What should you do if your game crashes?

[DonkeyKongJr]

I am playing The Witcher: The Enhanced Version, and I get a crash about every few game sessions, it happens quite often. Usually when this happens I reboot and delete my previous save, and then start back from an earlier saved game.

I am wondering if this is really necessary to do all these steps, am I just wasting time by doing this?

Do I even need to reboot? What do you recommend?

Thank you very much.

DonkeyKongJr

 

[devivre]

Crashes in games can have all sorts of reasons. Most of the time it has nothing to do with your save game.

The typical things you can consider after a crash are listed here:
https://support.cdprojektred.com/en/witcher-1/pc/sp-technical/issue/998/my-game-crashes-6

Also keep in mind that overclocking or underclocking your hardware can also lead to crashes.

Personally, when a game crashes, I usually just restart it and continue playing. If it crashes a few times in an hour, only then I consider other options. Especially since older games are often not that stable, which isn‘t surprising because hardware, drivers and OS do change a lot over the years.

 

[DonkeyKongJr]

Wow, okay, thanks, I've actually rebooted my computer about 50 times because of this. I thought rebooting would clear the memory and reset all the variables and bugs that might have caused the crash. Am I just wrong about that?

 

[SigilFey]

Backwards compatibility is the likely culprit, especially if you're on on Windows 8, 8.1, or 10. Ensure that you have all the following installed:
DirectX 9.0c
Visual Studio from 2006 to present
Visual C++ from 2006 to present
.NET Framework
XNA Framework

For Studio and C++, be sure that you are installing each version in order, first the x86 version, then the x64 version. All versions should be installed side-by-side. If a version is not needed or not compatible with your PC, it will tell you when it goes to install.

Are you getting any errors when you crash?

Also, as @devivre stated above, overclocking is a great way to introduce instability. If you're using any, I'd completely disable it while running TW1. Especially if it's hanging and forcing you to hard-boot the PC, that's not good. I'd definitely disable it if that's the case.

There's no reason to reboot or delete the saves. If you're not seeing any corruption in the saved games, then everything is probably fine there. It's most likely the engine itself running into a conflict with an OS, drivers, and hardware it wasn't made for.

Something to try, as well, is running the game as an Administrator in compatibility mode for Windows XP (Service Pack 2). If the game is installed anywhere under Program Files or Program Files(x86), move it to the root of your drive or a folder of your own creation on the root.

 

[DonkeyKongJr]

Thanks for telling me this, I think it is helpful.

The bottom line is I don't have the compatible graphics card to play, so I'm just playing with Intel HD 2500 onboard graphics is forcing me to run in "dont force min sys requirements" launch mode.

Not getting any errors when crashes, other then "this program has stopped running". I don't really have to reboot, I just thought that helped but I guess it really doesn't.

I'm okay to keep playing this way, with the crashes sometimes, keeping in mind the advice you have given me, thank you.

 

[SigilFey]

The bottom line is I don't have the compatible graphics card to play, so I'm just playing with Intel HD 2500 onboard graphics is forcing me to run in "dont force min sys requirements" launch mode.

Onboard graphics are not supported, and will almost certainly result in issues. Major issues? No. Ongoing and annoying issues. Almost assuredly.

Do you have no way of installing a GPU? TW1 is an older title. You should be able to grab a GTX 500 or 600 series online for about $50-$75. That should be enough to run the game on ultra-max settings +.