Crash on startup when joystick is present

[BTAxis]

X4 crashes on startup when I have my Saitek Cyborg EVO connected to my machine. If I disconnect the joystick, the game runs fine.

The stick itself works in Windows and in other applications, so I don't think it's a hardware issue. I've also used it with X4 before, but at the time I was using Windows 10 and now I'm on Windows 11. I think that may be a factor here.

[CBJ]

That sounds like a driver issue, but without any information to work with it's hard to give any relevant advice. Please provide the information requested in the very first thread at the top of the forum, including your DXDiag and whether or not your game is modified, so that we can see what you have and whether there are any other suggestions we can offer.

[BTAxis]

OK. Here's the DxDiag:

https://pastebin.com/mPN5K5Ze

Crash dump:

https://file.io/K1lm9dXfiYc1

I did not modify my X4 in any way. I'm running the 7.50 beta, but I've also tried the stable branch with the same result.

It probably does come down to a driver issue. Drivers for this device are no longer available from the manufacturer. When connected, it shows in the Device Manager as "HID-compliant game controller". Though, like I said, it works for most things.

[CBJ]

All the errors in your DXDiag are bluescreen errors, which definitely represent driver-level issues as the game itself can't cause those. The Windows error logs may contain more info about what the bluescreen error actually was, or you can check that on the bluescreen message itself.

I'd start by making sure you have the latest drivers for the device in question, but you should also check for BIOS updates as you have a 14th-gen Intel CPU which has a known fault that can apparently damage the CPU in some cases. Note that the errors caused by this CPU/BIOS issue are memory-related, and can very easily only show up in certain applications.

[BTAxis]

As stated, there are no drivers available for this device (this is the manufacturer's download page).

Note that running X4 does not cause a bluescreen. It simply crashes. I did get a bluescreen when I tried to install an older driver I had on my hard drive, but I only tried that once for obvious reasons.

I did already install the BIOS update for my motherboard for the 14th gen CPU issue.

[CBJ]

As stated, there are no drivers available for this device (this is the manufacturer's download page).

Well, that in itself could be a problem! The crashdump indicates that the crash is coming from pid.dll, which is indeed input device related. A quick Google search for that dll filename brings up various issues in different games, and some solutions you could try.

Note that running X4 does not cause a bluescreen. It simply crashes. I did get a bluescreen when I tried to install an older driver I had on my hard drive, but I only tried that once for obvious reasons.

Then it's odd that none of the X4 crashes show up in your DXDiag, and that there are multiple bluescreen entries. I've no idea how that could come about!

I did already install the BIOS update for my motherboard for the 14th gen CPU issue.

Good. Note, however, that there are some CPUs that still have issues after that update and need to be RMA'd. There's no particular evidence so far that yours is one of those, but it's a possibility to consider if nothing else comes up.

[BTAxis]

My thinking at this point is that I should just replace my device. There's a reasonable case for that anyway. This stick is from an era when force feedback was still a thing, and that means it needs a discrete (and fairly chunky) power supply to drive the FFB. However, basically no software these days uses it anymore (I used it with X3 though!), and getting it to work at all was always a pain. I might just need to switch to something else.