Unresolved Crash: Black Screen + Reverse Gear

WSR_Driver · May 5, 2024

Dear racers,

I am writing here to seek your help with solving a crash that all my research and 50+ hours investigating and testing haven't solved, so please, bear with me.

Ever since I've acquired Assetto Corsa and my setup (all details below), the crash may come in two forms:

1) Unresponding black screen after loading

Black screen
Reverse gear engaged
Only apps appear (eg. track map, pedals)
Freezes everything; no control responds (pedals, steering wheel)
Happens randomly (10-30% of the time) with any cars or tracks (including all Kunos content) that would otherwise work normally
Only restarting the computer fixes the issue
No errors messages shown

2) Infinite loading

As I said, I've gone through well over 50 hours dedicated to investigating and testing and have become desperate. Below are the things I've tried:

In Assetto Corsa:

Forced 32 bit in Assetto Corsa general settings
Unchecked GPU accelerated launched
Deactivated post process filtering in Assetto Corsa video settings
Deactivated unnecessary Assetto apps (G meter, chat)
Unchecked “Ignore Windows Display scaling DPI” in Assetto Corsa General settings (thought this may had solved it but nope)

Resolution/GPU-related settings:

Set antialiasing & anisotropic to app controlled in NVIDIA control panel
Set GPU performance to highest in NVIDIA control panel
Checked for Windows update and GPU drivers update (everything up to date)
Changed refresh rate from 120Hz to 144Hz
Changed resolution in Assetto Corsa from 3840x1080 to some other resolutions (eg. 1280x720)

Security-related settings:

Run as administrator
Compatibility mode Windows 7, 8
Allowed Assetto Corsa in firewall + turned off firewall completely
Turned off smart screen & real time protection in Windows Security

Others:

Investigated all logs
Investigated process events in SysInternal Process Monitor but couldn't figure what was going wrong when process crashes
Uninstalled unnecessary Windows services
Uninstalled unnecessary apps (eg. Xbox related apps)
Uninstalled / reinstalled the game (steam version)
Uninstalled Custom Shaders Patch
Set Assetto Corsa process priority to high through Powershell script
Clear Assetto Corsa cache
Delete Assetto Corsa folder in documents

--> None of the above has permanently solved the issue. I have been deceived many times, thinking I had solved the issue a few times (eg. changed the resolution temporarily solved the issue and I didn't have to restart the computer once, but the next time it didn't work).

And below is my setup:

Setup:

Windows 11 - 64 bit
Screen 3840 x 1080
AMZ Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor 3.80GHz
RAM 32GB
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
Motion rig simulator
Simucube Pro 2 + Ascher Racing F28SC
HH sprint pedals
Everything (including PC) is brand new and dedicated to running Assetto Corsa

I wrote to Kunos but so far they have provided no help (although I own two pro licenses).

Many thanks for reading.

Best,

WSR Driver

WSR_Driver · May 8, 2024

WSR_Driver said:
Dear racers,

I am writing here to seek your help with solving a crash that all my research and 50+ hours investigating and testing haven't solved, so please, bear with me.

Ever since I've acquired Assetto Corsa and my setup (all details below), the crash may come in two forms:

1) Unresponding black screen after loading

Black screen

Reverse gear engaged

Only apps appear (eg. track map, pedals)

Freezes everything; no control responds (pedals, steering wheel)

Happens randomly (10-30% of the time) with any cars or tracks (including all Kunos content) that would otherwise work normally

Only restarting the computer fixes the issue

No errors messages shown

2) Infinite loading

As I said, I've gone through well over 50 hours dedicated to investigating and testing and have become desperate. Below are the things I've tried:

In Assetto Corsa:

Forced 32 bit in Assetto Corsa general settings

Unchecked GPU accelerated launched

Deactivated post process filtering in Assetto Corsa video settings

Deactivated unnecessary Assetto apps (G meter, chat)

Unchecked “Ignore Windows Display scaling DPI” in Assetto Corsa General settings (thought this may had solved it but nope)

Resolution/GPU-related settings:

Set antialiasing & anisotropic to app controlled in NVIDIA control panel

Set GPU performance to highest in NVIDIA control panel

Checked for Windows update and GPU drivers update (everything up to date)

Changed refresh rate from 120Hz to 144Hz

Changed resolution in Assetto Corsa from 3840x1080 to some other resolutions (eg. 1280x720)

Security-related settings:

Run as administrator

Compatibility mode Windows 7, 8

Allowed Assetto Corsa in firewall + turned off firewall completely

Turned off smart screen & real time protection in Windows Security

Others:

Investigated all logs

Investigated process events in SysInternal Process Monitor but couldn't figure what was going wrong when process crashes

Uninstalled unnecessary Windows services

Uninstalled unnecessary apps (eg. Xbox related apps)

Uninstalled / reinstalled the game (steam version)

Uninstalled Custom Shaders Patch

Set Assetto Corsa process priority to high through Powershell script

Clear Assetto Corsa cache

Delete Assetto Corsa folder in documents

--> None of the above has permanently solved the issue. I have been deceived many times, thinking I had solved the issue a few times (eg. changed the resolution temporarily solved the issue and I didn't have to restart the computer once, but the next time it didn't work).

And below is my setup:

Setup:

Windows 11 - 64 bit

Screen 3840 x 1080

AMZ Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor 3.80GHz

RAM 32GB

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

Motion rig simulator

Simucube Pro 2 + Ascher Racing F28SC

HH sprint pedals

Everything (including PC) is brand new and dedicated to running Assetto Corsa

I wrote to Kunos but so far they have provided no help (although I own two pro licenses).

Many thanks for reading.

Best,

WSR Driver

Adding a few findings here:

Using Process Monitor, I found a pattern:

When the game loads normally (no crash), the assetto corsa process creates, query, and close the Sergoe UI bold font file about 50 times. When the game crashes, this iteration takes place over 23 000 times. As a matter of fact, the process seems stuck in this iteration forever.

The files do exist though, and I'm not sure whether that's strictly related to the font file or not but this pattern seems to always hold true.

Neilski · May 8, 2024

WSR_Driver said:
When the game loads normally (no crash), the assetto corsa process creates, query, and close the Sergoe UI bold font file about 50 times. When the game crashes, this iteration takes place over 23 000 times. As a matter of fact, the process seems stuck in this iteration forever.

Weird symptom, which may or may not be linked to the root cause, but good work getting that far with it.

Not sure what else to recommend in terms of investigative work, but since the process sits there for a long time (making extra checks fairly easy), one thing that might shed more light would be to use Process Explorer to look at the busy thread in the process and check the stack trace. It's a long shot, but depending on your luck, it may be able to find enough symbols to give you a clue about what routine is failing.

The issue may of course be entirely outside the AC binaries (e.g. OS issue, iffy device driver, ...).

I guess you've already poked around in the Windows event log just in case anything came up there?