Ubisoft games installed on a drive other than C:

[tectix]

So I was wondering if anyone has a solution to the following problem:

No ubisoft game (save for Rayman) works if installed on a drive other than the C: drive on my computer. Here's what happens if I do:

Assassin's creed: I can open the game, select a save file, then it gets stuck on the loading animation...forever.

Every other Ubisoft game (other ACs, Far cry 2/3/BD, Splinter Cell, : Game opens for 1 second while the screen adjusts, then "[Blank] has stopped responding"

Does anyone know a fix for this? Is it Uplay? Is it just the games?

[nealiosis]

Publicado originalmente por iCeDrAgOn:

As someone has previously said. they believe that it might be because games installed on drives with different partitioning techniques might be the issue. I can say that this in fact is not the case.

No you can say perhaps that's not the case for you.

I can say unequivocally that it is the case for me. I spent an entire day with Microsoft Premier Support and we verified multiple times on both Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 that games launch and run correctly on MBR partition schemes and they crash to desktop on GPT partition tables.

I'm glad you aren't having the issue I'm having but for me it's case closed. I can reproduce this effect over and over again at any time. Its really quite simple. Install a game on my D:\ drive (GPT Microsoft Storage Spaces RAID) and starting the game results in an instant crash to desktop, then uninstall the game and install the exact same game on my MBR C: drive and the games launch and work as expected.

It should be noted that DRM-free games don't seem to have this issue for me; for example GOG's Witcher 3 works fine on any hard drive.

[tectix]

Publicado originalmente por nealiosis:

No you can say perhaps that's not the case for you.

Yes, there can be more than one way in which Ubisoft have made their games unplayable under certain conditions.

Publicado originalmente por iCeDrAgOn:

I'd also like to put forward that Windows 10 itself isn't completely innocent in the equation. before upgrading to Windows 10... I was running Windows 7 Pro 64bit and in that environment ALL Assassin's creed games ran perfectly fine running off a drive other then the boot drive and at the time the drive was also formatted using the GPT partitioning scheme.

I never tried to run an AC game on windows 7 from a different drive, but I have tried and failed on 8 & 8.1... (in fact, when I made this thread windows 10 was just an idea in Microsoft's heads).
I find it frustrating that Microsoft brags about backwards compatibility and then stuff like this happens (if it is indeed what has happened).

[iCeDrAgOn]

I'm going to put forward after doing some testing of my own and say that Ubisoft here is the culprit when it comes ot problems with their games. that through the way that they are coded and their intergration of their DRM UPlay they force users to run their games installed on their OS drive.

Publicado originalmente por nealiosis:

I'm glad you aren't having the issue I'm having but for me it's case closed. I can reproduce this effect over and over again at any time. Its really quite simple. Install a game on my D:\ drive (GPT Microsoft Storage Spaces RAID) and starting the game results in an instant crash to desktop, then uninstall the game and install the exact same game on my MBR C: drive and the games launch and work as expected.

It should be noted that DRM-free games don't seem to have this issue for me; for example GOG's Witcher 3 works fine on any hard drive.

and as you have stated yourself nealiosis. you have installed things on boot drive, Drive C. no matter what hard drive you say is which. When ever you install Windows. it always calls that Drive C. Now I am not saying that you do this, but I am all most certain that if you were to install Windows on a GPT partitioned drive then install Ubisoft games on it it would run without any problems.

With the latest itteration of UPlay, I am no longer able to install any of the assassin's creed games on any drive but my OS Boot drive (Drive C) having the games installed anywhere else results in a crash of the NTDLL.DLL this is not a graphics card error but in fact the way that these games are interacting with the system. without doing a full stack trace of the fault it would be hard to say what exactly these UPlay enabled games are doing, but I do know that changing the drive either it be GPT or MBR to the windows boot drive resolves the issues.

[DefaultCore]

Edit:: >DOESN'T WORK< -.- In some cases it does and in some it doesn't.

This is just a question but did any of you try running the game not through Steam or uPlay but through the install folder? There should be 2 .exe files among all of them. One of them runs the game through Steam or uPlay and another which runs the game without.

If I remember correctly Skyrim has the TESV.exe that autoruns the game without the starting menu.

This method helped me with Tera because Tera doesn't mix with Steam overlay in my case.

Just a idea... no hate

[iCeDrAgOn]

Publicado originalmente por DefaultCore:

This is just a question but did any of you try running the game not through Steam or uPlay but through the install folder? There should be 2 .exe files among all of them. One of them runs the game through Steam or uPlay and another which runs the game without.

If I remember correctly Skyrim has the TESV.exe that autoruns the game without the starting menu.

This method helped me with Tera because Tera doesn't mix with Steam overlay in my case.

Just a idea... no hate

Some games work like this others do not. one that i can think of off the top of my head that loads without steam is Lord of the Rings Online. But regardless with these Ubisoft games, even if they don't start Steam, I can in fact say that they do start UPlay. The reason being they were written in such a way to use the features of UPlay such as cloud saving, game updating etc. So you might be able to get away from Steam... you can on the other hand get away from UPlay, which is cuasing all the issues.

In fact any game that you have registered in your UPlay game library. can be downloaded through UPlay itself. and it removes any steam features from the game, such as the linking to requier the Steam API etc.

[DefaultCore]

Publicado originalmente por iCeDrAgOn:

Publicado originalmente por DefaultCore:

This is just a question but did any of you try running the game not through Steam or uPlay but through the install folder? There should be 2 .exe files among all of them. One of them runs the game through Steam or uPlay and another which runs the game without.

If I remember correctly Skyrim has the TESV.exe that autoruns the game without the starting menu.

This method helped me with Tera because Tera doesn't mix with Steam overlay in my case.

Just a idea... no hate

Some games work like this others do not. one that i can think of off the top of my head that loads without steam is Lord of the Rings Online. But regardless with these Ubisoft games, even if they don't start Steam, I can in fact say that they do start UPlay. The reason being they were written in such a way to use the features of UPlay such as cloud saving, game updating etc. So you might be able to get away from Steam... you can on the other hand get away from UPlay, which is cuasing all the issues.

In fact any game that you have registered in your UPlay game library. can be downloaded through UPlay itself. and it removes any steam features from the game, such as the linking to requier the Steam API etc.

Oh... that's too bad -.-

[Zeqamşah]

Steam ► Settings ► Downloads ► Content Libraries

[tectix]

Publicado originalmente por DefaultCore:

This is just a question but did any of you try running the game not through Steam or uPlay but through the install folder? There should be 2 .exe files among all of them. One of them runs the game through Steam or uPlay and another which runs the game without.

If I remember correctly Skyrim has the TESV.exe that autoruns the game without the starting menu.

I actually had problems with Skyrim when it was on anything but C: too. It still ran, but some 3d objects didn't appear, or had no textures or some sounds (like the sword swinging, walking, and the soundtrack) wouldn't play.

I doubt the problems are directly related, but they may have the same general cause, viz bad programming...

[The Giving One]

Check your computer for problematic software such as antivirus or antispyware.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

After resolving that, if it applies, then verify the game files EXACTLY as suggested here...

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2037-QEUH-3335

[tectix]

Publicado originalmente por The Giving One:

Check your computer for problematic software such as antivirus or antispyware.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

After resolving that, if it applies, then verify the game files EXACTLY as suggested here...

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2037-QEUH-3335

Why on earth would that be helpful?

If you read the thread, surely you know we have delved into much more complicated technical ideas than "oh you may have interfering software" or "did you verify the game cache?"

Please

[The Giving One]

Publicado originalmente por Tectix:

If you read the thread, surely you know we have delved into much more complicated technical ideas than "oh you may have interfering software" or "did you verify the game cache?"

Please

So you have delved into more than my suggestions here but that does not mean you have delved into what I posted. If it is not helpful to you, then ignore it, but those suggestions have helped more than you may possibly know. Thanks.

EDIT..I never install my Steam or my Steam games (Ubisoft games included) in anything other than a folder all to itself, and if possible on a drive all to itself, and I have never had this problem, so that is another reason why I posted in an attempt to try to offer help. RAID, HDD, SSD, PCIe X 4 SSD...you name it. Never seen this issue here.

[ArticPotatos]

TRy reinstalling annd saving save file

[nealiosis]

Publicado originalmente por The Giving One:

Publicado originalmente por Tectix:

If you read the thread, surely you know we have delved into much more complicated technical ideas than "oh you may have interfering software" or "did you verify the game cache?"

Please

So you have delved into more than my suggestions here but that does not mean you have delved into what I posted. If it is not helpful to you, then ignore it, but those suggestions have helped more than you may possibly know. Thanks.

I do think I might be close to making a break through on one of my machines though. Analyzing the partition table in GParted Live Linux I can see that the partition table of c: is both MBR and GPT:

The disk contains mismatched GPT and MBR partition: /dev/sda
This will confuse Clonezilla and render the created disk image useless and unrestorable

By zapping the boot sector and explicitely forcing the primary boot record to use MBR:

sudo sgdisk -z /dev/sda

Seems to resolve a whole bunch of general Windows 10 instability. This weekend I'm gonna run some tests to see if nuking GPT from the boot sector fixed the issue.

We'll see.

[我喜欢猎.]

I dont know

[The Giving One]

@nealiosis

That surely makes sense and I can see how that would certainly cause problems. Thanks for posting and keeping this updated and for your help.