NycholusV
Chieftain
TLDR: Turn off Windows Defender if your game hangs upon starting up or loading a save.
I had a problem with Civ 6 yesterday. Upon opening the game, it took forever to load then hung for about two minutes before proceeding to the main menu. Then when I loaded my save game, I waited 5-10 minutes and it nothing happened. I couldn't even Alt+Tab to access other windows without opening a new Desktop. Task Manager said the game was not responding despite it not using the CPU and not changing in its memory usage. I ended the process and tried again, this time loading an autosave, and the same thing happened. I restarted my PC, and the same thing happened.
I then checked the forums and sure enough, some people were having the same problem. I saw a mention of Windows Defender potentially causing issues, so I disabled it. And sure enough, the game ran and it was running smoother than ever on my not-so-powerful PC (meets minimum system requirements for Civ 6 but not recommended).
To disable Windows Defender, open it from the Start Menu (use search), click Settings, and then turn off everything (real-time protection, cloud-based protection, etc.). Now, I'd suppose Windows Defender does some good things, so be sure to turn it back on afterwards. (I think if you open your internet browser it will prompt you.)
It's funny (and also kind of sad on Microsoft's behalf) because when I was installing the game at 3am on the release date, my installation time doubled because Windows Defender decided to run a system scan in the background. Seems to be a very problematic feature of Win10.
So I made this thread to see just how many people are experiencing a similar problem, and so that people can find this fix quickly.
I had a problem with Civ 6 yesterday. Upon opening the game, it took forever to load then hung for about two minutes before proceeding to the main menu. Then when I loaded my save game, I waited 5-10 minutes and it nothing happened. I couldn't even Alt+Tab to access other windows without opening a new Desktop. Task Manager said the game was not responding despite it not using the CPU and not changing in its memory usage. I ended the process and tried again, this time loading an autosave, and the same thing happened. I restarted my PC, and the same thing happened.
I then checked the forums and sure enough, some people were having the same problem. I saw a mention of Windows Defender potentially causing issues, so I disabled it. And sure enough, the game ran and it was running smoother than ever on my not-so-powerful PC (meets minimum system requirements for Civ 6 but not recommended).
To disable Windows Defender, open it from the Start Menu (use search), click Settings, and then turn off everything (real-time protection, cloud-based protection, etc.). Now, I'd suppose Windows Defender does some good things, so be sure to turn it back on afterwards. (I think if you open your internet browser it will prompt you.)
It's funny (and also kind of sad on Microsoft's behalf) because when I was installing the game at 3am on the release date, my installation time doubled because Windows Defender decided to run a system scan in the background. Seems to be a very problematic feature of Win10.
So I made this thread to see just how many people are experiencing a similar problem, and so that people can find this fix quickly.
