No other .sys file or app shows as faulting in logs

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🧪 Steps Taken (Exhaustive):
- Removed and cleaned old drivers (e.g. XQHDrv.sys)
- Disabled overlays (Steam, Discord)
- Verified game files / reinstalled game
- Ran FurMark, Heaven Benchmark, and played GPU-intensive games — no issues
- Updated all drivers and Windows components
- Launched game with: -dx11 -windowed -nobenchmark -skipbenchmark
- Manually created Engine.ini with bRunBenchmark=False (ignored)
- Tried Compatibility Mode (Windows 8), disabled fullscreen optimizations
- Tried launching under integrated GPU profile and clean new Windows account
- No config folder is created before crash (implies crash happens pre-save)
- Power supply confirmed stable (new, high wattage)
- System Guard Runtime errors follow crash — no evidence of malware, rootkit, or tampering

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💡 Conclusion:
- The crash is specific to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s forced benchmark on launch
- Benchmark cannot be skipped using standard flags or config overrides
- This appears to be an engine-level or GPU extension call that is incompatible with certain systems

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📣 Request:
Please provide a method to bypass or disable the benchmark on first launch (via patch, config flag, or beta branch), or assist in identifying which game feature is triggering this crash (e.g. ray tracing, async compute, anti-cheat, etc.).

Thank you for your time and support. I’d really love to play the game and hope we can work around this launch-blocking issue.

Best regards,
'Twas

['Twas By Design]

[FIXED] Clair Obscur Crashing at "Running Benchmark" — Hard Reboot, No Logs

After exhaustive testing and system tuning, I found the root cause of the crash that occurs during the "benchmark" phase on first launch, where the game causes a full system reboot with no BSOD or error logs.

✅ The Fix: Delete Unreal Engine’s Global Shader Cache

1. Open this folder:
C:\Users\<YourName>\AppData\Local\UnrealEngine

2. Delete ALL numbered folders inside (e.g. 4.10, 4.26, 5.0, 5.4, etc.)

3. Reboot your PC.

4. Launch Clair Obscur again — the engine will now rebuild a clean shader cache.

❗ Why This Works

Unreal Engine games share a global shader and asset cache. These can become corrupted, especially across GPU driver updates, engine version changes, or failed shader compiles. Clair Obscur's benchmark appears to run *before* the game saves any configs — so if UE loads corrupted cache data during that phase, it can cause an unrecoverable GPU/system crash.

🧠 What I Had Already Tried (Before This Worked)

- Clean DDU driver reinstalls
- ReBAR disabled
- Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling disabled
- Launch flags: -dx11 -windowed -nobenchmark
- Compatibility mode, safe boot, fresh user profile
- PSU and thermal checks (fully stable)
- BIOS tweaks, Windows sandbox isolation, and more

🚨 Nothing worked — until I deleted the Unreal Engine shader cache.

I hope this helps anyone else stuck at this invisible crash wall.

– 'Twas

[C1REX]

Originally posted by 'Twas By Design:

[FIXED]
✅ The Fix: Delete Unreal Engine’s Global Shader Cache

1. Open this folder:
C:\Users\<YourName>\AppData\Local\UnrealEngine

2. Delete ALL numbered folders inside (e.g. 4.10, 4.26, 5.0, 5.4, etc.)

3. Reboot your PC.

4. Launch Clair Obscur again — the engine will now rebuild a clean shader cache.

❗ Why This Works

Unreal Engine games share a global shader and asset cache. These can become corrupted, especially across GPU driver updates, engine version changes, or failed shader compiles. Clair Obscur's benchmark appears to run *before* the game saves any configs — so if UE loads corrupted cache data during that phase, it can cause an unrecoverable GPU/system crash.

I wonder if it can help with bad performance as well if the engine/drivers are using wrong shader data.

Thanks for sharing the fix when you didn’t have to.