Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Technical problems Desktop issues after closing the game

I am having an issue when I close Divinity 2 directors cut. My desktop loses the wallpaper and is just a solid color and all my icons are gone. There is no way to fix this that I have found with out either restarting the PC or signing out of windows and signing back in. I have had this happen randomly with other games. But, with Divinity 2 it happens ever time. The only exception seems to be if I load a save and then exit right away. Then it works fine. But if I move from the spot I saved at it will happen when exiting the game.

I am running windows 8.1 on a i5-3570k, GTX 1070, 32 GB ram.

Any one have any ideas on what is causing this and/or a fix?

At a guess, it sounds like explorer may have crashed; you could bring up Task Manager with crtl/alt/del, select file->new task and start explorer from there to see if that fixes it. Although I use Windows 7, I have seen a few instances of explorer crashing or hanging after running various games.

I suspect it's a symptom rather than the underlying cause, though: might it be overheating? Could be worth running a temperature monitor so you can keep an eye on things. Sometimes the PC's cooling just needs to have the dust blown out of it.

I am not a Windows expert of any sort though, I'm an old Unix hacker so it's a bit of an anathema.

Try using Alt-F4 to exit out of the game.

Check for updated graphics drivers and Windows updates (especially anything DirectX related).

In the '..\SteamApps\common\divinity2_dev_cut\bin' folder, try right clicking an executable ( Divinity2.exe is the normal mode, while Divinity2-debug.exe has the optional 'Developer Mode' cheat menu), select properties, switch to the Compatibility tab and try different compatibility modes (and maybe check the option to run as administrator, and disable display scaling on high DPI settings).


You can try setting the game to run in a window, by editing the file below in a text editor and changing the one to a zero in Fullscreen="1".
C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Divinity 2\Profile\graphicoptions.xml

You may need to set Windows Explorer to show hidden files and folders:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/show-hidden-files-and-folders-in-windows-vista/
(covers Vista through Win 10)

Alternately, I've see the Windows Borderless Gaming app reported to work with Divinity 2.

Thanks for the tips and things to try. Running the game in compatibility mode using XP SP3 fixed the desktop issues when exiting the game. I also disabled display scaling and that didn't seem to make any difference.

Now that the major head ache is fixed I just need to figure out why it crashes when I alt tab out to look something up on the internet. But that is a minor concern now that I can save and exit the game and not end up having to restart windows due to the desktop issue.

Going to give the window mode fix a try and see what that does.

EDIT: window mode crashes while the game is launching so that is a no go.

Thanks again!

Edit: (much later) Well finished the game but it got stuck on the black screen after the final video. Not sure if I could use the same character for FOV or not. But at this point I'm going to have to make a new one.

Yes, you should be able to use the same character for the end section of the game. In fact, it should be a seamless transition.

Did you try hitting Esc at the black screen? If there was a problem with one of the cutscene videos, that might get the game to skip it.

Try installing the AC3filter audio codec; that can fix issues with the transition from D2:ED to FoV. Some people have also fixed codec problems by either uninstalling or installing codec packs.
http://www.ac3filter.net

Check for Windows updates, particularly anything related to Windows Media Player codecs.

Rename the Endscene_English.wmv and EXP_Intro_English.wmv videos in the '..\SteamApps\common\divinity2_dev_cut\Data\Video\Story' folder to get the game to skip them (you can watch them in Windows Media Player, etc).
If starting a new FoV character works, it wouldn't be a problem with the starting cutscene, or codec issues, but renaming the video might still help.

Try lowering the graphics settings temporarily. In particular, one person reported that turning Dynamic Geometry Distance Rendering to the lowest setting fixed the game freezing for an earlier cutscene (meeting Talana), or you could just switch to the low quality preset.

A lower game resolution and graphics settings might let the game start in windowed mode, as well, which could avoid the issue transitioning into FoV.

Try skipping through the conversation, rather than let it end on its own (if you didn't already do so, when re-trying this).

Crash after Ygerna's memory cutscenes

I watched the cut scene all the way through the first time and got the black screen. I skipped in the second time when it got to a point where I could and still got stuck on the black screen with the gold icon in the lower right corner. I let that sit thinking it might just be loading. Came back an hour later and it was still stuck.

Changing the screen resolution is a no go. My desktop is 2560x1440 and if I try to go lower in the game it crashes at start and I have the missing desktop issue that started all this. I tried disabling vsync and a few other things as well. I also tried lowering the graphics setting down a notch or two as well. Maybe I should just go all the way down to the minimum.

About the only thing I have not tired is changing the video files names so the game skips them. That's next on my list.

I will post what happens after I try a few more things.

EDIT: Renaming the two video files did the trick. A few taps on the Esc key to get past a few places the game hangs up after the video of the Divine stuck in his crystal jail cell and I am in FoV with my character from ED.

Thanks for that tip about the two video files!

Glad you got it working. It seems the issue was with the resolution switching, then.

I discovered something yesterday that I thought I would pass on. In case some one else has some of the same issues I did.

I was doing the The Murders in the Rue Lanilor quest. I made to the hidden dungeon and made my way to the room with Rotha. I stepped into the room and the fight started. Only thing was I got hit by something that pushed me back outside the room and the door closed and locked. Hence I could not get back in. Since you need an item from Rotha to advance the quest I had a big problem.

After running around and doing some other quests I finally decided the only way to get past that door again was using the cheat console in the Directors Cut version of the game. I had been playing using the original version.

Using the console I moved myself directly to Rotha and got the item I needed. I saved my game at that point and tried an experiment. I hit Esc to pause the game and then Alt Tabbed out and it worked with no crash like I got playing the normal mode. Just to be sure it worked every time I tried it a few more times and I even found the game didn't crash when exiting like the normal mode did.

The only thing I have not tested is the video cut scene at the end of ED to see if it works fine in the Directors Cut version. I am planning a couple more play throughs of ED using more Mage and Archer skills instead of going mostly Warrior like I did in this first play through. So, I will pass on what I find when I get that far in the game playing all the way through in Directors Cut mode.

But at this point the best advice I can pass on is play the game in Directors Cut mode and just avoid the original mode.

A couple of people have reported startup crashes with one version, but not the other, as well.