Certain old Steam games CTD immediately on launch

For whatever reason, some of my old Steam games refuse to run. Currently this counts

• Bioshock Infinite
• Tomb Raider (2013)
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution

All of them start to run and then immediately stop and disappear from memory. Tomb Raider loads its launcher, but it's the same issue when I try to run the actual game - starts to load and then vanishes. I bought Bioshock Infinite on GoG to play it and that version runs just fine - and AFAIK the only difference to the steam version is that SteamAuth is removed.

Tried running steam and these games in admin mode, switching the games themselves to Win7 and 8 compatibility, updating graphics drivers, running sfc and chkdsk, disabling the antivirus and firewall, but nothing helps.

Other games on steam I've tried to play run just fine - including older games. Dishonored, Dishonored 2, FS19, ATS/ETS2, and a few others all run without any issues, so at least by deduction it shouldn't be steam itself that is the problem. Sims 4 on Origin and the few Uplay games I've tried also run with no issues.

Tried installing Bioshock Infinite from Steam again tonight just to see if I can get it to work (since it's small and downloads fast), but it still refuses to run. Only this time it gave me an error when I first tried to launch it (where previously I never got any errors when trying to run these games):
Faulting application name: BioShockInfinite.exe, version: 1.1.25.5165, time stamp: 0x53263b17
Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x01b0340c
Faulting process ID: 0x2664
Faulting application start time: 0x01d6021e5067c92c
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\BioShock Infinite\Binaries\Win32\BioShockInfinite.exe
Faulting module path: unknown
Report ID: 974835cd-9ac1-4e3a-9f81-38a81cbc3065
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Since 0xc0000005 apparently means an access violation (though I can't decipher what it violated), I thought maybe it doesn't like running on the M.2 (although the GoG version didn't mind), so I moved it to my D-drive (4 TB platter). It still won't run from there and now it doesn't give me an error, so I have even less to go on.

Built this system in mid-February and according to the MSI download site there are no newer drivers for the motherboard yet, so I've only been able to update the graphics and mouse drivers, which hasn't helped anything.

I'm not sure what else to try to fix this when everything everyone says should fix it doesn't make any difference. Since it's basically a brand new system it's not like there's any longterm build-up of files or registry entries and even then I've always run disk cleanup monthly to purge all the temp folders etc.

Digging around on the PC Gaming Wiki I noticed they suggest not running Afterburner when playing Bioshock Infinite. So I shut down Afterburner and that makes the game work...

BUT, for some reason I have yet to understand, the fan controller on my GPU does not work correctly without the software control (as in it never spins up the fans), so without Afterburner it will get extremely hot and most likely overheat. I tried running without Afterburner when I first tested the new system after building it (using RDR2 to heat it up) and the fans just never spin up, and then when I quit the game and load up Afterburner, the GPU says 90 C and the fans run at full speed for like 10 minutes to cool it down. I've had the same problem in the past with my GTX660 and 960. All three of these GPU are overclocked, which may have something to do with why the fans don't work correctly without stuff like Afterburner.

So basically rn it's play game and possibly fry the GPU, or keep GPU cold and not be able to play certain games.

Should say I've already played these games on Windows 7 on my old computer, and never had any issues with Afterburner getting in the way. Don't get why it's a problem on 10.

- - - Updated - - -

sygnus21 said:

@SteelRodent, here's that thread I spoke about - Origin client just... won't open suddenly. Check post #31

Thanks, but nothing in that thread seem to apply. My motherboard has an Award/AMI BIOS and I legit cannot find any other version than what it came with.

Afterburner itself says that its hardware access method may cause problems with anticheat tools like Punkbuster, but Farcry which uses Punkbuster doesn't care if Afterburner is running. Either way I'm going to try their workaround and hopefully not break something in the process.

Think I've found a solution. Or a workaround rather.

Afterburner's own help tooltips suggest disabling its IO hooks to get around games and anticheat detecting it, but apparently this doesn't work in this case. Don't know if it works with other games, but it definitely doesn't work with Infinite.



However, Afterburner uses Riva Statistics Tuner for stuff like its OSD, screen capture, and a few other things, and I have discovered before that this OSD can conflict with things like the Geforce Experience overlay (which I normally just turn off because it doesn't do anything I need), so I decided to look at Riva.

Riva has the option to make separate profiles for different games, again to get around it being detected by rigid games. Creating a profile is easy, just locate the game .exe, and then you can lower/disable Riva features seperately for each profile.
So I added Infinite, dropped Riva features until the game would run, and bingo, problem solved (well, the game will run with Afterburner, but the OSD won't work).

I have used Afterburner for close to 10 years and have never had to make exclusions for specific games before. Also means I have no idea if Riva will switch profiles automatically like iCUE does, but I assume it won't (only two clicks to do it manually though). I know Win10 does graphics differently than 7, but I don't get why Riva's presence is suddenly a problem with certain games and not others, especially when they use the same DRM, when the same games worked fine on 7 with Riva enabled.

For those unaware (and sorry if this sounds like an ad): MSI Afterburner is a mix between a monitoring and overclocking tool for graphics cards. It's free to download from Guru3D - and I believe still distributed with MSI graphics cards - and should work with any dedicated GPU (as in it will not work with GPUs like the integrated Intel HD in i-series CPUs). The monitoring tool is in itself amazing for optimizing graphics and performance in games, but it will also monitor CPU load and temperatures, and if supported, voltage levels. And like I said before, the fans on my overclocked cards can't keep up without Afterburner.

@Sygnus : I know Afterburner isn't required per se, but I legit cannot get the card to cool correctly without it, and I have no clue what the card actually does when Afterburner isn't running (like I don't know whether it overclocks or not or why the fans don't kick in).