Before you launch the game for the first time, I highly recommend that you install and configure DPfix.

DPfix will give you many graphical setting options not present in the stock game, most importantly enabling you to run the game at higher resolutions. It will also play an important role in avoiding and playing through crashes, which I explain in detail in the sections below.

DPfix[pcgamingwiki.com]

If you're like me, you leave your PC running for extended periods of time, going days or sometimes weeks, without rebooting. Most (all other?) modern games work perfectly fine without rebooting after installing them, but Deadly Premonition doesn't seem to be like that. What I found is that while Deadly Premonition will run after a fresh install without rebooting, it's oddly choppy and unstable.

I got to a point where the game would "black out" in cut scenes and in-game (the game didn't crash, but the graphics would just disappear). This was intermittent, with the graphics coming back in before disappearing again. I tried all the normal "fixes" (compatibility modes, admin privileges, affinity settings) but none of them worked. Then I remembered that I had not rebooted since installing the game, so I did that. After the reboot I noticed the game instantly ran smoother, despite my frame-rate being the same, and no more black-outs.

So my advice is to treat Deadly Premonition like an old school '90s program where you need to reboot afterwards in order for it to work its best.

Download RivaTuner[www.guru3d.com]

This will make the game a little smoother by reducing frame-pacing. Based on my experience, it also makes the game more stable and less prone to crashing. When I tested it unlocked at 144 hz the game crashed within 5 minutes.

NOTE: You'll need to leave RivaTuner open when you play the game. I configure mine to start with Windows.

1. After installing, run RivaTuner, click on the green ADD icon, and add DP.exe

2. On the right, next to "framerate limit" put 60 and click enter

DP.exe is not aware of large addresses by default. The fact it isn't large address aware can lead to crashes, so doing this in advance might prevent crashes in the future.

Use this NTCore 4GB Patch[ntcore.com] to make dp.exe aware of large addresses.

To patch, simply download the 4GB Patch, run it, and browse to DP.exe. It will patch the exe automatically, making it aware of large addresses.

The root cause of the crashes seem to be due to DP.exe encountering an access violation with obtaining rights to run in Exclusive Fullscreen Mode. I came to that conclusion for a couple of reasons:

- If you Google the Exception Code (0xc0000005) which is logged in Event Viewer after DP.exe crashes, you will see that it is refered to as an "Access Violation".

- The crashes usually occur when entering or exiting a cut-scene, indicating the access violation may be related to what screen mode the game is running in.

It's for those reasons that I suggest configuring the game to run in "Borderless Windowed Fullscreen Mode". You can easily configure this if you installed DPfix by editing the DPfix.ini file:

1. Navigate to the "Deadly Premonition The Director's Cut" directory.

2. Open DPfix.ini in a text editor and in the "Window Options" section, change "forceWindowed 0" to "forceWindowed 1" and change "borderlessFullscreen 0" to "borderlessFullscreen 1". Save and then close the text editor. It should look like this:



3. The final step to run in Borderless Windowed Fullscreen Mode is you have to uncheck the "Full Screen Mode" option in the settings menu of the Launcher (see below).

After the intro movie scene plays out you'll most likely encounter a crash with the error message "dp.exe has stopped working", preventing you from ever making it to the main menu. I tried several commonly suggested fixes like reinstalling PhysX and running the game in Compatibilty Mode, but to no avail. What ultimately fixed that for me was uninstalling LAV Filters via the Control Panel. I didn't realize they were ever installed to begin with and I haven't lost any functionality since I uninstalled them.

Alternatively, you can blacklist LAV Filters for this game by doing the following:

Add a DWORD named DP.exe set to 1 in the windows register

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\LAV
\Audio\Blacklist
\Video\Blacklist
\Formats\Blacklist

If the LAV Filter uninstall / blacklist doesn't solve the problem, try going one step further and uninstalling 3rd-party video players like VLC and then setting Windows Media Player as the default video player. Once you get past the crash, you can reinstall the 3rd-party players.

After several years, I'm playing through Deadly Premonition again, and I had to reference my own guide because of the crash right after the intro movie. Just like before, only after I uninstalled LAV Filters, did the game continue on to the main menu without crashing.

Configuring DP.exe to run in Windows XP SP3 Compatibility Mode is a commonly suggested way to run the game, with the logic being that it runs more stably overall and a good strategy to get past crashes. It helps prevent the game from freezing (not necessarily crashing), but I found that when I ran the game in any kind of Compatibility Mode for any length of time that the framerate would consistently drop to the point of being unplayable (dropping to the teens). Taking it out of Compatibilty Mode and running it normally (I run Windows 10) I got a steady 60 FPS for hours on end.

Windows XP SP3 mode is the only way I found to get past a freeze (the freeze just before leaving the Hospital, for example). For crashes, particularly those triggered by cutscenes, I came to find "Windowed Mode" to be a better and more efficient way of getting past them, which I will cover in the next section.

Using Windows XP SP3 Compatibility Mode may also prevent a freeze in the Side Missions menu.

NOTE: Windows XP SP3 Compatibility Mode may cause the character to not aim up properly, which is another reason why it shouldn't be used long term.

On my most recent play-through I experienced the freeze just before leaving the Hospital, so I tried Windows XP SP3 Compatibility Mode again and it worked like a charm at letting me get past the freeze. That mode seemed to break the RivaTuner config I setup though, which limited FPS to 60 fps because it was running at 144 fps all of a sudden and the only thing I changed was the Compatibility Mode. I tried leaving it at 144 fps for a while, since it ran so much smoother, but it wasn't long before it crashed. So, I'd advise to only use Windows XP SP3 Compatibility Mode temporarily to get past a freeze seeing as how my framerate became unlocked and the game became unstable, not to mention the aiming issue.

When you do experience a crash, you will notice it usually occurs going into or out of a cut-scene, giving the error "dp.exe has stopped working". Running the game in "Forced Windowed Mode" is the best way around that. After the crash, launch the game in windowed mode, make it past the crash point, save at the soonest possible opportunity, then relaunch in "Borderless Windowed Fullscreen Mode".

Use DPfix.ini to go back and forth between these modes:

1. Open DPfix.ini in a text editor and go to the "Window Options" section.

2. Change "borderlessFullscreen 1" to "borderlessFullscreen 0".

3. Save the changes and close the text editor.

4. Reverse this change after you get past the crash.

Throughout the game when dealing with consistent crashes in specific places, fast-forwarding time with cigarettes can prevent crashes. Chapter 9 is notorious for being one of the worst offenders as it can crash in multiple spots such as immediately after the chapters begins, attempting to leave the gallery, after leaving the diner and possibly more.

In Chapter 9, after Olivia gives York the "Key to Back Yard" in the diner, it is common for the game to crash during the cutscene outside, right after York says, "Let's hope it's not just something for the gossip columns". Many users have reported that smoking a cigarette (in-game) in the diner for an hour or two (about 13:00) before leaving the diner will help prevent the crash.

These types of crashes are not limited to Chapter 9 though. At one point in Chapter 8, I kept experiencing a crash after talking to either Jack or Gina at Heaven & Hell Gas Station. After the cut scene of them walking back into the gas station the game would crash every time (same save and same time of day). As a test, I loaded up my save again, but this time smoked a cigarette to advance time a couple of hours, and there was no crash after that particular cut scene. As another test, I loaded up the same save and slept for 3 hours instead of smoking. Sleeping also prevented the crash at the gas station, so it seems the trick is to advance time. Usually, smoking a cigarette is more convenient than finding a place to sleep.

Other times these crashes happened to me were after the cutscenes that play when York adds one of the seven bones to his inventory (I was in Chapter 8). Again, I smoked a cigarette for an hour and the game no longer crashed after those cutscenes.

Alternatively, the cut scenes can sometimes be skipped to avoid the crashes. It's common for a crash in Chapter 9 to corrupt the save file. A save file made right after these cutscenes is available here[community.pcgamingwiki.com].

If your save file was corrupted in another chapter, please refer to the next section.

Due to the fact that Deadly Premonition uses a single save file, a crash can corrupt the save file and prevent you from progressing (the game window will just close after attempting to load your latest save). For this reason, I recommend you backup the save file itself often, which is titled dp.sav, located in the ...steamapps\common\Deadly Premonition The Director's Cut\savedata directory.

If you don't have a good backup file, a user named dirtycutfreak put together a save file collection that includes save files starting at chapter 6 up until the end of the game. I experienced a corrupted save file at chapter 6 and used one myself. After you copy the save file and place it in the aforementioned savedata directory, rename it to dp.sav and restart the game.

Deadly Premonition Save File Collection[community.pcgamingwiki.com]

This change won't help prevent any crashes, but since the game will crash from time to time, I figured I'd include a section about how to skip the intro videos. The unskippable intro videos get very tedious after a while since you'll likely be restarting the game several times when troubleshooting.

*Thanks to Steam user Smile for their guide which taught me how to do this.

1. Make a backup copy of DP.exe, just in case (located in ...steamapps\common\Deadly Premonition The Director's Cut).

2. Open DP.exe in a hex editor like HxD, go to address/offset 0x243333 and change the byte from B3 to 00.

3. Save changes and close the hex editor.

I hope this guide helps you experience Deadly Premonition in the best, most interruption-free way possible. It truly is a shame that such an excellent and underrated game was ported to PC in this state.

For resolving in-game issues that are not related to crashes please see my "Fix Non-Crash Related Problems In Deadly Premonition" guide.

http://sp.zhabite.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=727319224