Windows 10 Update: My Games, especially Cities Skylines, do not start

[Pixoon Tube]

Hello everyone,
Today I installed the new Windows 10 Update. After that, I wanted to play Cities: Skylines, but it did not start, I just got a black screen. And you probably know about that little indicator showing up after starting Steam Games, telling you that you are having access to the Steam Community while playing. Usually, this indicator disappears, as everyone knows. However, it just keeps reappearing again, again and again, flickering around and preventing the game from starting.

Additionally, I am having this issue with other Steam Games as well, especially those that I am not running in full-screen mode, but in windowed mode. I always ran Cities:Skylines in windowed mod with a lower resolution, so that it is running more smoothly.
I can also not acces Adventure Communist, Adventure Capitalist and Poly Bridge. However, Gear Up is working perfectly fine. Moreover, I can not access Mini Metro, which I am running in full-screen-mode , but other Games, that I am running in full-screen-mode, like Portal or Portal 2 are starting as they are supposed to do.
I have also tried out starting Non-Steam-Titles, and they are all working. It has to be an issue with my games being in my Steam library.
Well, Sorry for throwing in other games into the Cities: Skylines forum. Actually, I only want to have a working version of Cities: Skylines, as this is my favourite game. I do not really care about the rest, I just mentioned them, because I tested my other games after Cities: Skylines failed and found out that they are having similar problems.

After I tested out everythign, I have captured this issue for you so that it is easier to understand the problem. Here is the link to the video:

https://youtu.be/GL91oqxNMv8

As one can see in the video, I have accidentally clicked on the "Access to Steam Community indicator" causing the troubles. I found myself in the Steam menu being shown after pressing SHIFT and TAB, but that is not the problem, that is the way it is supposed to work. But after trying to return to the game, this screen also started flickering with the same pace as the "Access to Steam Community indicator" does. That time, my game did not start either.

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

[Huperspace]

update/reinstall GPU driver

[LJChronx2]

I had the same problem. Restore W10 to settings before update. It will work again.

[Pajuta]

Same problem for me after installing Creators update.If I change resolution to windowed mode I get black screen too. In full screen the game tries to start and then it closes down.

Posted a thread here about it yesterday. Dont know what you have tried to fix it but maybe you get some ideas reading my post - http://steamcommunity.com/app/255710/discussions/0/1499000547478125073/

[Pajuta]

Yes, rolling back to previous Windows version probably helps but is isn't there really any other solution?

[MarkJohnson]

Reboot and install all of your drivers. video, chipset, etc.

[Pixoon Tube]

EDIT: I have already tried to install a new GPU driver, but that did not work. I opened GeForce Experience and tried to install the driver recommended by Nvidia. However, i could not finish installing the driver as it would not be compatible with my Windows version (as I expected).

Secondly, reinstalling the game does not fix the problem. I have also tried out reinstalling with Adventure Capitalist, another game that stopped working after the Windows Update, same there.

Furthermore, I deleted the gameSettings.cgs file being stored in the games AppData folder, so that it would start with its native settings in full-screen mode. I thought that it could maybe fix my problem as I have always ran Cities: Skylines in windowed mode. But this time I could not even access my game, and when I did, it crashes and closes itself.

[mokes310]

By chance are you running an 860m? If yes, I am too. In the output log, do you see this text?

"D3D11: Failed to create RenderTexture (0 x 0 fmt 19 aa 1), error 0x80070057"

If yes, thank the heavens I'm not alone :) I have an open ticket with Paradox Interactive, and they've advised that my GPU cannot load dx11 graphics. Not entirely sure why that would be the case with all of my drivers being up to date and to manufacturer's specifications.

I was able to get the game to run in win8.1 without issue, so something funny is definitely going on here.

FYI, I repeatedly, no matter what I do/change/update, I generate that error above in win10.

[Pixoon Tube]

Well, I am running Cities: Skylines on an 820M 2G (the small, lazy brother of your gpu). I know, it is not the same graphics chips, but maybe, my problem is having similar issues as both gpu's are from the same series.
But furthermore, I have also tried to run Cities: Skylines on my Intel HD Graphics 4600 (i know, this is a very stupid idea, but once I am desperate about something, I will accept probably any solution). It did not work on my Intel HD Graphics either, so I wonder whether this is a problem being caused by an interference between my Nvidia GPU and Windows 10.

[Vimes]

You noted in your first post that you installed the CU. Do you mean that you manually started the update process or was it available for your PC through the NORMAL Windows update method.?

[mokes310]

Hey, at least we both have mobile nvidia gpus :)

Check your logs for the same type of error text here: "D3D11: Failed to create RenderTexture"

If you don't know how to check your logs, PI gave me these instructions.

Open up steam and navigate to your library of installed games.
Right Click the game Cities Skylines
Select Properties
Select the Local Files Tab
Select Browse Local Content
Open up the Cities_Data Folder
Open the Output_Log.TXT

If we both get that same error, I'm betting that it'll help at least narrow the search for a solution.

[Pixoon Tube]

I got it. Same error line. In my output log:

D3D11: Failed to create RenderTexture (0 x 0 fmt 19 aa 1), error 0x80070057

After that it says:

StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.

And the following lines are repeating itself over and over again:
at ColossalFramework.UI.UILabel.Invalidate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at ColossalFramework.UI.UIComponent.OnSizeChanged () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0


BTW, I have also checked out which DirectX version is installed on my PC. It says that DirectX 12 would be installed, but I found out that Direct3D-DDI for my Intel HD-Graphics would be 12 and that of my Nvidia 820M would be 11.4

[Pixoon Tube]

Right now, I talking to a friend having more IT knowledge than me and now we are trying to reinstall the graphic drivers again in a more professional way.

My graphic driver at the moment is: 376.54
And my Nvidia PhysX is 9.13.0725

But that may change now. After reinstalling/ installing new drivers, I will report how my games are going to behave

[Pixoon Tube]

Unfortunately, I was not able to deinstall my old graphics driver, as the necessaire dll did not work.
Secondly, I could not restore my system to a point before the Windows Update.

And I installed the Update at Friday evening. At Friday Morning, I got the message that I could update my PC, but I needed it to work, so I cliked: "Remind me later". At the evening, I installed the Update by clicking on "Update and restart"

[Pixoon Tube]

Anyway managed to install the latest driver. But still, Cities: Skylines does not work

[Huperspace]

make a clean install of Windows /or the Win10 Reset