If the windowed mode tweak fails, the problem likely lies deeper in the system’s graphics pipeline or peripheral management. Need for Speed Payback is notoriously sensitive to third-party overlays and unstable GPU clock speeds. Applications like Discord Overlay, MSI Afterburner, or even the NVIDIA GeForce Experience overlay can intercept the rendering call, causing the game to hang on a black screen. Disabling these overlays system-wide is a standard diagnostic step. Additionally, for users with overclocked graphics cards, the black screen can signal instability; the game’s Frostbite engine is less tolerant of aggressive clocks than many benchmarking tools. Resetting the GPU to factory clock speeds or performing a clean installation of graphics drivers (using Display Driver Uninstaller) often resolves these edge cases.