Help needed: game crushes; Issues with 'cooked console'; or, maybe, AML

[Egir]

OK, hopefully Iridar will see it, but if anyone is aware and beats him to it, I need advice and help.

I recently upgraded (significantly) my rig, and am now finally (and inevitably) running Win 10. Also, my PC is more or less a beast. The reason I am mentioning this is not to brag, but to highlight how peculiar it is to have issues on a much more powerful PC when I was running it without such issues on a 7 years old Win7 configuration.

The problem: sudden crushes when going thorugh items lists in the Character pool. At first I though it was an issue with a specific mod. I was going through 'Lower Props' and upon reaching a certain item, the game stumbled, lagged for a few seconds, then crashed, with the crash report saying the following:

"Error detected attempting load of package: D\SteamLibrary\steamapps\workshop\content\268500\2701747143\CookedPCConsole\MGRArmor_content.upk"

This is in reference to the mod '(DOA 6) DEAD OR ALIVE 6 - Kasumi's Ninja Outfits [WOTC]'. Uninstalled and deleted, then resubscribed. The issue persisted: once I hit a specific item, crash to desktop. Decided to try and avoid that specific thing, but then, when going to a different list, it happened again, now referencing "FCP_2_Ana_Stewart.upk", which is from an entirely different mod, Kexx's Female Clothing pack.

Now, an important thing has to be mentioned. Because I have edited the inis of some mods (and I am running with 600+mods), I needed to preserve them, but I was not sure whether I kept all the edited copies. So, to make things simpler, when I installed the game on the new PC, I did not go individually copying the inis to each mod. Rather, I just copied all the mods folders from the old PC, and copied-and-replaced all the mods folders on the new PC, because all of them were carrying the same code. (I believe they install with the game, and then the AML sort of locates them.)

So, I am not sure what is going on. Possible issues:

(a) I cannot copy and replace, like I did. OR
(b) Specific mods have some issues, and I was jut unlucky enough to hit two in a row; OR
(c) My system, while powerful, has some calibration issue (e.g. different resolution settings, or something else which does not align and needs tweaking). OR
(d) The AML has a problem. OR
(e) Something else.

Please help!!

[Egir]

Update. Now it crushed directly when I tried to go to character pool. What the hell is going on!?

[Just me n my pc...]

Can you use Boomer English for us old guys?

[Egir]

Originally posted by Just me n my pc...:

Can you use Boomer English for us old guys?

I myself am not a spring chicken. It is not impossible I'm older than you, actually. :) What do you need 'translated'?

[Selmo]

Try to delete all files from Documents\My Games\XCOM2 War of the Chosen\XComGame\Config.

[Egir]

@ Selmo

Originally posted by Selmo:

Try to delete all files from Documents\My Games\XCOM2 War of the Chosen\XComGame\Config.

That just deleted all my characters configuration, for all my 569 soldiers. (Only the names and bio remained.)

It is a stroke of good fortune that I am not a complete noob, and that I had kept a back-up of the config folder before deleting, so I have now copied everything back. Even with this foresight, it did not return to how I had it, and I had to delete the whole pool, and and re-import everyone. (Luckily, the return of the config files returned my character appearance settings in the saved pools, so I could actually re-import everyone.)

Now, imagine someone who did not have the experience to know to keep backups and a saved pool: it would take them many days to reconfigure everything as it was, and probably miss some.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by Egir:

(a) I cannot copy and replace, like I did. OR
(b) Specific mods have some issues, and I was jut unlucky enough to hit two in a row; OR

One or both of these is the likely culprit.

I'm guessing the copy/paste folders action is the more likely cause of your issues, because unless you also re-subscribed to all the mods you had on Steam Workshop, it's possible that the game doesn't know that the mod folders exist in the location you pasted them to.

[Egir]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Originally posted by Egir:

(a) I cannot copy and replace, like I did. OR
(b) Specific mods have some issues, and I was jut unlucky enough to hit two in a row; OR

One or both of these is the likely culprit.

I'm guessing the copy/paste folders action is the more likely cause of your issues, because unless you also re-subscribed to all the mods you had on Steam Workshop, it's possible that the game doesn't know that the mod folders exist in the location you pasted them to.

But the game does see them. I mean... OK, the steps I followed, exactly:

A. On old PC:

1. Exported and saved my character pool (with all the modded character customisations).
2. Copied all the mods folders, moved them to an external HD. (Note that the overwhelming majority of my mods is cosmetic.)

B. On new PC:

3. Installed the game. The mods I was subscribed to on the Steam Workshop, installed together with the game. (Explanation below.)
4. Installed AML. When I fired it up to see whether I need to configure something, it loaded all my mods (which, as obove, implies that that these installed when I installed the game.) Checked to see whether this is so, and true it was, all the mods folders were present, all the files inside were present.
5. Checked that the mods folders on the new PC matched the folder names on the back up.
6. Copied and paste-replaced all these folders. Also, pasted my backed up character pool where necessary.
7. Fired up the game. All went well. Imported my character pool, all my solders showed as normal, with all the mods customisations applied.
8. Played a session from an existing saved game. Again, all was fine, all my soldiers appeared, and were imported from pool, with full customisation.

The issue:

8. Next day, went into the pool and was fiddling with customisation of one of my solders. Upon reaching a specific asset, the game crushed as described above.

[hendo003]

Two things I recommend.

1. Check to see if the versions of what you are using are compatible with the version of the game. (i.e. Xcom 2 or WOTC).

2. Make sure the mods you are using are not out of "date" and have been replaced by something else. Like a redux version or a version that has been updated or is no longer being supported.

I know that these probably sounds like a duh already knew that, however you did say you had over 600+ mods. Sometimes it is easy (at least for me) to over look the little steps.

[Stardustfire]

when you PC crushes, dont let heavy stuff fall on it.
if the game crashes instead, maybe try to find the mod that does that....

[Egir]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

when you PC crushes, dont let heavy stuff fall on it.
if the game crashes instead, maybe try to find the mod that does that....

Do you think I did not check? All the same mods are running pristinely on my old PC. The same mods (not one of them was updated in the past few days) are colliding with something on the new PC. And the issue spreads over two mods, rather than being the same issue which is resolved when I deactivate something.

[Iridar]

This looks like either game's files or mods' files are damaged somehow. Verifying integrity via Steam should fix it if that's the case, but it will reset all your config edits.

[Egir]

Originally posted by Iridar:

This looks like either game's files or mods' files are damaged somehow. Verifying integrity via Steam should fix it if that's the case, but it will reset all your config edits.

Привет!

Thanks for the response! I was leaning towards this, though trying to keep it as a last resort. Anyway, I was away for a few days, and only now gave it a try. No go. I cleared everything, and reinstalled all mods via the AML, made no edits, left everything as it was, launched, and the game crashed a few seconds after I pressed the Character Pool button.

So, several questions now, with the first one being:

Could it be an AML issue? I have noticed people reporting crashes recently, and I believe there was a small edit to the AML a few weeks ago. Further question: how many mods can the ALM 'lift' without a problem (both in number and weight)? Does it have something like an optimum capacity, a limit? Finally, it is behaving a bit differently on the new system: on the old one, when I launched the game, the AML shut down (like a launcher would), and then a pop up window would appear (something like a loading window, I suppose), then the game would (eventually) launch. Now, in the new rig, the AML window remains open, does not shut down to launch the game.

To note here also, that most of my mods are cosmetic, so should not interfere with the games mechanics, but just add things; I have 601 activated mods; and, I believe, their total 'weight' is between 50-60 GB. Now, my old PC (i5 4690, WIn 7, GeForce GTX 760, 16 GB RAM) played all this with some difficulty (long loading times), but no crushes. The new PC (Ryzen 9 7950X3D, Win 10 Pro, AMD RX 7900 XTX, 64GB RAM) keeps crushing it.

Which brings me to further possible issues:

Could it be a game settings issue? I, naturally, beefed up graphics settings, because with my new set up - why wouldn't I? But could it, maybe, clash somewhere? I remember reading somewhere that XCOM 2 has not been particularly optimised for multi-core systems.

Could it be a GPU/ screen settings issue (e.g. minimum framerate)? Seems daft, but most games are capped at 60, and while some can just ignore increases, or handle smaller increases, some games are notably problematic when the cap is lifted. (Fallout 4, for instance, bugs out when the framerate goes over 60 fps). My new Dell allows for up to 240fps, though I can cap through AMD Adrenalin.

Could it be a Firewall issue? O n the old rig I was running an old Eset Nod antivirus. The new setup is still without one, relying on Windows' firewall, since, apart from games, I have nothing sensitive on my system.

[Dragon32]

Verifying Integrity in Steam is really quick and not at all onerous, just start it off and it'll be done in a few minutes

AML is a launcher, it starts the game. If someone has a problem after they've clicked its "launch XCOM 2" button then that's a game problem.

If XCOM 2 starts without mods then it's a mod problem.

There's people running more than 1000 mods. I'm about 650 myself.

[Egir]

Originally posted by Dragon32:

Verifying Integrity in Steam is really quick and not at all onerous, just start it off and it'll be done in a few minutes

AML is a launcher, it starts the game. If someone has a problem after they've clicked its "launch XCOM 2" button then that's a game problem.

If XCOM 2 starts without mods then it's a mod problem.

There's people running more than 1000 mods. I'm about 650 myself.

Thanks. Yes, it is not onerous. My issue was different (and iridar picked up on it, because he is aware of my thing from previous discussions); namely, I tend to edit the inis of the mods I run, to either add or remove things, and this is why I was reluctant, because verifying game files returns everything to its original state. Meaning, it would force me to redo these edits, which is not super difficult, but with 600+ mods quite time-consuming.

I am looking at graphics settings now, and deactivating some of the mods (some of the voicemods at first instance, cause they tend to pile up), and will see where that gets me. But if you have any ideas about the other stuff and how it might glitch out, that would be great, because I would expect to be out of the woods by now, but am still swimming in the deep with this, and frustration is reaching the 'screw it, let's play RDR2' phase. But I have put close to 2000 hrs to this game, and 'I wants it, I needs it, and I gotsta, gotsta haves it'. :)

[Dragon32]

I feel you. I used to do that (edit .ini files in their Workshop folder) then Steam verified files and overwrote them. I have a batch file that copies the Workshop folder to another drive so I could have restored them... if I hadn't run the wrong batch file by mistake and overwrote those backups. Urk. I could've gone folder by folder and restored my in situ backups but I've spent the past couple of months recreating them all in a local mod (~370 .ini files, ~130 .int)

If you've got space why not try copying the Workshop folder somewhere, running the Verify, then copying the Workshop folder over? Your mod edits will be preserved and my guess would be the problem's in the game install. Or compare the two directory trees with WinMerge.