Mafia 2 Classic Random Crashes, Black Sky Flicker

[Xep]

Hello. I'm having an issue with random crashes anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours into gameplay. It doesn't matter what chapter, area of the map, vehicle, etc, after a certain amount of time the sky will begin having a small black flicker that expands until the screen turns black and the game crashes to desktop.

Here's many similar threads I found after a quick search describing the exact same thing:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/50130/discussions/0/2252308752474910337/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/50130/discussions/0/2282708683257145083
https://steamcommunity.com/app/50130/discussions/0/2282708683266917568/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/50130/discussions/0/3220528325725965422/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/50130/discussions/0/1777136225022802706/

My specs are as follows:
OS: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations
CPU: R9 5900x
GPU: RTX 3090
RAM: DDR4-3200 CL14

All drivers are up-to-date, windows is as well.

Things I've tried:
1. Verifying the game
2. Reinstalling the game
3. Deleting videoconfig file
4. Rebooting PC
5. Reinstalling GFX drivers
6. Changing video settings
7. Running as administrator
8. Running in compatibility for Windows 7

Nothing helped or made any difference at all.
Google is anything but helpful with trying to diagnose this issue.
Many others have clearly experienced the same, has anyone found a solution? None of the discussions on this have said what caused it or how to fix it.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Xep]

To add more details, I know for a fact this is a time based crash as others have also described because if I load up the game and immediately pause it, wait 1 hour and then un-pause, the sky will immediately have the black flicker and the game will crash within about 5 seconds.

It feels like I paid for a demo. This did not exist on my old PC.

[knotschow007]

Is there going to be a patch or some sort of fix for all the mafia games for pc/steam. My pc specs as follows.

Operating System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i5 9300H @ 2.40GHz 64 °C
Coffee Lake 14nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Single-Channel Unknown @ 1330MHz (19-19-19-43)
Motherboard
CFL Octavia_CFS (U3E1)
Graphics
Generic PnP Monitor (1920x1080@60Hz)
Intel UHD Graphics 630 (Acer Incorporated [ALI])
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (Acer Incorporated [ALI]) 43 °C
SLI Disabled
Storage
931GB Seagate ST1000LM035-1RK172 (SATA (SSD)) 39 °C
238GB KINGSTON RBUSNS8154P3256GJ1 (SATA-2 (SSD))
1816GB Seagate Expansion SCSI Disk Device (USB (SATA) ) 37 °C
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
7.1 Surround Sound

[Vachi]

For anyone still having this issue, download 4gb patch here https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371

Apply this patch to the mafia2.exe in mafia2/pc folder. Hope it helps!
The black flicker issue is caused by the sun. Game runs smoothly at the night chapters.

[EagleWatch]

Originally posted by Vachivenza:

For anyone still having this issue, download 4gb patch here https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371

Apply this patch to the mafia2.exe in mafia2/pc folder. Hope it helps!
The black flicker issue is caused by the sun. Game runs smoothly at the night chapters.

The 4gb patch really does fix the game. I am surprised of how many issues I had on this playthrough. I played this back then on the same hardware and had no issues and neither did I have anything on an older 64-bit laptop I owned, but this time it is full of glitches and texture issues, probably because of the new windows updates. Anyways the 4gb patch does its work. Thank you for the help.

[iBready]

does it fix the crashes ?

[EagleWatch]

Originally posted by iBready:

does it fix the crashes ?

Definitely. It even fixed some other issues I had like the flickering smoke and some random pitch black objects on ground.

[Gugu]

Its malvare or spyware,also the file is not 4 gb but 40kb...

[s20online]

Originally posted by Gugu:

Its malvare or spyware,also the file is not 4 gb but 40kb...

so thats why it only only makes me last 5 min longer w the patch

[turbochinchilla]

This solution will sound very stupid and made me feel like an idiot, but make sure you assign the integrated graphics instead of an nvidia or an amd gpu to the game in case you have a laptop. The game for some reason keeps ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ itself whenever it's not running on integrated graphics, even if you cap fps on the gpus. I have tried all sorts of methods to fix the game and it seems it started behaving normally only after this simple change. So far, I haven't crashed in any of the dlcs, even after 5 minutes have passed, as it used to. Don't see anything wrong happening in the main story either. So, maybe give this a try if nothing else works out? Hopefully this change will be able to solve your problems.

(I also recommend assigning physx to cpu even if you have physx turned off, just in case.)

[EagleWatch]

Originally posted by Gugu:

Its malvare or spyware,also the file is not 4 gb but 40kb...

It literally fixed my problem. I don't know else and the 4gb is actually the name of the patcher not the size.
What 4gb patch does is making the game run as x64 program instead of x86. It eliminates the 2gb ram limit for 32-bit programs and lets them have more memory. You also need to have a 64-bit system to use it also more than 2gb ram of course to get its benefits.

[Doggo]

Originally posted by Vachivenza:

For anyone still having this issue, download 4gb patch here https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371

Apply this patch to the mafia2.exe in mafia2/pc folder. Hope it helps!
The black flicker issue is caused by the sun. Game runs smoothly at the night chapters.

Thank you so much! Finally no more black sky flickering resulting in crashes and also the slow-mo bug in chapter 2 is fixed by the patch.

[Stufoos]

Originally posted by Vachi:

For anyone still having this issue, download 4gb patch here https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371

Apply this patch to the mafia2.exe in mafia2/pc folder. Hope it helps!
The black flicker issue is caused by the sun. Game runs smoothly at the night chapters.

it removed the black thing in the sky,but somehow it still freezes,any help?

[Stufoos]

Originally posted by Gugu:

Its malvare or spyware,also the file is not 4 gb but 40kb...

i think because its for 4gb ram's...

[A-mak]

Originally posted by Gugu:

Its malvare or spyware,also the file is not 4 gb but 40kb...

Bit late to the party.

If you have concerns, rather than posting conspiracy garbage you can upload it to virustotal.com which will show it's 100% clean.

Since you don't seem to even understand what the program does I will explain.

All it does is change a flag in the .exe (any 32-bit .exe) which will allow the application full 32-bit memory address (aka 4GB) as originally windows made sure to reserve 2gb for system operation etc.

I am surprised it's even 40kb, probably mostly GUI taking up that space.

[eSK_tr0jAn]

Originally posted by Gugu:

Its malvare or spyware,also the file is not 4 gb but 40kb...

Not true. It still works and fixed the issue for me