REBELLION: Sins Crash Before Startup - Steam

Using Radeon and Intel cards; cannot find fix! Help!

from Sins Forums

I have found many fixes for NVidia chipsets, basically telling me to update my drivers. I have done this with both my Radeon HD 6630M dedicated (laptop) and Intel HD 3000 integrated chipsets.

My problem is that the game does not run at all in Steam; I press "play", the loading circle appears next to the mouse for a second then the Steam deals appear as if I have closed a game, and that's it.
The original Sins of a Solar Empire worked fine when loaded from disc; then when I upgraded to Rebellion via Steam as a gift from a friend it never worked for me.
Fixes I have tried are as follows:

  • Force Sins to use either the performance or energy saving cards in Catalyst Control Center.
  • Force sins to use either chip by disabling the other in Device Manager.
  • Check the integrity of the game files on Steam.
  • Completely delete all Sins files and redownload and install.
  • Run the game in a Virtual Machine, which actually worked (only way I can play it).
  • Email Stardock Support for their help on the matter; they couldn't help.

I know there are other fixes I have tried but cannot recall right now. This is a very tricky problem and I don't know how to sort it out; if there is anyone techy enough to help me, I will be very happy.

Machine Specs:
Vaio C Series Laptop
Intel i5 2430M 2.4GHz
6GB RAM
Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium
NVidia Radeon HD 6630M 
Intel HD 3000 

technical
17,743 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Hmm, there's a few things I didn't see in your list we can try:

1) Try running Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion.exe directly from your install directory (you can find this by right-clicking on the game in your Steam Library, selecting Properties and then Browse Game Folder).

2) If that doesn't work, you can try disabling the in-game Steam Community overlay.  In Steam, select Steam from the top menu, then Settings. Click in the In-Game tab and uncheck Enable Steam Community In-Game.  Please note this is a global setting, so you'll need to re-enable this for other games if you want to use the feature.

3) If that doesn't work, try running Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion Dev.exe instead. That won't let you play multiplayer online with other folks, but it may let you run the game.  Plus it'll start in a window, which may help.

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Hi there, thanks for your reply Yarlen.

Unfortunately none of those worked :( I think the problem is a graphics problem, is there a way to perhaps force the game to a lower resolution or use lower settings, perhaps this may work?
It's a shame because I loved the original Sins but the developers don't even know what's wrong here.

Woe is me. 

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

If you open up rebellion.user.setting in My Documents\My Games\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion\Setting you can modify the various graphics settings.  It's all pretty self explanatory, but for the various texture quality settings, you'll want to knock them all down to 1 to start with. 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

That's interesting, I can't find an \Ironclad Games in My Games folder. Perhaps this is causing the crash. Thanks for helping me Yarlen, one more question: How do I get this folder? Is the game not installing properly perhaps?

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Almost sounds like the file permissions on the C:\Users\%USERNAME%\My Documents\My Games folder aren't letting the game create its subdirectory. o_O

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Indeed. If you create the directories yourself and then pop the files from this zip in there, does that help?

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7074672/Setting.zip

 

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks Yarlen for the files.
I made the directory as follows:  

C:\Users\[name]\Documents\My Games\IronClad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion\Setting 
and extracted the three files into Setting, however this STILL hasn't managed to get the game running.
I also changed the resolution to 1600 x 900 and all textures to 1.
I think I'm destined not to play this haha. 

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

I'm at a loss. :(

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

I just got an error 80 which required a computer cold boot to fix, only spent 2-30 mins trying to figure out that asshat Steam error

Viva la Steam

NOT  :thumbsdown:

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

I'm having this exact same problem. Steam does not like Sins very much apparently.