Crash on start if nVidia GPU drivers are out of date

[jimrandomh]

Crash on start. I found the following message in Windows Event Viewer:

Application: KSA.exe
CoreCLR Version: 9.0.1125.51716
.NET Version: 9.0.11
Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
Exception Info: Brutal.VulkanApi.VkResultError: Vulkan call to vkCreateInstance failed with error: VK_ERROR_INCOMPATIBLE_DRIVER
at Brutal.VulkanApi.Instance..ctor(CreateInfo createInfo)
at Brutal.VulkanApi.Vulkan.CreateInstance(CreateInfo createInfo)
at Core.KSADeviceContextEx..ctor(Api inApiVersion)
at Core.Renderer..ctor(GlfwWindow window, VkFormat depthFormat, VkPresentModeKHR presentMode, Api vulkanApiVersion)
at KSA.Program..ctor(IReadOnlyList`1 inArgs)
at KSA.Program.Main(String[] inArgs)

This is on Windows 10 with an RTX 3070, on a machine where I hadn't updated the nVidia GPU drivers in awhile. Updating the drivers resolved the problem. However, because this error message was only in Event Viewer and not surfaced to somewhere people are more likely to see it, many people won't know that's what the problem is.

 

[Allie_Gat0r :3]

Do you know what Nvidia Driver version you had before this?

I can confirm even the 'old' 552.12 works on my RTX 4060M laptop (With Win11 22H2), at least

 

[dandoesstuff]

KSA launches fine for me on 581.42 (newest 581.80)

 

[Kastuk]

So my decade-old GeForce GT 520MX have no chance for it.

 

[B Shimoda]

I'm getting a similar issue in Windows 11 Pro, OS build 26100.7171 with an nVidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti running driver 576.88 installed 2025/07/01

Following error when starting with full graphics:
Faulting application name: KSA.exe, version: 2025.11.4.2791, time stamp: 0x67200000
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.26100.7171, time stamp: 0xb1a43a46
Exception code: 0xe0434352
Fault offset: 0x00000000000c80da
Faulting process id: 0x22F0
Faulting application start time: 0x1DC55831B711671
Faulting application path: E:\Program Files\Kitten Space Agency\KSA.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: 5572b0fd-4eb9-4423-8d7d-24b7d83b139e
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Following error when starting with everything set to 4k:
The program KSA.exe version 2025.11.4.2791 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Security and Maintenance control panel.

I'm going to update the graphics driver now and see what happens.

 

[B Shimoda]

Update: new driver allows it to start in 4k mode but still CtD at unlimited. Error log:

Faulting application name: KSA.exe, version: 2025.11.4.2791, time stamp: 0x67200000
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.26100.7171, time stamp: 0xb1a43a46
Exception code: 0xe0434352
Fault offset: 0x00000000000c80da
Faulting process id: 0x7DB8
Faulting application start time: 0x1DC558C155F3905
Faulting application path: E:\Program Files\Kitten Space Agency\KSA.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: 6c5f7fea-2417-4312-b53d-88184061281a
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID: