Exit Code 201
You have landed on this page because the game detected an error while attempting to start.
The issue occurs because of an incompatibility between Vulkan and the graphics card drivers.
Issues with certain graphics card drivers
If you don't try to start the game through a remote desktop connection, please verify that you have the latest graphics card drivers installed. You can find the latest drivers on these pages: NVIDIA, AMD. The following NVIDIA drivers have been reported to us as causing this startup error. Some of these, however, have only occurred when attaching an external monitor to the laptop:
| driver version | external monitor used |
|---|---|
| 391.35 | no |
| 388.16 | yes |
Trying to start the game on hardware that is below minimum requirements
Note that the minimum requirements to run the game include a dedicated graphics card: NVIDIA GTX 780/970 or AMD equivalent. We are aware that on the following unsupported graphics cards you end up with this startup issue when running the latest provided drivers from NVIDIA. Please note that these cards don't (officially) support Vulkan and therefore cannot run the game:
| Manufacturer | Device |
|---|---|
| NVIDIA | GeForce GT 610 |
Missing Vulkan runtime on Linux
On Linux the most common cause triggering this issue is a missing Vulkan runtime. Please make sure that you have installed the correct Vulkan runtime for your distribution on your system and that it's also the correct processor version (64-bit rather than the 32-bit runtime).
Trying to start the game through a remote desktop connection
This issue is known to occur when trying to start the game remotely (e.g. through VNC or Windows Remote Desktop Connection), or when trying to run the game on a laptop with an external monitor attached, while using certain older drivers. If you are running the game through a remote desktop connection, please note that it may work, but we don't officially support this. Please start the game on a local computer to prevent this startup error.
Getting further help
If you have ended up on this page but didn't try to run the game through a remote connection, and have the latest drivers installed, we'd be interested in finding out more about the situation that triggered the error in your case and helping you to resolve it. If you are in this situation please send a mail to prioritysupport@egosoft.com (Subject: Exitcode 201) with the following details:
- a screenshot of the popup error
- your dxdiag and vulkaninfo (this Wiki entry explains how to create this information)
