While lauded by almost everyone as one of the greatest video games ever made, better even than Conker's Bad Fur Day, there are still problems with Elden Ring crashing. Whether it's crashing on startup, or crashing in the midst of gameplay, it's still extremely annoying.
So if you are plagued by this issue, you may be desperately searching for answers. And that's where we come in. Like a beacon of light in an otherwise dark and desolate world. But enough talk. Now is the time for action.
How To Fix Crashing on Elden Ring
If you are experiencing crashing on Elden Ring, there are plenty of potential reasons this could be happening. And so, consequently, there are a lot of potential fixes to work through. But before we get into that, start by making sure that your computer meets the minimum specs required for the game. These are:
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: INTEL CORE I5-8400 or AMD RYZEN 3 3300X
- Memory: 12 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 3 GB or AMD RADEON RX 580 4 GB
- DirectX: Version 12
- Storage: 60 GB available space
- Sound Card: Windows Compatible Audio Device
It's important that your computer can cope with what is a very demanding game. If your rig isn't up to scratch, then you are going to face problems consistently, and nothing we suggest is going to provide a sustainable solution. But, assuming your computer does meet or exceed those requirements, here's what we suggest.
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Verify Integrity of Game Files
Start by verifying the integrity of the game files. Many users are suggesting that crashing became notable only after the most recent game patch was released. It's possible that an error with one or more of the new files is a contributing factor to the issue. You can check this by doing the following:
- Open Steam and open Library.
- Right-click Elden Ring and select Properties….
- Click the Local Files tab and click Verify integrity of game files….
- Wait a few minutes for Steam to verify the game files.
Once the process is finished, try playing Elden Ring again, and see if this makes a difference.
Try Borderless Mode
Some players have found that by playing the game in Windows borderless mode, it reduces or stops crashing. Essentially, this means having the game open in a window, but maximising the window to cover the full screen.
It isn't entirely clear why this seems to be working. But it's a very quick and simple solution to try.
Clear Your DirectX Shader Cache
Another solution that has been highlighted is to clear your DirectX shader cache. This is found in the NVIDIA folder. You can find this as follows:
- Press Windows key + R and type inside the search box %appdata%, then press Enter to open the AppData folder.
- When the folder appears on your screen, click on AppData.
- After that, open the Local folder and search for the NVIDIA folder.
- Inside the NVIDIA folder, access the DXCache folder.
- Now select all the files located inside the folder and delete them.
- Once done reboot your PC.
A Few Other Potential Fixes
The fixes we highlighted above are some of the most frequently cited that we've seen. But there are a raft of other fixes that may also help:
- Update your graphics driver. If you use AMD, you can check for updates here. If you are on NVIDIA, go here. And for Intel, click here.
- Disable the Steam overlay.
- Update or delete the Epic Games Launcher.
- Lower your graphics settings. Users have reported that going from High settings to Medium settings seem to reduce the frequency of crashes.
- If you have an AMD GPU, try enabling the Radeon Anti-Lag feature
- Close Rivatuner Statistics Server and Afterburner, if either of these are running
If nothing seems to be resolving the problem, you may want to reach out to the Elden Ring customer support team for further assistance.
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What Causes Elden Ring Crashing?
As you will have guessed by now, there doesn't seem to be a specific, singular issue that is responsible for causing all the crashes that players are experiencing in Elden Ring. The sheer number of fixes that have reportedly worked for different players, would suggest that crashing occurs for a wide variety of reasons.
But the most recent patch definitely seems to have resulted in a spike in reports of crashing. If this is the case, then we can hope that any subsequent patch will help to resolve it. So keep checking for any software updates, and install them when you can.
Whatever the issue, try the fixes we outlined above, and hopefully, at least one of them will have the desired effect.