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KaiArrase's avatar
KaiArrase
Seasoned Novice
5 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
    5 months ago

    holger1405​ 
    I have already performed DDU for both drivers like so:
    I followed the guide you linked (I have used it before when troubleshooting sims):
    I have used it to boot into safe mode, clean remove the intel drivers and restart, then I installed the intel drivers I have downloaded from my laptop manufacturer site (while being completely offline, apps closed, antivirus off), once those intel drivers have installed I restarted my laptop again.
    Then I used DDU again to safe boot, un-installed my Nvidia driver, restarted, installed the driver previously downloaded from the laptop support page (once again, offline, no apps, antivirus off) and restarted laptop again.
    Then I went back online.
    I do not have the file that you pointed out and I have not deleted anything. The only file I have in those folders is dated 9. 2. 2025 which corresponds to a BSOD I got while playing a different game, it turned out to be that game's implementation of DLSS. Aside from that I haven't really had issues and Dragon Age Inquisition generates nothing when it crashes. I checked the dumps, checked WER, checked Reliability Monitor, the game folder, minidumps and event viewer, nothing crashes when Dragon Age does. I tried setting up registry to save the dumps but they don't get generated when Dragon age crashes. I did have some armoury crate app crashes but I have since completely removed that from my laptop and my dragon age still crashes.
    Do you think my laptop might me broken? It's still within warranty, I could try sending it for fixing but it seems only the sims 4 and dragon age inquisition crash (and sims 4 actually gives me errors).
    Only thing I haven't tried yet is re-installing windows completely which I am about to try.

  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    5 months ago

    KaiArrase​ 

    The next step would be to DDU  the intel graphic drivers. On a Laptop both the intel and NVIDIA graphic drivers work in conjunction.

    But seriously, the number of significant error reports in your DxDiag either point to a hardware problem, a rather sever driver problem or to problems inside the OS.

    You can check if these *.dmp files still exist and upload them to your public OneDrive folder or a free file hosting service like Dropbox.
    C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\091125-22078-01.dmp
    C:\WINDOWS\LiveKernelReports\WATCHDOG\WATCHDOG-20250521-2256.dmp
    If these specific *.dmp files are no longer available, it would be good to have a minidump whose creation date corresponds with a crash. 

  • KaiArrase's avatar
    KaiArrase
    Seasoned Novice
    5 months ago

    holger1405​ 
    Okay nevermind, I just crashed again it is not the trials sadly :(
    This is truly maddening, I did the entirety of Crestwood, went back to Skyhold, did the whole forbidden oasis, turned the game off, came back to it and it crashed walking from camp in Forbidden Oasis. 
    I wish it would at least give me an error but there is nothing, event viewer is clear :(

  • KaiArrase's avatar
    KaiArrase
    Seasoned Novice
    5 months ago

    holger1405​ 
    Hey! Nope no BSOD the game exits with no errors and I had already done the DDU but I think I solved my crashing issue and it had nothing to do with my graphics drivers. 
    I posted this on the dragon age and dragon age inquisition subreddits as well in case anyone could help me there and some person on the Inquisition sub told me they had the same issues on their ps5 and that it was caused by the trials for them.
    When he said this I realized that on my skyhold crashing character I decided to enable even ground and take it slow after I reached skyhold cause I felt like my levelling was too fast - then it started crashing.
    On my new characters I started with those trials already enabled because I felt like they made the gameplay more fun and those characters were crashing too.
    So I just removed those two trials and have been playing for a while and haven't crashed a single time - I will keep playing some more and update this in a few days, marking it as a solution if I don't crash again.
    Thank you for your help though! (Also those dxdiag events are pretty old I'm sure I had some issue with a different game bugging with my driver causing blue screens, but never dragon age).
    EDIT: "old" is a strong word I mean they are BEFORE I did the DDU 

  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    5 months ago

    KaiArrase​ 

    There are 0x141 VIDEO_ENGINE_TIMEOUT_DETECTED  LiveKernelEvent errors in your DxDiag. 
    This means that one of the video engines, most likely the graphics driver, stopped responding within a time frame determined by the OS. If this occurs, the OS terminates the driver and resets the GPU to prevent the system from becoming unresponsive or crashing. 

    1.  Follow this manual to the letter to clean uninstall all NVIDIA graphic driver components.
      IMPORTANT: if you use a Pin to log into Windows 11 don't use DDU in safe mode!
      Use it in your normal Windows session.
    2. Install the graphics newest driver > Go online.
    1. Test.


    There are also other serious errors in your DxDiag.
    Do you get BSOD when you play? 




  • holger1405's avatar
    holger1405
    Hero+
    5 months ago

    KaiArrase​ 

    Please add a DxDiag to your next reply.

    A DxDiag is an overview of your PCs technical features and recent software errors.
    There is no personal info in it except for the “Machine name” in the second row. (You might delete the “Machine name” line if you wish too.)

    How to create a DxDiag:

    1. Press the Windows key and "R" at the same time to open the Run dialog box.
    2. Copy and paste or type "DxDiag" (Without the quotes) into the new field. > ENTER
    3. Wait until the green bar is gone > Click on "Save all information"
    4. Save the file to your desktop.
    5. Attach the DxDiag file to your reply (paper clip symbol)
  • KaiArrase's avatar
    KaiArrase
    Seasoned Novice
    5 months ago

    Oh forgot to add, I also tried playing with the EA app in offline mode and also completely without internet connection, that didn't work either.

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