Game Fails to start

[Xsmith]

HI, I have recently installed X4 and was looking forward to playing it, I have previously logged a few hours on it but have come back to it to give it a go again properly.
I have it installed via steam and it has worked previously. However I cannot get the game to start at at all, I don't get an error code I just get a dialog box telling me that "X4 has stopped working" then it drops back to desktop.
I have run integrity checks on the installation, updated graphics drivers, uninstalled and reinstalled and even changed the installation location from SATA HDD to SATA SSD and back again all to no avail, whatever I do the game refuses to start.

If you could give me some ideas as to what is happening then I would be grateful as I would love to play this game after finishing X3 I really want to move on to X4

Thanks

[Alan Phipps]

Please supply the information detailed in the 'Read before Posting' Sticky, here to give us a chance of being able to help you properly. The most likely candidate based on what you have said so far would be a device driver issue or your system being below spec for X4. The best clues in the information you supply will be that about your game and any mods, the link to a current DxDiag (system, driver and fault info) and Vulkaninfo.

[Xsmith]

Vulkan Info and DxDiag

DxDiag.txt

Vulkaninfo.txt

[Alan Phipps]

Thanks. Uploading to a reputable public fileshare site and providing sharing links saves all that forum space and extra posts though.

I can't see where you said if your game was modded or not.

I do see a few issues from your DxDiag:

1. You have two sound devices and drivers on the go at the same time, AMD and Realtek. Disable whichever you do not use in Control Panel, Device Driver, Sound/Audio Devices (right-click on a device in the listing for a disable/enable pop-up). If you keep Realtek then see 2 below.

2. Your Realtek onboard sound driver is from 2011 and way out of date. Update to the latest appropriate Realtek HD Audio Codec for your OS from the Realtek site or Windows driver cache.

3. Your Windows Error Reporting is totally full of RdrCEF.exe AppCrashes - which is related to Adobe Acrobat Reader. Even if that is not directly causing any issues in X4, it is masking out any useful information about X4 errors that are happening.

[Xsmith]

My game is not modded in any way, its a straight reinstall and won't start up.

I have disabled Realtek sound device and uninstalled Adobe Acrobat Reader, tried again to start X4 and I get the same message.

[Alan Phipps]

I'll run through some other possibilities. Please try these:

1. Running without any game overlays running.
2. Running without management apps for your SSDs (such as Magician, Rapid, or Momentum) or SSD file encryption/compression settings.
3. Check that your X4 gamefile installation folder is not set to read only.
4. Disable joystick app 'Curves' if using.
5. Now that you have sorted Adobe Reader and had some X4 issues since, see if any useful X4 or device error info is in WER at the bottom of a new DxDiag report.
6. When the failure happens, do you see any Egosoft on-screen message directing to an X4 Wiki fault procedure page? (You may have to close other windows if it is covered over.)

Good luck.

[CBJ]

One additional thing to note is that your CPU is below the minimum requirements for the game, which state Intel i5-4590 or better. I can't immediately see any reason why the i5-2500 should not be able to at least start the game, but I can't guarantee that I haven't missed something, and even if you do get the game running then performance may not be great.

[Xsmith]

The thing that has me stumped is that when I initially installed the game it ran without issue, now it just won't entertain starting at all. That's what makes no sense to me, it worked fine to begin with and ran very well in fact but now I get nothing.

[Alan Phipps]

Have you considered that the issue may lie with Steam after say a botched Client/Library update or something?

You say that you moved the game installation but that *might* have introduced an error in finding the gamefiles or working folder. Just a thought.

[Xsmith]

I recently upgraded to an SSD and moved some of the installations to that for better performance, X4 was not working when I tried to move the installation. Since then however the game has been fully checked for file integrity and uninstalled and reinstalled twice. So it has been thoroughly verified.
As O said previously I have played the game without issue initially, I have logged just over four hours and gained a Steam achievement already, so the suggestion the my PC is incapable of running the game just doesn't fit for me as I have played it for a decent amount of time without any problems.
The issue I have, and I suspect the various updates are the cause of my problems, the game just refuses to start at all. Its extremely frustrating given the time I have already put in to ensure the game functioned when I first installed it on Jan 6th 2022. Four hours of trouble free gameplay does not suggest that I had an underspec system, other than the SSD upgrade the main Steam installations are still om the HDD that they always were, so I can only conclude that the updates to the game over that time period has sufficiently changed the requirements of the game as to render it unplayable for me.
I am planning to build a new system in the new year and I suspect that I will have to forgo playing X$ until I have built my new system.

Thanks for your help though, I do appreciate it. I have had similar update problems with other titles, The Witcher 3 for example also became unplayable after an update, then they updated again to fix that issue. So its the most likely cause for my problem in this case. I was concerned that when initially searching the issue it didn't seem to be that prevalent, most people seem to be able to get into the game itself at least before hitting a glitch. I can't even get the splash screen to appear before "Computer says NO".
Anyway I am sure that it will be worth the wait when I do start playing again, just not until next April......

[Alan Phipps]

You have had several detailed suggestions above of things that have affected gamestart for users in the past but you haven't said what (if any) you have checked out. If you have not already done so then working through them might help. If nothing there helps then it may be a hardware specs issue after all.

[Xsmith]

I don't run with any game overlays, apart from the Steam one which I don't get chance to activate anyway as the game fails to start every time.
I don't run with any management apps of any kind and my main drives are not encrypted or compressed
The game installation folder and all subdirectories are not set to read only
The joystick I have does not utilise the Curves app so that isn't installed
I have checked the DXDiag log file and can't see any X4 related errors. I don't think the game actually runs long enough to generate anything for a report.
When the game starts up it pretty much instantly pops up with the dialog box saying "X4 has stopped working" the dialog box then disappears but no specific error code is given in the brief time it is displayed. An error code might well help track down the source of the problem.

I suspect that the updates have pushed the hardware requirements beyond the current specification of my system.
I guess I will have to exercise a little patience as I save up to build a new system.

Thanks for your help though, I do appreciate the time you have taken to try and help with this perplexing problem.

[CBJ]

I suspect that the updates have pushed the hardware requirements beyond the current specification of my system.

You could test that theory if you wanted to. On the Betas tab in the Steam client, you can select older versions. If there's one that works then your theory might be correct, and that might also allow you to continue playing, albeit with that older version, until you're able to get hardware that meets the minimum requirements.

[Xsmith]

Yeah, theory out the window. I rolled back to 4.20 which was the version when I last played it, no joy, same result.
I then rolled back to the earliest version and that too resulted in the same issue.
It seems I have a more persistent problem

[Alan Phipps]

Since the game is not even trying to start, I am becoming more convinced that there is a root problem either with your Steam and/or in the Steam exe that initiates the game session, or in the working folders where Steam is looking for the game files. The latter is more likely if the gamefiles and locations have been moved, or if you are using different Steam accounts such that the Steam ID number in the directory path to the profile, settings and saves etc in your documents is the wrong one.

I'm otherwise out of ideas, sorry.

[Xsmith]

Yeah it s problem for sure by the looks of it. I don't share steam accounts, Just the one account for almost 19 years, the game failed to load before I tried to move the installation to my SSD.
As it stands now the game has been uninstalled again, when I tried to get it to work in the last couple of weeks it was a fresh install, fully file checked and all that. Steam has been undated and checked too.
As you can probably imagine, I am no stranger to the quirks of Steam and its sometimes sporadic running of some of the things on there.
This particular problem is weird as I have logged over 4 hours on the game and that was when it was on update 4.2, so I rolled back to that installation earlier today but no dice, I even tried an earlier version, 3.2 and that was the same then went right to before update 6 which was update 5 hotfix 4, all gave the exact same result.
I am now back on X3:Terran Conflict starting a new game to appease my X craving until I can get to play X4 properly, hopefully at some point in the not too distant future.
I might try and full install of Steam again but that means rescanning my games installation drive again, which I am loath to do just for the sake of one item that fails to work.
But again, thanks for the suggestions.
I am tempted to flatten the entire system and reinstall everything from scratch but again, seems a bit extreme for one game.....

[CBJ]

One more thought: it could be your anti-virus that's preventing the game from starting. Try excluding the game folder and the Egosoft folder under My Documents from its file protection.