Game(s) that Used to Work in Virtual Machine Now Crash on Startup

Operating Systems & Open Source Virtualization
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PC Specs:
CPU| Ryzen 5900x
RAM| 64Gb (4x16Gb) 3600Mhz
GPUs| Host - AMD RX 6900XT (Founders edition), Guest - Sapphire RX580
MOBO| MPG X570S EDGE MAX WIFI

(all of my games are on a separate hard drive I connect to using samba for my VMs)

I have a Windows 10 64-bit virtual machine that used to run games (visual novels, in this case) from the same company/engine with no issues, until recently. They will either crash immediately or a couple seconds after startup with no error message or log file to help with troubleshooting. Re-installation does not work.

The problem is definitely virtual machine related since they all function(ed) in my cloned VM and on bare metal. That said, the problem persists and is random. Two games that didn’t work on my main VM worked in the clone, however one currently does not while the other still does.

Any ideas of the cause? This is what dmesg -wH returns. Using options kvm ignore_msrs=1 doesn’t work.

[Sep13 21:46] limit_periodic_timer_frequency: 1 callbacks suppressed
[  +0.000003] kvm: vcpu 4: requested 2494 ns lapic timer period limited to 200000 ns
[  +0.000011] kvm: vcpu 11: requested 2494 ns lapic timer period limited to 200000 ns
[  +0.000001] kvm: vcpu 10: requested 2494 ns lapic timer period limited to 200000 ns
[  +0.000010] kvm: vcpu 7: requested 2494 ns lapic timer period limited to 200000 ns
[  +0.000010] kvm: vcpu 8: requested 2494 ns lapic timer period limited to 200000 ns
[  +0.000010] kvm: vcpu 9: requested 2494 ns lapic timer period limited to 200000 ns
[  +0.000001] kvm: vcpu 6: requested 2494 ns lapic timer period limited to 200000 ns
[  +0.000026] kvm: vcpu 2: requested 2494 ns lapic timer period limited to 200000 ns
[  +0.000002] kvm: vcpu 5: requested 2494 ns lapic timer period limited to 200000 ns
[  +0.000006] kvm: vcpu 3: requested 2494 ns lapic timer period limited to 200000 ns
[  +0.226302] kvm_amd: kvm [16046]: vcpu0, guest rIP: 0xfffff80b4dafc171 Unhandled WRMSR(0xc0010115) = 0x0
[  +0.350342] kvm_amd: kvm [16046]: vcpu1, guest rIP: 0xfffff80b4dafc171 Unhandled WRMSR(0xc0010115) = 0x0

Edit: The games in question are not run through Steam.
Edit 2: I may have solved the issue. Not sure why, but a couple of save files are the cause. Deleting those fixes the problem. Thankfully, I can import the remaining saves and continue my progress so long as I skip those files during the transfer. This still doesn’t explain, however, why it works on bare metal.

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It’s been some time since my initial post and I can, for the most part, call this resolved.

Solution:

  • Copy your save files into a temporary directory, then delete the current game save directory (location and file structure may vary).
  • Start the game and check if it loads like normal.
  • If it works, past your old saves back into the new save directory, minus the offending file (this may take a couple tries if it’s multiple corrupt/offending files).

For me, it happened to be “save0” so I just remove that file and it resolves the issue, for now. You may not even need to move your other save files, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.

I’m hoping this concludes the issue, but we’ll see.