Stuck on preparing game

[PiedPiper]

Anyone else have a 3.8 save that is now stuck on the last 10% of the "preparing game" loading icon on a save resume?

[pacificjournalist]

Yup. The bar gets thus far and no further. I can't play the game any more and I have no idea why.

[radar6590]

I also just had this same issue. My ironman game worked earlier this morning (on the same game version), now stuck on last 10%. Everyone on the internet says it's mods, but I'm playing vanilla only. All my videocard drviers are up to date. I have plenty of RAM and VRAM.

I tried transferring the game to an alternate desktop and laptop and I was able to load it on both of those. However, even if I played for a bit and saved I still had the load hang on my main desktop. I tried verifying game files, reinstalling stellaris, restarting my PC, and eventually doing a system restore to yeserday when the save was working. Still nothing.

Why would the save work on a laptop and different desktop but not the original desktop it was created on? It makes no sense.

Thankfully I guess I can finish the game on my laptop, but what if it happens again? This is really annoying.

[radar6590]

Update: I tried playing the game for a few more years on my laptop, saved, and re-transferred to my PC. Finally it worked.

If you have this issue, try opening the game on another device, play for 2-5 years on that device, save and reopen on original device. Hopefully that helps someone.

[pipo.p]

What helps me is to open a task manager and fiddle with processes. I also have such freezes in game, when opening galaxy map first time or even ship designer first time.
But my problem is that I have only 4 GiB RAM and given Steam already consumes 0.3 or 0.5 GiB, on heavy saves, I end up with 3.6 GiB RAM used in total, and I have to wait for the game to load assets from SSD bits to bits, and store them in the pagefile (also on SSD; I can end with Stellaris eating 2+ GiB pagefile out of 4 GiB reserved). I Believe my bottleneck is the SSD.

[Donauwelle]

No problems at all here...
Game runs like a charm.

I7-12700KF + 64GB ram + Asus z690-a + Asus Strix 4070TI+ all 7.000m/s nvme`s here.
Tbh your 4 Gigs Ram... dunno what to say...
Maybe.... Time to upgrade?
Like... uuuuh.... i doubt you reach the minimum specs for this game?

Last 4gig system i seen been our old Win7 32Bit Laptops from work....
We thrown them away like 5 years ago...
And those been pure workstations....

In a Private gaming rig....
Thats something from 2006-8

[corisai]

Originally posted by pipo.p:

I Believe my bottleneck is the SSD.

Your bottleneck is low amount of RAM (pagefile ideally should be never used while software is working).

Stellaris happy to eat 3.2GB alone without any graphic mods (just checked my game here and now).

UPD. Currently with Stellaris, Steam and some (ahem, ~100) firefox tabs - my system eating ~8 GB.

[Donauwelle]

Just checked it,
game wants you to have atleast 4 Gb of Ram.
That means for the game, not for the whole system.
However that should somehow work if they say thats the min....

Unless.... you start stacking DLC/Loading big maps....
Doubt the 4 GB Min spec means you should play 1000Star+30 Empire maps...

I guess thats the spec to somehow make a 200star 1v1 running....
No DLC that is...

Besides the game is constantly getting updated.
Not sure if that goes for the shown specs aswell.
It might also still be the requirement for version 1.0 from 6-7 years ago....

[corisai]

Originally posted by Donauwelle:

I guess thats the spec to somehow make a 200star 1v1 running....

Situation is not THAT bad, I'm playing 800 stars with max amount of empires (at start lol, half of galaxy already... fallen to counter-lag measures ) and it's around 3.2GB.

And AFAIK default gameplay is "medium-sized galaxy" so min specs are for them.

[Donauwelle]

Just checked it.

Loaded my current save...
Basegame + 90% of all dlc (i guess) - no mods / Ironman mode
1000 Stars + 10 Empires + no Xenocomp + medium prim/worlds

Im fighting 2 awakened Empires + Pretos at year 2499 right now

Ram usage: 2,2 GB (wow didnt think its that low / purged a lot so mb i just... genocided nuff)

HOWEVER
I`ve got 2 of my Cores running on 80% workload.
On a I7-12700KF that is....

Rest is in idlemode doing nothin` at all, but thats Stellaris in a Nutshell...
Considering you have 4GB of ram, and the last 4GB ram i seen was DDR2 Ram...
And DDR2 Ram bords support.... lets say rather oldish CPUs.....

To make it short... hows your CPU doing?

[pete3great]

Originally posted by Donauwelle:

No problems at all here...
Game runs like a charm.

I7-12700KF + 64GB ram + Asus z690-a + Asus Strix 4070TI+ all 7.000m/s nvme`s here.
Tbh your 4 Gigs Ram... dunno what to say...
Maybe.... Time to upgrade?
Like... uuuuh.... i doubt you reach the minimum specs for this game?

Last 4gig system i seen been our old Win7 32Bit Laptops from work....
We thrown them away like 5 years ago...
And those been pure workstations....

In a Private gaming rig....
Thats something from 2006-8

"My car has a flat."
"Well min doesn't, so I don't understand what you're complaining about."

Genuinely don't understand these responses to people having trouble getting the game to work.

[Donauwelle]

Originally posted by pete3great:

"My car has a flat."
"Well min doesn't, so I don't understand what you're complaining about."

Genuinely don't understand these responses to people having trouble getting the game to work.

First you want to know if its a local or a Systemic problem.
If your the only one with this issue its on your end,
if 100 ppl come up with "same here" its time for some good ol PDX fixing.

Secondly posting system specs is crucial to fixing problems as it might always be a Hardware issue. If ppl post a wide variety of Systemspecs you might see a pattern, like low RAM/CPU, 32BIT architecture, all Win7 systems or what not.

Belive it or not. All this things are crucial to good QS, or in this case... Helping someone fix his/her problems.


PPL rarely "♥♥♥♥" arround when posting their systems, most adult ppl with a job, playing videogames as a Hobby.... Well lets just say my friends usually spend more for Skiing or Surfing then i do for gaming...
Its about helping/bugfixing not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ `round..


Pretty sure i was more helpfull so far then you....
Atleast they know the problem is local and not smth on PDX end / bugged update/patch

[pete3great]

Originally posted by Donauwelle:

First you want to know if its a local or a Systemic problem.
If your the only one with this issue its your problem,
if 100 ppl come up with "same here" its time for some good ol PDX fixing.

If you take five seconds to scroll down this subforum, you will see that, yes, in fact, a lot of people are having this problem. In fact, there's a sticky about it. Still isn't fixed.

[Donauwelle]

Well most i seen been about UI and the ongiong Portrait issue.

Guess you couldve just linked the sticky instead wasting your energy here with me....
You mean this one?
Nothing about freezes on loading... Crash yes... Freeze/stuck no....

Originally posted by MrFreake_PDX:

Unable to click the UI/buttons offset

This appears to be an issue related to the game resolution setting and Direct X 11. People have been reporting that pressing alt+tab or alt+enter on the game will resolve the issue temporarily.

For a more permanent fix: In the launcher, go to Game Settings, and ensure that your resolution is set correctly, and choose borderless fullscreen or windowed mode.

Crashing during loading

Updating your video card drivers has been shown to resolve this issue.

If none of these things resolve your issue

Go to support.paradoxplaza.com and open a ticket with Customer Support to get more in-depth help.

[Nyaaa~!]

Originally posted by Donauwelle:

Originally posted by pete3great:

"My car has a flat."
"Well min doesn't, so I don't understand what you're complaining about."

Genuinely don't understand these responses to people having trouble getting the game to work.

First you want to know if its a local or a Systemic problem.
If your the only one with this issue its on your end,
if 100 ppl come up with "same here" its time for some good ol PDX fixing.

Secondly posting system specs is crucial to fixing problems as it might always be a Hardware issue. If ppl post a wide variety of Systemspecs you might see a pattern, like low RAM/CPU, 32BIT architecture, all Win7 systems or what not.

Belive it or not. All this things are crucial to good QS, or in this case... Helping someone fix his/her problems.


PPL rarely "♥♥♥♥" arround when posting their systems, most adult ppl with a job, playing videogames as a Hobby.... Well lets just say my friends usually spend more for Skiing or Surfing then i do for gaming...
Its about helping/bugfixing not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ `round..


Pretty sure i was more helpfull so far then you....
Atleast they know the problem is local and not smth on PDX end / bugged update/patch

Originally posted by Donauwelle:

Well most i seen been about UI and the ongiong Portrait issue.

Guess you couldve just linked the sticky instead wasting your energy here with me....
You mean this one?
Nothing about freezes on loading... Crash yes... Freeze/stuck no....

Originally posted by MrFreake_PDX:

Unable to click the UI/buttons offset

This appears to be an issue related to the game resolution setting and Direct X 11. People have been reporting that pressing alt+tab or alt+enter on the game will resolve the issue temporarily.

For a more permanent fix: In the launcher, go to Game Settings, and ensure that your resolution is set correctly, and choose borderless fullscreen or windowed mode.

Crashing during loading

Updating your video card drivers has been shown to resolve this issue.

If none of these things resolve your issue

Go to support.paradoxplaza.com and open a ticket with Customer Support to get more in-depth help.

I'm using a new custom-built PC with AMD Ryzen 9 7950X - 64GB DDR5-6000MHz - ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero - ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 - Stellaris installed on a 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD with 7000MB/s - Liquid cooler - PSU 850W 80+ Platinum.

And I'm also stuck at the last 10% of "Preparing game". If you want a ♥♥♥♥ measuring contest instead of actually helping OP solve the issue. And no, I do not think it is a RAM issue.

[Hydragon]

I had the same issue. What 'fixed' it in my case was simply copying the folder of that specific save and then loading the copied save in the load menu instead. So perhaps it wasn't necessary at all to have the game being played on by another device, but just the act of having the file copied over and sent back was enough to fix it.

If you're playing on Windows with Steam, the default save folder location should be:

C:\Users\<your user>\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris\save games

For MacOS it should be the following location (haven't verified):

/Users/<your user>/Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/save games

Surprisingly this also works for ironman games which is kind of cheesy since it means you can just take copies every once in a while and return to an older copy if your empire gets run over.