KSA freezes and crashes at Planet Renderer Compiling Shaders

[niko_normal55]

Game Version​

v2026.4.18.4206

Operating System​

Windows 11 Pro

Hardware​

- GPU Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5700 XT v. 26.3.1
- CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
- RAM Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 2x16GB 3600MHZ CL18
- SSD Samsung PM9A1 1TB
- Motherboard ASRock B550M Pro4

Install Location​

C:\Program Files\Kitten Space Agency

What's Happening?​

Game is stuck loading on compiling shaders screen.

Reproduction Rate​

Every time i click Start KSA

Already Tried​

I already tried reinstalling the game, using a different version and setting groundClutter and groundClutterTerrainBlending to false but it didnt help. Even configuring the settings to their lowest possible value didn't help.

Logs​

Attatched KSA log and Evenviewer Log for KSA

 

[Kiwi Shark]

Sorry to hear you’re having trouble! It sounds like you’ve tried all the common troubleshooting techniques. The VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_DEVICE_MEMORY error would usually suggest VRAM but with your 8GB and lowest settings that should work.

Are your AMD drivers up to date?

Just in case you can also check out this page, but I’m not sure if it’ll have anything new for this issue.

 

[Maxi]

Hey, thanks for the detailed report.

I read through your log and cross-checked it against the game code.
The crash trace ends inside GroundClutterRenderer..ctor -> ClutterEcotypeRenderData..ctor, which is exactly the code path that gets skipped
when groundClutter = false is applied so that stacktrace should not be possible since that part is never reached if groundClutter = false.

Could you please double-check:

1. The log you attached is from a run after you saved groundClutter = false?
2. After the crash, does C:\Users\<yourUser>\Documents\My Games\Kitten Space Agency\settings.toml still contain groundClutter = false under the [graphics] section? Just want to rule out the game rewriting it on shutdown. Or is there maybe an typo?

If both check out, then we're looking at something else and the only other thing i can think of is updating the drivers.

 

[Juho Joensuu]

Hi!

I have the "same" problem with ryzen 5600 and radeon 5700 xt.
Just updated GPU drivers, fresh install KSA.
groundClutter = false
groundClutterTerrainBlending = false
earth only, lowest settings

crashes on graphics queu

sandbox crashes here

18.49.35.149 DEBUG loaded system 'Test'
18.49.35.155 INFO registered language 'English (United States)'
18.49.38.955 INFO loaded Situation Template 'Gemini7StartingSituation'
18.49.38.955 INFO loaded Situation Template 'RocketStartingSituation'
18.49.38.955 INFO loaded Situation Template 'HunterStartingSituation'
18.49.38.955 INFO loaded Situation Template 'BanjoStartingSituation'
18.49.38.955 INFO loaded Situation Template 'PolarisStartingSituation'
18.49.38.962 DEBUG loaded system 'Test'
18.49.38.976 DEBUG loaded planet mesh collection 'Default'
18.49.38.977 DEBUG loaded planet mesh collection 'EarthScale'
18.49.38.977 DEBUG loaded planet mesh collection 'OceanEarth'

testing here

18.41.39.480 DEBUG loaded system 'SolLite'
18.41.39.494 DEBUG loaded planet mesh collection 'Default'
18.41.39.495 DEBUG loaded planet mesh collection 'EarthScale'
18.41.39.495 DEBUG loaded planet mesh collection 'OceanEarth'
18.41.39.496 DEBUG loaded planet mesh collection 'Asteroid'
18.41.39.496 DEBUG loaded planet mesh collection 'MarsScale'
18.41.39.514 DEBUG loaded planet heightmap collection 'Default'
18.41.46.988 ERROR Unhandled exception Brutal.VulkanApi.VkResultError: Vulkan call to vkQueueSubmit failed with error: VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST
at Brutal.VulkanApi.Abstractions.QueueExtensions.Submit(Queue queue, Span`1 waitSemaphores, Span`1 waitDstStageMask, Span`1 commandBuffers, Span`1 signalSemaphores, VkFence fence)
at Core.Renderer.TrySubmitFrame(Span`1 additionalWaitSemaphores, Span`1 additionalWaitStages, Span`1 additionalSignalSemaphores)
at Core.Renderer.TrySubmitFrame()
at KSA.Loading.OnFrame()
at KSA.ModLibrary.Bind(Renderer renderer)
at KSA.Program..ctor(IReadOnlyList`1 inArgs)
at KSA.Program.Main(String[] inArgs).
18.41.47.996 INFO Last chance dump: timed out.

(sorry if this should be a different post)

 

[Kiwi Shark]

@Juho Joensuu

Hello!

The VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST error jumped out at me. Some digging around online suggests this is pointing to an issue with the GPU drivers. There's a chance there's a bug in the latest driver version. If you're feeling up for it you could try installing the previous version and seeing if you get the same error. Otherwise it could be a quirk in KSA with respect to the driver version. Hopefully not hardware related, sometimes what this error can also indicate.