Fix: American Truck Simulator Won’t Launch or Not Loading on PC

Why is American Truck Simulator Not Launching or Responding?

There is no specific reason behind the startup crashing for the PC games, as it may happen for multiple reasons. Here we’ve provided some of the possible aspects behind the startup crashing of PC games that you should take a quick look at below.

The chances are high that your PC configuration isn’t compatible with the system requirements of the American Truck Simulator game. You can check the system requirements below if you’re not sure about it.
It can be possible that some of the temporary glitches or system cache issues are troubling you a lot.
Sometimes the corrupted or missing game files on your PC/Laptop can cause the startup to crash or lag.
An outdated Windows OS build or an outdated graphics driver version can also trigger crashes while launching the game.
You should also check your DirectX version whether it’s up-to-date or not. By updating the Windows version, your DirectX will be updated.
In some scenarios, if your graphics card becomes outdated enough, it may not support the Direct3D Hardware Feature Level 11.0 GPU.
It can possible that your either American Truck Simulator game or the game launcher becomes outdated.
Some of the background running tasks or programs can consume a lot of system resources which causes such issues.
Maybe the Windows Security protection or any installed third-party Antivirus program prevents the game files from running properly.

Minimum Requirements:

OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Processor: Dual-core CPU 2.4 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTS 450-class (Intel HD 4000)
Storage: 7 GB available space

Recommended Requirements:

OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 64-bit
Processor: Quad-core CPU 3.0 GHz
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTX 760-class (2 GB)
Storage: 7 GB available space

Fix: American Truck Simulator is Not Launching or Loading on the PC

Now, without wasting more time, let’s jump into the below steps. Remember that the Nvidia and AMD graphics drivers are well-optimized for the American Truck Simulator game. So, if in case, you haven’t updated your graphics driver yet, do this first.

1. Update Graphics Drivers

If you’re using the Nvidia graphics card, update the GeForce Experience app on your PC from the official site here. But if you’re using the AMD graphics card on your system, then update the latest AMD Drivers.

2. Disable Steam Overlay

Open Steam on your Windows.
Head over to Settings > Click on the In-Game.
Click on the checkbox to disable Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game.
Once the checkbox mark is removed, click on OK.

3. Adjust Discord Settings

Launch Discord > Click on User Settings.
Select Voice & Video from the left sidebar.
Scroll down a bit and click on Advanced.
Next, disable OpenH264 Video Codec provided by Cisco System, Inc.
Then disable Enable Quality of Service High Packet Priority.
Now, go to Overlay.
You can also turn off the in-game overlay.
Next, head over to Appearance.
Go to Advanced.
Disable Hardware Acceleration.
Once done, restart the system.

4. Adjust Nvidia Control Panel Settings

Click on Adjust image settings with preview under 3D settings.
Select Use the advanced 3D image settings.
Next, launch the Nvidia Control Panel.
Click on Manage 3D settings> Go to Global Settings.
Additionally, you can also adjust some of the other options:
- Disable Image Sharpening
- Enable Threaded Optimization
- Use Maximum Performance for Power Management
- Turn off Low Latency Mode
- Set Texture Filtering Quality to Performance mode

Once done, restart your computer and check whether the American Truck Simulator crashing issue is resolved or not.

5. Change AMD Control Panel Settings

Go to Global Graphics.
- Turn off Radeon Anti-Lag
- Turn off Radeon Boost
- Use Application settings for Anti-Aliasing Mode
- Set the Anti-aliasing Method to Multi-sampling
- Turn off Morphological Filtering
- Disable Image Sharpening
- Turn off Anisotropic Filtering
- Use Performance mode for Texture Filtering Quality
- You can also enable Surface Format Optimization
- AMD Optimization for the Tesselation Mode
- Wait for V-sync– Turn it off
- Use AMD optimization for the Shader Cache
- Disable OpenGL Triple Buffering
- Turn off the Maximum Tesselation Level
- Set Graphics for the GPU Workload
- Turn off the Radeon Chill
- Disable Frame Rate Target Control

6. Verify Game Files

Sometimes, verifying your installed game files can also resolve any kind of file corruption or missing status & you’ll be able to play your game again. To verify the installation of game files:

For Steam:

Launch the Steam client > Click on Library.
Right-click on American Truck Simulator from the list of installed games.
Now, click on Properties > Go to Local Files.

Click on Verify Integrity of Game Files.
You’ll have to wait for the process until it gets completed.
Once done, just restart your computer.

For Epic Games Launcher:

Open the Epic Games Launcher > Click on Library.
Click on the three-dots icon of American Truck Simulator.
Click on Verify, and it’ll start verifying the game files.
Wait for the process to complete and restart the launcher.
It should fix the American Truck Simulator Crashing issue on your PC.

7. Uninstall Recent Windows 10/11 Update

A few days ago, Microsoft released a new update for Windows 10 and 11. So, this cumulative update for Windows 10/11 may be quite buggy and may cause many errors or problems.

Go to Start menu > Click on Settings
Next, go to Update and Security
Click on View update history
Now, if you can see an update that has already been installed. Make sure to uninstall it.
You will see the Uninstall updates option at the top of the page.
Click on it and select the mentioned cumulative update version.
Right-click on it > Select Uninstall. $C:\Users\PC\Desktop\Uninstall Windows Update.png$
Deleting that update may take some time, and your system may restart automatically.
Have some patience and manually reboot your Windows PC (if required).

Finally, you can run American Truck Simulator and check whether the startup crashing has been fixed.

8. Remove Temporary Files

Press the Windows key + R on your keyboard to open the RUN program.
Now, type %temp% and press enter.
You will get a bunch of temporary files on a page.
Select all files by pressing Ctrl + A on the keyboard.
Next, press Shift + Delete on the keyboard to remove all the files.
Sometimes some of the temporary files can’t be deleted. So, leave them as it is and close it.

9. Set Default CPU and Graphics Speed

Most users always want to use ultra-high performance from the CPU and GPU from the very first day. So, most users either buy an overclocked version or manually increase the overclocking speed. So, set it to default mode if you’ve also overclocked your GPU speed and experiencing bottleneck, lagging, or crashing-related issues.

You can also use the MSI Afterburner tool or Zotac firestorm application to lower the clocking speed. Once done, you can run the American Truck Simulator game to check whether it’s crashing at startup.

10. Update American Truck Simulator

If none of the methods worked for you, check for the American Truck Simulator game update because an outdated game version can have bugs or stability issues. So, if you haven’t updated your game for a while, then follow the steps below to check for updates and install the latest update.