PlayTrail Guide

Limp Mode: Weak PC Graphics Settings

Published · Updated · Current patch · Last checked 2026-10-16

Official-style Limp Mode key art showing three cars racing through a neon-lit city at night, with the game logo centered above the foreground white car.
Official artwork for Limp Mode.

When LIMP MODE fails to launch on an old or low-power graphics chip, the underlying issue is usually that the GPU cannot satisfy the Vulkan demands of the Godot engine's Forward+ renderer. The game may quit immediately after the loading screen, when Story or Sandbox is selected, or it may show a black or flickering display. Some systems run, but far too slowly on integrated graphics. The remedy is either to reduce the render load drastically or to stop using Vulkan altogether. Try the following measures in sequence; the first two resolve the majority of cases, while later options target hardware that sits below the minimum specification. If the window is stuck or only partly fullscreen, use Alt+Enter to toggle fullscreen; the game retains that preference.

Before Changing Anything

Confirm the machine is suitable and free from avoidable contention.

  • Minimum requirements: Windows 10 64-bit, Intel i5-4460 or Ryzen 3 1200, 8 GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1050 or Radeon RX 560 with Vulkan 1.2, and 2 GB disk space.
  • Integrated chips such as Intel UHD or AMD Vega in Ryzen laptops fall short of the minimum. Expect to need a later step.
  • Shut down other GPU-heavy programs: games, editors, recording utilities.
  • On dual-GPU laptops, set LIMP MODE to use the dedicated GPU via Windows Settings > Display > Graphics.
  • Install the newest driver from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel.

There is a caveat for AMD Ryzen laptops with Vega integrated graphics. AMD places these chips on a maintenance driver branch, so updating often makes no difference. Do not treat the "Vulkan 1.3.xxx" figure in the log as a driver version; it is the API version. If a driver update changes nothing, move to the next step.

Step 1: Ultra Low Preset and Lite Renderer

If the main menu is reachable, open Settings > Video and do the following.

  1. Set Graphics preset to Ultra Low. This preset targets machines with minimal video memory: no shadows, reduced texture sizes, and no preloading of towns and locations. Brief stutters on arrival are normal. It used roughly one third of the video memory that Low required in internal checks.
  2. If performance is still poor, set Graphics renderer to Lite (weak graphics chips).
  3. Restart the game, because renderer and texture changes apply only on a fresh start.

On integrated graphics (excluding Steam Deck), the first launch already selects Ultra Low automatically; you may raise it afterward. Lite reduces GPU load further but omits the Lighting row, Volumetric haze and TAA anti-aliasing. Your saved settings are preserved and take effect again if you switch back to Full (default).

Step 2: Safe Render Thread Launch Option

Choose this when the game crashes on start or the display is black or flickering.

  1. In Steam, right-click LIMP MODE and choose Properties.
  2. Under General > Launch options, type --render-thread safe.
  3. Close the properties window and launch the game.

All drawing then occurs on a single thread. There is a small performance cost, but a known driver-related crash is avoided.

Step 3: OpenGL as a Last Resort

If the earlier steps fail, bypass Vulkan entirely by running through OpenGL. Replace the launch options from step 2 with:

--rendering-driver opengl3 --rendering-method gl_compatibility --render-thread safe

This resolved a documented player case: a Ryzen 7 5825U laptop with Vega 8 integrated graphics and only 512 MB of video memory could not enter Story or Sandbox at all, yet this line allowed the game to start and drive normally.

Anticipate visual compromises: simpler rendering, missing lighting effects, a ground plane that may be invisible or malformed, and occasional incorrect object colours. OpenGL supports fewer textures per surface than the game uses; this is an OpenGL limitation rather than a faulty installation. Driving remains possible. Remove the launch options to return to normal. Do not use unofficial BIOS utilities to increase laptop video memory; if the BIOS exposes an official "UMA Frame Buffer Size" setting, 2 GB may help, though many laptops lack that option.

Reading the Log for Vulkan Resource Failure

The engine log lives at %APPDATA%\Godot\app_userdata\LIMP MODE\logs\godot.log. Paste that path into the Windows Explorer address bar. Indicators that the graphics chip has exhausted Vulkan resources, and that step 3 applies, are:

  • Repeated lines such as Can't create buffer of size ... (VkResult error -10).
  • Later, vertex_array is null or !draw_list.active.
  • Finally, Vulkan device was lost.

Error -10 indicates the driver has too many objects. It is neither a corrupt save nor a broken installation, so verifying game files will not resolve it. If the line Updating buffers is forbidden during creation of a draw list appears, use step 2. Crashes in amdvlk64.dll, the AMD Vulkan driver, nearly always coincide with another Vulkan program running, such as a second game instance or a game engine editor; close that program and retry.

Linux and Steam Deck

A native Linux build exists and runs on Linux and Steam Deck. Minimum versions are Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Debian 12 or SteamOS 3.5 in 64-bit. Ubuntu 20.04 is too old because it lacks glibc 2.29 and libstdc++ from GCC 11 or newer. Use Mesa 22 or newer for AMD/Intel, and NVIDIA 470 or newer for NVIDIA. The open-source Nouveau driver for NVIDIA is unsupported; use the official driver instead. Steam Deck scales the interface for its small display and applies no automatic preset, so choose Low or Medium in Settings > Video. The launch options from steps 2 and 3 also apply on Linux.

Submitting a Log When Problems Continue

  1. Enable Settings > GAMEPLAY > Write log files (for bug reports); without this no game log is produced.
  2. Reproduce the problem with minimal intervening playtime.
  3. In Steam, right-click LIMP MODE > Manage > Browse local files, then open the logs folder.
  4. Take the most recent limp-log_....txt. If a blackbox_....txt with the same timestamp exists, include it as well; it is the key file and is written even without step 1.

If the menu is never reached, send godot.log from the path above instead. Post the files in the Steam discussions or on Discord along with your graphics chip and Windows or Linux version. When no logs folder sits beside the game, check %LOCALAPPDATA%\LIMP MODE. In co-op, both host and guest must enable logging and submit their logs, since each player sees different events.

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