9.0 CTD - Game crashes/closes then won't reopen until reinstall - CPU Issue - Appears to be Resolved

[ericwhatchaneed]

Version and language (e.g. 8.00 Hotfix 3, English, etc.).
- App ID: 392160
- Build ID: 23660954
- Installed content updated: Jun 26, 2026 at 6:56 PM
- English

Whether or not your game is modified using any third party scripts or mods (see note below).
- No mods or third party scripts at all or ever.

The game start you originally selected for the game in which the problem occurred.
- The Young Gun

Exact nature of the problem, where and when it occurs and what you were doing at the time.
- The game just closes. No errors or anything, no "Waiting for program to respond" issues. It just straight up closes, and when I re-open it, it closes almost immediately after the initial X4 Tides picture comes up. I usually have to reinstall the game to get it to work again.

Any possibly relevant changes you have made to your game, system, or software before the issue occurred.
- Nothing at all. It worked fine for 81 hours with not a single issue, now it barely plays for more than 30 minutes without crashing. Then I have to reinstall the entire game to fix the issue because it literally just won't open again.

ATTACHMENTS CAN BE FOUND HERE:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing


EDIT:
I should add that I've verified file integrity on Steam, updated drivers, no mods or scripts ever, I'm super new so no legacy saves or files, 4070 Ti with 12GB of VRAM, and this worked perfectly fine for 81 hours with no issues at all and that's with me running tons of browser tabs open and usually a YouTube video or Plex movie on. Since it started crashing, it just closes almost immediately after the opening X4 Tides loading screen appears. Sometimes it'll let me open a save then close about 10 seconds after.

EDIT #2:
Okay, I may have gotten this figured out. In reading other posts, the only thing I didn't have updated was my BIOS, and I also saw that my CPU, a 13900K, has some power and degradation issues. Once I did that whole process, I booted back up and got into game. It started up and loaded the save, but then crashed BUT this time, for the first time, it actually gave me an error. It is the SMem failure to allocate error. So I looked into it and the general consensus seems to be it's an issue with the pagefile in Windows, or virtual memory. I manually set it to 32gb and the game is now running better than it ever has, performance and all. No crashes so far either and I've been playing and doing all kinds of things for the last 20 minutes. I'll update and potentially close this if it holds out tonight.

EDIT #3:
Welp, spoke too soon. Back to crashing with no errors at all. This is ridiculous.

[CBJ]

Unfortunately you didn't give us access to the files. Please make the folder public.

The only thing I can point to with the information provided is that you have a 13th generation Intel CPU, which has a known, progressive fault which can result in symptoms such as the ones you're running into. Provide it hasn't progressed too far, a BIOS update will normally solve it.

[ericwhatchaneed]

Ahh my apologies. Updated to shared now!

[CBJ]

Your crashes are all in different, random locations, none of which would correspond to likely crash locations in the code. These are pretty much textbook symptoms of the Intel 13th/14th generation CPU issue that I mentioned in my previous post.

[ericwhatchaneed]

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of, too. I updated the BIOS but it may just be too far along. Welp, looks like I need to get a new CPU.

[CBJ]

If that is indeed the problem then you should be able to RMA it with Intel for a replacement rather than having to buy a new one.

[ericwhatchaneed]

Okay, so I found a random YouTube video that went into super details about this. It ended up all boiling down to yep, it's the processor and even the BIOS updates aren't really enough to fix it if it does have some degradation. So I've now been running X4 for hours with no issues at all.

What I did was:

- Ensured ASUS MultiCore Enhancement was set to "Disabled - Enforce All Limits"
- Manually set the PL1 and PL2 to "253"
- Under "Digi + VRM", set the CPU Load-Line Calibration to "Level 3"
- Under "Internal CPU Power Management" I ensured IA CEP was set to "Enabled"

Then:
- Set the Performance Core Ratio to "sync all cores"
- Set "All Core Ratio Limit" to 54 since I have an Asus mobo and an Intel i9-13900k cpu
- Set the "Actual VRM Core Voltage to "Offset Mode"
- Set "Offset Mode Sign" to "+"
- Set "CPU Core Voltage Offset" to ".015"

I'm honestly not sure if this PC has EVER ran this well. Especially the temperatures. I have more stuff running just to test it out and while playing X4 I have Plex running, YouTube going, Discord, and various other things. I've barely pushed past 60c a couple of times. I REALLY hope this helps others and I REALLY hope it holds up haha.

[Alan Phipps]

Whilst it's great to see a poster helping others and giving suggestions that have helped them, obviously caution and some research is advised for others so that any changes made are right for their system and don't entail undue risks if something goes awry in the process or an unintended error is made. In short, you should probably know what you are doing when dealing with BIOS.

[ericwhatchaneed]

Haha true. Naturally I would have assumed that a post tinkering with voltages would necessarily entail something could go catastrophically wrong, but yeah, I should have put that disclaimer for sure.