Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Frequent Freezes on Mac – Game Becomes Unplayable in Act 3

Hi everyone,

I’ve been experiencing persistent game freezes while playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on my Mac. These aren’t traditional crashes — the game just freezes during certain events, and I’m forced to Force Quit every time.

System Specs:
• Mac Studio (M4 Max, 64 GB RAM)
• macOS Sequoia 15.5 (fresh install)
• Steam version of BG3 (fully up to date)

Game Progress:
• Started playing in early June.
• Logged ~90 hours of playtime.
• Currently near the start of Act 3.

Issue Summary:
• I’ve had ~100 freezes so far.
• Every single freeze occurs during character interactions — specifically when initiating dialogue and the game attempts to render the character.
• This happened a lot in Act 1, slightly less in Act 2, but in Act 3 it’s become almost constant — roughly every third interaction causes a freeze.

Current Roadblock:

I’m currently stuck at the Shirra encounter. The game freezes every single time I try to trigger it, no matter what I do. I cannot progress further.

Troubleshooting I’ve Tried:
• Fresh reboot after each crash
• Validating game files (multiple times)
• Adjusted graphics settings from Ultra to Low, including disabling all possible visual options and switching between windowed/fullscreen modes
• Disabled iCloud for the save game folder
• No mods used until Act 2 (enabling/disabling them has had no effect)
• No logs in DiagnosticReports folder — the game doesn’t technically crash, it just freezes completely

Additional Notes:
• Freezes are always tied to character interactions.
• Never experienced a freeze outside of dialogue triggers.
• I’ve been managing up until now by quick-saving before every conversation, but I’ve hit a wall.

I’ve submitted a support ticket to Larian, but I wanted to post here in case anyone else has experienced this or has ideas for workarounds or solutions I haven’t tried yet.

Any help would be greatly appreciated — I really love this game and would like to keep playing!

I am experiencing the exact same issue! Also on a Mac (MacBook Pro, M4 Pro, 48 GB RAM) and I have completely reset/reinstalled the game, threw away all my old saves and still get these crashes almost every time I interact with an NPC (especially story-related stuff).

Before these crashes became so constant, I managed to finish the game (with just a handful of crashes along the way), so I'm pretty sure the game generally works on my machine/my setup.

I got a very nice response to my support ticket from Larian. I haven’t had a lot of time to play since then, but I couldn’t get the game to crash at all so far with this advice. Let me share the relevant parts:

If you are currently using mods or have used them previously, they may be what is causing this issue. It’s best to double check that all mod files are completely removed. To do so, check the '~/Documents/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/Mods' folder. Also delete or rename the modsettings.lsx file in the ‘/Baldur's Gate 3/PlayerProfiles/Public’ profile folder (it will be automatically recreated the next time the game is started).

Are you shutting down all non-essential programs before launching the game? Things like anti-virus, firewalls, overlays from graphics tweaking or monitoring programs, as well as chat programs, have all been known to cause issues.

Try lowering the graphics settings and resolution, and switch to Windowed or Fake Fullscreen display mode, to see if that will make a difference. If the monitor refresh rate is higher than 60, try setting an FPS cap in the game options for 60.

Try verifying local files: in the Steam library, right click on the game and select Properties, switch to the Local Files tab and then click on the 'Verify Integrity of Game Files...' button. Also in the Local Files tab, click the 'Browse...' button, then exit out of the Steam client and try launching the game directly from the app file in Finder. If you are using the GOG version, in the Galaxy client, select the game, then the settings icon at the top right, beside the Play button and under Manage Installation, select 'Verify / Repair'. That menu is also where you can select 'Show folder' to try starting the game from the app file.

Try browsing to the '~/Documents/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate 3/LevelCache' folder and delete the contents. A corrupt file there can cause problems when saving or loading, though that is less likely for an intermittent issue.

Try doing a clean boot and then test the game. Start/restart your Mac and hold the Shift key down as soon as the progress bar comes up in the startup window, releasing it after the desktop appears. Alternatively, from the login window, hold the Shift key when you click the Log In button, and release it when you see the Dock.



Disable Steam cloud support either globally or for only this game. For disabling Steam Cloud globally, within the client click on the Steam menu and select Settings, and then Cloud. Or just for this game: go to your Steam library and right click BG3 and select Properties, then switch to the General tab and check the Steam Cloud section. Alternatively, exit out of the Steam client, or Galaxy for the GOG version, and just start the game directly from the executable when required.

For the GOG version, in Galaxy cloud support can also be disabled either globally by clicking on the gear icon in the top left corner and selecting Settings, and then Game Features. Or for this game: with the game selected, click the settings icon at the top right, beside the Play button. Under Manage Installation select 'Configure...' and switch to the Features section. Alternately, exit out of the client and start the game directly from the app container.

Next, try browsing to the '~/Documents/Larian Studios' folder and rename the 'Baldur's Gate 3' subfolder.
This folder contains the saved games, configuration files and a level cache folder. Deleting or renaming it will get the game to recreate it on startup; playing the game from a different OSX user account would effectively do the same thing. With Steam running and cloud support enabled, the client would just download the cloud copy of your existing profile. If this is a new install and you don't have any saves, you can just delete the folder, and it doesn't matter if cloud saves are enabled.

After that, see if you can start the game. If so, check that you can start a new game and save/load. If that works and you have any save files, exit and copy a couple from the renamed folder into the newly created profile's /Savegames/Story folder. If that helps, move the rest of the saves over.

If the game still crashes, delete the new Documents BG3 folder and extract the replacement folder from the download below into your '/Documents/Larian Studios' folder, and see if that will let you start the game.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/o03s...rlkey=4owsvlivvu6mzsz3ig5k3qfc1&dl=1

The graphicSettings.lsx file is set to 1280x720 Windowed mode, Very Low quality preset, which you can change in the options either manually, or by clicking autodetect. See if this gets the game to start.

If the game still crashes, delete the replacement BG3 folder and if you have any saves that you wish to keep, rename the original back again.