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Game Fixes: Amnesia – The Dark Descent – Crashing, Lag, Black Screen, Freezing, Sound Fixes

Amnesia the Dark Descent Game Fixes

This game is fantastic. It’s a horror game where the main character, as you may have guessed, has AMNESIA! The style is first-person, and you go throughout the game solving puzzles and navigating through a haunted ruin. Watch out for ghosts and ghouls!

Be sure to try installing the latest Amnesia: Dark Descent game patch before attempting any fixes! You never know when a provided patch may very well make tweaking your settings / game unnecessary, and it takes very little time so it’s worth doing. Use this PC game fixes guide to help troubleshoot your gaming problems.

Game Won’t Start / Launch / Black Screen


Is your game not launching? This game makes use of OpenGL. Keep that in mind.

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— Try updating your graphics card drivers
— Try running game under an administrator account on Windows
— Turn off SSAO via the launcher
— Try the below game crash fixes as well

Game Keeps Crashing


If your game keeps crashing, then try the following:

— Change your resolution
— Exit programs that may be interfering with the game
— Turn off VSYNC
— Run the game in administrator mode or under an administrator account
— Right click the game EXE and set to Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode
— Locate your game directories and make sure that they are NOT set to “Read-Only” (right click the folder -> properties -> and Un-Check “Read Only”)

Settings Not Saving


If your settings are not saving, then try the following:

1) Close the game
2) Go to the save directory – My Documents\\Amnesia\\
3) Delete main_settings.cfg and launch the game through the launcher
4) Try modifying your settings now

No Sound Device Found


If you get this error, try the following:

1) Navigate to C:\\Program Files\\Amensia The Dark Descent\\redist\\
2) Launch Amnesia.exe directly

or

1) Go to My Computer -> Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices -> Speaker Settings -> Advanced -> click the Performance tab
2) Set performance to “Full”

Game May Not Run if Using Integrated Graphics Card AND Another Graphics Card


Some computers come with an integrated graphics card — or a video card that is built into the motherboard. These aren’t normally powerful so many end up buying another video card to use, resulting in two videos card being enabled on the same computer. While this doesn’t normally cause any problems, it can for this game.

1) Go to My Computer -> Control Panel -> Hardware -> Device Manager
2) Locate the card you are not using and right click it -> disable, then reboot the computer

If that doesn’t work, try:

— Updating the drivers on the integrated card.
— Setting the non-integrated card as the preferred card (through NVIDiA control panel or ATI Catalyst Panel)

Renderer #0 could not be initialized


This error occurs if you are out of graphics memory usually. This is usually easy to solve:

1) Lower your resolution
2) Make sure your color depth is 32
3) Try turning off SSAO and EdgeSmooth

Game Amnesia Lags / Lagging / Slow


The game may be lagging for you. Try these simple recommendations to assist in fixing that:

— Upgrade your drivers, as some updates provide performance increases
— Lower SSAO Quality or Turn it Off
— Lower Resolution
— Set SSAO Samples at 16
— Disable edge smoothing
— Lower Shadow Resolution
— Disable world reflection
— Set Shadow Quality to Low
— Exit unused applications

Game Graphics Weird / Glitched / Upside-Down


If your game graphics are messed up (i.e. pixelated or strange artifacts are on the screen) then try these fixes:

— Update your drivers
— Turn off game effects (options -> graphics -> advanced)
— Exit programs you have open
— Try to tweak other graphics settings
— Reset settings

Light halos show through walls in game


This problem is infamous for ATI HD 5830 graphics cards. Try the following:

1) Download the Quick Fix
2) Unzip the file
3) For retail versions of the game, put the files in c:\\Program Files\\Amnesia – The Dark Descent\\redist\\billboards
3b) For copies of the game from Steam, put the fix in Steam\\steamapps\\common\\Amnesia the Dark Descent\\billboards
4) When asked to replace the files, hit “Yes”

Fullscreen Not Working


This can occur from multiple issues…Try the following fix:

— Change your resolution
— Exit any applications / services that may interfere with full screen games
— If multiple monitors setup or computer connected to TV, enable single monitor mode

How to enable VSYNC if VSYNC Causes Game Crash


If this is the case for you, and you still want it enabled, you’ll have to do it through ATI Catalyst or NVIDIA Control Panel. You can force VSYNC to be enabled in these two areas.

Cranks / Valves / Wheels Hard to Turn


Turn on mouse smoothing. Enabling this will make it easier to do.

Screen is Cropped / Edges Don’t Show or Aren’t Visible

This problem generally occurs with Windows 7. If your Font Size is not set to 100%, then change it to 100%. Try running the game afterwards to see if it works.


34 Comments

  1. Comments  Amnesia: The Dark Descent – Game Fixes for Lagging, Crashing, Black Screen, Freezing, Errors – Geek Montage   |  Friday, 12 November 2010 at 3:43 AM

    […] game play can be seen at the end of this post. To get this game working properly, you may need some Amnesia: The Dark Descent Game Fixes. I recommend playing this game in the dark by the way, with the sound on loud. Having a good setup […]

  2. Comments  IanLap1985   |  Saturday, 29 January 2011 at 3:25 PM

    Windows 7 or Vista disable desktop composition worked for me.

  3. Comments  Shawn   |  Friday, 25 February 2011 at 7:57 PM

    I am having some trouble. i have purchased amnesia the dark descent on steam and its lagging and i also get a small freeze studer every few seconds. it gets really anoying running from Mr. Flappy jaw when lagging and studering freezes. i tried patch 1.0.1. and the halo fix but still lags. even on low with everything set to LOW ITS LAGGED! EVEN WITH REZ AT 640 x 480 IT IS LAGGED! PLEASE HELP ME!

    Nvidea Geforce 6800

    1GB RAM + 2GB RAM converted from memory.

    149GB Hard Drive

    Windows Vista Ultimate x32

    Please help me with this! thank you.

  4. Comments  Marloes   |  Wednesday, 09 March 2011 at 1:06 PM

    well – im not sure if i did it wrong or annything. and i KNOW this should work for my mac, cause the demo worked. Well, when i unpacked it etc, and opened it. i wrote the wrong serial and i think that have to be the problem. the only problem i have now is that if i try to uninstall or whatever, i cant write the serial again. because now when i open amnesia the game just becomes black and shuts down. annyone know how i can completly remoev amnesia from the mac do i can write the serial code again?
    I have this exect same problem!
    what can I do???
    Please help!

  5. Comments  ManBearPig   |  Sunday, 27 March 2011 at 9:26 AM

    I’m not the best with computers, I usually learn through trial and error. I ran the demo before, but after I beat the demo I wanted another go at it and when I click “Launch Game” With ALL the setting on low including the resolution and also have tried mostly all of these suggestions for the game to work, but after 5 seconds it says the game crashes. This is what it says

    Amnesia.exe caused an EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION in module at 0023:00000000

    I’m not sure what to link, so…here is what I think i should

    NVDIA GeForce GTS 250M

    285GB Hard drive

    RAM 4GB

  6. Comments  Jduncan   |  Sunday, 15 May 2011 at 11:55 PM

    I recently bought Amnesia and the game runs smooth the sound is awesome however, when the game is playing any area that has a shadow is completely black. Even with the candles and lantern there is zero visibility with walls, floors, doors and ob objects. unless i approach these components at an angle then, i can see the item or what have you, up to the point of standing close enough to pick up, activate, move whatever the action is i can’t see it. I have toggles with the visual setting for a bit but nothing really works. Just as the screen looks better i’m shot down with a crappy dark area with no floor, sealing, walls or doors. And if its there its the objects are impossible to see. Any advice on how to fix this problem?

  7. Comments  kuns   |  Friday, 03 June 2011 at 12:05 PM

    when pressing start new game in main menu music continues but shows not responding

  8. Comments  Shane   |  Saturday, 04 June 2011 at 3:09 AM

    I hate it, I still get that same black screen and will not launch!

  9. Comments  PEEEEEEEEENIS!!   |  Thursday, 30 June 2011 at 9:28 AM

    Fucking i got a mad!!! i hate fatal error!!!! fucfkcfukcfuk youuuuuuuuuuuu! it won’t work is penis!!!! GFP EPNIS PENIISSS I EPENUNMSS PENISUMBRA

  10. Comments  Frustrated steam customer   |  Sunday, 10 July 2011 at 12:16 AM

    Still cant play it get black screen after starting a new game

    Win 7

    Radeon x1950 pro

    4GB DDR 3

    pentium 2.8 dual core

  11. Comments  Tihomir Ciric   |  Wednesday, 03 August 2011 at 5:47 PM

    I have NVIDiA GForce 6900 it doesnt work it says Amnesia ……Has stoped working…… PLEASE HELP!!!!!

  12. Comments  Chris   |  Sunday, 04 September 2011 at 8:11 PM

    ” Shawn | Friday, 25 February 2011 at 7:57 PM
    I am having some trouble. i have purchased amnesia the dark descent on steam and its lagging and i also get a small freeze studer every few seconds. it gets really anoying running from Mr. Flappy jaw when lagging and studering freezes. i tried patch 1.0.1. and the halo fix but still lags. even on low with everything set to LOW ITS LAGGED! EVEN WITH REZ AT 640 x 480 IT IS LAGGED! PLEASE HELP ME!

    Nvidea Geforce 6800

    1GB RAM + 2GB RAM converted from memory.

    149GB Hard Drive

    Windows Vista Ultimate x32

    Please help me with this! thank you.”

    I’m having the same issue as this guy. I am however running Windows 7. What is even more strange is that the first 20 minutes of so of game play worked fine without lag. The settings were defaultly set to ‘medium’ and I had some of the extra perks on. I then started the game later that day and started to experience lag gradually to the point of it being just unplayable. I then put all my settings to the absolute lowest and disabled all the extra options. No matter what I do, the lag is just as bad as it is on the highest settings. Something seems wrong. Any advice or direction on this would be very very very greatly appreciated. I really want to finish this great game!

    Thanks,

    Chris

  13. Comments  LATEWISH   |  Monday, 03 October 2011 at 11:46 PM

    ok guys TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND GET READY TO CELEBRATE,because your friend here,which is me has figured it out for you,ok maybe not all of you but am sure most…. for all of you who have trouble with playing the game,ie- you can hear the audio and go to options and make profile and see the text,but cannot see anything but a black screen!
    this is for those who have switchable graphics,meaning you have two graphic cards one is a built in intel and the other is an external radeon or a nvidia,now i may only speak for the radeon hd 6490m but of course this will also help many others,because once you have the switchable graphics option then this will work for you.do not disable any of you cards from the computer manager as they tell you,cause that wont work…ok so….first go to your bios look for the switchable graphics option there you will find that its set on dynamic,change it to fixed mode.then save exit.when your back in your operating system,right click desktop and go to graphics switchable or nvidia control panel.(your switchable area)…and AHHHHHHAAAAA Bingo.you will see that you are able to switch between cards >:)
    choose your nvyidia or radeon and apply,wait for the system to fix itself and your set to play Amnesiaaaa!! 🙂

    then you can go back to bios and reset it back to dynamic if you want,but i have not tried that yet,and probably wont for the time being.am thinking if you do that it will auto relapse to what it was in the first place.or will keep your external card as the father rather then the internal.do that when your done with amnesia and do it again when you want to play good games.
    now for those of you who cant find the switchable graphics in the bios,then you need to update your bios from you computer company. they usually have these updates for switchable graphics.but am sure who ever has two graphic cards then has that option also in the bios.
    if this doesnt work,then make sure your drivers are up to date and service packs installed.
    i hope i have been helpful to many of you,i know how you feel i also searched everywhere and there was no solution,i had to figure it out myself.and thankfully i did.

    Latewish

    Giving machine-guns to monkeys since 2007

  14. Comments  Anonymous   |  Wednesday, 26 October 2011 at 10:08 PM

    i cant find the option switchable graphics plzzzz help me i want to play this game

  15. Comments  grateful gamer   |  Wednesday, 11 January 2012 at 9:42 PM

    LATEWISH, you’re the best! I’ve never used a laptop with switchable graphics before…. until my friend got this game and it couldn’t work but your solution helped me fix the problem, Thank you!

  16. Comments  Jordan   |  Tuesday, 17 January 2012 at 11:09 PM

    i experience constant lag when playing amnesia but when i play other games on steam i never encounter it. its only for this game and its basically unplayable. yes i have everything set to low and unchecked things accordingly but its just as bad as having high resolutions. if anyone knows of anything that could help in some way it would be greatly appreciated as i want to be able to play and enjoy a game i spent $20 for.

  17. Comments  Kari   |  Saturday, 11 February 2012 at 8:11 PM

    Well, I have no idea what’s going on with my game…. I also purchased from Stream, I have Nvidia graphics, computer was just bought in October, tis a desktop, Acer, Windows 7, I’ve tried all the options this site gave, but to no avail…..

    I got past the Archives and back into Entrance Hall and now the game just crashes and won’t let me play anymore.

  18. Comments  kate   |  Wednesday, 07 March 2012 at 10:06 PM

    Hi i installed amnesia into my computer and i try to play like..start it.
    But once i click “launch”, it shows that i need “serial number” i dont really know whati s that
    HELP! cuz me nad my friend really look forward to ply this game..

  19. Comments  manuel   |  Tuesday, 20 March 2012 at 12:03 AM

    Hey i bought Amnesia the other day I installed it everything was going good then when i started playing it its all black i mean it works like the subtibles everything the game is playing but the screen is all black i can still pull up the journal and the start screen works except for background its black aswell um help?

  20. Comments  a retarded mexican   |  Friday, 23 March 2012 at 2:48 PM

    ok say i click to play amnesia i got it set on running administrator and all settings on, low but when i click launch game it stays black for a sec then a new tab on the taskbar pops up called blackbox whit a error called EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION in Module at 0023:000000
    so what do i do? i need help because this games looks so awesome and im dying to play it please someone reply to this pronto.
    Thanks, retardo mexicano

  21. Comments  Matt   |  Sunday, 25 March 2012 at 1:43 AM

    I am trying the amnesia demo and i gotthe black screen with a white dot. I have Intel HD card or whatever and standard VGA niether works and i tried updating or whatever and it still didnt work please help.

  22. Comments  vivalabuis   |  Tuesday, 10 April 2012 at 12:04 PM

    i got a weird fps :S
    it goes from 0 to 11 the whole time like a flashlight.
    help?

  23. Comments  someone   |  Monday, 23 April 2012 at 9:01 AM

    It says FATAL ERROR! NO SOUND DEVICES AVAILABLE! I have a sound device and its activated, but it doesnt work!
    PLZ HELP

  24. Comments  someone   |  Monday, 23 April 2012 at 9:03 AM

    It also asks me to: CHECK YOUR OpenAl INSTALLATION!
    Someone plz help!

  25. Comments  someguy   |  Thursday, 17 May 2012 at 1:02 PM

    so i click on launch game, and then the FRICKIN BLACK BOX THING SHOWS UP!!!! I WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME!!!
    SOMEBODY PLZ HELP!!!!!

  26. Comments  Peter :)   |  Monday, 04 June 2012 at 1:20 PM

    My problem: Black screen.

    I’ve updated the graphics card driver or whatever it is called, and im using ATI catalyst control center, but I can’t find where I get the option to change graphic card thingy. I got Mobile intel(RD) HD Graphic and ATI mobility RADEON (premium graphics). Please help me out ;).

    Sincerely, Peter.

  27. Comments  Peter :)   |  Monday, 04 June 2012 at 1:27 PM

    A little edit to what I wrote above: I got a AMD RADEON 6750M graphic card. Just like btw :). And When I try to deactivate either one of the graphic cards and run Amnesia, I get something called the black box. And it tells me tje game has crashed xD. Hopefully you can help me 😉

  28. Comments  GREEK GEEK   |  Monday, 30 July 2012 at 10:00 AM

    THE SCREEN OF THE GAME APPEARED CROPPED. TRIED FOR HOURS MANY DIFFERENT CUSTOM AND PREFIXED RESOLUTIONS. FINALLY, I VISITED THIS SITE AND FOUND OUT THAT THE PROBLEM OCCURRED BECAUSE OF THE FONT SIZE SETTINGS (WAS SET TO 125%).
    THANKS A LOT GUYS.
    VIVA LA PIXEL-UTION!!! (IRRELEVANT…)

  29. Comments  John Guthmiller   |  Saturday, 11 August 2012 at 8:43 PM

    Game still doesn’t work, cant figure out VSYNC. I launch the game, it says that it has crashed, checks for updates, and then says that Amnesia has stopped working. Any help, please?

    Windows 7

    XFX GeForce 7600 GS

  30. Comments  Anonymous   |  Friday, 24 August 2012 at 8:41 PM

    I have the demo but I still have Black screen. I don’t have the option to change graphics card either. Any Ideas?

  31. Comments  Aman   |  Thursday, 20 September 2012 at 8:32 AM

    hi to all
    my pc configuration is
    1.5 gb ram
    Core 2 duo
    2.0 GHZ
    256 mb graphics
    Mobile Intel (R) 965 Express Chipset Family
    And thats all

    amnesia the dark descent is not working on my pc Fatal Error Of graphics updating drivers
    my Drivers are already upto date????
    why the game dosnt works…………………………

  32. Comments  Kalimi al Jamall   |  Friday, 21 September 2012 at 11:26 PM

    I keep getting this renderer 0 could no be initialized error even after doing everything said…

  33. Comments  Deidre   |  Saturday, 13 October 2012 at 9:21 PM

    I downloaded the Amnesia demo, and all I get is a black screen with a white dot, as others do too. I don’t know what a ‘bio’ is as someone mentioned as a fix was to switch graphic card or device or such. If someone could kindly explain it, that would be nice.

  34. Comments  Lucas BRDude   |  Tuesday, 02 May 2017 at 1:12 AM

    Hello, I’m having trouble starting Amnesia: Dark Descent on Steam, when I start the game a window appears titled _-_ with the message:
    EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION in module at 001B: 00000000.

    What should I do to remove this error and play?

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