Windows 10 ruined the game?

[SashaTimovich]

Hey there, folks.
I am sorry to make a new thread for this question alone, but the steam forum is such a mess i can't think of an other way.
I've played this game for lots of hours and enjoyed it immensely. That is, before I upgraded Windows 7 to Windows 10.
Now, when I try to launch the game, it just crashes. Plain and simple: black screen, crash.
Some research in the internet told me, that the game should work on W10. But it doesn't. Pity.
I didn't install any mods (well, there aren't any =)), and I've just re-installed the game.

I thought it might be because of my screen resolution, which is higher than the one I use in the game (because my laptop starts frying if I play it with decent graphics), tried setting it down, didn't work.

Any ideas of what might be wrong?

[Ilgoth]

What is your graphics card and do you have latest drivers on it?

[SashaTimovich]

Nvidia GeForce GT 540M.
I don't know about the drivers, how do I find out?
Fun thing is, it worked perfectly before the Windows update. Not sure if the drivers really are the problem.

[Ilgoth]

Oh no they tend to be.

Most likely your current drivers are a bit old. If you go to your desktop and right click, do you have some nVidia panel there? If you do, go there and look for graphics card info. You can also check if it has any new drivers for update.

If your drivers indeed are bit old, changing OS might affect and cause small troubles like some games not working.

[Ilgoth]

You can always manually check here: http://www.geforce.com/drivers

I did and seems your graphics card don't have Windows 10 drivers. Your hope lies in nVidia's work and if they release new drivers for your graphics card! How old is it?

[The Griffin of Ala Mhigo]

This is the main problem for PC's and updating to fairly new OS releases and the effects on gaming; Don't trust what people say about upgrading to a OS that has been out for less than a year, next to nothing is truely tried and tested; and the uniqueness of PC's are very vast. Better off being safe than sorry methinks.

On another note, are there any compatibility settings to run for Windows vista/7/8 support through windows 10, It may help. Not too sure but the steam "search for Video driver updates" (under the steam tab, far left hand corner) should be worth a try if there are no compatibility settings

[Ilgoth]

Originally posted by Moggle Mog:

This is the main problem for PC's and updating to fairly new OS releases and the effects on gaming; Don't trust what people say about upgrading to a OS that has been out for less than a year, next to nothing is truely tried and tested; and the uniqueness of PC's are very vast. Better off being safe than sorry methinks.

On another note, are there any compatibility settings to run for Windows vista/7/8 support through windows 10, It may help. Not too sure but the steam "search for Video driver updates" (under the steam tab, far left hand corner) should be worth a try if there are no compatibility settings

True here, but to be fair - nVidias GT 500M series is old as it is. And also being a notebook card, it aint the first one they're gonna work on.

[tequila]

Upgraded Windows 7 to Windows 10 - no issues so far. So I guess it has something to do with your graphics card then.

[Raze_Larian]

Check the Event Viewer, and see if it gives an error code or 'Faulting Module' file name, which might help identify the cause of the crash. The following is based on Win 7/8, but it should be the same or similar in 10:
- click Start (or WinKey-W in Win 8; may have been carried into 10), then type "event viewer" (or just "ev") into the search box
- after starting the Event Viewer, expand 'Windows Logs' in the left column and select 'Application'
- in the center column, look for a recent error (maybe sort by Date and Time) for the game
- check the information under the 'General' tab below the list of events, starting with "Faulting application name..."


Are you shutting down all non-essential programs (especially anti-virus) before starting the game? Firewalls have also caused conflicts.

Did you manually edit the configuration file to lower the resolution, or lower your desktop resolution to limit what the game would start at? Either should work.
Try deleting or renaming the graphicSettings.lsx file (in the '..\Documents\Larian Studios\Divinity Original Sin' folder), to get the game to re-create it on startup, in case there is a graphics option in there that was fine in Win 7 but causes a conflict with the Win 10 drivers, or something.

If there is any loading time before the game crashes, try Alt-Tabbing away from the game and see if that avoids the crash. If so, you may be able to switch back to the game once it loads.


Windows 10 made changes to default file and folder permissions. Generally, if there is an issue with that, though, it doesn't cause a crash on startup (a few people have had errors loading saves or trying to start a new game; error code 100 for a new game, or 100, 119 and sometimes 120 loading an existing save).

In the My Documents folder, right click the Larian Studios folder and select Properties, switch to the Security tab and click on Advanced. The Owner of the folder will be listed at the top, with an option to change; click 'change' and in the next window type your Windows user name and click Check Names, then click OK once it finds the user account. Generally, System, the current user and Administrators should have Full Control.

These errors may also be avoided by setting the game to run as administrator. That can sometimes help with startup crashes in general.
To do so, in the '..\SteamApps\common\Divinity - Original Sin\Shipping' folder, right click on the EoCApp.exe program file, select Properties and switch to the Compatibility tab.


If applicable, disable cloud support either globally (in the client click on the Steam menu and select Settings, and then Cloud) or just for this game (in the library right click Divinity: Original Sin and select Properties, then switch to the Updates tab and check the Steam Cloud section).

After that, browse to the '..\Documents\Larian Studios' folder and rename the 'Divinity Original Sin' subfolder.
This folder contains the saved games, configuration files and a level cache folder. Deleting or renaming it will get the game to recreate it on startup; playing the game from a different Windows user account would effectively do the same thing.
Next try starting D:OS; if it loads, create a new profile when prompted and maybe start a new game to check that you can save and load properly. If that works, exit and then copy a couple saves from the renamed folder into the newly created profile's savegames folder. If there are no issues (shouldn't be if you get the game to start again), move the rest of the saves over.

If D:OS still crashes, delete the new D:OS folder, if the game got far enough to create it. Next, extract the replacement folder from the download below into your '..\Documents\Larian Studios' folder, and see if that will let you start the game (it may help if the problem is in setting up the initial My Documents folder and configuration files). Double check the folder permissions, as described above.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dgexy80z6axxtmq/DOSdoc10219.zip?dl=0 (695KB)

The graphicSettings.lsx can be edited to manually set the game resolution and display mode (the one in the download above set to 1152x648 resolution, windowed mode), or if the included file lets you start the game, you can change that (and quality settings) in the Video options. See the topic Crash on startup [Solved][www.larian.com] for details.

If that helps, create a new profile and move the saves over. If it doesn't delete the My Documents D:OS folder, and rename the original back again.

[Arsene Lupin]

I can stilll play the game in Win10, but I have noticed a pretty severe drop in average framerate. From 50-60 in Win8 to 20-40 in Win10.

[Ocsabat]

Originally posted by Stefunal:

Nvidia GeForce GT 540M.
I don't know about the drivers, how do I find out?
Fun thing is, it worked perfectly before the Windows update. Not sure if the drivers really are the problem.

Then you need to reinstall or upgrade the drivers to be sure. When it comes to troubleshooting PC games, that's always the first thing to try. Drivers tend to be the source of most game related issues. Especially after an OS ugrade or update.

[SashaTimovich]

Thank you all for your suggestions.

@Ilgoth:
Bought my notebook in 2011. I just downloaded a driver updater program called "Driver Booster 2", which updated all out-dated drivers (some vere VERY old, indeed) but that didn't seem to fix the problem.

@Moggle Mog:
Actually I installed Win10 by accident :D
I subscribed to get the free update but didn't want to upgrade until I was completely sure it would be worth it, but then while playing D:OS the update program just popped out with the suggestion to update now (or later). Unfortunately there was some glitch and I clicked the "update now" (couldn't see what it said) button. Here I am now :D

@Raze:
Tried using the Event Viewer, it didn't find any known Application Name.
Deleted the graphic settings file, didn't work.

@Ocsabat:
Installing the newest driver manually right now. Hope it will help.

[Syrris]

I don't know whether this is affecting D:OS, but many games are having issues on Win10 because some support library or other (some versions of Visual C++ seem to be a common offender) doesn't get carried over to the new version and/or doesn't necessarily get install properly along with the game itself. If that's what's happening then working out which one is the problem and getting an installer from Microsoft's site typically solves it. Raze would have a better idea than I do if that's a possibility here, though.

[The Griffin of Ala Mhigo]

Ouch, or Microsoft is actually letting people think they have a choice of whether to update to windows 10 or not >.> Conspiracy theory ahoy. Also It may be worth noting that Windows 10 is anti-piracy and can block software and hardware from running; how exactly it does the later, I don't know.

I'd only assume it'd power them off to non functional levels if something is drastically wrong with the bit of hardware, but I could be wrong with that.

Also, Microsoft big brother senpai is always watching.

[Ilgoth]

Originally posted by Moggle Mog:

Ouch, or Microsoft is actually letting people think they have a choice of whether to update to windows 10 or not >.> Conspiracy theory ahoy. Also It may be worth noting that Windows 10 is anti-piracy and can block software and hardware from running; how exactly it does the later, I don't know.

I'd only assume it'd power them off to non functional levels if something is drastically wrong with the bit of hardware, but I could be wrong with that.

Also, Microsoft big brother senpai is always watching.

Go away with your bs.

During the installation of the OS, you can disable most of the ♥♥♥♥ they got. Also if you throw in "fix10" over Google, you will find instruction how to remove the remaining spyware of Windows 10. Some of the "security" updates are simply spyware.

Besides, anti-piracy should be a thing. It has never done major good to those who make the products. Only for people who refuse to pay, but still want it.

[The Griffin of Ala Mhigo]

It's not entirely bs; I'm saying it from a neutral point, I have nothing against the anti piracy of it, the main thing I dislike about it is the big brother is watching you with our spyware, and however they are blocking the hardware, and for what reason, e.g whether the bit of hardware is a malfuntioning unit, an old unit, requires too much power. Safety shutdown in short

It's good to know that people have already looked into and worked on this "fix 10" to remove the privacy invasion of the OS, which is one of the main issues to not get it - the other is the lack of support & testing from the gaming community as of yet.