Portal: Revolution is one of the best fan projects the series has received, with some fans lauding it as a fan-made Portal 3! It’s not perfect, though, so some players might need to fix issues with the game not launching before they can enjoy it.
The developers don’t have the luxury of testing the game on a wide variety of hardware setups, either, considering it’s a fan project. This leads to bugs and glitches being harder to notice and fix.
In this guide, we look for potential fixes for the game not launching at all!
How to Fix Portal: Revolution Not Launching
There are a variety of issues that can cause Portal: Revolution to fail to launch. PCs can vary a lot, after all, which means things won’t always work as intended for everyone.
We also can’t promise that our list of fixes is guaranteed to work for everyone.
We do our best to provide you with potential fixes so you can get to solving the arduous puzzles and hunting every achievement in Portal: Revolution but troubleshooting PC software is hardly fool’s proof.
It’s also possible that some of the current issues with Portal: Revolution are on the game’s end. In such cases, you just have to wait it out until the developers release patches with fixes.
Nonetheless, let’s go over the fixes that seem to work for the majority of users!
Make Sure Portal 2 Is Installed
Portal: Revolution is a mod for Portal 2, and it’s not standalone. As such, you’re required to own Portal 2 and also need to have it installed to ensure that Portal: Revolution works properly.
It’s also worth noting that while Portal: Revolution itself is free, Portal 2 isn’t. You’ll need to buy the game if you wish to play Revolution!
Nonetheless, Portal 2 frequently goes on deep sales, so it’s not going to be a big hit to your wallet.
Either way, though, just make sure that you have bought and installed Portal 2 before attempting to launch Portal: Revolution.
Check That Your PC Meets The Minimum Requirements
Despite being a mod for Portal 2, Portal: Revolution has much higher minimum requirements than its base game.
These can be seen on the Steam Store page, but here they are just in case:
- OS: Windows 10/11
- Processor: Intel i3-8300 or similar AMD CPU
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 or similar AMD GPU
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 12 GB available space
- Additional Notes: Reference build. Lower specs may still be playable.
The most notable requirement is that you need to have a modern GPU because Portal: Revolution only runs on DirectX 11 and higher. By comparison, Portal 2 only required DirectX 9.0!
Looking up your GPU model on Google is a good way to find out its capabilities. After all, manufacturers always provide spec sheets to let you know your hardware’s capabilities.
There are no workarounds for insufficient hardware either, sadly. If your GPU just doesn’t support DX11, you’ll be unable to play the game until you upgrade it…
Install Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Packages
Another potential reason why Portal: Revolution fails to launch is that your PC is missing Visual C++ redistributable files, which are necessary for the game to function.
Thankfully, the solution is extremely simple! You just need to download the redistributable/s and install them.
Click here to go to Microsoft’s official website for Visual C++ Redistributable packages.
Download and install both the X86 and X64 redistributable packages, as highlighted in the image above.
Once you’ve installed these files, try launching Portal: Revolution again.
Check Your Monitor Setup
For some users, the game seems to fail to launch due to them having multiple monitors connected.
In such cases, the solution is quite simple: just unplug any monitors beside the main one! It’s far from ideal, but it seems to work.
Alternatively, try to use launch commands to force the game to launch in a window.
This prevents the game from trying to launch in Fullscreen mode, which can cause issues if the game doesn’t detect your display properly.
To use launch commands, find Portal: Revolution inside your Steam Library and then right-click on it. Choose “Properties” from the drop-down menu.
Next, look for the “Launch Options” text box and add the following command: -windowed
Lastly, try launching the game and it should start up in Windowed mode, which will bypass any faulty Fullscreen display settings!
There you have it! If you’re also wondering how to invert your mouse in Portal: Revolution, make sure to check out our guide for that as well!
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