I've downloaded the Steam version of Fallout 4 and just can't seem to get it to work right, no matter what I do. About 90 percent of the time I try to open the game, I hit "play" in the launcher, my screen goes black, a little loading icon appears over my cursor, and then the file suddenly crashes and exits back to the desktop without giving me any kind of error message.
Occasionally, and very sporadically, the game will actually work and open without any problems (usually between my third and thirtieth time trying to start it). The first time it worked, I shrugged and resigned myself to dealing with false starts because I was pretty desperate to play the game at that point, and proceeded to start a new game. It went off without a hitch - the opening FMV worked fine, character creation worked fine, entering the Vault went fine - and then the first time my character tried to exit the decontamination pod, the game crashed without an error message again.
It wasn't that big a deal - I eventually managed to load it back up and was able to complete the entire Vault 111 sequence without any additional problems, and it didn't crash the second time I left the pod. Unfortunately, now the game crashes every single time I try to use the elevator back to the surface. I've tried to use it about five times now, and each time it seems to get a little farther before crashing (the most recent attempts actually let me see the info splash on the loading screen for a few seconds before shutting down), but since it takes me around a dozen false starts on average just to get the game to load at all, I can't just keep trying over and over until it works.
The thing is, I don't know enough about computers yet to be able to tell if my specs are enough just by comparing them to what's listed on the website, and I'm expecting to have a much better-quality rig than my current machine in a few months, so if it was JUST the crashing on startup then my assumption would be that I just don't meet the minimum requirements. But very rarely, when I actually do manage to get into the game itself, it runs like a dream! It looks great, it feels great, there's no lag or stutter or weird visual glitches or anything - it's only when it crashes in the elevator that I have any kind of in-game problem at all, and because of that I don't think the answer is that my machine doesn't meet the needed specs.
I've updated my drivers, I've verified the game cache, I've reinstalled the game itself, I've played around with windowed mode and the resolution, I opted into the beta when it was up... nothing works. If anyone has any information for me, I'd love some help, because I'm a huge Fallout fan and I'm honestly heartbroken that this isn't working.
Here are my basic specs, and I can pull anything else you might want out of my DxDiag file:
- OS: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 10240) (10240.th1.150930-1750)
- Processor: Intel® Core i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
- Graphics Card: Intel® HD Graphics 5500 (updated to the latest drivers)
Like I said, it's not the best setup in the world, just a cheap Dell I'm using for a few months until I have the know-how to build my own PC or can commission one from a friend. Thanks in advance for any advice!
(Crossposting to a few other places, fwiw.)