If LIMP MODE crashes after the loading screen or opens to a black or flickering screen, try the fixes in order: reduce the graphics settings, add the safe render-thread option, and, if necessary, switch the game from Vulkan to OpenGL. Most affected players are helped by the first two steps. Restart the game after changing graphics or renderer settings.
1. Check the graphics setup
LIMP MODE uses Vulkan by default with the Godot Forward+ renderer. Older graphics chips and onboard laptop graphics can have trouble with it. The stated minimum is Windows 10 64-bit, an Intel i5-4460 or Ryzen 3 1200, 8 GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 1050 or Radeon RX 560 with Vulkan 1.2 support. Intel UHD and AMD Vega graphics in Ryzen laptops are below that minimum, although the game may still run with the lighter options below.
- Close other games, editors, recording tools, and other programs using the GPU.
- If the laptop has both onboard and dedicated graphics, select the dedicated GPU in Windows Settings > Display > Graphics.
- Install the current driver supplied by your GPU manufacturer.
On AMD Ryzen laptops with Vega graphics, a driver update may not change this issue. The Vulkan version shown in a log is the Vulkan API version, not the driver version, so do not use that number alone to judge driver age.
2. Use the lightest in-game settings
If you can reach the main menu, open Settings > Video and set Graphics preset to Ultra Low. This preset disables shadows, uses smaller textures, and avoids keeping towns and locations loaded in advance. It can cause short stutters when entering a new area, but it is intended for laptops with very little graphics memory.
If Ultra Low does not solve the problem, set Graphics renderer to Lite (weak graphics chips) as well. Restart LIMP MODE because texture and renderer changes take effect only after a restart. Onboard graphics receive Ultra Low automatically on their first start, except on Steam Deck. The Lite renderer omits some options, including the Lighting row, volumetric haze, and TAA anti-aliasing. Your saved settings remain available when you later return to Full (default).
3. Add the safe render-thread option
Use this when the game crashes during startup or displays a black or flickering screen:
- Open your Steam library and right-click
LIMP MODE. - Select
Properties, then stay onGeneral. - Enter
--render-thread safeinLaunch options. - Close the properties window and start the game.
This forces drawing onto one thread. It may reduce performance slightly, but it avoids a known crash type associated with some graphics drivers.
4. Bypass Vulkan with OpenGL
If the earlier steps do not help, replace the launch option with the following complete line:
--rendering-driver opengl3 --rendering-method gl_compatibility --render-thread safeThis bypasses Vulkan. It has allowed a laptop with Ryzen 7 5825U, Vega 8 onboard graphics, and 512 MB of video memory to start Story and Sandbox when those modes would not start normally.
OpenGL has visible limitations: lighting can look simpler, the ground may be invisible or incorrect, and some objects may have wrong colors. These effects can result from OpenGL's limit on the number of textures per surface and do not necessarily indicate a damaged installation. If the game starts, you can still drive normally. To return to the default renderer, remove the launch options from Steam.
Use the log to choose the right fix
On Windows, the engine log is at:
%APPDATA%\Godot\app_userdata\LIMP MODE\logs\godot.logPaste that path into the Windows Explorer address bar. Repeated messages such as Can't create buffer of size ... (VkResult error -10), followed later by vertex_array is null or !draw_list.active, and ending with Vulkan device was lost, indicate that the graphics chip or driver ran out of Vulkan resources. In that case, use the OpenGL launch option in step 4. Error -10 in this situation is not a save-game problem, and verifying the game files will not resolve it.
If the log contains Updating buffers is forbidden during creation of a draw list, use the safe render-thread option in step 3. If a crash occurs inside amdvlk64.dll, close any other Vulkan program first, including another game instance or a game-engine editor.
Linux and Steam Deck
The same launch options work on Linux and Steam Deck. Supported baseline systems include Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Debian 12, or SteamOS 3.5, all 64-bit. Ubuntu 20.04 is too old for the stated requirements. Use Mesa 22 or newer for AMD or Intel, or NVIDIA driver 470 or newer. Nouveau is not supported; NVIDIA systems need the official NVIDIA driver. On Steam Deck, choose Low or Medium under Settings > Video, because the Deck does not automatically choose a graphics preset.