All Unity Games Crashing at Startup, and an unexpected solution.

[Flemmish_Giant]

I just got a few games made with Unity the other day, tried them all at least for a minute and then left them alone until the next day. When I tried the games again today not a single Unity game worked. All I heard was some kind of audio alert, with the Unity games sending out some crash info, and the games all just shut down. I also noticed that Mark of the Ninja Remasted (GOG version) was suffering from some inexplicable slowdown, where the framerate in the main menu was in the single digits (but not in the original version.). Other non Unity games (Control, Dawn Horizon, etc) were working just fine.

I thought that I had messed with some GPU setting so I tried fiddling around with some things (to no avail) until I came upon something I know I had tampered with:

In the NVIDIA Control Panel under 3D Settings -> Configure Surround, PhysX -> PhysX Setings, I had set the processor to the GPU instead of Auto-Select. When I put the option back to Auto-Select, the problem was instantly gone. I was looking around for other solutions but, they didn't help or they didn't apply to my situation (like I don't have Citrix Workspace installed). If someone runs into the same problem I hope this helps.

[ActarrRocket👑]

Thx for the tips

[Magicman0007]

This worked, thank you!

[LaVar Ball, BBB]

Used this guide to fix an issue with Gloomhaven and Per Aspera not launching at all. Thanks for the tips!

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

Thank you, very interesting tip.
I added this (with a link to this thread as source) to my guide for Hollow Knight:

💻🛠️ HELP: Solutions to Most Popular Problems & Issues 

A Guide for Hollow Knight

By: 🉑 rezno[R].technology

Support FAQ. Troubleshooting 101. Collection of the most common problems on forums and solutions for each of them. Easy fixes in one place.

In the 📌 Crash on Startup (Windows) section.
Hope it's okay!

[Axel Einar]

Originally posted by 🉑 reznoR.technology:

Thank you, very interesting tip.
I added this (with a link to this thread as source) to my guide for Hollow Knight:

💻🛠️ HELP: Solutions to Most Popular Problems & Issues 

A Guide for Hollow Knight

By: 🉑 rezno[R].technology

Support FAQ. Troubleshooting 101. Collection of the most common problems on forums and solutions for each of them. Easy fixes in one place.

In the 📌 Crash on Startup (Windows) section.
Hope it's okay!

[Free Ham]

Similar issue here, consistent across like 15 Unity games, started completely randomly after playing Elden Ring for like 100 hours. No, seriously, 100 hours with no issues, then occasional crashes, until finally it crashed on startup consistently. Then every unity game I had on my computer just... stopped working.

The fix? After digging around for like 3 hours on various tech forums (do not go to the unity forums, they were negative help):
Nvidia Control Panel -> Help -> Enable debug mode ->
Manage 3D Settings -> Power Management Mode -> Prefer Maximum Performance

Suddenly, everything works again. Running my unity shovelware before this was maxing out my GPU for about 5 seconds before the game crashed. Now, they barely hit 15%. I swear, I haven't had to do this much finagling with GPU settings since OneeChanBara

[Avenger_3000]

Originally posted by Free Ham:

Similar issue here, consistent across like 15 Unity games, started completely randomly after playing Elden Ring for like 100 hours. No, seriously, 100 hours with no issues, then occasional crashes, until finally it crashed on startup consistently. Then every unity game I had on my computer just... stopped working.

The fix? After digging around for like 3 hours on various tech forums (do not go to the unity forums, they were negative help):
Nvidia Control Panel -> Help -> Enable debug mode ->
Manage 3D Settings -> Power Management Mode -> Prefer Maximum Performance

Suddenly, everything works again. Running my unity shovelware before this was maxing out my GPU for about 5 seconds before the game crashed. Now, they barely hit 15%. I swear, I haven't had to do this much finagling with GPU settings since OneeChanBara

DUDE!

THANK YOU. I was just struggling with this exact same issue, in my case was Pathfinder: Kingmaker, literally the exact same thing after 100 hours of playing it with no issue it would just straight up freeze as soon as it booted up. After trying a billion game-specific fixes I figured out it was happening across Unity games only. Been battling it out for the past hour and a half frustrated until I saw this and it worked.

[Fuko13]

I had a similar issue that I just resolved. Game would launch and then just be unresponsive. The culprit turned out to be the PS4 controller I had plugged into my computer.

[MFMELLZ]

I’m having this issue rn an I can’t figure out car x was working fine, I this I was doing the same just messing with graphics then I updated my gtx driver. Then couldn’t load games. I did everything someone DM me

[MFMELLZ]

Update: lol fixed just reinstall your graphics card drivers

[Gooch Picker]

Originally posted by Fuko13:

I had a similar issue that I just resolved. Game would launch and then just be unresponsive. The culprit turned out to be the PS4 controller I had plugged into my computer.

Thank you so much!!! This fixed days of trying to play unity games when the whole time it was my ps4 with paddles were connected to my pc the whole time.. I love you for this.. I genuinely hope you have a blessed life 😂🤍

[76561199181522831]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.