This game can go to hell

I know this may not help everybody, but it certainly helped me. After doing a completely fresh install of Windows, I reinstalled the game and had crash after crash. Sometimes it would crash just getting to the Main Menu. After numerous setting changes, driver updates, and what-not, I figured out that my problem was hardware. For some reason, my motherboard doesn't like using all 4 sticks of RAM at once. Any combination of the 4, when used 2 at a time, works perfectly fine.

Windows worked just fine, as did most of the other programs I use on a regular basis, it was only when I launched DA:I. I didn't think to try other memory intensive programs until after I found out what was going on.

My problem wasn't freezing, exactly, but a crash-to-desktop, but some, and I emphasize *SOME*, of the issues people have been experiencing could be hardware. Mine was.

Before you nerd rage on me, saying your hardware is fine, have you run a MEMTest recently? I figured out it was a RAM problem because the test locked up when it got to around the 9GB mark every time.

Another posibility is the video card. Not every game engine does graphics the same way. It's impossible to test the game with every video card on the market, much less every possible combination of settings on each of those cards.

Try this:

1) Turn down the settings to minumum. (including reslution)

2) Test the game for a bit.

3) Choose one setting and crank it up to max.

4) Test the game for a bit.

5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 until it starts freezing/crashing again.

6) Turn the problem setting back to minimum and repeat steps 3 and 4 to find out if any others are causing problems.

It could be a combination of settings that causes the problem, not just one specific setting.  If it is still crashing with settings at minimum, then there's something seriously wrong and EA/Bioware should be working with you to resolve the problem.

Yes, in order to figure out what is going on, steps like this may be necessary. You wouldn't expect a mechanic to be able to fix your car without even knowing what kind of car it is, much less any potential modifications you've made to it. Helping the developers figure out the problem helps not only you, but others as well. And, it might even allow them to avoid that problem with the next game.

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@Fred_vdp wrote:

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@eyematter wrote:

No... It's an AMD.. it is legit...

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I know AMD, but I'm not familiar with the "Phantom" series.

Edit: Do you mean Phenom? I googled Phantom, but the only results were from message boards, not from AMD's site.

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When the person reporting the problem can't even get the details of their own rig correct, I stop trying to help. 😕mileyfrustrated:

Yeah it was a typo It is a AMD Phenom 2. 

It's not a work around or a trick to ensure that your system is stable. The thing is, if the game works fine on 99 computers, and crashes on one of them, which is more likely?

a) The game is so badly written that it's a miracle it works on any computer

or

b) There's something specific to that one computer that is causing problems

The developers simply cannot account for every possibility, and thinking they can or expecting a game to work perfectly on every single computer is just silly. I hate to be the snobby guy who says it, but really, the console was made specifically for people who either don't know how or don't want to maintain a stable computer.

I'm not saying anyone who has problems with the PC version should use consoles instead. I'm saying PC gaming requires a certain amount of effort to keep up with. If you don't want to put in that effort, then you are going to have a sub-optimal experience. This is true for any PC game.

Yes, there are bugs. You can't get away from that. Just stop automatically blaming the developers for all your problems without putting in at least a little effort. PCs can have the superior gaming experience, but it takes work to get it.

In DAI, I have the occasional CtD on a brand new, out of the box gaming laptop. I've gotten it on a freshly rebuilt custom rig. All h/w tests pass and no other programs flaking out.  I actually don't care about a few random CtDs, but OP seems to be having far more than a few random ones, which might make me think the problem lies with:

1. System compatibility: PC does not fully meet game requirements
2. GPU grasp exceeds it's reach: System is compatible, but graphics settings are too high and need to be scaled back to match system capabilities
3. Just because Windows can multi task, doesn't mean you should: Other resident active programs are competing for resources. I run Teamspeak with the game because Origin sucks rocks, and antivirus which excludes the Origin game directory, but nothing else.
4. Error, Will Robinson! There is an underlying problem with the system itself. There might be a disk that needs a little chkdsk /f love, a misbehaving driver, a missing driver (the first place people should look is the Device Manager for disabled, unknown or non functioning devices), or a hardware fault.

I do not think a commercial off the shelf program should require a full system rebuild to get it to run correctly. However, a little housekeeping never did a computer any harm.  Unless you count that time a friend of mine stuck a vaccuum hose in her still running PC case to suck out the dust bunnies... -_-.

There should be a sticky letting people know that the best way to get help troubleshooting is start with basic info (like a DX Diag in the OP).