Old games linked their physics and logic to frame rate. If your modern GPU pushes 300+ FPS, Vice City’s memory address calculations overflow, causing an instant c0000005 crash.
Did you download a 100% save file? Did you install a car pack that replaces the "Infernus" with a Lamborghini model that has 10,000 polygons?
The #2 cause of c0000005 after hardware compatibility is a bad mod. gta vice city unhandled exception c00005 at address link
Right-click gta-vc.exe → Properties → Compatibility tab:
Windows 10 and 11 use security features that randomize memory addresses (ASLR) and prevent code from running in protected memory zones. Vice City, written before these standards, tries to access a static "link address" that Windows has now moved or blocked. Old games linked their physics and logic to frame rate
To fix the problem, you must understand the villain. In programming, an "exception" is an unexpected event. Code c0000005 is Windows’ way of saying: "The program tried to read or write memory that it does not own."
Think of your computer’s RAM as a hotel. Every program gets a room number (an address). The "Unhandled exception c0000005" occurs when Vice City tries to walk into a room that doesn’t exist, a room that is locked, or a room belonging to another program (like your antivirus or graphics driver). Did you install a car pack that replaces
The "at address link" part of your search query usually refers to a few specific scenarios: