For those experiencing crashes and how to solve

[Morgan]

As someone who had constant crashes after the last update and being fed up waiting for a solution I did the following. Note albeit this has resolved ALL crashes to me (played 7+ hours straight to test and warped using floo spots to test) it might not all work for all of you and also this only applies to NVIDIA users as I do not have an AMD card to test similar approaches.

The steps are as follows and is important to follow them in this order.

1. Delete the Hogwarts Legacy folder from the Program Data folder under your user directory; it is hidden so you have to make hidden items visible. After that it is located on C:\Program Data\Hogwarts Legacy.

2. Download the 531.29 driver from NVIDIA's website but DO NOT install yet.

3. Download and install DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) from Guru3D's download section, but do not run it yet.

4. Delete DirectX's shader cache from your system (on Windows 11 is on Storage subsection of the Settings app and on Windows 10 is by right clicking your boot drive and selecting "Disk Clean-Up", then clean system files, then select the checkbox for DirectX Shader Cache).

5. Be sure you have tested safe-mode on your PC, if you want to enable it, on the search bar of search for "Advanced Startup Options" and select the result and follow the instructions to enable it (only in case you are not sure you have it enabled).

6. If you are absolutely sure you have Safe Mode working, launch DDU and make it reboot into Safe Mode and uninstall your current driver (in Safe Mode ofc). Be sure to select in DDU options to block Windows Update from automatically downloading drivers so Windows doesn't install the generic or an outdated driver after reboot.

7. Install the driver you just downloaded, select the "Custom (Advanced)" option on the setup screen; on the options that follow be SURE to select the checkbox that reads "Perform a Clean Installation" and DO NOT install GeForce Experience (if you want to record use OBS instead).

8. Reboot.

9. Not strictly necessary, but if you have 40 series card, see if your vendor has released an updated VBios on their website as some release vbios had very low voltages for idle causing nv driver errors whilst idling.

After doing all that, I haven't crashed at all after 2 days of 6+ hours of game-play and no black screen on shader generation or seizure warning screen.

Hopefully it helps.

My Specs:

MoBo: Asus Crosshair X670E Hero.
CPU: Ryzen 9 7950X.
GPU: Asus TUF 4090.
RAM: 128GB DDR5 RAM @6000MHz.
SSD: 2x 2TB Kingston KC3000.
HDD: 2x Seagate Exos X20 20TB drives.
PSU: Asus Thor 1200W.
Cooling: Lian-Li Galahad 360mm AiO.
OS: Windows 11 Pro for Workstations Version 22H2.
NVIDIA driver: 431.29 (non-hot fix build version).

[Niixblue]

I can't find the program data but will keep trying.

[dubiousa]

imagine there are people with AMD cards :D

[Niixblue]

found program data, but can't find the 'Free Space'

[Morgan]

Originally posted by Niixblue:

found program data, but can't find the 'Free Space'

My bad, did not recall the name it had under W10 and previous, I fixed it, it is named "Disk Clean-Up".

[Roberts.LV]

That did not help for me.
What did the trick for me is disabling resizable bar in my motherboard BIOS for Nvidia GPU.
This is insane, does not make sense to me.

[Morgan]

Originally posted by Roberts.LV:

That did not help for me.
What did the trick for me is disabling resizable bar in my motherboard BIOS for Nvidia GPU.
This is insane, does not make sense to me.

ReBar for me causes more issues than what's worth, so I leave it disabled.

[Spoon]

Your solution is not helpful.

[Morgan]

Originally posted by Spooner:

Your solution is not helpful.

I said above it might not work for all; for 3PCs has worked so far.

[Thotiana]

the devs need to fix this issue. My game never crashed till this recent update.

[Morgan]

Originally posted by Thotiana:

the devs need to fix this issue. My game never crashed till this recent update.

Crashed for me often, but I got tired of waiting so I tried doing stuff to fix it and fortunately worked for me.

[Akunamatata]

Hi, you wrote

Originally posted by Kyrie:

Delete the Hogwarts Legacy folder from the Program Data folder

I read that the game's shader cache is located here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\shadercache\990080
You don't mention this folder at all. I deleted both to be sure...
I also cleared the system cache with Disk Clean-Up utility and edited Engine.ini in
%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Hogwarts Legacy\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
as shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CArSQCJOrxI

I haven't installed the newest driver, since just recently I clean-installed 528.49 (with DDU in safe mode, I do this for years every time I install a new driver). So far the game runs smoother, the stutter is very rare.
My only problem was crashes on load (when I fast travel or load the game) - the game crashed in a middle of a loading screen or just couple of seconds after the game loaded at a new location (my character was able to make 2-3 steps and boom). I have to admit I load the game very frequently since I use "save-reload" method to farm rare beasts or when I find a chest to be able to pick what I want from it. After the last update of the game it crashed maybe once every 10 loads.
So far I played about an hour and a half after I applied those methods, all was fine, It was a little bit of stutter after teleportation to a new location (apparently textures loading issue), but less than before.. But the game did finally crash in the middle of a loading screen after maybe 15 reloads (I was hunting for a specific kind of Hippogriff)... Let's see if that was just an isolated incident...

[vachon]

IDK if devs fixed it or I'm just lucky. Before last Tuesday (this is Thursday very early Friday) the game would crash every few hours, several times a day. Since then I've not had a crash yet, two plus days running with no crashes. Again, IDK if I'm just lucky or the devs fixed it. I'm hoping the devs fixed it as I'm NOT that lucky for the long term.

[Morgan]

Originally posted by Akunamatata:

Hi, you wrote

Originally posted by Kyrie:

Delete the Hogwarts Legacy folder from the Program Data folder

I read that the game's shader cache is located here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\shadercache\990080
You don't mention this folder at all. I deleted both to be sure...
I also cleared the system cache with Disk Clean-Up utility and edited Engine.ini in
%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Hogwarts Legacy\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
as shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CArSQCJOrxI

I haven't installed the newest driver, since just recently I clean-installed 528.49 (with DDU in safe mode, I do this for years every time I install a new driver). So far the game runs smoother, the stutter is very rare.
My only problem was crashes on load (when I fast travel or load the game) - the game crashed in a middle of a loading screen or just couple of seconds after the game loaded at a new location (my character was able to make 2-3 steps and boom). I have to admit I load the game very frequently since I use "save-reload" method to farm rare beasts or when I find a chest to be able to pick what I want from it. After the last update of the game it crashed maybe once every 10 loads.
So far I played about an hour and a half after I applied those methods, all was fine, It was a little bit of stutter after teleportation to a new location (apparently textures loading issue), but less than before.. But the game did finally crash in the middle of a loading screen after maybe 15 reloads (I was hunting for a specific kind of Hippogriff)... Let's see if that was just an isolated incident...

I did test with the old driver and it crashes, doesn’t with the newer after doing it all the steps. That’s why I specified driver version as old one would crash after ~2h whilst the other worked for ~6+.

[AaSu]

crazy

[Akunamatata]

Originally posted by Kyrie:

I did test with the old driver and it crashes, doesn’t with the newer after doing it all the steps. That’s why I specified driver version as old one would crash after ~2h whilst the other worked for ~6+.

I'm really ashamed to admit, but somehow I haven't done a thing that was supposed to be the first thing I should've done after the game update - to check the game files... So i did it now and what do you think - 3 files didn't pass the check!
So the game downloaded more that 30 GB, and after that played for 3 hours without crashes yet, so far so good... And the stutter is almost gone, I see it in rare occasions for a very short time...

Nevertheless, I think I will listen to your advice and install the new driver at some point, certainly if the game will crash again... I have an older card (2080 Super), so maybe it's less relevant for me...