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KaiArrase's avatar
KaiArrase
Seasoned Novice
2 months ago

Dragon Age Inquisition Crashing

Hello, I have an issue. I decided to replay the game recently and redownloaded it through steam.
I managed to play for around 30 hours with no issues, reaching Skyhold. Once there I was trying to level up Cole and the game closed to desktop. There was no error message or anything and it didn't generate an event in event viewer, nor any dump file anywhere else. 
I figured it was just a random bug and went back to playing, but then it happened again, when I was walking through the Hinterlands. And then it kept happening in random places too.
I thought, perhaps my save file got corrupted somehow? And tried creating a new character, which crashed right in the prologue, just before decide whether to take the mountain path or charge.
Since then I have tried almost all the troubleshooting tips, but nothing worked for me and I do not know what to do anymore.
My laptop is Asus Rog Strix G18 with the following specs:
intel i9-14900HX CPU
Nvidia rtx 4080 laptop GPU
32G of RAM
Windows 11
I have tried:
-Verifying game files through steam
-Lowering my graphics settings
-Playing in windowed borderless and windowed mode
-Re-installing my drivers
-DDU reinstalling both drivers for my integrated intel and nvidia gpu
-DDU rolling back drivers for both my gpus
-setting CPU affinity to different cores through process lasso (I have tried many configurations but none worked)
-deleting the profile setting files and letting the game generate them again
-setting exception for steam, ea app, dragon age.exe, the folder with dragon age.exe and save folder in windows defender
-disabling turbo boost for CPU
-clean boot
-full re-install of the game, including the deletion of all shader caches (DX, Nvidia and Intel)
None of these worked and I am at a loss now. The crashes are completely random and numerous I now have muscle memory for quicksaves, it's eating away at my sanity. Please help me somebody ;-;

28 Replies

  • KaiArrase's avatar
    KaiArrase
    Seasoned Novice
    2 months ago

    holger1405​ 
    Okay I updated the BIOS and then went to search some more, I found some Kernel reports in the windows WER folder and one of the folders had that specific dmp file in them so I uploaded it to dropbox here is the link:
    https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ren6za13ywq902nz83keq/WATCHDOG-20251010-1921.dmp?rlkey=von1mynkz4tcmij0xtsegt82k&st=xg4rhloy&dl=0
    Also after the BIOS update was finished it booted me into my homescreen and completely froze and I was forced to hard restart my laptop but now it works and it says it updated.

  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    2 months ago

    KaiArrase​ 

    This is Black Screen Live Dump and the error is related to dxgkrnl.sys.  (Windows graphics kernel.) 
    So close after you reinstalled the OS, it indeed points to a possible hardware problem. 
    (This is still not a definitive diagnosis; that would be impossible over the internet.)  

    But because you said that this laptop is still under warranty, I would suggest sending it in or consulting a local repair shop just to be on the safe side.    

  • KaiArrase's avatar
    KaiArrase
    Seasoned Novice
    2 months ago

    holger1405​ 
    Yea but this happened right after I updated the nvidia driver, I immediatelly DDU to my older one and haven't had it happen again. Could it be driver related?
    Also let's say one of my gpu is dying/dead - wouldn't I have issues in other games too? I can run things like Cyberpunk, Monster Hunter Wilds and Baldur's Gate 3 completely fine - no stutters, no throttling, no crashes. Only games that crash on me are dragon age and the sims 4 (and with sims 4 that's apparently a known intel CPU issue that they will probably never fix).
    I will still try to send this to the shop, but I think I will risk it and wait a bit more since I need this not only for gaming but also for university work - so I'll try waiting for the exam/winter break before sending it.
    Also about the Dragon age crashes? I found more ppl with the same issues (at least 3 ppl on steam) and they have completely different set ups. One of the said that they can somewhat predict the crashes by seeing the game starting to mess up. 
    So I started timing my sessions - I can play for around 1 hour in story missions/dlc with no crash, in general open world I can do 2 or even 3 hours, then it gets unstable. I have actually been able to tell in the story mission when I was about to crash because the whole story mission (it was the Adamant fortress one with the wardens) the game was running it's usual 120 fps smooth sailing, then in the Fade part which was around 58 minutes in, there was a big fight with waves of demons - during that time I started noticing strange - not exactly stutters - but it felt more like playing an online game on high ping? Like my character would port around (when I placed an AOE spell it would randomly reposition him somewhere completely different) and stuff like that. Then it crashed when reaching the Fear demon.
    So... this kind of seems like some sort of pseudo-memory leak? I say pseudo because I am not actually leaking memory - my memory usage stays completely normal when I monitor it, but it has the same symptoms. Once the game crashes and I go back to it I am able to go for an hour again stable. 
    Anyway I don't know if this helps anything I am just sharing  my experiences in case anyone gets here as well :/.

  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    2 months ago

    KaiArrase​ 

    There are always some people that have problems with a game wile the majority has none. 
    What happens to others is not important. Their crashes can have completely different reasons to yours.
    The only thing that matters is what you can see in the error logs of the specific system. I have explained to you, to the best of my ability, the errors that occur on your system. 

    What you make out of that is your decision. 🙂

  • KaiArrase's avatar
    KaiArrase
    Seasoned Novice
    2 months ago

    holger1405​ 
    Yea I understand that but their issue is the exact same to mine, word for word. Get to Skyhold with no crashes -> game starts crashing with no error codes. 
    And if the bug from the last dxdiag goes away after I revert to the old drivers that means the new driver was bugged no? Or can it still be broken gpu?

  • 3babc12ab025483f's avatar
    3babc12ab025483f
    Rising Newcomer
    2 months ago

    So I have the same problem and there is a boatload of information that says the Origins game has a memory leak. It was recommended several times to run the ntcore 4gb_patch. You first must have an un-encrypted daorgins.exe file on your local system THEN run the patch. This is supposed to stop the memory leak. I haven't tried this yet but there is several youtube videos on what needs to be done. I just started playing this week and started crashing right after I retrieved the scrolls during the trials. There was a mention of a location on dropbox that had a clean version of the exe file, but the link doesn't work. 

  • This is a youtube video link that tells you how to fix this. I did it yesterday and so far no more crashes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1eJpy46SYQ

  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    2 months ago

    3babc12ab025483f​ 

    I recommend making the DAO EXE large address aware to anyone who comes here with DAO crashes.

    But this thread is about Dragon Age: Inquisition.