Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Game keeps crashing, can NOT figure out why

Computer specs are well-above minimum specs:

* Core i7-8700K CPU. (default clock speeds; CPU never exceeds 40% utilization)
* 16 GB RAM. (ram usage never exceeds ~13 GB)
* NVMe M2 SSD
* GTX 980 Ti GPU. (default clock speeds)

I run the game at medium settings at 1440p resolution, I get 40+ FPS consistently.

I am running 0 mods, and I am running 0 other applications in the background.

I have the most recent drivers.

Regardless of whether I use Directx11 or Vulkan, the game crashes often.

I even bought a new GPU, an RX 6700 XT, the game still crashes despite running at all MEDIUM graphics settings (Dx11 or Vulkan; in fact Vulkan crashes upon start). I've verified game integrity 5x.

No other game crashes. I can run PUBG or WoW for hours, 0 issues.

The game ONLY crashes when I "do" something. It could be quick-traveling, it could be in the middle of combat, it could be talking to a merchant. But if I AFK and leave the game running and don't touch it, it doesn't crash. The game is bugged as hell. And the recent hot"fixes" have made it worse; on release day I played for 12+ hours with 0 crashes.

I haven't had a problem in 120 hours, minus a hiccup here and there, up until now. I'm stuck in the refugee camp in act 3 to random crashes. I can't replicate it, but I also can't even get far enough to explore the area to finish and move on. I just updated my gpu drivers and restarted my pc and it actually crashed faster than what it normally has been crashing at. Again, no problem up until act 3 and I turned some settings down, and then way down to no help. My pc is well over recommended specs. It's basically unplayable for me right now in this state.

ryzen 7 7700x
amd radeon 6900xt
32 gb ram
installed on SSD
launching from steam library on both dx11 and vulkan to same issue. have tried verifying files multiple times.
no mods ever installed

Not sure what to do, just want to let you know I'm also struggling with similar symptoms. Hoping it gets some attention because I've been having the most fun in a while playing BG3.

Edit to add that I did the suggest fix in this thread posed by 1Sascha and have had positive results for a couple hours now. Thanks!!

thanks. good to know i'm not the only person to whom this game is unplayable

It's not just you. A lot of people have had issues since Patch 2 landed, and more after Hotfix 5.

You'll get the obvious replies of "turn off the mods" etc, but don't its definitely something else. Just didn't want you thinking it was just you, as for a while I honestly thought that was the case for me

Re-posting this from a thread I created on the BG3-Steam forum:

"If anyone's having similar issues: It's been two days now since I disabled the launcher "for real". Using



in BG3 launch options in Steam (bg3.exe for Vulkan, bg3_dx11.exe for DirectX11). BTW: The examples in the linked article are missing the "3" from both file names ("bg.exe" when it should be "bg3.exe"), so copy-pasting them won't work.

Two 4 hour+ sessions with zero issues/crashes and Windows Reliability Monitor now has zero entries for me besides normal stuff like update-history events. No more scary red critical error entries in there.

Seems pretty clear that the lauchner is what messed things up for me.

Another interesting observation from the Reliability Monitor's timeline is that this seems to have started with the August 25th patch. On that day, my system's reliability took a huge nose-dive and since then there were at least one, more commonly two or even more, red entries/critical errors caused by the launcher-app. Plus the semi-regular, near daily, hard freezes I've talked about in my OP. That patch also gave me tons of "regular" CTDs during gameplay - those stopped with a hotfix published on Aug 26th, but the hard crashes/freezes didn't go away until I actually disabled the launcher.

According to some folks who took a look at my Windows error-codes over on a German Windows/IT-board, the launcher seems to have some sort of conflict with Windows .NET framework. At least on my system it does."


END of re-post.


What it boiled down to for me was this:

Bought/installed the game Aug 19th and it didn't give me any trouble until the Aug 25th patch. That one caused lots of normal CTDs during gameplay... like multiple CTDs per session. Plus I started to experience hard-crashes/freezes, usually after longer sessions. PC would freeze up completely (no BSOD), no more response to any input (not even the reset-button). A long press of the power button was the only way to get it out of that state. These CTDs went away with a fix they deployed a day later (Aug 26th), but my PC freezing up kept continuing.

I started checking Windows Event Viewer and found all sorts of errors in there, so I started to clean up and update my system.
1. Updated my BIOS
2. Updated Windows and confirmed NVidia drivers were up to date (although I do that regularly anyway)
3. Updated my mobo's chipset drivers
4. Updated my built-in Intel devices' (like LAN-adapter, etc) drivers
5. Ran Windows Memory Analyzer, no errors found
6. Ran Windows File System repair/analysis which *did* find and repaired some errors.
7. Removed all sorts of bloatware/helper apps from PC and/or autostart. Stuff like MSI Mystic Light, OpenRGB, Samsung Magician, etc were all banned from my system.
8. Kept Windows power-plan on "balanced"


I am as sure as I can be that the launcher was to blame for most of the stuff that was going on with BG3. The time-line in my Windows Reliability Monitor pretty much confirms this, since ever since Aug 25th, the reliability score went downhill and the timeline started to fill up with red warning icons when there were none before. And all of those entries always involved the Larian Launcher, often more than once per day. Plus, as I've stated in the quoted post: It's been two days now since I disabled this thing for good and the reliability-timeline's been clean since then.




^Red marking: Aug 25th, hard crashes/PC freezes and "normal" CTDs start happening
Green marking: Sept 7/8, Launcher disabled for good, no more critical entries and no more PC-freezes/hard crashes.

It seems important to use the method I quoted to disable the launcher. Before I had simply use the "bypass launcher" command in the Steam launch-options, but that, clearly, didn't work as I thought it would. The launcher didn't pop into view any longer when I started the game, but it must've still started/tried to run in the background. Using the command-line I posted in the quoted text up there *really* prevents the launcher from starting up and, thus far, my game's been running flawlessly and my system hasn't crashed on me.



S.

i'm not using any mods

amazing post, thank you very much!

do you think if I simply closed the launcher after starting the game, that would fix things?

You're most welcome.


I've no idea, but seeing how simply using the "--bypass -launcher" (or whatever the syntax for that command was) command in Steam did not really keep the launcher from...err... launching, I wouldn't be too sure that it actually shuts down when you let it open and then close it manually. It might still be running in the background.

Also: You might want to check your Reliability Report and see if you're also getting a ton of critical errors caused by the launcher.

Enter "view reliability history" (without the "") in your Windows search bar to find the app. Or look up Dell's instructions on how to find it.

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/...lity-monitor-to-identify-software-issues

Open the app and check your timeline... crashes/critical errors will show up as red icons in the time-line. Click on the day with such a red icon and a list of events will pop up underneath the time-line. If it's like on my system, you will find critical errors for that launcher pretty much for every single day that has a critical error reported.

It'll look like this:


^ Note that the entries you see here are just for the highlighted day... all the other red icons you see here for all the other days shown in my report all indicate at least one critical error involving "Larin Launcher".



Like I said: Using the "bypass" method resulted in the launcher not *visibly* opening when I launched the game - but it *was* still running in the background (otherwise it couldn't have crashed twice per day, right?).

What really seems to keep it from starting up is that command-line I posted further up (the one ending with %command%). No more crashes/PC freezes for me since I've done that. At least during the two days since I started using that launch-command.

I don't see why you wouldn't want to at least try that method. You don't really need that silly launcher anyway and you only have to put the command in there once.



^ RMB on BG3 in Steam Library, click on "Properties", then this dialogue will pop up. Look for "Launch Options" at the bottom right. You need to adjust the path to reflect your installation's location of course ... unless you also have the game installed on your G:\-drive...

Use "bg3.exe" if you're running Vulkan, "bg3_dx11.exe" if you want to run the DX11-version.




S.

200iq post

amazing how you figured this out and Larian is sitting there drooling

The advice to try running the game directly from the exe has been around for weeks. It will not fix every problem but the info has been there for people who bother to look.

TBH, I didn't figure that much out. Just went around the web, asking for folks' opinions/help who are much more knowledgeable than myself on these matters. And then I simply started to read what my PC was reporting...

What I will say though is that, at least on my PC, this seems to prove that the launcher is indeed what's messing things up for folks. I just played BG3 for at least 5 hours straight and... nothing. Still got a clean Reliability Report as well. I haven't checked it, but I bet if I re-enabled the launcher, the crashes would come back.

I also talked to a buddy of mine telling him about all this and he said he never had any sort of crashes... though he was on vacation for the last 2 weeks or so, so he might have simply not played the game with that Aug 25th patch applied. In any case, since most of the people with crashes whose reports I found on the web were on Intel-systems (at least the ones I read who did mention their specs), I asked my buddy for his and he is on an AMD-system.

No idea if this has any significance, just thought I'd share it.



Yes, I found that advice pretty early on as well ... however: Only using that launch-option that I ended up using seems to truly shut off the launcher. Using the "--bypass - launcher" command-line did not help in my case.

Besides: I think it's not too much to ask that this sort of thing gets ironed out. Especially since we're talking about a, IMO, rather pointless feature like a dedicated game-launcher you don't need to launch the game.




S.

A couple of days ago I had to manually set the exe to high priority in task manager to avoid horrible stuttering and FPS issues, but today my framerate is relatively stable — only now it's crashing constantly for whatever reason. My game is not only crashing every hour but also crashing discord at the same time. This makes me suspect it's another memory leak.

The game has been borderline unplayable for me since patch 2. It's infuriating.

Dang, I tried to bypass the launcher with the %command% prompt and it still crashed. The Aug 25th patch has been a death sentence for my game and I really don’t want to start over after 40 hours.

Is it possible to bypass the launcher and still play multiplayer?

Are we talking CTDs or is your PC hard-crashing? Like blue screen of death/freezing up?
If you're "just" CTDing, you should be able to find error logs created by the game itself (they're put into the BG3 root-folder, IIRC). Take a couple of those reports and also do a dxdiag and send all that to Larian's support.


If it's hard crashes you're getting, you should write down the error code the BSOD gives you. If the PC just freezes up on you without even a BSOD (like mine did) you should use Windows Event-Viewer and check for entries/error codes around the timestamp when the crash occurred. On WIn 11, just RMB on the Start-button and select "Event Viewer". I would google those error codes and also submit them to Larian - or try a specialized Windows/HW forum with knowledgeable people on it.

Also, as I stated in earlier posts, use Windows Reliability Report to see what sort of critical errors your system had at/around time of crash. Funnily enough, all my errors in my Reliability Report were caused by "LariLauncher", not by BG3.exe.

Have you tried some of the system maintenance I mentioned in my post? I did a lot of cleaning up/updating, and while I'm pretty sure those didn't do the trick for me on their own, they might have helped once I disabled the launcher.

Besides: Keeping all your HW-components' drivers up to date (not just Windows and your GPU-drivers) and verifying your Windows installation's integrity can't really hurt. I'd start with things like:


At the risk of repeating myself:

- Chipset/Mobo-drivers - go to your mobo's manufacturer's support page and see what they have for your model of motherboard.

- Intel components drivers. For example, their i255 ethernet controller is apparently infamous for causing trouble and I had drivers from 2021 installed before I updated them to 2023 ones. And those drivers I had to find "by hand". Neither the driver-package from MSI (my mobo's manufacturer) included these nor did they get updated by Intel's own online auto-updater.

- update on-board sound-card drivers.

- They say you shouldn't really update the BIOS on a system that's running fine, but ... if your BIOS version is older or really old, you might want to think about updating it. I updated mine anyway because I wanted to prep my board for 13th gen Intel CPUs. My Z690 board needed a BIOS-update for that. It's really not that hard to do this these days, but if you're not sure how to update the BIOS, check your motherboard manufacturer's website for exact instructions and then follow those to the letter. You don't want to brick your motherboard by going about flashing the BIOS the wrong way.

- run Windows system file checker. How-to is here:
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/...system-file-checker-in-microsoft-windows

This is, basically, a kind of "OS-re-install light". It will check your Windows installation's file integrity and repair corrupt files and/or re-install missing ones. It won't tell you what exactly it found and repaired (gotta open a log-file to see that), but it will tell you if it detected errors and if those errors were repaired. It did detect and repair errors on my system and took, maybe, 5 minutes to complete.

I'd also do stuff like disable any sort of in-game overlays (GF-Experience overlay, Steam Overlay, MSI Afterburner OSD, etc) and throw out other background bloatware like the stuff I banned from my system (RGB-SW crap, Samsung Magician, etc.). Plus if you're running overclocked, go back to default settings/clockspeeds and see if that makes a difference.

Plus you can try the usual in-game stuff, like reducing details, switching display mode ("borderless window" is supposedly the safest/most stable option), activate in-game framerate-limiter at 60 FPS, etc.




S.

it still crashes, though much less.

so it definitely helped, but Larian's product is still in crappy shape

Still looking good (no idea why this "yourphone"-stuff gives me installation errors, since I don't have a phone linked to Windows, but that's a different matter, I assume.. ).

Between Sept 7/8 and today, I've played every day and put in at least 15 hours of BG3-gameplay overall - with no CTDs, no PC hard-crashes/lock-ups and, as you can see, no critical errors reported on my system.


To those who still suffer problems with the launcher disabled, I'll repeat my advice of updating *all* your component drivers (not just Windows update and GPU drivers - so chipset/mobo drivers, other built-in devices drivers like ethernet controller or soundcard), checking your Windows Reliability Report to ID critical errors and running Windows System File Checker to check for broken/missing files in your Windows-installation. If you aren't super butter-fingered, you might also want to update your BIOS (especially if your current BIOS is really out of date).

Also: Try reducing and switching around in-game settings. For example: Apparently "Borderless Window" is the way to go.

Forgot to add that I also disabled Steam Cloud Sync since I don't need it and it gave me sync-errors after nearly every session. No idea if that could help, but it's one of the things I've changed.

There's clearly something going on here with BG3 (and the launcher) "triggering" problems on some systems. My theory is that while these underlying OS-/driver-/HW-issues were probably there all along, they might not have caused any abnormal behavior in day-to-day usage of the PC or playing other games outside of BG3/Larian's launcher.

Maybe you could liken it to having a small hole in the roof of your house. If you're not actively looking for it, you might not even notice it's there until it starts to rain.


S.

Also experiencing a ton of crashing, since the aug 26th update. It actually seems to have gotten worse after one of the hotfixes. They are all crashes to desktop, displaying a Vulkan or DX11 error depending on which one I'm using. No discernable pattern in what causes the crash - it can happen in a tiny area, the open world, in and out of combat.

Fixes tried so far:
verifying steam installation
switching between DX11 and Vulkan
changing in-game settings (DLSS, AO, borderless, etc)
updating graphics drivers
skipping the launcher as mentioned previously
blowing out dust and checking that gpu/cpu temps are within norms while playing

Performance is quite good, except for occasionally encountering some strange stuttering in npc heavy areas. Like it can get real bad in Last Light Inn one day, and then be buttery smooth the next. Lowering settings doesn't seem to change that, even shaders and light sources.


Laptop with
i5 10300H
RTX 2060
16GB ram



While this is generally good advice, I do monthly updates of everything, bar BIOS. And run plenty of other demanding games. Particularly stuff like chipset, ethernet and realtek is almost never going to cause problems with a game, and if it does, it points to a motherboard or CPU failing. And BIOS issues are related to overheating and power draw usually

It's most likely a problem on the game's end in combination with some specific graphics drivers or gpus. Or something to do with how the game handles loading/caching

I think I already mentioned this, but according to some very knowledgeable folks who took a look at my Windows crash/error logs, the launcher seems to have some sort of conflict with Windows .NET framework.

From my own experience with other apps and demanding games, I would agree that this seems to be mostly the game's/launcher's fault. I mean... I can play DCS or IL-2 for hours on end with no CTDs or hard-crashes... and I play both these games in VR.

S.

I checked the event logs on my PC, and as 1Sascha says, it looks like the launcher is crashing BG3 with a .net error. This is rather curious, becuase I start the game without the launcher, and I've checked - when the game starts, there is no launcher in the process list. I have no idea why the launcher suddenly makes an appearence, so I went and renamed it. So far, after about one hour of playing, no crashes. Then again, I've been working in IT long enough to know that this is not yet significant... ;-)