Dark Souls II crashes on startup with Paralells 9

When I try to play Dark Souls II with Parallels 9, the game crashes on startup. This was a known issue of the game last week on PC's with non virtualized windows, but it has since been patched and is now working for those non virtualized PC's. The problem however persists on Parallels 9.

This list of workarounds has not worked for me either.

It seems to be an issue with the Parallels display driver. Any help on this would be appreciated. It's a little disheartening when I upgrade to parallels 9 to play games as advertised only to have the one I wan't to play crash.

 

Hello Proteus,

Please reinstall Parallels Tools as suggested at : http://kb.parallels.com/4841

Shutdown the Virtual Machine, do not close Parallels Desktop window.

Go to VM Config ( http://kb.parallels.com/117287 ) -> Hardware -> Video -> Change the 3D Acceleration to : DirectX 9 and also

disable the option => "Enable Vertical Synchronization"

Check how it goes and let us know!!!

 

Proteus,

Please generate a Problem report via Parallels Help menu just after game crash and post report ID here.

 

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately, uninstalling and reinstalling Parallels tools along with DX9 + no vsync did not solve the problem.

I generated a problem report and the ID for the report is 43406463

Thank you for your help!

 

Hmm... the game runs just fine for us here. Try deleting this configuration file:
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\DarkSoulsII\GraphicsConfig.xml

 

That file was never created because I was never able to get into the game in Parallels. I did however copy the file from another non virtualized PC and past it into Parallels and it's still crashing. I tried messing around with the resolution and graphic settings in the XML file with no luck.

I am no longer sure it has to do with the graphics and more to do with the intro movies and logo splashes. Maybe it's a video codec issue or something. If it works for you guys then I guess a Windows format is in order.

I also tried uninstalling the game and reinstalling it.

 

I tried the scorched earth method of putting a fresh copy of Windows and installing the game. It sill crashes. I give up unless there is another solution. Did the problem report tell you anything?

I don't understand how it would work for you and not me even after a new copy of windows was installed.

I am using a Mac Pro so I know it's not my hardware:
ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1024mb
2 x 3ghz 6 cor processors
24 gb of ram

 

Hi,
Just found this while trying to help my son. You are not alone. My son purchased the exact same game and even after their patch, still gets the crash on Launch with no XML config file generated. This is with his own copy of Parallels 9 (fully updated) , Windows 7 (fully updated) on the very latest high end MacBook Pro with Retina display and tons on memory.

I will have him retry after uninstalling and reinstalling parallels tools, disabling vertical sync and directx9. I will post back here if it helps.

There are other Parallels users with exactly the same problems and exact same crash report who posted on the steam site.
A fix would be nice.

Kevin

 

Hey Kevin,

That's reassuring that I'm not the only one with the problem in parallels. I don't think uninstalling Parallels tools and the Direct X downgrade will fix it. I tried so many different edits to the XML file including full screen off, changing resolutions and turning off graphic auto scaling. No luck.

 

Hi,
We tried the uninstall and reinstall of the tools, setting DirectX9, and unchecking vertical sync setting and you were right, it did not help at all.

Clearly, there is something about Parallels 9 that is different between what the a Developers tested with and our set-ups. Perhaps they could try to recreate the problem using different machines and get us a fix?

Was there any response to your official bug report?

Kevin

 

No I never got a response with the problem report. I am not expecting this to be fixed until there is some Parallels update. If it works for these Parallels devs then they must have an updated unreleased version.

 

Proteus, Kevin,

Thanks for the heads up. We've finally figured what causes the problem. The fix will be included in future PD9 update. Stay tuned.

 

Great news. Is there a time frame for the update?

 

Sorry, I cannot comment on timing (and even if I could, I'd be giving wrong estimates most of the time). The update is planned and it's in the works.

 

From the amount of views this thread has, it seems there are a lot of people who want to play this in Parallels. Is it possible to just release the fix for this ASAP and not be part of a larger update?

 

Hi, I'm watching this thread since it's created. It's taking too long guys for the Fix. Everyone is playing the game except us.

Still there is no even roughly estimate about the release of the fix? We are your customers.

 

Yeah same goes for me. We would love to play the game and you already figured out the problem. so please at least tell us how to fix it. i already bought the game because normally most of the stuff works fine on parallels and the support is good. don't let us down on that one...

 

It stinks that this problem has been around for over a month now and the fix has not been released for it especially when you guys know what the problem is and have fixed it already. Can an update for this be pushed out and not be part of an overall parallels update? We have all been pretty patient already with this problem.

 

Same problem is occurring in PB8, will future updates fix this for 8 as well?
Also when will these updates be coming because it is very frustrating having this nice game waiting and not being able to do anything with it.
This especially becomes frustrating when the problem has indeed been recognized over a month ago. May we please have this update asap as suggested above.

 

It has now been over a month and we still have not gotten the fix for this when the solution is known by the developers.

I will no longer be purchasing updates to Parallels after I saw the lack of support for their customers. I buy these upgrades so that games can play decently within virtual windows. If I cannot play them, then there is no point for future purchases.