Saints Row 5 or the 2022 Reboot is an action-adventure game by Deep Silver Volition and Fishlabs. It will be released globally on August 23 on PC (via Epic Games Store), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S.
It is the fifth iteration of the illustrious Saints Row Series. Like its predecessors, this game is also based in the same universe, where you operate a gang in the streets of “Saints Row” However, like any other recently launched AAA title.
These issues range anywhere from Saints Row crashing at startup, black screen, and game stuck on the loading screen. In this article, we are going to take a look at these issues and try to solve them with a set of troubleshooting steps. We hope the developers will fix these issues down the line, but till they do, here are a few steps you can try.
Saints Row 2022 Crashing at Startup, Won’t Start, Stuck at Loading, and Black Screen Fixes
The players face these issues at various points while trying out the game. The crashing at startup issue is, as the name suggests, incurred at startup and so on. Before we start with the fixes, here are a few steps you should complete before proceeding to the more specified fixes.
Update your Graphics Drivers
The first thing that you should do while facing issues with a newly launched game is you should update the display drivers on your system. You can do so by downloading the drivers from the manufacturer’s website and installing them directly or via Device Manager. We suggest you install the driver from the manufacturer’s website and choose a clean install while updating.
Download links:-
AMD: https://www.amd.com/en/support
NVIDIA: https://www.nvidia.com/download/index.aspx
INTEL: https://www.intel.in/content/www/in/en/download-center/home.html
Check Your Firewall & Antivirus
Check your firewall rules, which might be interfering with the game client. We suggest you add an exception for the game’s.exe file both in your antivirus and firewall. But, before you do that, just disable the antivirus and see if that allows you to play the game. If it does, click on the link for steps to add exceptions to the firewall and antivirus.
Fix Saints Row Crashing at Startup, Won’t Start, Stuck at Loading, and Black Screen
Refer to this post if your game is crashing at the loading screen after you have chosen DirectX 12, DirectX 11, or Valkun – Fix Saints Row Unable to Start the Game
Make sure the game is installed properly
Launch Epic Games Store and browse the game in the library. Click on the three dots below the game and, choose Manage, click on Verify. This will make Epic Games Store run a parity check on the game files ensuring all of them are intact; if not, the launcher will automatically re-acquire the missing or corrupted files.
Admin privileges
If Saints Row crashes at startup, it might be because it is not running with administrator privileges. Right-click on the game and go to the Compatibility tab. Click on Run this program as an administrator. For this, you should be logged into one of the admin accounts.
Try tweaking the game’s graphics settings
Sometimes the available resources are not sufficient to run the game in your desired quality; in such a situation, what you can do is try adjusting the various display parameters. Start running the game in Windowed borderless with a resolution scale of around 80. This might fix the issue; if not, try lowering the resolution scale to where you are comfortable.
Raytracing and Ambient occlusion settings
If Saints Row is stuttering with your current Raytracing settings, we suggest turning down the ambient occlusion, this will deliver a better and smoother gaming experience at the cost of quality.
Increase the Virtual Memory of Your System
You can try increasing the size of the virtual memory to ensure that the game is not crashing because of some paging error in your RAM. To increase the virtual memory of your system, follow these steps:-
- Open Control Panel
- Head over to System and Security > System
- Select Advanced System Settings to open your System Properties. Now open the Advanced tab.
- Then, underperformance select settings. Under virtual memory, select change and increase the available virtual memory.
- Uncheck Automatically manage paging size for all drives
- Check Custom Size
- You need to set the initial and max size.
- If your RAM is 8 GB, the Initial Size will be 8 x 1024 x 1.5 = 12288 MB. Similarly, the Maximum Size will be 8 x 1024 x 3 = 24576 MB.
- If your RAM is 16 GB, 16 x 1024 x 1.5 = 24576 MB, and the Maximum size should be 16 x 1024 x 3 = 49152 MB
- Next, click Set to apply settings and Ok to Save.
Restart the computer and check if the Spider-Man Remastered still crashes or gets stuck on the loading screen.
Perform a clean Boot
In a clean boot, the system is initiated with the minimum required drivers and startup programs. You can use this to check if any background process is interfering with your game.
- To do a clean boot, open the windows search panel and type msconfig and click on system config.
- Head over to the services tab of system config and click on Hide all Microsoft services, and then select Disable all. Select Apply
- Switch to the startup tab and click on open task manager.
- On the Startup tab in Task Manager, for each Enabled startup item, select the item and then select Disable. (Keep track of which items have been Disabled. You will need to know this later.)
- Close Task Manager.
- On the Startup tab of System Configuration, select OK. When you restart the computer, this will make your system perform a clean boot.
Install Visual C++ Files
You can follow this link to the official website, go there and download the Visual Studio 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022. Download the combined package that contains all versions of the software. When installing, we suggest that you install both the X86 and X64 versions.
Update Windows
We always suggest keeping all your software, including your OS, up to date. Updates always bring in optimizations and also hot-plug fixes for known issues.
Uninstall and Re-install the Game on SSD
If your issue still hasn’t been solved after following all the above steps, we suggest you uninstall the game and reinstall it, preferably on an SSD if that is possible. In 2022, SSDs are cheap enough and offer good VFM. If you are having doubts, this won’t damage your in-game progress as long as the saved game files are left untouched.
Delete The Saved Game Files
This is the last and probably the most inconvenient step of all the fixes. If Saints Row is still crashing after following all the above steps, we suggest you delete the saved game files as corrupted saved game files often break, an otherwise, impeccable gaming experience. To delete the game files, head over to the Saint’s Row Folder under documents in the File-Explorer on your system and proceed to delete the folder; keep in mind, THIS WILL WIPE YOUR GAME PROGRESS, so proceed with caution. You can take a backup of the file in case you need it.
That’s all for this error guide. We hope one of these methods has worked for you to fix the Saints Row crashing at startup, Saints Row black screen, and other issues. Thanks for sticking to the end; see you in the next one.