Community Fix For Unbound Freezing & Crashing Since Vol.5 Update

[Don Bone]

Before anyone asks, I'm an Unbound owner on Epic Games btw. Don't ask why. It's just the cheapest deal I could get Unbound for at the time.

Been having the same problem everyone has, but I found a community fix that worked for me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/needforspeed/comments/178f07s/vol5_game_stucks_and_crashes/

I tried & it works like a charm. I can play normally again now (except that Linkups & Boosted Events still don't appear where I'm at. Likely gonna need a VPN & connect to NA/Netherlands/EU for that to work again now) but at least I can do stuff & race now. So hopefully it'll work for you guys as well.

Ok, so the steps are:
1) Make a backup of the whole Unbound folder in My Documents. Put the backup somewhere else.
2) Delete The Unbound folder in My Documents
3) Delete The shadercache folder in Unbound's install directory
4) Manage > Repair the game via EA app/Verify game integrity via Steam. Probably both.
5) Go offline via EA app (the three lines icon on the top left > go offline)
6) Download nfs_hits_cpu90_fix.cmd on here https://github.com/Octanium91/NFS_Heat_CPU_Load_FIX
7) Place nfs_hits_cpu90_fix.cmd in Unbound's install directory, run it & press any key on your keyboard so it can make a config file for your game using information about your processor, this will will enable the GPU to be utilized more & preventing your game from crashing due to overload on the CPU (which is the problem we're having).
8) Go offline and open the game, at the continue screen, exit game and see if an Unbound folder has been created in My Documents, if it has, insert the save you made a backup of from earlier and replace the newly created save (just the savegame folder is fine).
9) Go online via EA app with the same step you did to go offline
10) Launch the game normally. It'll work normally after this & you can just run Unbound as usual without repeating these steps again.

EDIT: You might also want to try updating your windows & GPU driver.

EDIT2: The guy who posted the fix also said this:

You are supposed to do it completely wiping out any remnants of the data EA syncs ,that includes wiping your profile data, because apparently,the bug conflicts with your old settings and something triggers it . No graphical settings need to be changed in order for the fix to happen, everything needs to be default,or lower than 1080p. The way you can check to see if the compilation was a success,is during loading if the game is loading gradually as the NFS logo in the bottom right,if it stutters,the bug is still there ,and as the bar progresses outwards it should speed up in the end and be smooth . That should indicate the bug isn t happening anymore.your shader cache files in the My Documents Unbound folder needs to be at least 237 mb,any lower than that,than the shader cache was unsuccessful.

Proof of game working again after the community fix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWCIwmcQruM

[TheGhostAssassin]

Followed all steps, didn't work :(
Now it crashes/freezes much faster - on the 'NFS Unbound' title screen, as soon as I hit Enter. Deleting the cfg file lets me login like before but it freezes within a minute or two.

[RageBrooh]

same here but i did them 2 times in a row hopin i did sometihing wrong but it didnt work for me ;((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( sadge

[DorsettCase]

Works for me
The game does not freeze either on the loading screen or during the game. But there is a big minus: the game, even at minimum settings, now does not produce 60 frames.

My Pc
I7 3770
16 gb RAM
Rx 6600

[chrom[K]a]

Not works for me
I5-8600k
rtx 2070
16 gb ram

[TheGhostAssassin]

Originally posted by TheGhostAssassin:

Followed all steps, didn't work :(
Now it crashes/freezes much faster - on the 'NFS Unbound' title screen, as soon as I hit Enter. Deleting the cfg file lets me login like before but it freezes within a minute or two.

UPDATE: Found a fix! I tried the method again and this time, I deleted the 'app manifest' files in the steamapps folder as well as the 'shadercache' folder in steamapps (outside of the Unbound/Excalibur folder) and it works now.

[Don Bone]

Originally posted by TheGhostAssassin:

Originally posted by TheGhostAssassin:

Followed all steps, didn't work :(
Now it crashes/freezes much faster - on the 'NFS Unbound' title screen, as soon as I hit Enter. Deleting the cfg file lets me login like before but it freezes within a minute or two.

UPDATE: Found a fix! I tried the method again and this time, I deleted the 'app manifest' files in the steamapps folder as well as the 'shadercache' folder in steamapps (outside of the Unbound/Excalibur folder) and it works now.

Ok, sounds like this should be specific to Steam users, which I encourage all Steam users to try and see if it works out for the rest of you.

That aside, as it stands this bug doesn't seem to limited by hardware. People with various hardware performance are experiencing these regardless of whether their specs being worse/better.

I just hope they're gonna roll out a fix soon since this community fix isn't exactly ideal, nor would it work for everyone.

[SushiiTrashh]

im not gonna do alot but thnxs for telling us, im just waiting for them to fully fix the game, cause i think its only with pc players, i sometimes managed to get online and see no pc players on console players and ofc my game crashes lol, im sure its a simple fix but EA is being a whole ass ♥♥♥♥♥ taking their time fixing it lol

[AdamZealous286]

im sure i did every step and its still freezing.

[DR33P55]

Originally posted by TheGhostAssassin:

Originally posted by TheGhostAssassin:

Followed all steps, didn't work :(
Now it crashes/freezes much faster - on the 'NFS Unbound' title screen, as soon as I hit Enter. Deleting the cfg file lets me login like before but it freezes within a minute or two.

UPDATE: Found a fix! I tried the method again and this time, I deleted the 'app manifest' files in the steamapps folder as well as the 'shadercache' folder in steamapps (outside of the Unbound/Excalibur folder) and it works now.

Delete only 1846380 folders (it is a game ID).
It works.

[chrom[K]a]

Originally posted by DR33P55:

Originally posted by TheGhostAssassin:

UPDATE: Found a fix! I tried the method again and this time, I deleted the 'app manifest' files in the steamapps folder as well as the 'shadercache' folder in steamapps (outside of the Unbound/Excalibur folder) and it works now.

Delete only 1846380 folders (it is a game ID).
It works.

Yeah, but not works

[Don Bone]

Originally posted by SushiiTrashh:

im not gonna do alot but thnxs for telling us, im just waiting for them to fully fix the game, cause i think its only with pc players, i sometimes managed to get online and see no pc players on console players and ofc my game crashes lol, im sure its a simple fix but EA is being a whole ass ♥♥♥♥♥ taking their time fixing it lol

Yeah, I'm positive there's little to no one working on it. For them taking this long to fix things (and lets not forget the missing Linkups & Boosted Events for everyone outside of NA & EU since Vol. 4 that still isn't fixed until now) seems to coincide with them moving Criterion to developing Battlefield & releasing an official statement that lowkey sounds like they're abandoning NFS as a whole.

Even worse is that though this is only experienced by PC players, it also doesn't seem to affect all PC players so they're treating it like an isolated case. So this might last a long time until they manage to fix things and even when they do, another game breaking bug might resurface.

So yeah, I understand where you're coming from but as for things on my end, I'm not gonna wait especially if I only have to do very few simple fixes.

[Don Bone]

Added this to the OP post. The guy who suggested the fix also said this:

You are supposed to do it completely wiping out any remnants of the data EA syncs ,that includes wiping your profile data, because apparently,the bug conflicts with your old settings and something triggers it . No graphical settings need to be changed in order for the fix to happen, everything needs to be default,or lower than 1080p. The way you can check to see if the compilation was a success,is during loading if the game is loading gradually as the NFS logo in the bottom right,if it stutters,the bug is still there ,and as the bar progresses outwards it should speed up in the end and be smooth . That should indicate the bug isn t happening anymore.your shader cache files in the My Documents Unbound folder needs to be at least 237 mb,any lower than that,than the shader cache was unsuccessful.

[sidneylennon2016]

My nfs unbound freezes on the title what can I do

[󠁴]

thanks for your information there is a guide help u to fix ur problem better https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3157728600

[ZenŌ]

Also restart steam and ea app otherwise the game wont run.
Fix everything, game loaded in sec.