Dragon Age: Origins crashes when selecting "New Game"

I see your laptop has both integrated Intel graphics and a dedicated Nvidia GPU. Maybe the game is not switching to the GPU.

It used to be that you had to force the use of the Nvidia GPU from the Nvidia control panel (under 'Manage 3D settings'). You can still try that, but there was a Windows update a while ago that caused this setting to be overwritten, so see if you can set the default GPU in your Windows settings instead.

1. Right click your desktop and go to display settings.
2. Click graphics.
3. Click change default graphics settings.
4. In the dropdown, select the Nvidia GPU as the default high performance GPU.
5. Fingers crossed! 🤞

The "change default graphics settings" link didn't send me to an option to change the default GPU, so I set the default GPU for the DAO executable directly to the Nvidia GPU.  No changes - the game still crashes in the same manner.  I've attached a screenshot of both the GPU settings window and the "change default graphics settings" window.

I also tried implementing the change from the Nvidia control panel, which didn't work.  On my previous computer, I had to disable the Intel Graphics Driver from Device Manager in order to launch the game, so I tried that as well during these changes - also no change.

@Zygalious 

Do you have the game on the EA app? If so the "- Set CPU affinity to use only one core" may not work.

Please double check in the details section of the task manager (right click DAOrigins.exe > set affinity.
Only core 0 should be ticked off.)

I did have the game installed by the EA app as well as on steam.  I uninstalled the game from there, uninstalled the EA app itself, and reinstalled the game via steam.  It still won't run, and the shortcut that I made still doesn't seem to actually be changing the CPU affinity (thanks for pointing that out, I hadn't thought to actually check if the affinity was applying).

Even manually setting the affinity after game launch doesn't seem to be doing anything, and the next time I launch the game the affinity seems to reset back to the default value.

@Zygalious 

The following will only work on a Steam instalation! (And it might still not work if EA app interferers.)

1  Open the Windows Editor
2. Copy and paste "%comspec% /C start /normal /affinity 0 DAOrigins.exe" (Without the quotes) into the empty editor window.
3. Save the file as "AffinityGAME.txt" (without the quotes) into the Dragon Age Origins folder.
4. Change the file Extension from "AffinityGAME.txt" to "AffinityGAME.bat"
5. In your Steam Libary > right click the game > Properties.
6. Copy and paste <path-to-batch-file> %command% into the "Launch Options" Box.
   Exemple: "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Dragon Age Origins\AffinityGAME.bat" %command%  (The quotes need to STAY IN)
7. Start the game over Steam > Check if the affinity was applied.

The game won't start at all after applying this fix.  After hitting play, the launcher fails to appear, and the play button quickly changes from Play -> Stop -> Play.  

I've double checked that I don't have the EA app installed, and that all of the EA folders are gone from my system - unless the EA installation persists somewhere else, that shouldn't be an issue.

@Zygalious 

OK, then we have to start over to find the culprit.

Please create a new DxDiag in text file format and post it with your next reply.

Than:

• Press the Windows key and "R" at the same time.
• In the new Window, type or copy and paste "%LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps" (Without the quotation marks) > Press ENTER
• Look if there are any "DAOrigins.exe.Xxxx.dmp" files in the "..Local\CrashDumps" folder.
• Zip 2 - 3 "DAOrigins.exe.Xxxx.dmp"  files together and upload them at a free file hosting service like Dropbox or Onedrive.
• Post the link here.

If there aren't any dump files of DAO:

• Press the Windows key > Write: Command Prompt > Right click on "Command Prompt" in the search results > Run as administrator.
• Copy and paste reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\devenv.exe" /v DumpType /d 2 /t REG_DWORD into the prompt Window > Press ENTER.
• Play the game until it crashes.
• After the game crashes, let all Windows crash dialogues finish.
• Press the Windows key and "R" at the same time. > Type "%LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps" (Without the quotation marks) into the new window > Press ENTER.
• Zip 2 - 3 "DAOrigins.exe.Xxxx.dmp" files together and upload them at file hosting service like Dropbox or you can use the Onedrive "public" folder.
• Post the link here.
  
  
  If you want to undo the automatic dump creation, use the command below in a elevated command prompt (As in point 1) reg delete "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps" /f

These are the three most recent crash dumps: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ugq70qc6owbob6au7c6z6/DAOrigins.exe.dumps.zip?rlkey=tni7ymg5ogka736x14876k0zf&st=fm6l1x53&dl=0

Also attached the new DxDiag.  Sorry, forgot at first.

@Zygalious 

The game crashes with a NULL_POINTER_READ exception, meaning that the exe or a module it calls is trying to read from an invalid memory location.
The problem is that this can have many causes, but DAO itself is not one of them, the game runs fine for many people, so something is interfering.

Please preform a clean boot and test the Game in clean boot mode.

In clean boot:
- Make sure the "EABackgroundService" remains enabled under point 3 in the guide.
- Make sure your virus scanner and other security software and also Afterburner and similar software is disabled.
- Make sure any CORSAIR/ASUS/Razer software is disable or deinstalled and that your GPU & CPU are not overclocked.
- Make sure only your Mouse and keyboard are connected to the PC. (No other peripherals.)

Update: I was able to launch a new game, but now I have another issue.

First, the "fix".  I got the idea to reinstall Vortex Mod Manager, just to see the status of the mods on my profile.  When it downloaded, the mods were listed as "Enabled", so I disabled all of them.  Once the mods were disabled, clicking "New Game" and starting a game of Origins worked and brought me through the intro movie to the Character Creation screen.

The new problem is that the character creation is broken - which I think is probably still related to the original issue in some way, since the game was only crashing when starting a campaign that required the use of the character creator.  While in Character creation I can select a gender and race, but I cannot select a class, and the character model doesn't show at all.  I'm unable to continue from here without selecting a class, so I'm forced to return to the title screen.

This is only applicable to trying to launch a new game of Dragon Age: Origins.  Attempting to launch Awakening, Witch Hunt, or Golems of Amgarrak still results in a crash, and Darkspawn Chronicles / Leliana's Song launch successfully.

Lastly, I thought to download the standalone Origins Character Creator, to make a character there and import it into the game.  But the exact same bug persists in the standalone Character Creator: No character model, and no way to select a class or progress to the next screen.

I've attached a screenshot of what my character creation screen looks like, for clarity.