Regarding the game instant flatlining:
Hello all,
Long post I know, but I hope it will be informative to some of you experiencing the "instant flatline" error upon attempting to start the game.
Like many of you, I have been sat here reading through these posts since the day of launch. I, like many, have not been able to get the game to launch. Instant flatline as soon as the "CD Projekt Red" logo appears.
I have tried all the fixes I could think of.
- Updating Windows 10 to latest (20H2)
- Installed latest driver (clean install)
- Updated Chipset driver
- Updated motherboard BIOS
- Tried AVX hack (despite my CPU supporting AVX)
- Ensured AVX was enabled in Windows 10 using CMD
- Downloaded Microsoft DirectX config tool to allow me to limit Cyberpunk.exe access to DirectX features. Forcing it to be limited to v11.1
- Installed Studio Ready Driver (clean install)
- Installed Older driver (clean install)
- Booted into Safe mode and tried to run game
- Booted into Safemode and ran DDU and then reinstall driver
- Disabled Discord overlay
- Disabled NV overlay
- Disabled GoG Galaxy overlay
- Ran game from GoG Galaxy Client
- Ran game from directory, direct EXE launch
- Reinstalled game on HDD
- Reinstalled/moved game to SSD
- Checked file integrity
- Disabled XMP/D.O.C.P in Bios
- Tried all of this with both v1.03 and v1.04
No luck. Instant flatlines. Suddenly after a random Windows Update, the game started to run... however it would crash if I made any changes in the Settings menu.
My hardware, despite not being "cutting edge" is still fair:
CPU: AMD 3950X
RAM: 64GB
GPU: MSI Gaming Trio RTX 2080
So I started looking into the "delete the cache folder" fix. The folder located at "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\CD Projekt Red\Cyberpunk 2077". I found that by deleting the "cache" folder, didn't help at all. But deleting the "UserSettings.json" file did.
I noticed that if I ran the game and didn't make any changes to the Settings in game, upon restarting the game, it would still crash again, instant flatline at the next startup.
I started looking inside the file to see what could be causing the game to crash on my system. I started by making a blank text file and naming it "UserSettings.json". Started the game up and it ran without a crash, no issue there.
So next I populated the file and started removing blocks of code from the file. After removing one block, I left the file open in Notepad, I ran the game again. If it crashed, I resaved the file and removed another block. I continued in the hope I would find whatever it was that was causing my crash...
I eventually found that the "RayTracing" section (below) is what is causing my instant flatline.
{
"group_name": "/graphics/raytracing",
"options": [
{
"name": "RayTracing",
"type": "bool",
"value": true,
"default_value": false
},
{
"name": "RayTracedReflections",
"type": "bool",
"value": true,
"default_value": false
},
{
"name": "RayTracedSunShadows",
"type": "bool",
"value": true,
"default_value": false
},
{
"name": "RayTracedLighting",
"type": "string_list",
"is_dynamic": false,
"value": "Ultra",
"index": 2,
"default_index": 0,
"values": [
"Off",
"Medium",
"Ultra",
"Psycho"
]
}
]
},
By removing that block, the game ran. Of course after quitting the game, and attempting to run it again, it would crash once more. So I repopulated the file in full, scoured through the file and removed only the block of code above, saved the file and then set the file (UserSettings.json) to read-only. Started the game again and it ran... quit the game, and then attempted to start it again.
Usually at this point the game would instant flatline, but as the file was read-only and the game was unable to repopulate it's contents before I quit last session, the game successfully ran once again.
So for me, this fix has allowed me to start the game. The only issue is that I am unable to change the settings in game. I have to manually adjust them within a text editor, save the file and re-set its flag to read-only.
I hope this is at least a step forward in helping some of you get your game up and running.
ReNZoR
EDIT#1: After testing further, removing the code isn't necessary. Simply changing the ' "value": true, ' to ' "value": false, ' yields the same results. Remember to set the file to read-only after making the changes:
"name": "RayTracing",
"type": "bool",
"value": true,
"default_value": false
