Can anyone help me figure out what's causing my game to crash every few minutes? PC

  • I have GTX 1080 with latest drivers (Tried rollback). My game just freezes all the time and sometimes I get an error that says Driver crashed and was reset. Tried lowering the graphics and same issue. I usually play alone and already lost around 100K from crashes.

    I have a friend that has another issue, whenever he opens the quest wheel his game freezes. 100% of the time. We both tried uninstalling and reinstalling. Anyone got any more ideas?

    Update: I was messing around with the settings and I noticed (although not entirely sure) that when I change the Lighting Detail Settings to Cursed, the game becomes more glitchy but crashes less often.

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  • Is your GPU overclocked?

  • @nyadc85 Good point but no, I don't have anything overclocked since all my specs are more than enough to run everything at max with 60fps

  • What if anything is running in the background when this is happening? Did it run fine before? Have you changed anything recently?

    There's so many different things it could be.

  • Well you could try submitting a support ticket including attaching a copy of your DXdiag.

    But I should add contacting support is like trying to contact the dead it's a bit hit and miss. LOL

  • @nyadc85 Nothing is running in the background, I mean, the usual stuff. And I had 0 problems with crashing in this game even since Tech Alpha. Only thing that changed is their last update. Since then I ve been having constant crashes and the game is really glitchy.

  • @davejc64 Submitted a ticket many days ago. I don't think they answer tickets that can't be dealt with a copy paste response.

  • @abysswalkerpts said in Can anyone help me figure out what's causing my game to crash every few minutes? PC:

    @nyadc85 Nothing is running in the background, I mean, the usual stuff. And I had 0 problems with crashing in this game even since Tech Alpha. Only thing that changed is their last update. Since then I ve been having constant crashes and the game is really glitchy.

    It sounds like some type of conflict but figuring out exactly what that is is going to be rough. My best suggestion is do a full driver sweep and clean everything out. Reinstall Direct X, C++ libraries etc.

  • @nyadc85 What do you mean do a full driver sweep and clean everything?

  • @abysswalkerpts Yeah I have been waiting for nearly a month for a proper helpful response to my random Pastiebeard disconnected Ethernet cable problem.

  • @davejc64 $60 well spent right?

  • @abysswalkerpts I would say that, but I had the foresight to take the game-pass option instead, it certainly shows a lack of respect and professionalism when people a asking for support and not getting it.

  • @abysswalkerpts Try $100 in Australia. :/

    My PC will totally shut down 4 out of 5 times whilst playing SoT.
    I haven't a clue as to why, perhaps Windows updates? Game updates?
    The last time I had to wait for updates while I tried to quickly load Windows and get back into the game with my crew.

    This is a new hard drive bought especially for Windows 10 just to play SoT. I have since added a couple of programs that I've used in other OSes for years but otherwise it's pretty empty.

    It barely scrapes through the minimum requirement so everything is on the low settings.

  • @davejc64 said in Can anyone help me figure out what's causing my game to crash every few minutes? PC:

    @abysswalkerpts I would say that, but I had the foresight to take the game-pass option instead, it certainly shows a lack of respect and professionalism when people a asking for support and not getting it.

    They're a relatively small team and this is a new game launch, they're flooded. Valve support tickets can sometime take up to two weeks for perspective.

  • @nyadc85 So you would be happy waiting a month and getting nothing apart from a copy and paste reply asking for dxdiag and ISP info etc?

  • @abysswalkerpts said in Can anyone help me figure out what's causing my game to crash every few minutes? PC:

    My game just freezes all the time and sometimes I get an error that says Driver crashed and was reset.

    Sorry but after reading your OP again, it's obviously not a SoT issue.
    There is something amiss with either Win 10 or the GTX 1080 driver.
    You have virtually eliminated the driver to be at fault by rollback but that isn't a 100% certainty that the previous version was any better.

    Do you have Windows updates turned on? I don't trust them as they keep changing your privacy settings but I have "spybot anti-beacon" installed to stop that invasion of privacy.

  • @nyadc85 That's no excuse I am afraid. I get what you are saying and I understand they are also humans. But you need to understand something.

    Everyone that bought this game feels cheated since they made us think that the beta is just an idea of what the game will be like, and then they come and release what feels like another beta to me. Absolutely no content.

    So you have a game with $60 price tag, with no content, and the few people that want to play it have problems and get no support. I mean, they have no rejoin option, you get no rewards unless you turn in chests and lose everything if you crash. So excuse me for not cutting them some slack when they offer no support for people that can't even play it.

    If this was a free game I would certainly understand all of this. But developers have to know that when you charge premium, your customers expect premium.

  • @admiral-rrrsole Everything is original and up to date. And I am not saying it's just a SOT problem, but I started crashing as soon as I updated SOT to their latest patch with the legendary ship customisation. Nothing else changed on my pc. And I would like to point that this is a game from microsoft so you'd expect to have no conflicts with windows 10.

  • @abysswalkerpts I do recall having the same error "Driver crashed and was reset" even when not playing a game and well before SoT. Sometimes it even happened at start up. Now that i think about it, it may have been on my Win 7 HDD.

    Later on the nVidia driver updates did fix it. It is a lesser quality built-in video card than yours.

    I'm sorry I can't help.

  • @admiral-rrrsole That's good to know though, thanks for helping!

  • @abysswalkerpts I'm also running a GTX 1080 and the game is running fine for me at the moment, which also adds to the thinking that it might be something else.
    Not very helpful I know, there is some maintenance this morning which might help with the issue, there are also some articles on the website which you may or may not be aware of in the meantime.

    I did a quick google search, reddit is sometimes a useful place for suggestions too, but nothing much came up.

  • I have a 1080ti. I did have some crashing myself after the last patch. I updated my graphics card drivers after that no more issues.

  • @admiral-rrrsole it is a SoT issue im trying to fix it for a long time now. After 1.0.4 all this crashes happen to different setups. Its a SoT thing that is 100% sure. I called microsoft yesterday becaus of this problem, we tried hard to fix it with the callcenter guy. But no chance even with PowerShell we could not achieve any fix. i flashed my GPU's bios i did everything possible to fix this on my side, but nothing helped. If this patch is not gonna fix this issue im done with SoT not because of no content, just because they don care about such a big issue.

  • As far as I know Rare is aware of graphics driver crashing issues, even on NVIDIA. There is a support article about this somewhere and it also says to lower lighting level as a workaround for now.

    For those times the game crashes without any message, perhaps you could post the event viewer log of those crashes.

    How much RAM are you running in your machine, and did you perhaps expand your memory at any point in time?

  • @fearthebeardig I'm sorry I did not see a post by you and was addressing the error that abysswalkerpts reported.

    I don't know your circumstances.

    Yeah I know of the PowerShell method as my son had major problems trying to start the game on his system. Identical "twin" PCs, both brand new HDD (same brand and size) both with brand new installments of Win 10. Funny how something works on one system but not on an identical twin. Both systems bought brand new at the same time from the same vendor.

    However it's my understanding that the PowerShell method is only to repair the Windows Store corrupted files. Be sure to reboot between Powershell and trying the game.

    Below is the list of suggestions that the Sea of Thieves tech supp sent me. I hope it helps.


    These are some troubleshooting tips below that may help you get into the game should you be one of the affected players.

    Fix #1
    Login to Windows 10 with a local Microsoft Account. This fixes majority of cases reported.
    Fix #2

    Open the Windows 10 Store, then in the top right corner click on the profile picture.
    If you have multiple accounts signed in, sign out all of them but leave the email account linked to the game’s purchase signed in.
    Next, in the Windows 10 Store download any free app at all.
    Then try playing Sea of Thieves again through the Windows 10 Store “Library” page.

    Fix #3
    Go to the below link and save / run the tool. Follow the on screen instructions to troubleshoot / fix your issue.

    Fix#4

    Press Windows + R
    Type Powershell and hit enter
    Copy and paste the following into the powershell window and press enter

    Get-AppXPackage | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}

    If your problem persists please create a support ticket for further assistance.


    After trying their methods (except fix#2) and only having the game work once. I uninstalled and reinstalled it.
    Thankfully it finally worked. Maybe doing the Powershell method before the reinstall is the answer?

  • @admiral-rrrsole no porblem mate, yeah i got this "solutions" aswell but non of them work. As a said the call center agent and i tryied everything to figure out what the problem is. Nothing helped, i looking forward to the patch notes

  • I have a work around for the constant crashing. It's not pretty, but if you are desperate to get in game and join up with friends it works. Search device manager in the windows search bar and open that up. Once in device manager navigate to display adapters (click the +) and if you have an integrated graphics card (denoted as Intel(R) HD Graphics or something similar) you're in luck! Disable your dedicated graphics card (this would be your AMD or Nvidia card) and now attempt to launch the game. Lower your graphics settings to cursed and limit your maximum resolution to something horrifyingly low (remember you're on integrated graphics now). With any luck you will be able to play the game without crashing!

    A few things to be prepared for:

    • Abysmal frame rates (mid to high 20s)
    • Painfully long load times (but not infinite, I promise!)

    Just remember to reenable your graphics card in device manager after your session.

    Alternatively, someone on reddit suggested underclocking your GPU by about 5% which is supposed to solve the issue with SoT. Haven't tried that one yet.

  • @admiral-rrrsole
    Sounds like a power problem. How old is your PSU? The output could be insufficient if you push your PC to the limit, even if it worked just fine up until some point. They tend to lose efficiency as they get older, depending on quality/price ...

    If I understand you correctly, I would also suggest upgrading the rest of your system, too xD

    Regards

  • @dakershe Cheers mate. You are quite possibly right but the system is only about 18 months old.

  • @admiral-rrrsole
    Have you checked the power demands of your system? maybe you saved some money where you shouldn't? there are some helpful websites with guidance, try google.

    Cheers

  • @dakershe I totally understand an appreciate your suggestions, thank you. However I did cut corners being on a pension and having to buy my son's PC at the same time. So yeah, we got new but cheap ones off ebay. I have other commitments at the minute but a power supply upgrade would be a good place to start.

    Thanks again for your replies, much appreciated.

    Fair winds and happy sailing to you. :o)

  • @admiral-rrrsole
    Thank you for your kind words, good Sir :D

    Best wishes for your gaming situation.
    Cheers

  • I can confirm that I had the same issue. I ran last night without a crash by turning the lighting and shadows to common. I'm not sure if this fixed the issue with nvidia driver or possibly the update helped. I'm going to run with lighting and shadows at common until further notice.

  • @abysswalkerpts Have you noticed that this happens when turning in loot to outposts?

  • I managed to fix this issue by going into the Nvidia control panel. Under 3D setting I wasn't selecting SOT.exe from the drop down menu. Now I am able to get 110 to 115 FPS.

    However even with my ultrawide AlienWare 120hz G-Sync monitor I'm noticing some screen tearing this could be frame rate drops. My internet speed is 390mbs and 35 up and I have a 7700k OC to 5.1ghz along with 16gb ram. Temps are around 50C on full load.

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