[2023] Game crashes when loading

Please do a full **clean** re-install:

- move any valued save games elsewhere, and user empire designs.txt from /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/ if you have made any custom empires or races.
- "uninstall" in Steam-Stellaris
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Stellaris AND Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris folders
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add stellaris.exe to the exceptions list of your antivirus app; ESPECIALLY if you have Windows Defender, add it to the Ransomware "Apps Allowed Through" list.
- start the game with no mods active and test

In particular you need to make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam Stellaris or Documents Stellaris locations, before installing again.

If that doesn't help:
DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.

Please attach here your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/settings.txt and pdx_settings.txt .
From your Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/logs/ folder, attach here system.log , error.log , exceptions.log  

A few possible problems here:


- you get Bluescreens, which are always Windows, driver or hardware faults. Next time you get one record the text on that screen for us. Do they relate to this game, or something else?

- all the errors in that log relate to the video system. Check for a newer driver for thet Intel Xe from HP support, failing that Intel https://downloadcenter.intel.com/

- you are VERY low on memory, and the Xe will take away some of it:

Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 3738MB RAM

Display Memory: 1997 MB
Dedicated Memory: 128 MB
Shared Memory: 1869 MB

So you may end up with less that 2gb of memory shared between Windows and the game - and the game's minimum requirement is 4gb all to itself!

Unload every other app you can before starting the game, AND
expand your Windows paging file maximum size to at least 16gb

Optional: Increasing the paging file size on Windows computers

On computers that have 8 GB of RAM, the suggested paging file size is 16 GB. www.ibm.com
If that doesn't help you'll need to get more system memory for this machine, up to at least 8gb I'd suggest.


Or, if you've just bought the game and are within that store's refund limits, apply for a refund from where you bought it.

Good luck!