I can't get King of Fighters XIII Galaxy Edition to launch on my computer. I'm running Windows 11. When I click the launch icon, my computer screen goes black, then it flashes off to show the desktop icons giant-sized, then it turns black again, then it shows the desktop normal size, and then it's done. It never even makes it to the start menu. I tried the launch fix GOG recommended in its general troubleshooting section, but it didn't work. Anyone have any suggestions?

It's possible that you're missing some VC++ redistributables for Windows 11. Not sure how many different versions are available for it, but I'd suggest installing as many as you're able.

MIght be something related to the gpu, inability to display game's resolution or gpu drivers even. Try to launch the game windowed with -w launch parameter. If that doesn't work, try -v instead that disables the cinematics. If the latter works, it means that you don't have the correct codecs for a video format used in kof xiii. You can set launch parameters through galaxy, or via a custom shortcut.

Thanks for the input, I really appreciate it. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me. I installed all the redistributables Microsoft had available all the way back to 2005, but no luck. It was worth a shot, at least. Maybe I'll stumble upon something else. Thanks, unfortunately, I had no luck here either. I tried -w and -v, along with -fullscreen=false in both the custom config option through gog, and the shortcut in the downloaded game folder. -w would get it to launch a small black window, but then it would disappear, and that would be that. I also tried the different compatibility settings (2008, 2007 and a bunch of the others just in case), running it as an administrator, and even putting it through dxwind (which will usually force a launch), but none of it worked. Let me know if you have any other ideas.

First, make sure you have the latest version installed. If you have just installed using Galaxy that should be the case. If you installed using offline installers, did the files have these filenames?

setup_the_king_of_fighters_xiii_galaxy_edition_1.0_(a)_(39562).exe
setup_the_king_of_fighters_xiii_galaxy_edition_1.0_(a)_(39562)-1.bin

If not, download the latest version, uninstall the old version and install from this installer.

Second: Do you have a firewall installed? Try to turn it off before starting the game. If the game works now you need to configure the firewall to allow the game to access at least localhost (127.0.0.1) and also the internet if you are using Galaxy features.

Are you able to run any other games?

Speed is usually affected by refresh rate of the monitor being higher than what these games were designed for and some ports here are not very good on the technical side (mostly the early dotemu ports, etc), so the speed of the emulation got tied to the refresh rate. Try 60hz on your display and try to enable vsync in game, it should fix it. Alternatively use fps limiter to 60fps, but some of these ports are stubborn and have to do it with refresh rate / vsync. Although mame is better option in general in those cases, if you use it already.

CodeMystics ports are great though, they mostly come with rollback netcode and other neat features.

I'm kinda out of ideas why it doesn't work. When stuff didn't launch on my end, it was usually a problem with drivers and redistributables (directx/dotNET/gpu), or settings/resolution was not supported (my old monitor+gpu combo oddly enough couldn't display 640x480 for example). The longest issue I ever had (after reinstalling all the relevant drivers and redistributables) was having a corrupt dotNET install, and when I reinstalled it, it did just said it completed the task but reality it did nothing. Had to use netfx_setupverifier to verify each version of dotNET and found one of them in the middle of the list was corrupt, so had to use repairtool then to fix it. What a pain!

Tried to launch the game, it starts by default in 720p fullscreen, shows the logos, plays the intro and creates profile/save file. Btw you can check that video subfolder and try to play some wmv file to see if it is not a video codec issue affecting the launch. Although I doubt it since we tried to disable the cinematics. I've also checked pcgamingwiki if there is any other info - it says that on 2TB+ drives it might have an issue with launching, but I launched it just fine from 4TB drive just now. Worth a try though.

Wow. Thanks for all the tips! I appreciate all the time you’ve spent on this. I’ve tried the video sub folder and all the video clips play fine, as you thought they would. I could try installing the game on a smaller drive, but I’m only using a 500GB drive now, so I don’t know if that would be the problem. I read somewhere the game has trouble with SSD drives. Those are all the drives I have now, so if that’s the case, then I’m in trouble.

Just throwing ideas at the wall here, and I suggested this in another thread about games randomly crashing at launch, but I have experienced with some games if I don't have any audio output hooked up. So maybe try plugging in headphones or speakers.