Many players who bought American Truck Simulator are facing random error messages and crashes that seemed to have dampened the experience. ATS is a truck simulation game where you can roleplay as a truck driver and move all sorts of cargo in different terrains like Sandy Nevada, Sunny California, and more. If you’re facing random Launching, Crashing & Freezing errors while playing the game on your PC and are searching endlessly on the internet for fixes, your search ends here as we have mentioned some of the workarounds that worked for many. Continue reading the article to know how to fix American Truck Simulator crashes, freezes, etc.
Fixes and workarounds for American Truck Simulator
If you’re unable to play American Truck Simulator and getting all sorts of error codes, we have mentioned fixes that’ll help you solve the issue and get the game running.
Restart the computer
Restarting your PC is the most generic fix and works most of the time so try doing that and launch the game to see if it fixes the issue or not.
Verify game files
The game not launching might be due to incomplete installation, corrupted or missing game files that can be fixed by verifying game files from Steam. Follow the steps to do so.
- Launch Steam and head to your library, right-click on American Truck Simulator, and select Properties.
- A window will open, click on “Local Files” and click on “Verify integrity of game files”.
- Wait for the process to complete and the issue should be fixed
Launch game in DX11, OpenGL, Safe Mode
If you’re experiencing constant crashes in the American Truck Simulator, you can try out different renderers like DirectX 11, OpenGL, and Safe Mode and see which works out best for you. When you click the “Play” button on Steam, you’ll be presented with the abovementioned options, choose whichever you want.
Remove outdated mods
There’s also a good chance that the game is crashing because of the outdated mods installed in the game. Make sure to remove them to solve the crashing issues. Go to Mod Manager and under the list of your installed mods, look for the ones in red color and remove all of them and see if it’s fixed the issue.
Delete save game
This should be attempted as a last resort if you’re having trouble running the game. So, you will need to delete the “Save Files” of the game and run American Truck Simulator. Your issue should be fixed. Here’s how to do it.
- Open File Explorer and go to Documents.
- Right-click on the American Truck Simulator and click on “Delete”.
- After deleting it, run the game and see if the issue is still present or not.
Switch to the beta version of Steam Client.
Beta versions are the experimental builds of the Steam Client that often works well with most games so try it out. Follow the steps to switch to the Beta client.
- Launch Steam and click on the “Steam” option and then “Settings”.
- In the Account tab, click on the Change button in the Beta Participation section. In the dropdown box, select “Steam Beta Update”.
- Click on “Ok” restart Steam and launch the game.
Perform fresh installation of GPU drivers
Doing a clean installation of your graphics card driver can also solve crashing issues in games like American Truck Simulator. If you have NVIDIA or AMD GPU, head to their website and download the latest drivers of your graphics card. In the installation tab if you’re using Nvidia GPU, click on the “Custom” option and tick the “Perform a clean installation” checkbox and click on “Next”. Allow the installation to complete and then run the game.
Allow the game’s.exe file to your antivirus and firewall
If your game is refusing to launch, then it might be because it’s flagged as a malicious program by your antivirus. Make sure to allow American Truck Simulator.exe or add it as an exception on your antivirus program and then run the game. If you’re using Windows Security, follow the steps to allow it.
- In the start menu, click on “Settings” and click on Update & Security (Windows 10) or Privacy (Windows 11).
- On the left side, click on “Windows Security” and then click on “Virus and Threat Protection”, scroll down and click on “Manage Ransomware Protection” and then click on “Allow an App through Controlled Folder Access”.
- Click on “Add an allowed app” and “browse all apps” and head to where the game is installed, by default it is on C:/ drive. Once you’ve located the game folder, open the bin folder/win_x64 and select the .exe file of the game and click on “Open”.
- Once it’s added, launch the game.
Start game in dedicated graphics card
Another reason why American Truck Simulator is not launching is that it’s using the integrated GPU instead of a dedicated one. Follow the steps to make it run on a dedicated graphics card.
- In the start menu, type “Graphics Settings” and click on it, click on “Browse” and head to the game’s installation directory. Now, select the .exe file of the game, and click on “Add”.
- Once it’s added, click on “Options” then select “High Performance” and click on “Save”. Now American Truck Simulator will be using your dedicated GPU to run the game.
Run the game as Administrator.
- Go to Steam, select Library, and right-click on the game. Now, select Properties and then Manage. Now, click on “Browse local files”, and it’ll take you to the directory where your game is installed. Open the bin folder and then win_x64 and right-click on the .exe file and select “Run as Administrator”.
Install Visual C++
Having the latest version of Visual C++ ensures that the game runs without any hiccups and it’s recommended to install the latest versions of them. Download them from here, and install all versions of Visual C++ from x86 and x64. Click on the Install or Repair option and it should be fixed. Now you can run the game.
We hope that you enjoyed reading this article, stay tuned for more updates at Digistatement.
