[2.0.77] Crash on startup — access violation (0xc0000005) in ntdll.dll, RTX 5070

[tiigado]

What did you do?
Launched Factorio from Steam (also tried the exe directly at ...\bin\x64\Factorio.exe). Vanilla, no mods, on a clean install.

What happened?
The game fails to start. Steam shows it running for a second, then it closes with no window and no error dialog. The log always stops at the "Display options" line and never reaches the video driver lines. Windows Event Viewer reports an access violation (0xc0000005) in ntdll.dll. On one occasion it did reach the main menu and then crashed on the first mouse click, producing the attached crash dump.

What did you expect to happen instead?
The game to launch to the main menu and stay open.

Does it happen always, once, or sometimes?
Almost always. It has successfully launched maybe twice or three times ever; every other attempt fails, including an attempt immediately after a successful startup.

System: RTX 5070 (latest driver), Ryzen 5 9600X, ASUS B650E MAX GAMING WIFI, 32GB DDR5, Windows 11 build 26200. Factorio 2.0.77, Steam, Space Age.

Already tried without success: clean reinstall including deleting AppData, fresh config, all mods disabled, updated GPU drivers, cleared shader cache, disabled Steam/NVIDIA/Discord overlays, quit Logitech G HUB, ran as administrator, Defender exclusions, force-opengl=true, use-flip-presentation-model=false. Every other game on this machine runs normally.

Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 7/22/2026 8:23:01 PM
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: Application Crashing Events
Level: Error
Keywords:
User: DESKTOP-N06IRPJ\Brian Burton
Computer: DESKTOP-N06IRPJ
Description:
Faulting application name: Factorio.exe, version: 2.0.77.19003, time stamp: 0x6a0f0f64
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.26100.8875, time stamp: 0xba65e4a2
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000002f6a3
Faulting process id: 0x39B0
Faulting application start time: 0x1DD1A4A2EEA8040
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Factorio\bin\x64\Factorio.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 52d1c7c3-8a15-40db-a9e5-83a694441023
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Application Error" Guid="{a0e9b465-b939-57d7-b27d-95d8e925ff57}" />
<EventID>1000</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>100</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2026-07-23T02:23:01.1789798Z" />
<EventRecordID>127319</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="13552" ThreadID="4060" />
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>DESKTOP-N06IRPJ</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-21-3735787517-865953275-1294509972-1001" />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="AppName">Factorio.exe</Data>
<Data Name="AppVersion">2.0.77.19003</Data>
<Data Name="AppTimeStamp">6a0f0f64</Data>
<Data Name="ModuleName">ntdll.dll</Data>
<Data Name="ModuleVersion">10.0.26100.8875</Data>
<Data Name="ModuleTimeStamp">ba65e4a2</Data>
<Data Name="ExceptionCode">c0000005</Data>
<Data Name="FaultingOffset">000000000002f6a3</Data>
<Data Name="ProcessId">0x39b0</Data>
<Data Name="ProcessCreationTime">0x1dd1a4a2eea8040</Data>
<Data Name="AppPath">C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Factorio\bin\x64\Factorio.exe</Data>
<Data Name="ModulePath">C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll</Data>
<Data Name="IntegratorReportId">52d1c7c3-8a15-40db-a9e5-83a694441023</Data>
<Data Name="PackageFullName">
</Data>
<Data Name="PackageRelativeAppId">
</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

[Loewchen]

Install and try the default .zip version, and if that fails as well post that log.

[tiigado]

Thank you for your help. I just downloaded the .zip version and ran it twice. Nothing happened. No Window. Maybe a quick process appearance and disappearance, but the game didn't start and boot to a menu. Both log files are pasted here.

[Panzerknacker]

Is anything in your PC overclocked? If yes, disable overclock. If no, check memory speeds/timings if they are set according to spec, try safe defaults. If still problems run a memory test.