Bioshock 2 Crash Fix without Disabling DirectX 10 and adjust Controller Sensitivity and FOV!

[cmh175]

This game is just awesome and at max settings it looks incredible. Certainly worth playing on the pc over ps3 or 360. It's also been a complete mess and not handled very well by K2, though the controller update is certainly appreciated. Luckily it is fixable so you can enjoy this great game. I did a lot of testing of all the different fixes people have found and this is what seems to work the best.

The first issue is the crashing once you get the Rivet gun. Not sure why the game works up to this point, but the cause seems to be the texture cache. The game originally seemed to be set to 256mb and with the current update at 512mb. To fix this:

Find the C:\users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\Roaming\Bioshock2Steam folder.

Open the Bioshock2SP.ini file in note pad.

Find the "TextureStreamingMemoryLimit" line. For me it was nearly at the bottom.

Change it from "TextureStreamingMemoryLimit=512.000000" to "2048.000000".

If your graphics card is older and doesn't have that much memory "1024" will work fine too at the bare minimum, but most come with 2gb or more and it doesn't hurt to max it out.


Next is to fix the controller sensitivity, so keep the "Bioshock2SP.ini" file open. This is a great new feature as I personally cant stand keyboard controls, but the default sensitivity is too slow to get around and accurately shoot.

Under the section where you increased the "TextureStreamingMemoryLimit" will be a section listed "[ShockGame.ShockUserSettings]". Look below it and you'll find "Sensitivity=50".

Change 50 to anything up to 100. I personally like 57-60. It's about equal to the 360's default.


Next is to increase the FOV to give you a better view of your surroundings and a more accurate feel of depth. In the Bioshock2Steam folder is the user.ini file, open it in notepad. I fixed this by binding a new command to the Left thumb stick, so it's applied every time I move around.

Scroll down to this part here and add SetFOV 90 as it appears here:
XENON_LTHUMB_LEFT=SetFOV 90
XENON_LTHUMB_RIGHT=SetFOV 90
XENON_LTHUMB_UP=SetFOV 90
XENON_LTHUMB_DOWN=SetFOV 90

The only issue you'll notice is that it's reset when you zoom in (iron sites), but it'll go back to 90 the second you move again. It will however do the same when you still have iron sites on, so it basically zooms you back out. This isn't really an issue though since you don't really move while using iron sites.

~If you prefer mouse and keyboard you can also bind this command for keyboard keys using the "W=MoveForward | SetFOV 100" and other moving commands.

IMPORTANT: I found that after changing any of these settings the game still crashed until I restarted Steam. So any time you adjust any of these you'll need to restart Steam each time. Otherwise it works great and looks awesome. I got up to 2.5-3 hours of game time while testing without issue.

[DannysBanjo]

This all works very well, Thanks for this it means a lot as this is one of the best games ever made :)

[Ivlichnov]

I tried expanding the video RAM limit from 512MB's to 2048MB's.

I haven't done an exhaustive test, but I played for a while with no problems in DirectX 10.

[Nero]

So i followed what you said and now it crashes after 30 seconds of being in game. Do you know what i can do to fix this??

[cmh175]

I did come across this issue too. When you changed the .ini files did you restart Steam before trying the game again? You also cant just close out Steam, you actually need to go to the tool bar and hit Exit, then reopen it. I'm not sure why but it crashed on me after making changes if I didn't restart Steam. Have you tried it since? Otherwise check your gpu info, do you know how much dedicated memory it has?

If you have at least 2gb or more and have restarted than I'll need more information about your setup.

[Nero]

Right so i done everything you said to do like restart steam and stuff before i went on and i just tried it again and it still does the same thing but worse then before. Not too sure how much dedicated memory it has and i might need talking through that.

I have a i3 intel processor, 8GB of ram, Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB

[cmh175]

Curious. What graphic settings are you using? Leaving DX10 enabled, have you tried medium settings? It maybe an optimization issue (assuming you're trying High settings, right?). Try lowering the graphics a bit and see if it still crashes.

[bwayridd]

Hi I'm stupid. Where do I "find" user\appdata\... folder? Obviously it doesn't come up in my initial search so I assume there's an easier, more secret way of finding it...

[cmh175]

It's not a common folder you use so the average user may not be sure where it is.

C:\users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\Roaming\Bioshock2Steam

[bwayridd]

haha Thanks. I found it! It was the [myname] part I was missing

[Nero]

Right i wouldnt know how to find out :P can you talk me through it

[cmh175]

Originally posted by ConorWall:

Right i wouldnt know how to find out :P can you talk me through it

Checking your graphic settings right? It's in the options menu, click on graphic options. Lowering just the Graphics detail to Medium may do it but you can also try lowering the other two. It should still look pretty good and be a lot more stable. After you change your settings reboot Steam just in case.

[Nero]

right i changed the in game settings and it looked like poo

then i done some stuff and put it back on max and its all good now cheers

[cmh175]

lol, it's a finicky game but once it's working I found if you leave the settings alone it'll keep working. If it does crash again just restart steam and it seems to pick right back up.

[StormRangerX]

So I found the file you're talking about and changed the TextureStreamingMemoryLimit to 2048.000000, but i'm still getting a pop-up that my video card does not meet the requirements (even though it far exceeds) and the game still crashes.

[cmh175]

That's weird, I've never seen that error. What are your specs and os?