Sometimes when I try to start the game I get to the logo/loading screen where usually the login screen appears seconds after. But in those cases the game simply freezes and doesn’t do anything at all anymore. When I try to tab out of the game the whole Windows 11 environment is completely locked, I can’t interact with anything other than the taskbar - that is clicking on things but nothing happening. So, the only thing I can do to regain control is to restart the PC.
In some cases I don’t even get to the logo/loading screen, the game just starts in the background and locks up Windows as well.
I verified the game files to no avail. Drivers are all up to date. After restarting the PC I can usually play the game again but it’s quite annoying to hard reset the PC every other play session.
The log you have attached is incomplete and isnt showing anything abnormal - The footstepsoundemmitter debug error is usually followed by Unity initialising the Mouse & Keyboard, then sound etc… None of the errors in your player.log are indicators of anything wrong the “errors” are just debugs that can safely be ignored…
So… there is nothing here indicating what could be going on… It just stops before Unity it fully loaded…
Windows should not be completely locking up like this just because of LE… which makes me wonder if there is something else going on… Locking up like this on Windows 10 usually points to some secondary interaction like a third party app / driver / conflict etc… LE doesnt tend to lock up the whole machine on its own unless it has caused a hardware level fault - like a GPU driver/overheating/overloading a GPU etc… and this has crash a system dll or something…
Please can you attach the le_graphicsmanager.ini & the output of a dxdiag report - these might be able to point to something more specific going on…
I just remembered I recently switched to native full screen mode to utilise Gsync. IIRC that was about the time when I started noticing that behaviour. I just switched back to windowed full screen to test if there is some sort of correlation.
Full Screen vs max window - I doubt this is the cause - there are some instances with people with 3080s having odd fps issues depending on screen mode but not so much crashing like you describe.
However, your comment about Gsync could be a hint.
From your settings & your dxdiag, I see that you are using Vsync on a ROG PG279Q which supports 120Hz @ 1440p and you have vsync enabled in-game.
Vsync is not great with LE… I dont recommend anyone use it but rather use the framerate limiting option. Yes, it does the same thing in concept by limiting framerates to the screens physical capability (Hz) but it has proven to be less stable / does odd things. The only time vsync seems to be a better option is when someone is experiencing screen tearing or similar anomolies…
The other side of this same vsync coin is the issue about LEs general lack of optimisation and the issue it has when it is not limited sufficiently and maxes out a GPU and the wheels fall off. With your screen Hz, your effective limit is 120fps and at 1440p, thats could be causing an intermittent issue - LE spikes the gpu usage when loading up and loading.unloading maps. Your log is not showing the usual performance related issues but then its incomplete so I have no way of knowing if its happening when the game successfully starts. You may want to see what happens with your GPU when loading the game - if its spiking to 100% on load then thats not great.
Personally, as LE is not a shooter type game where framerate milliseconds matter, if I were using your hardware, I would probably put the framerate limit on around 90 to have a generally smoother overall experience and keep my gpu cooler.
Other things that could be involved:
As the log stopped just as it would have initialised the mouse/keyboard - please make sure your Razer & G815 drivers and running apps are up to date… The Unity engine has been known to conflict with various apps running so its always worth checking or temporarily not running anything else while testing… The general idea is to not run anything you are not actively using… same applies for things like Steam overlays (which LE doesnt use anyway).
I dont see anything in the diagnostic section of the dxdiag that indicates anything to be worried about…
The Monitor actually supports up to 165 Hz but I’ve limited it to 120 to make Vsync lock it to that framerate. Otherwise my PC would become a space heater while the coil whine of the GPU drives me nuts.
I tried the framerate limiter and it causes horrible frametime fluctuations which is headache-inducing. I also get extremely annoying screen tearing that becomes even more apparent due to the jumps/spikes in frametimes. So, I think the framrate limiter is even worse than LE’s Vsync.
One thing I could try is to disable Vsync in game and force it via driver.
They don’t matter in a competitive sense but since I’m highly visually sensitive sudden jumps (stutter) or less fluent motion is quite stressful.
I tried a limit of 90 for those exact reasons but what I got were even more frequent and impactful frametime spikes.
My periphery drivers are up to date and the bloatware/apps they usually come bundled with are either disabled or uninstalled. I never have Steam running while playing the game. I see no reason to do that when I can launch LE just fine without Steam being in the background all the time. Not that it matters in my case but the Steam overlay I’ve disabled a long time ago.
Hmm… Damn… This is one of those situation then… The issue here is what you consider worse - vsync is crap in my opinion compared to the framerate limiter but I dont have your hardware or visual sensitivity to stuttering. From helping out here and my own testing I find that the framerate limiting gives me a much smoother experience (less freezing, stuttering and a reduced fps spike amplitude) if I find the sweet spot for my setup. I have found that if I can keep the GPU in a state where it has sufficient headroom (i.e. not maxed) to handle the games demands, then the game is overall much more pleasant to play and visually less jerky (fps issues).
Changing things on a driver level may be a better place to try things - especially if you are getting screen tearing - no setting in-game seems to help with that issue.
The issue of LE being unoptimised is likely to mean (to me at least) that you are not going to get a smooth experience right now on your 1080 ti. Yes, it should handle 1440p with low/medium settings at a decent 60+ framerate, but the game is unlikely to give you that right now… I’d be interested to hear what it does if you drop to 1080p and see if its more palatable for you visually… just as a test.
I get the exact opposite… My old 1060 can run the game at 90fps on very low settings but the spikes are HUGE by comparison… it will drop from 90 to 30fps… but if I play at 60fps, then the same situation spikes drop to 40… from my perception it makes the game much more playable - dropping 60fps is soul destroying but 20 you can sort of ignore…
Obvious question: Just as a TEST - if you do use the framerate limiting and use a reduced level/resolution etc - does the game stability change - i.e. crashing when loading etc…
I lowered the resolution to 1080p and then tested the framerate limiter. The result was a consistently higher framerate due to lower res. But as soon as I enabled the limiter I got awful microstutter and exaggerated tearing, just like in previous tests. Without the limiter the game runs kinda smooth but I get tearing. The game’s stability seems to be unaffected either way.
I forced Vsync via Nvidia Control Panel. The result is a way smoother experience. I guess I’ll stick with that for the time being.
Regarding my initial problem:
I compared the player.log that was created when the Windows lockup happened to a more recent one where the game loaded properly. There is one thing that caught my attention:
There seems to be a problem with the DX11 framebuffer (swap chain) that sometimes prevents the game from starting in native full screen mode. That would back up my theory that it started happening when I switched to full screen. Because in a lot of cases when that problem occurs the game seems to try to start, for a split second the game window appears with a black background and immediately throws me to the desktop. Then the mouse cursor changes to the spinning circle thingy while I can see the whole desktop environment (apps, windows) and everything is fully rendered but everything is locked up / inoperable just as if Windows still considers the frozen game being in the foreground. The only thing I can do at that point is to hard reset the PC.
More than a few references to microstuttering in unity games on Google… A lot of different reasons ranging from each individual game development and the state of an individual games optimisation to how the actual unity engine does things… Lots of people trying vsyncing or framelimiting and other ideas - each with a variety of different success levels… Seems like people who have the issue in one Unity game also notice it in another but how bad it seems to be all depends on the game and how well its optimised… So I dont think you are going to resolve this entirely right now - whatever works for you may have to be the compromise till the devs actually dedicate time / resources to optimising LE.
The screenstate message is a good catch that may help the devs investigate that when they read this - cannot say I recall seeing it in other peoples logs and I dont get the same in my logs if I toggle the setting on my own hardware… Its likely to be in combination with something else… Perhaps its related to the existing performance issues around Fullscreen/Maxed window for some players… Your specific screen features & GPu combination may also play a part (even down to the connection/cable HDMI/Displayport you use - yes, that has messed with some people in the past).
If this is the solution to the stability, then I would say just go with it for now… and see what happens after each patch - they do often slip in behind the scenes fixes/updates with content updates/patches.
Yeah, I remember a few games I played in the past that used Unity and had similar issues. I never used Unity myself - usually I work with the Unreal Engine - so I can’t judge how much depends on the underlying systems and what is poor optimization on the dev side but in direct comparison I think EHG does a decent job and provided me with an extremely fun game.
I guess I now have to decide whether I play in windowed fullscreen again and have Gsync also apply to the whole desktop environment or being able to limit Gsync to native fullscreen apps but have the lockup problem occur from time to time.
