Question Cyberpunk 2077 crashing as soon as the splash screen starts?

[willyburns]

This is a brand new build and a fresh install of the game that was working flawlessly for maybe 10 hours, and yet today after booting through the CDPR frontend it loads and I get the distorted Cyberpunk logo with music and then it crashes with an error report. I have tried DDU in SAFE mode and then installed a standalone of the latest Nvidia driver, turned off Steam overlay, verified the files.

My build is:

Aorus Z790 Pro X
intel i9-14900K stock
RTX 4080 SUPER FE stock
Corsair Dominator Titanium 32 GB @ 7000 MHz CL34 XMP 1
OS and game installed on Samsung 970 M.2 NVMe 256 GB
ROG THOR 850 W Platinum PSU
NZXT Kraken X72

Error report as follows:

Registered crash info file...
InternalVersion: 3.0.5035767 P4CL: 6602604 Stream: //R6.Root/R6.Release
!!!CRASHED!!!
Error Reason: Unhandled exception
Expression: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xC0000005)
Message: The thread caused a user-mode data execution prevention (DEP) violation at 0x7FFA0D863D80.
File: <Unknown>
Line: 0

"uptimeSeconds":4
"stopThreadID":21120
"exceptionCode":0xC0000005
"processID":20556
"Engine/CommitFailedErrorCode@1#TID=0":"0"
"ResourceLoaderThrottler/NumThrottleTokensAcquired@39075#TID=0":"1"
"ResourceLoaderThrottler/NumThrottleTokensSoftLimit@39074#TID=0":"4294967295"
"Gpu/RayTracing/Enabled@176#TID=0":"false"
"Configuration/Name@2#TID=0":"FINAL"
"Configuration/Name2@3#TID=0":"FINAL"
"Game/Patch@7#TID=0":"2.12"
"Rendering/AsyncCompute@39363#TID=0":"true"
"Engine/OOM@4#TID=0":"false"
"GlobalMode/IsClosing@5#TID=0":"false"
"GlobalMode/IsGame@17#TID=0":"true"
"Jobs/InitParam/MaxLatentJobs@8#TID=0":"131072"
"Jobs/InitParam/MaxCriticalPathJobs@9#TID=0":"65536"
"Jobs/InitParam/MaxImmediateJobs@10#TID=0":"2048"
"Jobs/InitParam/WorkerThreadStackSizeKB@11#TID=0":"1024"
"Jobs/InitParam/MaxThreads@12#TID=0":"27"
"Jobs/InitParam/AllJobsCriticalPath@14#TID=0":"false"
"Jobs/InitParam/UseJobDebugger@13#TID=0":"false"
"Jobs/Dispatcher/NumDispatcherThreads@15#TID=0":"27"
"Jobs/Dispatcher/MaxHWConcurrency@16#TID=0":"32"
"Gpu/Device/Name@172#TID=0":"NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER"
"Gpu/Device/Vendor@173#TID=0":"Nvidia"
"Gpu/Device/DriverVersion@174#TID=0":"Nvidia v 55176 [r551_71]"
"Gpu/Device/TotalMemoryMB@171#TID=0":"16047"
"Gpu/Device/UsedMemoryMB@39364#TID=0":"1513"
"Engine/SafeInit@39184#TID=0":"Finished"
"Engine/IsHeadless@150#TID=0":"false"
"Engine/VersionWatermark@149#TID=0":"3.0.5035767 P4CL: 6602604 Stream: //R6.Root/R6.Release Feb 22 2024 18:55:53 (FINAL) Total memory: 25233825792 bytes [EP1]"
"Engine/InitParams/InteropStartingPort@135#TID=0":"0"
"Engine/InitParams/RenderPreset@136#TID=0":"1"
"Engine/InitParams/QualityLevelName@137#TID=0":"None"
"Engine/InitParams/TextureQualityLevelName@138#TID=0":"High"
"Engine/InitParams/WatchdogTimeoutSecondsOverride@139#TID=0":"0"
"Engine/InitParams/ScriptsSilentCompilation@140#TID=0":"false"
"Engine/InitParams/ScriptsSilentValidation@141#TID=0":"false"
"Engine/InitParams/TweakDBSilentValidation@142#TID=0":"false"
"Engine/InitParams/PvdDumpToFile@143#TID=0":"false"
"Engine/InitParams/ProfilerEnabled@144#TID=0":"false"
"Engine/InitParams/ShowVersionWatermark@145#TID=0":"true"
"Engine/InitParams/WindowCaption@146#TID=0":""
"Engine/PC/SystemName@147#TID=0":"Windows 11 Home"
"Engine/PC/SystemVersion@148#TID=0":"10.0.22631"
"Engine/Scripts/PrimaryBlobModifiedDate@156#TID=0":"133537053630236293"
"Engine/Scripts/FallbackBlobModifiedDate@157#TID=0":"0"
"Engine/Scripts/BlobPathUsed@158#TID=0":"Loaded"
"Engine/Scripts/ShouldCompileScripts@155#TID=0":"true"
"Engine/Scripts/Loaded@159#TID=0":"true"
"##CrashDump##/DumpCrashDataSeconds":"0"

 

[NedSmelly]

Run Memtest86. You might have faulty RAM.

Could also be a software or driver conflict with memory access.

 

[willyburns]

Run Memtest86. You might have faulty RAM.

Could also be a software or driver conflict with memory access.

Despite it playing without fault for 10 hours over the last two weeks? If there was a memory issue would it not have presented itself before now?

 

[NedSmelly]

Despite it playing without fault for 10 hours over the last two weeks? If there was a memory issue would it not have presented itself before now?

Won’t know until you run memtest86

 

[willyburns]

Won’t know until you run memtest86

On it now 😉

 

[Frag Maniac]

You didn't originally buy or recently switch to the GOG version of the game by any chance did you? If so, PCGamingWiki lists disabling the GOG overlay as a fix for startup crashes. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Cyberpunk_2077

 

[willyburns]

No, I bought the base game with 'Phantom Liberty' included at a discount in a Steam sale. It was a fresh install with no cross-saves, or migrated files. I wanted to wait until the game was officially "finished", and to be fair I'm just about to meet up with Dexter DeShawn – like in the 45 minute condensed demo CDPR showed – and I've played for maybe six hours just taking in the crazy visuals and roaming the city, and that has been spread over a few weeks and has worked flawkessly until now, as in, zero bugs; I was expecting to see a few, even on a powerful PC, because friends who have pkayed on SeriesX have had some hard freezes, and sidequests not completing still.

This booting crash is new to me today. After clicking through CDPR's annoying and pointless Launcher I get the glitched out Cyberpunk logo about halfway with the music starting and then it crashes to a bug report. It has Administrator privileges.

I ran MemTest86, and Windows Memory Diagnostic, but they found nothing wrongveith the RAM. I did it by resetting the CMOS first then turned "XMP 1" on as instructed by MemTest86's directions for use.

This is what does my head in about PCs: the endless tinkering, and this is my fourth personal build, and I've built for friends and family too so I'm not a novice.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Have you tried NOT running it as Admin as well?

I get your frustration though. I've been playing Jedi Survivor a lot lately, and it's by FAR the worst optimized game lately. At least it launches though. The worst thing is when you can't even play a game.

 

[willyburns]

Have you tried NOT running it as Admin as well?

I get your frustration though. I've been playing Jedi Survivor a lot lately, and it's by FAR the worst optimized game lately. At least it launches though. The worst thing is when you can't even play a game.

I have tried it both ways yes.

I had heard the JS was a mess, and haven't Respawn essentially abandoned it?

I still have Elden Ring to play as I was waiting on getting a 4080 SUPER. a new mobo, RAM, and CPU, so I've got a large backlog. I heard the shader compiler was awful in Elden Ring and I haven't checked back in ages to see if it's fixed now. What's odd is how patchy the ports are because Dark Souls 1 was an awful on PC, but DS2 played at 60FPS on PC for me withoout incident, and Sekiro is supposed to be the best port of that game.

This thing is, I just can't see the financial sense in paying £500 for one of the other consoles which are already underpowered and you're locked into a platform; whereas, with PC they're porting most First Party titles now (even Sony), and I like to be able to play games at higher resolutions and framerates with finer granularity . . . It's just the price you pay for gettung hit and miss ports, and having to trawl forums for tech solutions 🫠

 

[NedSmelly]

Glad to hear your RAM is okay. I actually discovered my system had a faulty stick of RAM because of CP2077, as none of my other apps stressed the memory as much as it did. RAM lifetime warranty got used as a result.

There are various other ’solutions’ to the Exception Access Violation error. One worth trying is clearing the DX12 cache. Another is turning off XMP. Unplugging unused USB devices, as well as turning off overlays, will eliminate any potential driver and application conflicts.

But CP2077 is still a buggy program. (I have >250 hours gameplay). For me it will run fine for weeks and then suddenly decide to throw a tantrum for no reason.

 

[willyburns]

Glad to hear your RAM is okay. I actually discovered my system had a faulty stick of RAM because of CP2077, as none of my other apps stressed the memory as much as it did. RAM lifetime warranty got used as a result.

There are various other ’solutions’ to the Exception Access Violation error. One worth trying is clearing the DX12 cache. Another is turning off XMP. Unplugging unused USB devices, as well as turning off overlays, will eliminate any potential driver and application conflicts.

But CP2077 is still a buggy program. (I have >250 hours gameplay). For me it will run fine for weeks and then suddenly decide to throw a tantrum for no reason.

I have been switching between overlays as I used GeForce Experience's at first but it was obscuring my taskbar while using the desktop, as I have it set to hide to prevent OLED burn-in, and with the overlay on it pushes the taskbar to the background. So then I switched to using Steam's overlay just to check FPS.

After clearing the CMOS for MemTest86 it seems to be booting Cyberpunk now, and I have Rivatuner OSD through HWinfo – as Afterburner was keeping my FE GPU fans at 30% constantly – and the CPU is pegged at all core 5.7 GHz for the P-cores, and 4.8 GHz for E-cores, and the utilisation is 22% while the 4080 SUPER is at 99% so it seems like maybe the motherboard's OC preset was interfering with booting the game.

I did try turning on "Prioritise P-cores", as that was causing stuttering until Update 2.12; however, I get worse FPS in the benchmark with it on so I switched it back. So I'm just leaving the CPU at stock now, and the RAM is fine at XMP 1 and I'm getting 70+ FPS with Path Tracing on at 4K and the other settings maxed out with DLSS Super Sampling on Balanced.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I had heard the JS was a mess, and haven't Respawn essentially abandoned it?

No official word that I know of yet, but many are speculating they won't continue to patch it.