Campaign crashes during first mission's cutscene

[The Virus]

My campaign always seems to crash a bit of the way through the cutscene of the first mission. I know I can skip it (I think) but I'm the kind of guy that actually likes to watch cutscenes in a game.

[Brother Elcs]

By any chance have you got your graphics set to Ultra?

That is the first thing I can think of. Several people have had issues with Ultra graphics level and crashes.

[Marduk]

if you're using an ati card, you can keep ultra settings, just download the new 9.2 catalyst drivers.

[Malleus]

I have some similar strange issue.
Everytime Davian Thule is about to talk in the first mission it crashed.
I have to restart computer and then it works. Dont know what makes it happen.
Had a similar issue in fallout, had to lower antialiasing and some other ultra options to get pass it.

[Noble]

Moving to the technical assistance forum.

[Jager]

We're pretty sure that this is the same issue as the Errror 183 crash just in a different form.

So far the only known work-around is to lower your Texture Detail and Effects Fidelity to Medium or Low. The patch for Errror 183 will hopefully also address this issue.

[The Virus]

Yeah, I also crash if I skip the cutscene and go straight to the mission. It's weird though, I'm not even sure if my graphics are on ultra and I should be able to handle it anyway.

[Stormsong]

So it still crashes with the latest patch installed? If so, please post your dxdiag and warnings.txt files.

[The Virus]

Do patches automatically install or do I have to download manually?

[Stormsong]

They install automatically, unless you're running Steam in offline mode. You can check if the game has updated from the in-game News post or by viewing "View Update News" from the game's icon in the Steam games list.

[karahasan]

if you're using an ati card, you can keep ultra settings, just download the new 9.2 catalyst drivers.

Actually, this problem in the topic happened to me AFTER I installed the 9.2 drivers. And yeah, it crashes even after the hotfix.

Strangely enough, the other missions are ok at ultra settings. Which means the patch is installed, but doesn't serve the post-first cutscene crash.

Edit: for those with the same problem, this is what you have to do to play at ultra for the first mission: change your graphics option to medium. This restarts the game. Then, change it to ultra, again causing the game to restart. Voila! Now you can play the first mission on ultra.

I've started two new games, and the cutscene issue happens everytime. Likewise, I performed the solution both times, and it worked at both times too.