EDIT: I seem to have narrowed it down a lot, and it turned out I was reading the log incorrectly (bottom to top when it should be top to bottom, but I don’t think you can blame me for being drawn to the lines with ‘ERR’, they appear in a log of a successful launch. I’m sorry for all the edits to this, but I think I’ve found the culprit; what I can’t do alone is fix it.
Here’s my log, Win10:
[28136] [ERR] [bnl] [External(0)] [External()] [2021-12-22T13:19:06.574Z]: PathOps: [20211222T13:19:06] {70e4} ERR: … is the leading path component: /…/.build.info
[28136] [ERR] [bnl] [External(0)] [External()] [2021-12-22T13:19:06.574Z]: PathOps: [20211222T13:19:06] {70e4} ERR: path normalization failed: /…/.build.info
[28136] [NRM] [VoiceChat] [External(0)] [External()] [2021-12-22T13:19:07.988Z]: ==[VC] Client initialized
[28136] [NRM] [VoiceChat] [External(0)] [External()] [2021-12-22T13:19:07.988Z]: ==[VC] SetUseDefaultCommsDevices (true)
[28136] [NRM] [VoiceChat] [External(0)] [External()] [2021-12-22T13:19:07.990Z]: ==[VC] SetTargetOutputDevice Speakers (NVIDIA Broadcast)
[28136] [NRM] [VoiceChat] [External(0)] [External()] [2021-12-22T13:19:07.992Z]: ==[VC] SetTargetInputDevice VoiceMeeter Output (VB-Audio VoiceMeeter VAIO)
[28136] [NRM] [VoiceChat] [External(0)] [External()] [2021-12-22T13:19:18.153Z]: ==[VC] Devices started
If I try to launch the game with a frame rate at 120fps (144Hz monitor set to 120Hz) it will almost always just stay as a black screen, no audio, not reaching the login screen before crashing to desktop after a few seconds, nothing reported in Reliability Monitor. If it launches at 60fps, it launches fine. Values in-between these are inconsistent, with 110 being the ‘cut off point’ for almost guaranteed black screen. Note that this is just when I try to launch the game. If I change the frame rate cap after a launch to 120, it runs perfectly fine. Borderless Fullscreen and dedicated Fullscreen produce the same result, save for dedicated fullscreen requiring I alt-tab and end process in task manager.
For example, if I set my frame rate cap to ‘display based’ and resolution to 2560x1440 (60) it runs. If I set it to Display Based and resolution to 2560x1440 (120) it crashes. If I set res to 2560x1440 (120) and a custom fps cap of 60, it launches. Custom fps cap of 120, it crashes. In the event of a crash, I go into settings_v0.ini and change FrameRateCap to 60 so the game launches again. Changing it from ‘60’ to ‘120’ in the ini produces crash at startup. Setting it to 120 within the client once it launches at 60fps produces 120fps gameplay.
What I can do is launch the game at 60fps and set the .ini to read-only, then set it to 120 in the client each launch, but I hope this is fixed. What gives? My GPU drivers are up to date, albeit on the Studio Driver path for nvidia GPUs. I tested a couple other games that run at 120fps, including WoW, and they’re fine.