X-Com Enemy Unknown stops working at the start of a new game.

[percinator]

To anyone reading this. I recently bought X-Com Enemy Unknown and have been unable to play once since purchasing it. At the end of the length download from steam the game did not prompt me to install anykind of directx or any other program during installation. I booted up the game and got to the main menu with no problem. Then when I clicked new game and chose my difficulty and hit the button to begin then game I am brought to the loading screen but once the screen goes black after the loading I get a pop-up saying XCOM: Enemy Unknown has stopped working. I have so far done the follow at suggestions found from websites from the google searchs of XCOM: Enemy Unknown has stopped working and XCOM: Enemy Unknown has crashed:
Redownloaded the game.
Verified the integrity of the game files half a dozen times which must said a single roughly 8 mb file was missing.
Restarted steam after verifying the game integrity.
Ran XComGame.exe as administrator.
Ran XcomGame.exe with desktop composition disabled.
Updated my graphics card drivers.
Updated Direct X.
Disabled V-Sync.
Disabled AA.
Ran the game in windowed mode.
And Launching the game through the .exe and not through steam itself.

I am getting very frustrated with this since my computer can run games like Crysis on high to maximum on everything with a solid 55-65 framerate so I am hopeing for any help that can be given to me. If any further information is required then I will try my best to present it.

[Sanginius]

IS it an AMD processor by anychance, as they seem to be behind this a lot, theres a few threads like this , all appearing to be AMD based, apparently a bios update seems to resolve it in some cases.

[percinator]

I am using an AMD Athlon II x4 640 Processor, so I guess that might be my problem, I'm not the biggest tech savy guy so could you perhaps point me where I need to go?

[Nohbdy]

I have the exact same issue, as does several others across various boards. I do have an AMD processor as well

[rgallant]

For AMD users I found this while poking about

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\AMD Dual Core Optimizer


There is a setup program in there, I run Intel so I can not tell you if it will help.

[Satoru]

If you're running AMD run the "Dual Core Optimizer" in the Steam directory

If you're running an AMD FX processor you must update your motherboard BIOS.

[Sanginius]

No dont use the amd dual core optimizer program. As far as i can tell, that was designed for running under windows xp, and was later incorporated into Windows itself. The information i saw in another thread, was pointing towards older Bios being the problem. Bios updates are found on the motherboard manufacturers site, but you need to have the precise correct revision version for your motherboard, not just any bios or you can do horrible things like break your PC.

First thing you need to do is find out what motherboard model you have, and then which revision you have, This may involve taking the side of the pc off( while its powered down), and looking for the info on the motherboard itself. If you have the motherboard manual to hand that may have the revision number in it.

Also i dont know about all AMD motherboards, but it is possible that they may auto detect which board and revision the are on the motherboard manufacturers website.

[randommonicle]

Also i recommend sticking a dxdiag on this thread as well. Just so when the bug-hunters do get around to it, it makes life a little easier

[percinator]

They did detect it but I now have no idea how to update my bios after getting it, it's just a rom file.

[percinator]

A new development, I renamed the movies folder at Steam>steamapps>common>XCom-Enemy-Unknown>XComGame and it seems like the problem has fixed itself but then I don't have any movies.

[Nohbdy]

No dont use the amd dual core optimizer program. As far as i can tell, that was designed for running under windows xp, and was later incorporated into Windows itself. The information i saw in another thread, was pointing towards older Bios being the problem. Bios updates are found on the motherboard manufacturers site, but you need to have the precise correct revision version for your motherboard, not just any bios or you can do horrible things like break your PC.

First thing you need to do is find out what motherboard model you have, and then which revision you have, This may involve taking the side of the pc off( while its powered down), and looking for the info on the motherboard itself. If you have the motherboard manual to hand that may have the revision number in it.

Also i dont know about all AMD motherboards, but it is possible that they may auto detect which board and revision the are on the motherboard manufacturers website.

This was going to be my next step. I had noticed that my PC doesn't detect my processor model, just "AMD Processor Model Unknown" stated on my computer info. It's never been a problem before though after running this config for a year, so I don't know why XCOM would have issues with it. I'm going to flash my BIOS once I get home from work (and if I can find a bootable floppy).

Do any others in here experiencing this issue have the unknown processor listed?

[Sanginius]

With regards to bios each motherboard manufacturer normally has their own specific way of updating a bios, sometimes its a seperate program, sometimes its booting with the new bios on a usb stick , sometimes its done through windows. Again reading through you motherboard manual, which if you dont have, should be available for download on the same location as the bios update came from, should give you the info on how to do it. Always make sure you have read it all the way through, and have a copy to hand to refer to in case things go wrong, so you know how to undo it, if need be( assuming the motherboard allows a way of rolling back in case of issues.

IF you dont have a cap on your downloads, then it might be worth having steam reverify the files once they have been renamed, and having them redownloaded, in case something in one of them was corrupted.

[percinator]

To reply to Sanginius, I do not feel comfortable enough in my tech abilities to try any of that.

[Sanginius]

percinator, thats understandable, its one of the reasons i stressed the possibility of something bad happening, so that someone could undertake an informed decision over whether to try updating BIOS or not.

However the last two lines were referring to verifying files through steam IF you have the available usage to be able to redownload them again, In case the versions you originally had were corrupted somehow. I only mentioned this as you said the game started ok after you had renamed the movies.

Another thing you could try would be maybe renaming them back one at a time and starting the game each time to see if you can narrow it down to one or two files that cause the issue and just leave them renamed.

[percinator]

I'm just redownloading all of the movies.

[Nohbdy]

percinator, thats understandable, its one of the reasons i stressed the possibility of something bad happening, so that someone could undertake an informed decision over whether to try updating BIOS or not.

However the last two lines were referring to verifying files through steam IF you have the available usage to be able to redownload them again, In case the versions you originally had were corrupted somehow. I only mentioned this as you said the game started ok after you had renamed the movies.

Another thing you could try would be maybe renaming them back one at a time and starting the game each time to see if you can narrow it down to one or two files that cause the issue and just leave them renamed.

I had redownloaded the entire game and it did not fix the issue for me unfortunately.

I will try renaming the videos folder tonight and see if it works for me

[Nohbdy]

Still not working for me after trying some more things:

Renaming the movies folder? No luck
Flashing BIOS to latest update? No luck

I'm totally out of ideas, and tech support is totally silent. I should have gotten this on the 360, I'm so done with Steam after this fiasco.

[siky01]

I had the crash at the start of a new game it got solved by renaming the movies folder in steam/steamapps/common/x-com-enemy-unknown/xcomgame im running a integrated video chipset