Dragon Age Inquisition Crashes on Startup – How to Fix!

DAI is a very popular game action role playing ( RPG ) game released in 2014 by bioware and EA. The game is the third installment in the Dragon : age franchise. So you decided to check the game out and unfortunately, it crashes on startup : (   . This is not the experience you had imagined. But that’s what we are going to fix today. In the following writing, we will show you some methods that you can try to resolve DAI startup crashes in windows.

What might be the cause of the DAI Crash ?

Well DAI is not the only game that has crashes on startup. Many games do that and thus they have very similar and predictable crash patterns. Most common issues include anti-virus, graphic driver issues, low system specs and so on so forth. While the low spec issue is something that can’t be fixed, others can be. Lets check out the methods one by one.

1. Fix issues with your Anti-virus to resolve startup crashes

Many users have reported that their antivirus was causing DAI to crash on startup as the antivirus blocked or removed a file that game needed to start. The problem was fixed when the antivirus was disabled for a while. If you do not want to shut down your antivirus and give up on your protection, then you can add the game file in your antivirus’s excluded list.

The excluded list is a list of programs that user decides and then the antivirus does not remove or block those files. To add the file in your anti-virus’s excluded list, follow the steps. We used K7 antivirus here, but procedure is very similar for your use case

  • Open antivirus and search for settings
  • You have to look for the option that says “excluded programs” or such. It is generally found under “scan and protection” section
  • Once you find the option, just click the “add a program” option
  • Find the DAI.exe file and add it to the excluded list.

If you find the whole process a bit too hard and you are okay with switching off the antivirus, then do it ! Once the antivirus is down or the file is in excluded space, go ahead and re-run DAI to see if startup crashing issue does away.

2. Make sure you are at DirectX 11 or higher

DirectX is an API developed by microsoft which basically enables game developers to make games for windows platform. Which means that a game developed with DirectX requires to have DirectX on the system it is running. If your system doesnt have DirectX or some files are missing or broken, that might be the issue with DAI crashes on startup.

To check if everything is fine with your DirectX or not,

  • Open the run menu by win+R
  • type DxDiag  and wait for the window to show up

The directX version appears in the last as shown. If the version fails to appear, it means that there is something wrong with your directX and you will need to fix it before you can run dragon age inquisition again. To fix DirectX issues, go to this page

3. Update your graphics card drivers

Faulty or obsolete ( old ) drivers are one of the main reasons why some apps including games like DIA crash on startup. It is because the driver is the link between the game and the underlying hardware ( your graphics ). If the driver itself is faulty, then there is no way the game would have ran. Here’s how you can update your graphics drivers.

We recommend upgrading drivers only in safe mode. To go in safe mode, go to settings>advanced startup> restart and then safe mode.

  • Once you are in safe mode , go to start and search for “device manager” or type “devmgmt.msc” in run menu
  • Search for your graphics card under display adapter options
  • Right click on it and select properties
  • Now select update and search automatically for drivers.
  • This will update your drivers by looking for them automatically.

Once your graphics card drivers are updated, restart the system. Now try running DAI and see if the crashing issue goes away. Hopefully it does. If not, then read on.

4. Running the game on minimum settings to prevent startup crashes

Sometimes the in-game settings like Tesselation and Vsync etc. are too high for the system which ultimately results in a crash. To prevent this, you can try disabling all your extra visuals and graphics settings and try to load the game that way. If the game loads successfully, you can later on alter the graphics settings to your will.

To disable game settings from outside the game, follow along

  • First up we need to browse to the following location

My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age Inquisition\Save 

or

C:\Users\username\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age Inquisition\Save

  • Open this file using advanced file readers like Notepad++ or VScode etc.
  • Set the following settings
    1. GstRender.FullscreenEnabled 0
    2. GstRender.FullscreenMode 1
    3. GstRender.FullscreenScreen 0
  • Look for Vsync , Tesselation and SMAA and set them all to 0 ( zero ).
  • Save the file and exit.

Alternatively you can use your Nvidia or Radion settings control panel to change or override the game settings.

You get the idea. The main thing is to change the game settings and set to off all extra settings. Once done, try running DAI again to see if the crashing issue is resolved.

5. Try Windows compatibility mode and running in windowed mode

To try the compatibility mode , right click on the application and select properties. Browse the file from here

C:\Users\username\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age Inquisition\ game.exe file

  • Go to compatibility tab
  • Select windows 7
  • Select the run in windowed mode
  • Apply you settings and exit.

Try running the game with these settings to see if does the trick.

Conclusion:

We hope that you were able to fix Dragon age inquisition startup crashes using one or more of our methods shown above. Cheers and happy gaming   O : )

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