I can't begin the game from the main menu for some reason

[Doktor Vem]

I don't know why, but whenever I try to start the game (as in not just "boot up" but actually start it by pressing "Begin" on the main menu) it loads for a bit and as soon as the loading bar is full, my screen goes black, and the game crashes out of nowhere. I get no reason, no explanation, nothing that tells me why it happens.

All my drivers are up to date, I've got pretty damn good hardware if I do say so myself so I seriously doubt that's the reason. Like I got a GTX 3090 graphics card, an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X processor, 32 GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1000W PSU, so I really can't see that being the cause of it all. I've tried all the "simple" solutions I can think of, I've reinstalled the game, both normally and cleanly. I've restarted my computer several times and I just can't seem to solve it on my own, so now I'm asking you people. Do you have any idea of what the reason for this madness could be and how to fix it?

I've scowered the internet for a while looking for answers and I've yet to find something that works. I found one post that seemed to have similar issues to me but their solution was just to do a clean install, which as I said, didn't work. Is it possible that my computer's like too advanced for the game or something? I saw something about the game not being properly optimised for high-end computers, so is the "solution" just to sit and wait for the developers to update the game which will probably never happen as it hasn't had any updates in over a year?

[Conte Mascetti]

I have the same problem. Exactly the same. I use to play it many years ago. Now, with a Dell AlienWare 14, Geforce RTX 3090 24 GB, 64 GB RAM, I'm experiencing the same thing... Too bad.

[XKpe]

I'm experiencing the same problem. Any fixes?

[P0lT10n]

Same problem... nice...

[Decode]

Same, is there a fix?

[拉莱耶居民]

Same, no fix yet?

[paletta_thebest]

same problem

[Jostermatrix]

Other posts about the "Begin the game" showing the loading screen then crashing to the desktop, I can confirm that setting my number of processors to 8 worked. I tried setting the CPU affinity for the EXE to 8 (CPU 0 through 7) did not work.

It is extremely unfortunate to have to do this in order for the game to run. I am cheesing the last few achievements before too modern of tech makes this unplayable.

1) Open 'msconfig' from the Run menu (Windows key + R), or typing 'msconfig' from the Start menu
2) Go to the 'Boot' tab
3) Click on 'Advanced options...'
4) Set 'Number of processors:' to 8
5) Click 'OK' and reboot

As of this writing, I have Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 (OS buld 22621.2861) with the following specs:
- Intel Core i9-9980XE @ 3.0 GHz
- 32 GB RAM
- nVidia GeForece RTX 2080 Ti with driver v546.33

[Volt_Viper9402]

Thank you it worked. Does that slow anything down or cause any other issues with anything to my PC or games?

[Jostermatrix]

Originally posted by Volt_Viper9402:

Thank you it worked. Does that slow anything down or cause any other issues with anything to my PC or games?

No general performance issues with Windows in my experience. However, you will need to undo the changes if you are going use any program or game that would benefit from using all the CPU cores available.