Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection Stuck on Loading Screen, Crashing and Not Launching on PC Errors – [FIXED]

Image Credit: Sony/Naughty Dog

The "UNCHARTED" series is known for its action-packed gameplay, engaging storylines, and immersive environments. And the UNCHARTED Legacy of Thieves Collection is no different. With its beautiful graphics and intense action sequences, this game is sure to keep players immersed for hours. However, unfortunately, some players have reported that they are facing multiple issues like getting stuck on the loading screen, the game not starting or failing to launch, and sometimes the game crashing while starting on PC. These issues can be frustrating, but fortunately, there are a few ways to resolve them. Let’s look at these methods in detail in this troubleshooting guide.

Check System Configuration:

GPU: NVIDIA GTX 960 (4 GB) or AMD R9 290X (4 GB)

CPU: Intel i5-4330 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200

RAM: 8 GB (16 GB recommended)

Resolution: 720p @ 30 fps

Graphic settings: Medium

DX: Version 12

OS: Windows 10 64-bit

Storage: 126 GB HDD (SSD recommended)

Also, during gameplay, sometimes for the shaders to build it might take a while which can result in the loading screen appearing for longer than expected time. In such a scenario, it would be better to wait to see if the game resumes once loading is complete.

If you are still facing issues, in the next section let’s look at the fixes.

How to fix Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection Stuck on Loading Screen, Crashing and Not Launching Issues

Go to the "Control Panel" and open the "Device Manager".

In the "Device Manager", expand the "Display adapters" section and select your NVIDIA graphics card.

Right-click on the NVIDIA graphics card and select "Update driver".

In the "Update Driver Software" window, select "Browse my computer for driver software".

Click on "Browse" and navigate to the location where you downloaded the previous driver version.

Select the driver folder and click "Next". The driver will now be installed.

AMD Users:

For AMD users downgrade the GPU driver to v22.10.2. You can download the driver from here. Once downloaded, follow the same steps to install the driver as mentioned above (instead of Nvidia graphics card select AMD graphics card in Device Manager).

Note: The issue in the GPU driver will likely be addressed in the successive upgrade. You can check and update drivers accordingly from Nvidia or AMD websites.

2) Increase Virtual Memory (VRAM)

Increasing the amount of virtual memory can help improve system performance, but it can also consume more disk space. Would recommend you set the virtual memory size to 1.5 times (max 3 times) the amount of physical RAM on your system.

To increase the amount of virtual memory on your PC, you can follow these steps:

Press the Windows key + R on your keyboard to open the "Run" dialog box.

In the "Run" dialog box, type "sysdm.cpl" and press Enter. This will open the "System Properties" window.

In the "System Properties" window, click on the "Advanced" tab.

Under the "Performance" section, click on the "Settings" button.

In the "Performance Options" window, click on the "Advanced" tab.

Under the "Virtual memory" section, click on the "Change" button.

In the "Virtual Memory" window, you can uncheck the box next to "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" and select the drive where you want to store the paging file.

Click on the "Custom size" radio button and enter the desired size for the paging file in the "Initial size" and "Maximum size" boxes. The size you enter should be in megabytes (MB).

Click "Set" and then "OK" to apply the changes.

3) Spam Alt+Enter

If the game is crashing while trying to launch, you can try to launch the game multiple times (maybe 8-10 times) by pressing the ‘Play’ button to see if the game launches without crashing. If that doesn’t work, then once you hit ‘Play’ press Alt+Enter multiple times, and hopefully the game launches successfully.

4) Disable Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling

If the game is crashing after every few minutes of play, turn off Hardware Accelerated GPU scheduling. To do this,

Type “Settings” in the taskbar search box and press “Enter”.

Navigate to the following path, “Display”-> “Graphics”->” Default Graphic Settings”.

Turn off the toggle for Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling.

Restart your PC and launch the game again.

5) Verify Integrity of Game Files

For Steam Users:

To verify the game files for " UNCHARTED Legacy of Thieves Collection" in Steam, follow these steps:

Open Steam and go to your Library.

Right-click on " Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection " and select "Properties".

In the Properties window, go to the "Local Files" tab.

Click on the "Verify Integrity of Game Files" button.

Steam will begin to check the game files for any problems or discrepancies, and repair or re-download any missing or corrupt files as needed.

For Epic Games Users:

To verify the game files of Uncharted Legacy of Thieves on Epic Games, follow these steps:

Open Epic Games and click on the "Library" tab in the top menu.

Find Uncharted Legacy of Thieves in your library and click on the 3 dots below the game icon.

Click on the "Manage" option.

On the pop-up window that appears, select “Verify”.

Epic Games will now scan the game files and verify their integrity. If any files are missing or corrupt, they will be automatically repaired.

Once the verification process is complete, launch the game to see if the repair process was successful.

6) Reinstall the Latest Visual C++ Redistributable

The most commonly used solution to fix multiple gaming errors is to re-install Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. To do this,

Go to the official page from where Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable can be downloaded – VC++ Redistributable.

Download both the X86 and X64 versions of VC++ Redistributable packages.

The download may take a while, depending on your internet connection speed.

Once the download is complete install both the downloaded files.

It may take a few minutes for the installation to finish. Once the installation is completed restart the computer and launch the game again.

7) Add Modifications in Launch Options (Steam Users)

Open Steam.

Select the game “Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection” and right-click to select “Properties”.

In the “General” tab, under “Launch Options”, after entering each command mentioned below, restart the launcher and run the game,

• -windowed
• -dx11
• -dx12

8) Change System & Game Settings

There are several ways to improve the game performance that can potentially help fix slow loading and crashing issues. Some of the methods are to,

Stop any unnecessary applications running in the background. Open the task manager and close any apps that are consuming a lot of RAM and CPU power.  

Close any overlay apps running in the background – like Discord Overlay, GeForce Experience Overlay, and Steam, etc.

Disconnect any unused devices plugged into the USB port, run the game on a single monitor, and remove any joystick, dongle, or wheel used.

Try playing the game with minimal graphic settings to see if that improves performance. To do this,

• Launch the game and go to “Options”.
• Next, go to “Display” and change the “Display Mode” settings to “Windowed”.
• Reduce “Display Resolution” from 4K to 1920 x 1080. You can reduce the resolution further if required.
• Similarly, under “Resolution Scaling” reduce or turn off FSR 2/DLSS.
• Under “Display Settings” turn off “V-Sync”.
• Select “Apply” and go back to the previous menu.
• Select “Advanced Graphics” and change the “Preset” settings to “Medium”/”Low”. You can refer to the VRAM usage displayed below and adjust accordingly.
• Select “Apply”, return to gameplay and check the performance.

Other methods,

If you are using Epic Games, then try to sign out of epic games, sign in and launch the game.

Try to run the game .exe file(u4.exe), and Steam/Epic Games in administrator mode.

Minimize GPU and VRAM clock speeds. There are several applications that can be used to underclock your GPU – MSI Afterburner, Asus GPU Tweak, etc.

Update Windows & the game from the Steam/Epic Games client.

Download the latest version of DirectX and install it on your PC.

In conclusion, fixing gaming errors can be a tricky process that requires patience and a good understanding of the problem causing the error. In this case, we highly recommend you keep trying different combinations of the solutions provided above until the error gets fixed. Hope you found our guide useful. Thanks for reading!