Far Cry 3 seems to have an issue with multi-core CPUs, specifically CPUs that have 32 cores.

When launching the game, this splash screen will appear and the game will continue to hang here until it either crashes or you force close the game.



Ubisoft supposedly fixed this issue with the last patch the game received. Either the patch hasn't been applied to the Steam version, their solution to the issue doesn't work or their solution to the issue only applies to 32 core CPUs of that time, which were extremely rare to begin with.



I've seen multiple solutions to this issue...

One is entering the BIOS, which is a pain having to do it every time you want to play the game and it is intimidating to a lot of people.

Another possible solution also involves downloading third party software such as Process Lasso, which didn't work for me and has reportedly caused performance issues for others. Plus I don't want to download unnecessary software on my PC either, so that's another downside to this solution.

So the best solution right now is to disable one of your CPU cores, but don't worry, this isn't as scary as It sounds. This can be done in Windows itself and it just requires a quick restart to apply. You should undo these changes every time you're finished playing Far Cry 3, as it will have a very minor performance impact.

So, let's do it.

1. Open your start menu and type "System Configuration", then open the "System Configuration" app.
   
2. Once the app opens, click on the "Boot" tab and then click on "Advanced options..."
   
3. When the advanced options window appears, click the box next to "Number of processors", then click the drop-down menu and select 31 from the list. It should now look like this...
   
   
   
   
4. Next, click "OK" and then click "Apply", close the System Configuration app and then when prompted to restart your PC, do so. If the prompt doesn't appear, restart your PC manually. Make sure it's a restart and not a shut down, as a shut down likely won't apply the changes.

And that's it, Far Cry 3 should now launch correctly! I've played for 12 hours as of writing this guide and I haven't had a single crash or performance issue. I've only tested this on an i9-13900K, I'm not sure if this will work on other systems but I have heard it works on 14th gen Intel CPUs as well.

Now, go and enjoy Far Cry 3 (thanks Ubisoft for finally adding achievements to this game in 2025)!