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chrisGTX's avatar
chrisGTX
11 months ago
Solved

NFS: Unbound Launches to black screen, then closes

I own NFS: Unbound Palace Edition on Steam. I'm trying to play it for the first time. When I press play on Steam, the EA app opens, the game window opens to a black screen, sometimes the window is 1/...
technical issues
  • chrisGTX's avatar
    chrisGTX
    11 months ago

    Okay, I think I've solved the issue, the game launches now, here's how I fixed it:

    Download Intel XTU and lower your Performance Core Ratio from its default by 1 until the game works. So my Intel i7 13700K was set to 53x by default, lowering it to 52x fixed it.

    This actually solved tons of other random CTDs I was getting in games. Issue is it wasn't every game, some would run flawlessly. Apparently, 13th and 14th gen Intel chips have this widespread issue and many, many people report that lowering the PCR fixes it for them. I'll probably end up RMAing my CPU though.

    Hope this helps anyone else who stumbles upon this thread.

chrisGTX's avatar
chrisGTX
11 months ago

I can confirm I tried the steps you provided, the game still will not launch. Here are the results from each:

1. Windows found some corrupt files. Ran the checker again and all files were fine. Tried launching the game, didn't work.

2. Every VC++ redist exe in the game's install folder told me that it was already installed, no change.

3. Made sure to attempt to start the game with no other applications running other than Steam and the EA app, didn't work.

4. Followed clean boot steps, made the problem worse, after following these steps, I didn't even get a black window anymore, the EA app would say "preparing game" then just close, Steam's play button would change to blue to signal it was starting, then just back to normal green again.

Undoing the clean boot steps got me back to where I was, a black window that closes after 1-5 seconds.

  • chrisGTX's avatar
    chrisGTX
    11 months ago

    Okay, I think I've solved the issue, the game launches now, here's how I fixed it:

    Download Intel XTU and lower your Performance Core Ratio from its default by 1 until the game works. So my Intel i7 13700K was set to 53x by default, lowering it to 52x fixed it.

    This actually solved tons of other random CTDs I was getting in games. Issue is it wasn't every game, some would run flawlessly. Apparently, 13th and 14th gen Intel chips have this widespread issue and many, many people report that lowering the PCR fixes it for them. I'll probably end up RMAing my CPU though.

    Hope this helps anyone else who stumbles upon this thread.

    • EA_Illium's avatar
      EA_Illium
      Icon for EA Staff (Retired) rankEA Staff (Retired)
      10 months ago
      Hi @chrisGTX, Glad to hear you found a fix for this!

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