You must have jumped with anger and questioned why my games always keep crashing on my Windows 10/11. You must have tried more than once to find out the exact reason on the Internet but have been disappointed.
This post has listed 13 common reasons to help you figure out the exact reason that causes your games keeping crashing and help you to solve this annoying issue.
If you just want to boost your game or optimize your PC for gaming instead of knowing the exact reasons, you can follow the article mentioned below to finish it: 15 ways to optimize PC for gaming.
#1 Outdated device drivers impact games
Can you imagine the importance of drivers for your PC? The answer is without drivers, the hardware devices installed on your Windows can not be used at all. So, if you are wondering why your games keep crashing on your PC, you should consider whether your drivers have been updated. If your drivers aren’t updated with time, your PC must have severe problems and functional issues.
For instance, if you are using an outdated graphic card driver, you must get caught in poor resolution and unwanted game crashes and slow response to command keys when playing games, all of these impact your gaming performance.
Similarly, if your audio drivers are outdated on your PC, you may start experiencing lags in audio output or your media player application crashing down due to bad audio, therefore, you will also have a bad gaming experience due to outdated audio drivers.
So updating your drivers is a necessity for speeding up your games.
Follow these posts to update your outdated drivers:
- How to Download and Update All Drivers on Windows 11
- 4 Ways to Update NVIDIA Drivers on Windows 11/10 for Gaming
- 3 Ways to Update AMD Graphic Drivers on Windows 11/10 for Gaming
- 3 Ways to Update Intel Graphic Drivers on Windows 11/10 for Gaming
If the crashing issue still exists, move to the next reason.
#2 Your PC does not meet the system requirements of the game
The main reason the game crashes on your PC is that your PC’s system information does not meet the minimum requirements of the game, which cause crashes and bugs in resource-intensive scenarios.
Because if your PC meets these requirements, you shouldn’t have any problems installing and running the game.
And at this time you may question why you play the game without any crashes before, but recently you have encountered so many times of crashing.
If you are in this situation, you should check whether this game has been updated recently. Updating a game will sometimes improve its system requirements. Similarly, you need to upgrade your PC’s configurations or buy a higher-spec PC.
Next time, when buying games online from Steam and other gaming platforms, you should verify the game’s minimum requirements through official documentation or FAQs, and check if your PC meets these requirements at first.
Generally, you need to compare the following requirements:
- Memory
- Available space
- CPU
- Graphics Hardware
- Operating System
- Media and Sound hardware.
#3 Overclocked Graphic cards make PC unstable
As we all know, many users tend to overclock their PCs in order to achieve better performance in games. However, sometimes your computer system will become unstable because of GPU overclocking.
Why does overclocking crash your computer? This is because overclocking is a process of making the computer hardware or its components operate faster than the frequency stated by the manufacturer by changing system parameters.
Once your PC is overclocked, your components get boiling, which causes them to be unstable and your valuable hardware will become risky, and you also put your data at risk.
Except for that, you have the possibility of crashing your system so that’s why your game keeps crashing after overclocking your PC.
#4 Overheating causes game freezing
When you find that your computer boots normally, or the normal computer works without any problem, only after playing games or playing games for a long time, the computer suddenly freezes, which is most likely caused by overheating.
Overheating is known to cause game freezes, crashes, and performance issues such as low FPS, especially when running high-powered games.
Computer overheating will cause your computer to automatically shut down or end tasks while you are playing games or working to cool down your CPU to prevent internal damage on your PC. This is what we often call the self-protection function.
#5 Unnecessary programs that are running in the background keep games crashing
If your game keeps crashing on Windows 10/11, it may be caused by too many programs running in the background. Because these applications running in the background take up a lot of memory, your computer’s memory capacity is not enough, and your game needs to occupy memory space.
Eventually, your favorite game can’t use the memory it needs, causing the game to crash frequently. Therefore, closing all background programs before playing the game will be necessary.
#6 Bugs in the game limit game progress
Maybe when your game freezes or crashes, the first thing you think about is that your computer has some issues. But the game itself also has bugs. Some games come with bugs or glitches that limit game progress.
For instance, game files are very important for any game. If a single file is missing or corrupted, it can mess up the entire game, and cause crashing, and so on.
Therefore, if you find that you have upgraded your computer configurations and there are no other computer issues, and the game freezing problem still exists, at this time, you need to verify the integrity of your game files. To verify game files, you can refer to your specific game distribution service’s website for details on how to verify the integrity of your game files.
#7 Power supply failure leads to game crashing
If you are having issues with the game crashing during the process of gaming, there could be several reasons behind it, poor power supply could be one of them.
PSU (Power Supply Unit) is one of the main components of a PC. It is responsible for transmitting power to other components. So, if your PSU doesn’t provide enough power, it can cause problems like PC freezes and apps keep crashing, most notably game crashes. Then your system shuts down or restarts in cases where it simply can’t provide enough power, that’s maybe the reason your games keep crashing.
So if your PSU is too weak, the easiest way to fix this is to upgrade your PSU so that it can provide enough power for the game.
#8 Game Mode is harmful to your game
Windows’ new Game Mode is designed to improve gaming performance, even on low-end computers. It can help stabilize frame rates in games that require more system resources, even if your computer can’t handle it properly.
However, another thing to keep in mind is that not all games are compatible with Game Mode. So, while Game Mode is a very beneficial feature that can and does improve performance, some game players have reported bugs that only occur when Game Mode is enabled.
For example, the frame rate drops, the overall system slows down, and the game crashes. If these issues happen, it’s most likely because Game Mode deprioritizes important background processes that can cause system-wide effects while allocating more resources to the game you’re playing.
So, if Game Mode is not compatible with the game you are playing, it is recommended to turn it off.
#9 Third-party antivirus software interferes with your game
Does the game keep crashing? Don’t worry, if you use any third-party antivirus programs, they are the culprits. If you downloaded a new game from the Internet and then it continually crashes while playing, there is a virus or malware.
Your third-party antivirus software can interfere with your favorite games and cause them to crash frequently. Some malware steal CPU resources, which can also cause crashes.
Therefore, you need to make sure to install the required software from a trusted official website. If you’re not sure what software your game requires, you can get information from Google or read the game’s documentation.
There is another possibility that sometimes, Windows Defender or antivirus software installed on your PC can flag game files as malware and delete them. This can sometimes cause your game to bug out and eventually crash.
To prevent this from happening, you can create exclusions in Windows Defender or Anti-virus software.
#10 Poor or slow network connection stops games
You may have discovered the importance of the Internet to gaming in real life. When you have a superfast gaming PC with a super-spec graphics card and other high-speed components, your online gaming abilities are severely limited if you have a slow internet connection.
Conversely, your opponent with a PC with a lower profile than yours but with a faster network connection will be able to react better to your actions and beat you almost every time.
Of course, a poor internet connection can also cause your game to crash. For online games, a crash occurs when a network issue causes a delay in updating the game client from a remote server.
To fix this, you should check your router and disable other internet applications to ensure that only the game receives data. Avoid this problem by making sure your internet speed is suitable for gaming. In addition, online games should also avoid using Wi-Fi as much as possible.
#11 VPN issue brings a sluggish game
A Virtual Private Network or VPN can be a powerful tool for securing your internet connection. But even the best VPNs can interfere with your connection, sometimes rendering your favorite PC games sluggish or even crashing. Some games may even prevent you from using a VPN entirely.
This is because a VPN slows down your internet connection after all your internet traffic needs to go through the VPN server. For example, if you are located in the US and connected to a VPN server in Asia, your data packets will need to travel farther, which will result in higher ping and possibly more lag during gaming.
All of these will cause the game to freeze. So to avoid this problem, you should try to avoid using a free VPN. We know how tempting it can be to use a free VPN. Everyone uses them, causing network congestion, which can lead to the game crashing.
#12 System file corruption relates to game crashes
A Windows system file is a critical file associated with your PC’s operating system (OS). System files are essential for your operating system to function properly. In other words, system files are the core files that make Windows work the way it should.
It gets worse when system files get corrupted. Windows won’t be able to use them, and your PC’s performance may suffer, as the inability to access one particularly important system file can cause Windows to crash frequently – strong blue screens of death – or even make Windows completely unusable. These of course inevitably cause your game to crash.
A crash can lead to corrupted system files, and a corrupted system file can lead to a crash. It’s a vicious circle. So to avoid this problem, you should often scan for and fix corrupted system files immediately with a Windows repair tool.
#13 Digital Rights Management hurts your games
Digital Rights Management (DRM) itself is a method of protecting digital media copyrights, which includes using the technologies that restrict the copying and sale of copyrighted works and software, such as burning games to CDs for sharing or sale. So most game companies use DRM to verify your game purchases.
However, most players complain that DRM hurts their gaming experience and gaming process. For example, some DRM systems prohibit offline gaming without internet access, even if the game has a single-player mode.
Also, if that server is closed permanently, they may need access to a server that also disables game access, unless the developer releases an update to disable or bypass the DRM system, the game won’t work.
There have more complaints from players.
They may not be allowed to mod the game.
Region locking and geo-blocking are a form of DRM that discourages importing games.
These issues and limitations lead to sudden freezes and black screens of their games.
FAQ about Game Crashing on Windows 11/10
Two reasons: Your Graphic Card can not meet the system requirements of the game you are playing.
And the second reason is your old Graphic Card has been overclocked so many time before.
Yes. You should check whether your memory of your PC reaches the recommended system requirements of the game or not at first. And then make sure your memory is compatible with the game.
Of course. Overheating hardware can cause game lockups, crashes, and performance issues such as low FPS and stuttering.
It depends on different situation. Random-access Memory can sometimes cause specific problems on your PC apps. However, users still reported that games keep crashing after adding new RAM. After all, there are many reasons which can cause game crashing.
Yes. Dust inside your PC can lead to heat damage, resulting in crashes, as well as data loss and service outages.
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