Repeating Crash to desktop on start of Anchor fight

[Ragsnstitches]

FOR ANYONE WITH THE SAME OR SIMILAR ISSUE PLEASE REPORT THE BUG HERE:

https://fs30.formsite.com/505games/control/index.html

As the title says, I have a CTD at the start of the Anchor fight. It happens at the exact moment every time, after the health bar appears and just as its about to fire off its first volley it immediately CTDs.

I've found only one thread exploring this issue on Reddit (very recent): https://www.reddit.com/r/controlgame/comments/ilex75/anchor_boss_fight_crash/

I should add that I've got the GOG version. I'm posting here for coverage since apparently this is a recent issue. Someone already posted the issue to GOG with similar solutions mentioned above but I'll link that here too: https://www.gog.com/forum/control/ctd_in_anchor_fight

The "solution" suggested was to mute all audio in game. It didn't help me but apparently it helps some. It's also suggested turning all settings down and lowering resolution scale. Nope. Likewise compatibility mode didn't help. I then went through every troubleshooting option I could in conjunction with the above such as disabling anti-virus, restarting my computer, verifying game integrity, fresh install... and so on. Nothing. As soon as the Anchor fires the first shot the game crashes.

I have only had two crashes in total before this, both after long play sessions.

My hardware is a ryzen 7 3700x and a radeon rx 5700 xt. Since there is a remote possibility that its also an audio issue (since turning sound off fixes it for some), mine is part of my motherboard, an msi x570a-pro. All drivers are up to date and fresh as I did clean installs of them to see if it could resolve this issue.

Do the devs read these threads or is there a better way to report bugs and crashes?

See top of post for bug report form.

EDIT: I should add that I'm not overclocking my hardware, in case it comes up.

I'm actually overclocking my memory using an xmp profile (i forgot). I switched it off to test if it was tied to the issue, but it didn't change anything.

FINAL EDIT: So I came back to this after a long hiatus to see if I could resolve it. Like many of you nothing worked for me but I did find one partial solution that hadn't been mentioned before. I discovered this "solution" form a technical support thread of a different game entirely, figured I'd give it a shot here since it too was CPU related.

Let's brute force the mother ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

As mentioned above, I have a Ryzen 7 3700x so if you have a similar multicore cpu maybe this will help you:

*While the game is running, alt-tab out of the game and bring up the task manager.
*Find Control's process in the list and right click on it.
*Click on "go to details"
*Right Click on the highlighted exe in this new list (ControlDX11.exe or something like this, I've uninstalled the game since so I can't double check).
*Select "Set Priority".
*Set Priority to "high"

(Don't use "realtime" priority setting... it's overkill, doesn't do anything extra and it's not considered safe to use by many)

*Play the game

-Make sure to put the priority setting back to normal after the fight. I can't be sure if it's bad or not to keep it high, but if you didn't need it before this you won't need it after either and it's best to play it safe.

If it works for you as it did for me it should get you past the immediate crash at the start of the fight. It did crash a few times again after that and it always happened when it uses its barf attack on some spawning floating exploding fellas. Kill them as fast as possible but it can be hard to do as they can dodge your attacks. The longer the fight goes on the harder it gets to avoid this issue.

Every time it crashes you'll have to change the priority setting to high again. I was eventually able to beat the boss, but it was massively frustrating (boss isn't hard really, especially with my late game weapon mods). Other's suggest using the one shot kill accessibility feature and after finally beating it I wish I just used this feature earlier. Beating that boss was not worth the effort.

[Robce Lee]

I've had a very similar problem with Remedy's Quantum Break before. The cause for that was triple buffer enabled in the nvidia control panel. Disable it and the game runs perfectly fine.

Since Control uses the same engine as Quantum Break I guess it's worth a try. Find triple buffer in AMD's equivalent for nvidia control panel and disable it to see if it helps.

[FinalScene]

I think there's something pretty wrong about this moment, as yesterday, during that particular fight, Jesse model stops to displaying for me. I've only seen her gun. And it was the first time, when something like that happend, after more than 20h of gameplay. So, my bet is that is something with our graphic cards (I've got a GTX 1060), which is causing some problems during that fight.

[Ragsnstitches]

Originally posted by Robce Lee:

I've had a very similar problem with Remedy's Quantum Break before. The cause for that was triple buffer enabled in the nvidia control panel. Disable it and the game runs perfectly fine.

Since Control uses the same engine as Quantum Break I guess it's worth a try. Find triple buffer in AMD's equivalent for nvidia control panel and disable it to see if it helps.

Unfortunately this didn't solve it. It was set to off by default. I tried switching on and off other settings to see if they did anything, but its the same breaking point every time.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[animal_PLANET]

Just saw this from link you posted:

SOLVED: looking at the gog.com support page, they have this that fixed the problem for me on windows 10.

Find game's executable, right-click on it, and select Properties. In Properties window switch to Compatibility tab, and here enable "Disable full screen optimization". Press Ok to apply settings, and try to run the game again.

[Ragsnstitches]

Originally posted by FinalScene:

I think there's something pretty wrong about this moment, as yesterday, during that particular fight, Jesse model stops to displaying for me. I've only seen her gun. And it was the first time, when something like that happend, after more than 20h of gameplay. So, my bet is that is something with our graphic cards (I've got a GTX 1060), which is causing some problems during that fight.

I can't say for sure that any other funky stuff wouldn't happen in that fight because it kapoots right at the start.

I'm not sure our issues are the exact same though, I found this reddit post suggesting its a bug/glitch with some FOV related mechanics.

https://www.reddit.com/r/controlgame/comments/isv696/invisible_character_model_bug/

The game has had issues with invisible player models for a long while. I remember reading an article of an exploit to make Jesse invisible (except the gun) that was repeatable by exploiting menu switching.

I don't think its your graphics card, just Remedy's code being funny.

[Ragsnstitches]

Originally posted by animal_PLANET:

Just saw this from link you posted:

SOLVED: looking at the gog.com support page, they have this that fixed the problem for me on windows 10.

Find game's executable, right-click on it, and select Properties. In Properties window switch to Compatibility tab, and here enable "Disable full screen optimization". Press Ok to apply settings, and try to run the game again.

It didn't work unfortunately. I changed both the main executable and the dx11 version, but to no affect. Thanks anyway.

I've submitted a bug report in any case. If anyone else has this issue here's a link to 505games bug report form (which I will add to the OP):

https://fs30.formsite.com/505games/control/index.html

[animal_PLANET]

Have you tried disabling CFG in exploit protection? Some people have said this has fixed stuttering issues for them. Others said it has fixed crashes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGzCNwEQ_y4

[Ragsnstitches]

Originally posted by animal_PLANET:

Have you tried disabling CFG in exploit protection? Some people have said this has fixed stuttering issues for them. Others said it has fixed crashes.

I tried it already but it didn't help. Thanks for the input.

[agoez10]

Originally posted by animal_PLANET:

Just saw this from link you posted:

SOLVED: looking at the gog.com support page, they have this that fixed the problem for me on windows 10.

Find game's executable, right-click on it, and select Properties. In Properties window switch to Compatibility tab, and here enable "Disable full screen optimization". Press Ok to apply settings, and try to run the game again.

Thanks a lot mate, I'm also playing on GOG version, even though I still got crashed at a half of boss fight but after that I'm finally able to finish this side mission without any single CTD. Except that side mission, this game is actually rock solid with RTX 2070 Super and very nice looking too thanks to Ray Tracing and DLSS. :)

[animal_PLANET]

Originally posted by Rags:

Originally posted by animal_PLANET:

Have you tried disabling CFG in exploit protection? Some people have said this has fixed stuttering issues for them. Others said it has fixed crashes.

I tried it already but it didn't help. Thanks for the input.

I know you said you have latest drivers but did you run DDU first? Are you on Win 7 or 10?

Have you tried defaulting your GPU settings and game settings? Maybe your adrenaline drivers are OC and you dont know? There are threads that even a small OC is causing game to crash for them.

Originally posted by agoez10:

Thanks a lot mate, I'm also playing on GOG version, even though I still got crashed at a half of boss fight but after that I'm finally able to finish this side mission without any single CTD. Except that side mission, this game is actually rock solid with RTX 2070 Super and very nice looking too thanks to Ray Tracing and DLSS. :)

Glad I could help find the solution for you!

[Ragsnstitches]

Originally posted by animal_PLANET:

Originally posted by Rags:

I tried it already but it didn't help. Thanks for the input.

I know you said you have latest drivers but did you run DDU first? Are you on Win 7 or 10?

Have you tried defaulting your GPU settings and game settings? Maybe your adrenaline drivers are OC and you dont know? There are threads that even a small OC is causing game to crash for them.

Windows 10. I also DDU'd since I learned my lesson on trusting the "clean install" option during driver updates on my last PC.

I manually set my cpu and graphics card to default settings to be sure, but no difference. I didn't think it was OC related as that usually means sporadic and random crashes (usually during intense load but not always) My GPU isn't even hitting 70% load on max settings (during normal play) with a capped frame rate for the most part and my CPU is under 30% (according to an Radeons in-game overlay, no idea how accurate it is).

I've played games that are more intense on my GPU and CPU and they haven't crashed at all.

This crash is particular to this exact moment in the game. There's no wiggle room on when it crashes, not even a moment earlier or later regardless of how I fiddle with settings (played in windowed mode at 1024x768 at minimum settings with all overlays disabled... nothing). It happens at the exact same nanosecond every time. Unless this happens again later in the game (it would likely happen again within this fight since its tied to the Anchors attacks) or in the DLC, it seems like its only this particular moment that causes the CTD.

I found this post on the reddit thread about how one guy got around it and just look at the steps he takes... its like a pagan ritual or something:

Same problem here. What worked for me was doing direct x 11, everything at low all options in graphics turned off, resolution all the way down to 640x480, Window Vista Service pack 2 compat Mode AND avoid looking at the boss when he vomits. Even then I would get crashes. But I managed to figure out the pattern to kill it quickly enough and not crash. I do think it’s a too many objects on screen overloading the memory space and crashing.

This reeks of optimisation problems. People with RTX 2080's are having issues at this fight... that is absurd. Sheer brute force should get around some of these issues (which is how some people get by possibly). Even if the CTD is tied to an OCing problem (its not in my case) its particular to this fight meaning this fight needs to be fixed. It shouldn't be stressing top end hardware on 1080p 60fps like this (even though graphic settings seem irrelevant to the issue).

Sorry for the rant animal_Planet, I just needed to vent its not directed at you.

[nikamar2]

If nothing helps you - turn on 1-shot in cheat menu and shoot him (better with charging armor-piercing gun shape) before anchor's first shot but after hp bar shows up

[animal_PLANET]

Do you have a Nahimic audio service running? Some one else had this running that was causing their game to crash. I am thinking if the audio slider trick worked for most people it could stem from this service?

What you could also try is disabling all non essential programs and services from starting with windows. Maybe AV related?

Maybe your Radeon overlay is effecting game? Have you tried disabling that?

Try installing control to a different hard drive or location?

[xareh]

dude, i have the same issue (at the GOG version) and nothing works. But then i kill the Radeon overlay (in the task manager) so it doesn't appear if i click alt+R. And it helps! It didn't crush at the first attack even at high resolution\graphic.

Upd. Actually it crushes at ~5 min i fighting the boss, but i try to kill him faster

[Lord of the Infinite Clouds]

Same exact issue on a 3080 FE with Ryzen 3700X. To zero in on the issue here let me clarify and say that this is not just an 'Anchor Boss crash' but SPECIFICALLY a consistent, unavoidable crash that always happens the exact moment that it begins spewing clocks from its mouth.

Have tried all proposed solutions on every forum and nothing works.

"The instruction at 0x00007FFA6326F42B referenced at 0x0000000000000000. The memory could not be read."