Game Won't Stop Crashing

[fctree]

I've been playing BG3 for about 17 hours, and I can't get it to stop crashing. I've had issues with the game crashing since I started playing it, but initially it was manageable. Sometimes, I could play for several hours without a crash. A few days ago, I added Karlach to my party and killed the "paladins" that were harassing her. I finished playing for the day, and from the next day onward, the game has been crashing non-stop. At best, I can play for five minutes before a crash occurs. At worst, the game crashes on startup (not loading a save file, but the initial startup). This problem seemed to crop up after I updated my GPU drivers, so I thought this might have been the problem, but I re-installed the previous drivers and the problem persisted. My GPU fan speed seems fine while I'm playing as well. I've tried running the game with DirectX 11 and Vulkan, and it's crashed in both cases. I did install the game to an HDD instead of an SDD. Could that be the problem? Do I just need to update some of my computer's parts?

Here are my computer's specs:
Operating System: Windows 10 (64-bit)
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 Six-Core Processor 3.2 GHz
RAM: 16 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (Driver Version 551.76)
Motherboard: Aorus AX370-Gaming K5

[Photonboy]

taniwhat,
Oh, Linux. I missed that part. I should have read through your previous comment. I can't help with that. I assume you've read through the ProtonDB link.
https://www.protondb.com/app/1086940

[fctree]

Putting the game in windowed mode seems like it did the trick, at least for now.

[taniwhat]

Game executable was never found so windowed mode wouldn't help :)

I THINK the bug I hit could also hit Windows users, it's just harder to diagnose on Linux

[ArxtixFox]

I got it fixed for my PC! My hubby and I were playing the game together (I was the guest player). It started crashing later in the game and the intervals between crashes became shorter and shorter, so much that it crashed after 2 minutes of being idle in the game. When looking up the solutions I read that DDR5 RAMs are quite unstable so he lowered the RAM frequency in BIOS by like a third (I got quite a good one so I could afford it) and to make sure he also undervoltaged the graphics card by 10% (RDR2 was also crashing and MSI afterburner showed me that the graphics card voltage went down first when the crash happened) - not sure if that helped tho. After that, not a single crash within hours of playing.

[TwitchySilicate]

Is the error "DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED" ?

If so, then I was having that exact same issue. My laptop is 10 yrs old with a GTX 980M. It also has a HDD. It only stopped crashing when I rolled back my graphics driver and unselected the HDD setting for the game. I also capped the fps to 60. The launcher tells you to update your driver but that's probably only valid for newer PC's. Since it was literally causing my issue.

It runs fine with Alienware's 2019 driver for my R2 (The last one they bothered uploading on their website for my PC).

I'm getting 60 fps stable on medium-low settings.

[Ellie]

Running bg3 on a 1060 sounds crazy to me, big W for Larian that it boots up at all

[Photonboy]

Originally posted by ArxtixFox:

I got it fixed for my PC! My hubby and I were playing the game together (I was the guest player). It started crashing later in the game and the intervals between crashes became shorter and shorter, so much that it crashed after 2 minutes of being idle in the game. When looking up the solutions I read that DDR5 RAMs are quite unstable so he lowered the RAM frequency in BIOS by like a third (I got quite a good one so I could afford it) and to make sure he also undervoltaged the graphics card by 10% (RDR2 was also crashing and MSI afterburner showed me that the graphics card voltage went down first when the crash happened) - not sure if that helped tho. After that, not a single crash within hours of playing.

Glad it seemingly worked, but... that's not the ideal way to do things.
1) run MEMTEST86 (free) off a USB stick to validate your DDR5
https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

I'd try to stick to the default XMP/DOCP ram profile.

2) CPU? If it's one of the modern Intel's that have power profile problems you need to investigate further as there are BIOS updates and other tips to avoid crashing.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/14/24178751/intel-raptor-lake-crash-fix-etvb-not-yet

There's a lot more info out there.

3) Run CPU diagnostics (CPU-Z, Cinebench... I pick at least two) to stress the CPU and ensure it's not crashing. Not 100% guarantee.

WRITE DOWN THE CPU SCORES (so you can compare later if things change)

4) Run GPU benchmark/diagnostics. (i.e. Furmark 2)
WRITE DOWN the scores...

5) GPU undervolt?
Asus for example has their GPU Tweak III tool. You can run Furmark, get a score, then LOWER the power/voltage target and have the "OC Scanner" train the GPU (it tests at various voltage/frequency targets). Looking for minimal drop in performance but with lower power.

SUMMARY:
You want to be VALIDATING one component at a time in this order->
1) DDR5 (Memtest)
2) CPU (CPU-Z, Cinebench etc)
3) GPU (Furmark etc)

If you can stress and test this way the odds of this sort of problem showing up in a game are greatly reduced. Meaning it's probably a SOFTWARE issue.

[ArxtixFox]

Originally posted by Photonboy:

Originally posted by ArxtixFox:

I got it fixed for my PC! My hubby and I were playing the game together (I was the guest player). It started crashing later in the game and the intervals between crashes became shorter and shorter, so much that it crashed after 2 minutes of being idle in the game. When looking up the solutions I read that DDR5 RAMs are quite unstable so he lowered the RAM frequency in BIOS by like a third (I got quite a good one so I could afford it) and to make sure he also undervoltaged the graphics card by 10% (RDR2 was also crashing and MSI afterburner showed me that the graphics card voltage went down first when the crash happened) - not sure if that helped tho. After that, not a single crash within hours of playing.

Glad it seemingly worked, but... that's not the ideal way to do things.
1) run MEMTEST86 (free) off a USB stick to validate your DDR5
https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

I'd try to stick to the default XMP/DOCP ram profile.

2) CPU? If it's one of the modern Intel's that have power profile problems you need to investigate further as there are BIOS updates and other tips to avoid crashing.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/14/24178751/intel-raptor-lake-crash-fix-etvb-not-yet

There's a lot more info out there.

3) Run CPU diagnostics (CPU-Z, Cinebench... I pick at least two) to stress the CPU and ensure it's not crashing. Not 100% guarantee.

WRITE DOWN THE CPU SCORES (so you can compare later if things change)

4) Run GPU benchmark/diagnostics. (i.e. Furmark 2)
WRITE DOWN the scores...

5) GPU undervolt?
Asus for example has their GPU Tweak III tool. You can run Furmark, get a score, then LOWER the power/voltage target and have the "OC Scanner" train the GPU (it tests at various voltage/frequency targets). Looking for minimal drop in performance but with lower power.

SUMMARY:
You want to be VALIDATING one component at a time in this order->
1) DDR5 (Memtest)
2) CPU (CPU-Z, Cinebench etc)
3) GPU (Furmark etc)

If you can stress and test this way the odds of this sort of problem showing up in a game are greatly reduced. Meaning it's probably a SOFTWARE issue.

Thanks for the suggestions! We're not PC gurus but it worked even though we didn't touch the CPU? Unless the system somehow didn't like the interaction between the CPU and the RAMs? We will look into it more following your tips, although we already tried UserBenchmark and everything seemed fine.

[AIntPJZ]

Originally posted by Moose:

imo your 1060 can't handle it.

i9 14900k and a super 4080 here and I kept crashing all the time. What solved the problem for me was limiting the fps to 60 . I don't really care, since it's not fps. 60 is more than enough for this type of game.

[Photonboy]

Originally posted by AIntPJZ:

Originally posted by Moose:

imo your 1060 can't handle it.

i9 14900k and a super 4080 here and I kept crashing all the time. What solved the problem for me was limiting the fps to 60 . I don't really care, since it's not fps. 60 is more than enough for this type of game.

BUT... limiting to 60FPS is probably just a specific "fix" for this scenario by reducing the load on the CPU and GPU.

However, you're likely to get CRASHING in other stress scenarios. Other games or applications.

I highly recommend you follow my above GUIDE on how to validate the system memory, CPU and GPU are working properly.

It's PROBABLY a CPU issue. Again, for 14th gen Intel it gets complicated. There's a bunch of BIOS updates for specific motherboards and some guidelines floating around for how to adjust motherboard CPU settings for stability.

(you can go to YOUR exact motherboard website to see if your BIOS/UEFI is the latest)

At the very least, run these tests:
DDR4/5-> https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm
(boot to USB stick (may need to manually select it in BIOS) then do a FULL PASS), then

CPU-> https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html (all-core for at least 10 minutes)

[Photonboy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAE4NWoyMZk

If anybody cares, there's a recent link to Steve and Wendell talking about 13th and 14th gen CPU crashing. It's still a major problem, and some of the CPU's will continue to get WORSE over time.

[ᶜ8ᴱ 🎱 ๖ۜKarma]

Originally posted by fctree:

I've been playing BG3 for about 17 hours, and I can't get it to stop crashing. I've had issues with the game crashing since I started playing it, but initially it was manageable. Sometimes, I could play for several hours without a crash. A few days ago, I added Karlach to my party and killed the "paladins" that were harassing her. I finished playing for the day, and from the next day onward, the game has been crashing non-stop. At best, I can play for five minutes before a crash occurs. At worst, the game crashes on startup (not loading a save file, but the initial startup). This problem seemed to crop up after I updated my GPU drivers, so I thought this might have been the problem, but I re-installed the previous drivers and the problem persisted. My GPU fan speed seems fine while I'm playing as well. I've tried running the game with DirectX 11 and Vulkan, and it's crashed in both cases. I did install the game to an HDD instead of an SDD. Could that be the problem? Do I just need to update some of my computer's parts?

I just love how people are talking about the game not running at all when the original post was in regards to the game crashing constantly. Not trying to be rude, just pointing out what I'm noticing as a trend here with these comments. Not going to bash anybody or drop names but doing this causes these kinds of issues to go unresolved for even longer due to too many conflicting issues being brought up and worked on. Please try to keep to the original topic of the post, if you have a suggestion then post it but please don't come to these posts to drop your separate issues in the comments and sidetrack people. I have been having this same issue as the original poster to a somewhat lesser extent since I can play for around 15 minutes to an hour before my game crashes. Usually it crashes in the character creator after the 15 minutes but if I can get through that then it crashes around the half hour to hour mark and it drives my friend and I insane because he doesn't get the same issue.

My specs for reference.
CPU: Ryzen 9 5900x
GPU: RTX 3060 12gb
RAM: 32gb DDR4 G.Skill Trident
Storage Drive: 1tb Samsung 970 EVO NVME SSD
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix B550-F

[Photonboy]

"Karma"
In case you didn't notice the last post is July 2024.

Anyway, there have been issues related to more recent NVidia drivers for months that cause some games to CRASH.

It seems to be worse with multi-monitor setups and/or using Frame Gen.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider tends to crashes with Ultra RT shadows (with recent NVidia drivers).

Anyway, ignore if this doesn't apply but I ended up doing a clean uninstall using DDU (in Safe Mode with Internet off) then going back to driver 566.36, then turning Internet back on.

My system:
W11
R7-5700X3D
RTX4070