Steam and PC performance issues

Follow the steps in this guide to help correct performance, crashing or hardware issues with Gems of War on the PC when playing the game through steam.

Note: Please ensure Gems of War of war is closed before doing any of the following. 

1. Verify game files

This process will make sure they're all up to date and correct; this will tell you if anything has corrupted in your installation & repair it.

1. In Steam, right click Gems of War in the list on the left (Library)
2. Select Properties
3. Select the Local files
4. Click Verify Integrity of Game Cache

 2. Reinstall Gems of War

If possible, ensure your account is linked. Next, open Steam Library and right click on Gems of War. Select Uninstall, and select "Delete" to confirm the option. Once this is complete, select "Install Game" on Gems of War by right-clicking on the Game in your Steam Library. 

3. Meet the minimum requirements and updates

The game uses the Unity engine: If you do not meet the minimum requirements for Unity, you will not be able to play Gems of War on your PC. Find the minimum requirements here.

Close the game and properly exit Steam. Next, check the following programs are up to date on your computer:

• DirectX
• Graphics card drivers
  • For example, Nvidia released a new driver mid-2017 that caused performance issues for players that had not updated
• If you don't have Windows 8 or higher, download the Windows 7 Platform Update
• Update your operating system to Windows 10*

*We realize this is a drastic solution and understand if it isn't possible to try this.

4. Check graphics card compatibility 

If the game will not open or it still crashes, it may not be able to find the right compatibility for your graphics card. Try the following:

1. Click on the Start menu, then "Run".
2. In the "Run" box type "dxdiag" (without the quotes) and click "Ok". This will open up the DirectX Diagnostic Tool.
3. In the System tab, listed under the "System Information" heading you should see a "DirectX Version" listed.
4. Check your DirectX version is DirectX 10.0 or Above. 

5. Set launch options

If you are experiencing a still black/purple screen, or if the game crashes after sitting on an infinitely loading screen, you can try the following at your own risk. Ensure the game is closed before performing the following:

1. Open Steam and right click on Gems of War in your Library
2. Select Properties > General > Set Launch Options....
3. Type and enter "-force-opengl", then click OK and Close the dialogue

If the game continues to crash you can try any of the following texts (after deleting the text that was there before) in the dialogue box:

• -force-glcore
• -force-gles
• -force-d3d11

 

6. Change your Graphics Quality/Screen Resolution out-of-game

The following should help when the game is having trouble with some graphic issues. Lowering your settings from the following screen should help you launch into Gems Of War properly:

1. As you open Gems of War from Steam you should see the following window appear near the center of your screen:
   
   
2. While this window is on screen, hold down the 'Shift' button. This should bring up another window called "GemsofWar Configuration"
   • Note: If the following window does not appear, close Gems of War and re-open it. This time hold down 'Shift' before the "Preparing to launch..." box appears.
     
     
3.  From this screen, lower the Graphics Quality to the lowest possible setting, and set the resolution to something smaller than what is currently set
4. Hit Play!

7. If you're receiving a black screen

The game may begin to load but will show a black screen. You may or may not hear the game music as it launches. You may even receive a crash error.

Try the following:

1. Turn off the computer and monitor
2. Unplug the power for few minutes (this is so that all the capacitors drain in the circuitry of the monitor). You may want to unplug the video cable as well.
3. After few minutes, re-plug cable and power cord, turn on monitor and reboot computer. 
   
   • Resetting the monitor completely or updating the monitors driver should assist in getting back into Gems Of War.
4. If this does not work, try changing 'Maintain display settings' to 'Main aspect ratio' in your Settings. The goal is to select the aspect ratio/resolution that is recommended for your monitor,
   • This setting may look different depending on your device. It may also be under "Resolution" and have the word "(Recommended)" in brackets next to the Recommended. 

8. Send Technical Support some logs

Before accessing crash logs please try to make the crash occur again, or, if it has just happened, do not open the game. This will create new data in the file that will remove the data showing what went wrong.

General crashing, freezing and performance issues

For all other crashes or freezing that occurs:

1. Open File Explorer
2. Copy and paste %APPDATA%\..\LocalLow\Pipeworks\GemsofWar into the search field
   • If this does not locate a folder, manually search 
     C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\LocalLow\Pipeworks\GemsofWar
3. Find the output_log file and attach this to your support ticket.

Game crash with "Oops!" error

If the game crashes and you receive a pop-up with the following error: 

Please locate the crash.dmp, error and output.txt files.

1. In Steam, open Library and right click on Gems of War
2. Select Properties > Local Files > Browse Local Files
3. In the new window that opens, locate the file with the most recent date on it
4. Open this folder, and copy and paste crash.dmp and error files
   • Attach these to your support ticket or email response to support.
5. Next, locate paste %APPDATA%\..\LocalLow\Pipeworks\GemsofWar into your search bar
   • If this does not locate a folder, manually search 
     C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\LocalLow\Pipeworks\GemsofWar
6. Find the output_log file and attach this to your support ticket.