🌻Solarpunk | Fatal Error Help Guide
🌻Solarpunk | Fatal Error on Windows PC
Some players on Windows PC may experience a Fatal Error when starting or playing Solarpunk.
In many cases we have seen so far, this is not caused by the PC being too weak. The issue is often related to Windows updates, graphics drivers, DirectX, overlays, fullscreen display mode, or specific driver components.
We have seen different patterns so far:
- On some newer Intel Core Ultra systems, the crash may be related to Intel AI Boost / Intel NPU.
- On some AMD systems, the crash may be related to the AMD graphics driver, fullscreen display mode, overlays, GPU timeout behavior, shader compilation, or CPU worker threads.
Please start with the general steps below. If you are using an Intel Core Ultra system, also check the Intel section. If you are using an AMD CPU or AMD graphics card, also check the AMD section.
Step 1: General steps for all systems
1. Complete Windows Update
Please make sure Windows is fully up to date.
Open Windows Settings → Windows Update and install all available updates.
Also check optional driver updates:
- Open Windows Settings
- Go to Windows Update
- Open Advanced options
- Open Optional updates
- Install available driver updates, especially graphics, chipset, display, Intel, NVIDIA, AMD, or system updates
- Restart your PC, even if Windows does not explicitly ask you to
After the restart, check Windows Update again to make sure no updates are still pending.
This is important because unfinished or stuck Windows updates can leave DirectX, display driver, or system components in an unstable state.
2. Verify the game files on Steam
Please verify the Solarpunk game files:
Steam Library → Right-click Solarpunk → Properties → Installed Files → Verify integrity of game files
3. Update your graphics driver
Please install the latest graphics driver for your graphics card.
If you are already using the latest driver and the issue started recently, please also try a clean reinstall of the graphics driver or test the previous stable driver version.
4. Disable overlays and background tools temporarily
Please temporarily disable overlays and background tools such as:
- Steam Overlay
- Discord Overlay
- NVIDIA Overlay
- AMD Overlay
- AMD Metrics Overlay
- MSI Afterburner / RivaTuner
- OBS or other recording tools
- Parsec or other remote-play / virtual display tools
Then restart your PC and try launching Solarpunk again.
5. Lower graphics settings
If you can reach the options menu, please lower the general graphics quality preset by one or two steps and restart the game.
If you are using a high refresh rate, please also try limiting the game to 60 FPS for testing.
Step 2: Intel Core Ultra / Intel AI Boost / Intel NPU
On some newer Intel Core Ultra PCs, the Fatal Error can be related to Intel AI Boost / Intel NPU.
Solarpunk does not require Intel AI Boost to run, but on some systems the related driver can cause a crash during startup.
1. Update Intel drivers
Please update your Intel drivers, especially if you are using a newer Intel Core Ultra system.
This includes:
- Intel Graphics Driver
- Intel Chipset Driver
- Intel NPU Driver / Intel AI Boost Driver
- Other system drivers provided by your PC or motherboard manufacturer
You can find the Intel NPU Driver here:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/794734/intel-npu-driver-windows.html
After updating your drivers, please restart your PC and try launching Solarpunk again.
2. Try disabling Intel AI Boost / Intel NPU
If the Fatal Error still happens after updating your drivers, please try disabling Intel AI Boost / Intel NPU as a temporary workaround.
This mainly applies to newer Intel Core Ultra systems.
Please follow these steps:
- Right-click the Windows Start button
- Select Device Manager
- Look for a category called Neural processors, Intel AI Boost, System devices, or similar
- Open that category and look for Intel AI Boost, Intel NPU, or Intel Neural Processing Unit
- Right-click the Intel NPU / Intel AI Boost device
- Select Disable device
- Confirm the warning message
- Restart your PC
- Start Solarpunk again
Please note: This is only a temporary workaround. You can enable the device again later in Device Manager by right-clicking it and selecting Enable device.
Disabling Intel AI Boost should not affect normal gaming performance in Solarpunk, because the game does not require this device to run.
Step 3: AMD systems
On some AMD systems, we have seen Fatal Error crashes that can look like a GPU timeout, graphics driver reset, or crash during shader compilation / early gameplay.
This can happen on systems with AMD Radeon graphics cards, AMD Ryzen CPUs, or a combination of both. It does not necessarily mean that your graphics card or CPU is broken.
1. Clean reinstall your AMD graphics driver
Please reinstall the latest AMD Adrenalin graphics driver for your AMD Radeon graphics card.
If possible, use AMD’s cleanup option or a clean / factory reset installation.
If you are already using the latest driver and the issue continues, please also try the previous stable AMD driver version.
2. Try Borderless Windowed mode
If Solarpunk crashes after a few minutes in fullscreen mode, please try switching the display mode to Borderless Windowed.
Some players reported that the game becomes more stable in Borderless Windowed mode.
If you cannot reach the options menu, please continue with the Steam Launch Options workaround below.
3. Try Steam Launch Options as a workaround
Some players on AMD systems reported that the Fatal Error stopped after adding the following Steam Launch Options:
-dx12 -workerthreads=4
To add this:
- Right-click Solarpunk in your Steam Library
- Select Properties
- Go to General
- Find Launch Options
- Enter:
-dx12 -workerthreads=4
Then restart the game.
This workaround may help on some AMD CPU / AMD GPU systems where the crash is related to multithreading, shader compilation, or graphics driver behavior.
Please note: This is not guaranteed to fix the issue for every system. If the game becomes less stable or performance gets worse, please remove the launch options again.
4. Reduce display and GPU load for testing
Please also try the following:
- Limit the frame rate to 60 FPS
- Disable AMD FreeSync temporarily
- Disable AMD Enhanced Sync temporarily
- Disable AMD Anti-Lag temporarily
- Disable AMD Overlay and Metrics Overlay temporarily
- If you use more than one monitor, test with only one monitor active
- If your monitor is set to 144 Hz or higher, test 60 Hz temporarily
- If HDR is enabled, disable HDR temporarily
5. Avoid exclusive Fullscreen mode for now
If Borderless Windowed mode solves or reduces the crash for you, please keep using Borderless Windowed mode for now and avoid exclusive Fullscreen mode.
This helps us narrow down the issue and suggests that the crash may be related to how fullscreen mode interacts with the graphics driver or Windows display handling.
Step 4: Send us your crash files
If the Fatal Error still happens, please send us your crash files so we can investigate further.
The easiest way is to zip this whole folder and send it to us:
C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Solarpunk\Saved
Please replace <USER> with your Windows user name.
Crash reports and dump files are usually here:
C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Solarpunk\Saved\Crashes
Logs are usually here:
C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Solarpunk\Saved\Logs
Please also include a short description of when the Fatal Error happens, for example:
- On startup
- While loading a save
- During gameplay
- After pressing a key or moving the mouse
- After a few minutes of gameplay
- Only in fullscreen mode
- Every time or only sometimes
Please send everything to:
Thank you for your help. We are sorry that some players are experiencing this issue, and we are working on a fix.