DCS completely freezes on main menu right after the initlal loading screen

[Vnavspeed]

I've been experiecing this issue ever since i built my new rig last week.

 

Tried repairing, doing clean re-install of all drivers, checked windows files integrity and so on but nothing seems to be working.

Not having this issue in any other game or application but DCS.

Interestingly every 10 attempts to start DCS and only 1 of them happens to be successful and i fly only then.Other 90% of my attempts ends up in disaster also sometimes causes PC to freeze as well so i reset the computer.

 

Here's my Log file and the menu screen where the issue starts attached below

 

Thanks in advance

dcs.log

[Flappie]

2025-03-30 20:59:02.293 WARNING EDCORE (Main): hypervisor is active

Ensure Windows VMP is disabled if you don't need it.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/options-to-optimize-gaming-performance-in-windows-11-a255f612-2949-4373-a566-ff6f3f474613

[Urbi]

Just try the following: Open the task manager. Start the launcher. Search for DCS.exe. Then go to Details. Start the game. Wait until the login and authentication are complete. Then select the priority for DCS.exe and set it to Real Time. The game should then run without any freezes.

[Vnavspeed]

1 hour ago, Flappie said:

2025-03-30 20:59:02.293 WARNING EDCORE (Main): hypervisor is active

Ensure Windows VMP is disabled if you don't need it.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/options-to-optimize-gaming-performance-in-windows-11-a255f612-2949-4373-a566-ff6f3f474613

Tried this and disabled VMP - VBS in windows 11 but still freezes.

Edited March 30 by Vnavspeed

[Vnavspeed]

1 hour ago, Urbi said:

Just try the following: Open the task manager. Start the launcher. Search for DCS.exe. Then go to Details. Start the game. Wait until the login and authentication are complete. Then select the priority for DCS.exe and set it to Real Time. The game should then run without any freezes.

This also didnt fix anything it keeps freezing

[Flappie]

Ensure that you are not running DCS as Administrator, and that your BIOS is up-to-date.

[Wizard_03]

Ive had this same issue since the second to last update as well. DCS log analyzer can't find any showstoppers. Driving me up the wall. 

dcs.log

Edited April 2 by Wizard_03

[Wizard_03]

On 3/31/2025 at 12:36 AM, Flappie said:

Ensure that you are not running DCS as Administrator, and that your BIOS is up-to-date.

Just updated BIOS did not fix the issue for me. DCS is not being run as admin. Latest log attached. The game worked for a second and i was able to hit the settings button and load the settings menu before it completely locked up on me. Haven't had any major performance/Crash issues in DCS for several years now. Definitely something to do with the last major update.

dcs.log

Edited April 2 by Wizard_03

[Vnavspeed]

1 hour ago, Wizard_03 said:

Just updated BIOS did not fix the issue for me. DCS is not being run as admin. Latest log attached. The game worked for a second and i was able to hit the settings button and load the settings menu before it completely locked up on me. Haven't had any major performance/Crash issues in DCS for several years now. Definitely something to do with the last major update.

dcs.log 37.67 kB · 1 download

Exact the same thing over here. But i found a weird solution:

Everytime before i launch DCS, i do perform a repair and use the clean files feature of the launcher. It works but shouldn't work that way...

[Pillowcat]

@Wizard_03 @Vnavspeed Try to add into your autoexec.cfg (create one if you have no such) in Saved Games\DCS\Config\ a line:

no_device_hotplug = true

reason:

Spoiler

 

Edited April 2 by Pillowcat

[Wizard_03]

40 minutes ago, Vnavspeed said:

Exact the same thing over here. But i found a weird solution:

Everytime before i launch DCS, i do perform a repair and use the clean files feature of the launcher. It works but shouldn't work that way...

Interesting does it ever freeze mid mission for you? I was able to get past the main menu by doing a slow repair and check for excess files. Only to have it freeze again mid mission and then subsequent restarts result in it freezing on startup again. 

2 minutes ago, Pillowcat said:

@Wizard_03 @Vnavspeed Try to add to your autoexec.cfg (create one if you have no such) in Saved Games\DCS\Config\ a line:

no_device_hotplug = true

reason:

  Hide contents

 

I'll try that, but many of my freeze logs have no hot plug issues so I'm not sure that's it's related. Also I have hot plug disabled in the controls section. So if it's still on then that is a separate bug. 

[Pillowcat]

Also as a last thing, you may try this:

kind of description:
https://linustechtips.com/topic/915727-common-stutter-lag-crash-fix-hpet-guide/

[Wizard_03]

50 minutes ago, Pillowcat said:

@Wizard_03 @Vnavspeed Try to add into your autoexec.cfg (create one if you have no such) in Saved Games\DCS\Config\ a line:

no_device_hotplug = true

reason:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

1 hour ago, Vnavspeed said:

Exact the same thing over here. But i found a weird solution:

Everytime before i launch DCS, i do perform a repair and use the clean files feature of the launcher. It works but shouldn't work that way...

Neither of these worked to fix the freeze on startup. Latest log attached.

dcs.log

[Wizard_03]

25 minutes ago, Pillowcat said:

Also as a last thing, you may try this:

kind of description:
https://linustechtips.com/topic/915727-common-stutter-lag-crash-fix-hpet-guide/

No effect, this isn't a stutter or FPS problem btw. I get around 80 FPS in game, when DCS is running like it had been prior to 2.9.14.8222. Instead this a full system freeze. My whole computer stops responding, Mouse keyboard, screen, controllers everything. I have to do a hard restart of my PC when it happens, and it happens now everytime I start the game, and only with DCS. Several other resource intensive programs on my PC have no issues. So I don't think its a hardware problem either, otherwise it would be happening with other major programs too.

[Pillowcat]

45 minutes ago, Wizard_03 said:

this isn't a stutter or FPS problem btw

No one said it is, messing with timers in multithreading is realistic way to hang whole system.

55 minutes ago, Wizard_03 said:

I have to do a hard restart of my PC when it happens

"DXGUI_WIN_ADAPTER (Main): resize main window to [0, 0]" in end of log file, means dcs windows was minimized to taskbar or at least tried, so had a reaction on process switching attempt.
If in some attempt where be a luck to minimize dcs, I suggest to "Analyze wait chain" of dcs process in taskmanager (warning: it is not instant in work), but I doubt where would something

[Wizard_03]

17 hours ago, Vnavspeed said:

Exact the same thing over here. But i found a weird solution:

Everytime before i launch DCS, i do perform a repair and use the clean files feature of the launcher. It works but shouldn't work that way...

So this solution is now working for me as well, however I must also restart my computer between sessions, then I can do a repair and cleanup, and finally it will run.

 

This is problematic however since I will have to rebuild shaders literally every game session, and DCS lags quite a bit during that process. 

 

Seems like a corrupted file path is created each time the game is started, which then causes it to hang the next time it is run without doing a cleanup and repair. 

[mrfoxik]

I have found today solution maybe it will help you too. First, just to check, set up your FPS limit in DCS options to 65.
If your in game main menu freezes and you will check your "frame rate counter" (RCtrl+pause), you will notice that one of the CPU cores can not handle stable 65 fps and fps drops due to renderer core 100% usage, this means that this solution is for you.
It seems that ED f.up code and for I7 13700K, DCS uses Efficient Core for rendering but it should Performance core
When your DCS is running go to task manager (LCtrl+LShift+Esc), check witch core has 100% usage, then go to "details tab", find DCS.exe, right mouse button on it, chose "set affinity" then switch off this 100% usage core. DCS will move 100% usage from from this core to another, hopefully to Performance core.

You will notice that even in game, DCS runs much more smoother.

[Hammer1-1]

Ive noticed that the last update gave everyone problems with some mods installed. If I were OP, Id remove those found in the saved games/mods/tech folder and see if anything changes....

[MAXsenna]

9 minutes ago, Hammer1-1 said:

Ive noticed that the last update gave everyone problems with some mods installed. If I were OP, Id remove those found in the saved games/mods/tech folder and see if anything changes....

Or just rename the mods folder to mods.old as a quick test.

In any case a very good suggestion as a repair never touches Saved Games. 

Cheers! 

Edited April 3 by MAXsenna

[Wizard_03]

2 hours ago, Hammer1-1 said:

Ive noticed that the last update gave everyone problems with some mods installed. If I were OP, Id remove those found in the saved games/mods/tech folder and see if anything changes....

First thing I tried. Before renaming my entire saved games folder. No effect in both cases. 

Edited April 4 by Wizard_03

[Wizard_03]

2 hours ago, mrfoxik said:

I have found today solution maybe it will help you too. First, just to check, set up your FPS limit in DCS options to 65.
If your in game main menu freezes and you will check your "frame rate counter" (RCtrl+pause), you will notice that one of the CPU cores can not handle stable 65 fps and fps drops due to renderer core 100% usage, this means that this solution is for you.
It seems that ED f.up code and for I7 13700K, DCS uses Efficient Core for rendering but it should Performance core
When your DCS is running go to task manager (LCtrl+LShift+Esc), check witch core has 100% usage, then go to "details tab", find DCS.exe, right mouse button on it, chose "set affinity" then switch off this 100% usage core. DCS will move 100% usage from from this core to another, hopefully to Performance core.

You will notice that even in game, DCS runs much more smoother.

Very interesting, so I used to use the task manager to uncheck and recheck affinity for all cores in the DCS process, and that would instantly net me 20 - 30 FPS. So you might be on to something.

This was before when I could get passed the main menu though. So I will give this a try however the problem I see is that, once the freeze happens my entire computer locks up, all im able to do is restart. But I might be able to do this before the game completly loads and freezes.  

[ASW]

Use the "Park Control" program and your problem will be solved.

[Vnavspeed]

18 hours ago, ASW said:

Use the "Park Control" program and your problem will be solved.

it looks like this for me. Am i doing it correctly?

[Vnavspeed]

Guys i think finally i found the issue...

 

Whenever i start DCS with TrackIR running, it freezes but without TrackIR software running it all just works normally

[ASW]

3 часа назад, Vnavspeed сказал:

it looks like this for me. Am i doing it correctly?

Yes.