Persona 4 Golden Crashes - NVIDIA GeForce GPU - POSSIBLE Fix Steps

My dudes, it’s not a Wednesday, but I’m here to share my experience to overcome P4G crashes with you for Nvidia GPU based system.

This fix steps guide doesn’t pretend to be universal, as stated in the title. It works for Windows 10/ NVIDIA GPU based system… my system. But from what I read during LONG night when I wrote this guide, the issue itself is quite universal and runs for MONTHS at the moment I’m typing it. What I proposed below is a combination of different measures I found from a lot of sources, so big thanks to all folks who posted the parts of the solution, and I hope it helps you. But no guarantees, and in the end we all have to wait until Atlus solves it from their side.



Please also understand that I didn't try to figure out what is the technical background of the solutions I am describing. I’m not a technical guy, and although I tried to experiment as much as possible with all these measures, applying them together and separately, the only criteria that matters to me is if after applying each measure the game works, and if some measure is excluded, then the game crashes.

You can find my system specifics in the last section of this guide, if you are interested, but as main points: hardware is quite old, but capable, and still manages all modern game titles quite good and stable.
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So,

– Game HATES any and all third party overlays, Steam and Nvidia included.

• turn them all graphic overlays’ softwares off – check Steam and Nvidia settings and do it manually.
  
• If you are using any other software overlays (e.g. Discord) – turn them all off and kill the processes via Task manager.
  
• If you have MSI Afterburner or RivaTuner running, even in a stealth mode, kill it too – otherwise the game most probably won’t launch at all.
  
• another reason for P4G to crash at launch could be the anti-virus/Windows Defender blocking the exe. Either disable the anti-virus or exclude the game’s folder from it.
  
• actually just go turn off an kill all and every other software and processes from Task Manager which is NOT Steam and P4G, antivirus and antimalware included
  
• Verify game files.

– Game doesn’t like your PC Master Race’ and Windows’ Privileges, specifically your administrator rights and dedicated procedures for their distribution and implementation in the system architecture, so

• create a dedicated shortcut for [Your system’ Steam folder]\Steam\steamapps\common\Persona 4 Golden\P4G.exe and run it every time as Administrator, by hitting RBM the shortcut and choosing “Run as Administrator”, or make sure the game’s exe has administrator rights, for it RBM .exe file in the game folder -> "Properties" -> "Compatibility" tab -> check “Run this program as administrator” box.

Additionally, if the language of your system differs from English, game doesn’t like it too. Same for any non-standard non-Latin-alphabet letters and symbols in the file names and/or files’ path.

– Game doesn’t care much to be optimized for your system’s hardware and software. I am sure it runs perfect on that one single system Atlus used to make this PSVita port… but not yours. So go and

• update your GPU driver and all and every other driver of your hardware
  
• get the latest Windows update
  
• update all software you can think of, and namely get an update for Windows Media Player. Ya rly, this is what ATLUS wants you to do.“….Please visit here to confirm your version of Windows and corresponding Windows Media Player version - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14209/get-windows-media-player "
  
• change PageFile size. It is generally recommended to have at least 32GB TOTAL memory: RAM + PageFile, to minimize memory issues. E.g. if your computer has 8GB of RAM installed, it’s recommended to set PageFile to 24GB. Another general rule for all computers is to set PageFile on your fastest harddrive at least equal to or larger (1х to 1.5х) than your physical RAM. Please follow this guide[mcci.com] to change your Windows PageFile size.
  
• add P4G.exe, P4G folder and Steamfolder to WinDefender exclusions
  
• instal and use Process Lasso to change the priority of P4G. Biggest thanx to Turbo Rob for his incredible guide.
  1) Get process lasso from https://bitsum.com/ (You only need the free version), make sure it autostarts
  2) Launch P4G (it needs to be running while you do this),
  3) Launch Process Lasso, right-click P4G.exe and set the following:
  -> Priority Class > Always > High
  -> CPU Affinity > Always > Deselect CPUs 0 and 1
  -> IO Priority > Always > High

– ATLUS believes that idea of patches for their games is overrated and, frankly, just steals you a feel of any personal achievement, which DO NOT solve the crashes issue, but graciously help you get to know the Steam interface better, since they have to be installed manually via Betas tab in the settings of the game in Steam library.

• Install the hotfixes:
  ____________
  https://steamcommunity.com/app/1113000/discussions/0/2567564692457285298/
  From Persona 4 Golden in your Steam library, right click and go to Properties. Navigate to the BETAS tab and enter the beta access code:
  2M5o9AAkLj7tBq
  From the drop down menu, select “Hotfix_01a”.
  ____________
  https://steamcommunity.com/app/1113000/discussions/0/2567563897031441157/
  From Persona 4 Golden in your Steam library, right click and go to Properties. Navigate to the BETAS tab and enter the beta access code:
  jsuidjiofjjiojfnb2299
  From the drop down menu, select “hotfix_02a”.
  ____________
  https://steamcommunity.com/app/1113000/discussions/0/2795000753356248171/
  From Persona 4 Golden in your Steam library, right click and go to Properties. Navigate to the BETAS tab and enter the beta access code:
  Branch Password: hgdyr3gnNsjhgfPo2299
  Branch Name: hotfix_3a
  ____________
  Please note: basing on th comment by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate, the latest hotfix covers all previous fixes, but still your individual system would possbly utilate hotfix 1 or 2 better and your game would be more stable with the previous fix version, so you have to experiment on this.
  
• Keep yourself updated for any future hotfixes, which, I personally believe, are coming in the same most elegant manner.

– Game doesn’t like your eyes. If for this Saturday’s night you planned to get yourself lost for 15 hours straight in a beautiful story of Beaches and Horse and wonderful gameplay that accompanies this story – sure. If you hope to do it in a comfortable manner, with good and smooth frame rate and other graphic settings maximized, and using your big-ass TV-screen which you also are using for yor console – think again, you silly.

• First, open the Nvidia Control Panel and go to “Manage 3D settings” tab and then to “Program Settings”
• click “Select a program to Customize”, and from the drop-down menu select the Persona 4 Golden game. In case if you can’t find it there then go ahead and hit “Add” button and you’ll see P4G in your recently opened games.
  
• Now check the following settings:
  
• make sure that the preferred graphics processor is your main High-performance NVIDIA processor. It might be set forth by default as “integrated graphics” or something like that, so make sure that it is set as your main GPU.
  
• Set Low Latency Mode to “ON”
  
• Set Max Frame Rate to “30 FPS”
  
• Set Power management mode to “Prefer maximum performance”
  
• Set Vertical sync to “OFF”
  
• Set Pre-rendered frames to “1”
  
• Next, you have to change the in-game settings, so it is assumed that at this stage the game at least starts and lets you proceed to the title screen and options screen.
• Launch the game and go to “CONFIG: adjust various options”
  
• check the “GRAPHICS” tab. According to my observations, changing these options does not affect the stability of the game, like, AT ALL. But if nothing else helps – try to experiment with those and set them to lowest and try to change them individually to get most stable gameplay. As for me – every option here is set to maximum.
  
• check the “DISPLAY” tab.
  
• set “Screen Mode” to “Borderless”
  
• set “V Sync” to “OFF”
  
• do not forget to apply changes by hitting “Confirm – OK”

Another problem that I encountered after uploading the first edition of this guide - the game doesn'tlike my large Samsung TV, which I brought the game to via HDMI when I tried to play it the same way I would play it on the PlayStation... When I'm using the TV, despite ALL the steps I describe here, game crashes when loading. The only way to overcome it is to make a hot-switching HDMI from my computer monitor to TV-screen right after launch of the game. I have NO idea, why it works, but in fact I'm not surprized anymore...

(ok, for the record, that one final step I’m not completely sure about. I experimented to isolate measures from every step above, and I’m pretty sure that to make the game work for me, they should be done, no other options, otherwise the game crashes. For that one last step the game crashed just once, after one-hour smooth run, and I have a hunch that probably the crash was caused by something else)

– Game doesn’t want you to socialize and connect to other people. Even when you try to do that by the castrated manner which game provides you with its “Network Function”. Anyway, who do you think you are, you filthy 30 y.o. anime-loving high-school-girls-in-skirts-staring-at perverted basement-dweller? SHAME ON YOU!

• Launch the game and go to “CONFIG: adjust various options”
  
• check the “GAME” tab.
  
• set “Network Function” to “OFF”
  
• do not forget to apply changes by hitting “Confirm – OK”
  
• please be advised that 1) this option tends to reset to “ON” every time you launch the game, no matter how you set it the last time you played the game 2) it also tends to reset every time you load the save file. So you will have to check it every time you lauch the game, by checking the “CONFIG” screen from the title screen, and then again every time when you load the save file, from the game menu.

And now, if after all these Steps above done, your game still crashes – I’m sorry, dudes, I tried my best. But, you know, if this game doesn’t want you so much, may be – just saying – you can turn yourself to that dusty box in your closet, where your old PS2 is stored… Or may be you check the situation with the PS2 Emulators, which, you know, work just fine. Impying nothing.

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System Information
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Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 18363) (18362.19h1_release.190318-1202)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: B250-HD3
BIOS: BIOS Date: 07/06/17 15:13:54 Ver: 05.0000C (type: BIOS)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7400 CPU @ 3.00GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8152MB RAM
Page File: 6351MB used, 15624MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
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Video Devices
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Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760
Chip type: GeForce GTX 760
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Display Memory: 8128 MB
Dedicated Memory: 4052 MB
Shared Memory: 4075 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
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Disk Drives
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Drive: C:
Free Space: 33.1 GB
Total Space: 476.5 GB
File System: NTFS
Model: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
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