Fix: The Outer Worlds Keep Crashing at Startup on PC

The Outer Worlds is another action RPG game that was launched last year. Obsidian Entertainment and Private Division have developed a nice well-optimized video game that runs on Windows, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch platforms. However, some of the unlucky PC players are experiencing issues with crashing at startup or keep crashing issues on The Outer Worlds game. If you’re one of them, check this guide to fix it.

It’s also worth mentioning the developers have recently released a new DLC of the base game called ‘Peril on Gorgon‘ which is the icing on the cake in terms of the improvements such as six new perks, enhanced skills, increased power level, defense skills, stealth mode, and more. Now, talking about the particular ‘The Outer Worlds’ edition, it’s no brainer that each and every video game do come with multiple bugs, errors. However, it seems that PC version games are prone to get several bugs than other console versions in most cases.

Therefore, here we’ve shared all the possible workarounds that you should check out. Before heading over to the troubleshooting guide, make sure to get a brief idea of which reasons your PC game may crash mostly.

Why Does The Outer Worlds Keep Crashing?

Check out some of the possible reasons behind the startup crashing issue of The Outer Worlds game below:

• Maybe your PC configuration isn’t compatible with the system requirements of the game. You can check out ‘The Outer Worlds’ system requirements below.
• Possibly there are some temporary glitch or cache-related issues happening on your computer. In that case, restarting your PC should fix the problem.
• Chances are high that the game files are either corrupted or missing.
• Maybe your computer is running an outdated Windows build or graphics driver version.
• It can also possible that your DirectX version is either outdated or your outdated GPU card isn’t supporting the Direct3D Hardware Feature Level 11.0 GPU.
• Sometimes an outdated game version or the game launcher version can also cause issues.
• It’s also possible that some of the apps are running in the background with higher consumption of CPU/Memory.
• An Antivirus program or the Windows Firewall protection is preventing the game files to run properly.

Minimum System Requirements:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 7 (SP1) 64bit
• Processor: Intel Core i3-3225 or AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GTX 650 Ti or AMD HD 7850
• Storage: 40 GB available space

Recommended System Requirements:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10 64bit
• Processor: Intel Core i7-7700K or Ryzen 5 1600
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or Radeon RX 470
• Storage: 40 GB available space

How to Fix The Outer Worlds Keep Crashing at Startup

Now, without wasting more time, let’s jump into the below steps. Keep in mind that both the Nvidia and AMD graphics drivers are well optimized for The Outer Worlds game. So, if in case you haven’t updated your graphics driver yet, do this first.

1. Update Graphics Drivers

If you’re using the Nvidia graphics card, then update the GeForce Experience app on your PC from the Nvidia official site here. But if you’re using the AMD graphics card on your system, then update the latest AMD Drivers from here.

2. Disable Steam Overlay

• Open Steam on your Windows.
• Head over to the Settings> Click on the In-Game
• Click on the checkbox to disable “Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game“.
• Once the checkbox mark is removed, click on OK.

3. Adjust Discord Settings

• Launch Discord > Click on User Settings.
• Select Voice & Video from the left sidebar.
• Scroll down a bit and click on Advanced.
• Next, disable OpenH264 Video Codec provided by Cisco System, Inc.
• Then disable Enable Quality of Service High Packet Priority.
• Now, go to Overlay.
• You can also turn off the in-game overlay.
• Next, head over to Appearance.
• Go to Advanced.
• Disable Hardware Acceleration.
• Once done, restart the system.

4. Adjust Nvidia Control Panel Settings

• Click on Adjust image settings with preview under 3D settings.
• Select Use the advanced 3D image settings.
• Next, launch the Nvidia Control Panel.
• Click on Manage 3D settings> Go to Global Settings.
• Additionally, you can also adjust some of the other options:
  • Disable Image Sharpening
  • Enable Threaded Optimization
  • Use Maximum Performance for Power Management
  • Turn off Low Latency Mode
  • Set Texture Filtering Quality to Performance mode

5. Change AMD Control Panel Settings

• Go to Global Graphics.
  • Turn off Radeon Anti-Lag
  • Turn off Radeon Boost
  • Use Application settings for Anti-Aliasing Mode
  • Set Anti-aliasing Methodto Multi-sampling
  • Turn off Morphological Filtering
  • Disable Image Sharpening
  • Turn off Anisotropic Filtering
  • Use Performance mode for Texture Filtering Quality
  • You can also enable Surface Format Optimization
  • AMD Optimization for the Tesselation Mode
  • Wait for V-sync– Turn it off
  • Use AMD optimization for the Shader Cache
  • Disable OpenGL Triple Buffering
  • Turn off Maximum Tesselation Level
  • Set Graphics for the GPU Workload
  • Turn off the Radeon Chill
  • Disable Frame Rate Target Control

6. Verify Game Files via Steam

The Outer Worlds gamers on Steam client can follow the below steps:

• Open the Steam Library by logging into the account
• You can find the The Outer Worlds game
• Right-click on the game and click on Properties
• Select the Local Files tab
• Then click on Verify Integrity of game files
• Wait for the process and then restart the game to check whether the The Outer Worlds Crashing issue has been fixed or not

7. Uninstall Recent Windows 10 Update

A few days ago, Microsoft released a new update for Windows 10 with KB4535996. So, this particular cumulative update for Windows 10 is quite buggy and causing so many errors or problems.

• Go to Start menu > Click on Settings
• Next, go to Update and Security
• Click on View update history
• Now, if you can see that there is an update having KB4535996 has been already installed. Make sure to uninstall it.
• Here you will see the Uninstall updates option on the top of the page.
• Click on it and select the mentioned cumulative update version.
• Right-click on it > Select Uninstall.
• It may take some time to delete that update and your system may restart automatically.
• Have some patience and you can also manually reboot your Windows PC (if required).

8. Remove Temporary Files

• Press Windows key + R on your keyboard to open the RUN program.
• Now, type %temp% and press enter.
• You will get a bunch of temporary files on a page.
• Select all files by pressing Ctrl + A on the keyboard.
  Next, press Shift + Delete on the keyboard to remove all the files.
• Sometimes some of the temporary files can’t be deleted. So, leave them as it is and close it.

9. Set Default CPU and Graphics Speed

Most users always want to use ultra-high performance from the CPU and GPU from the very first day. So, most users either buy an overclocked version or manually increase the overclocking speed. So, if you’ve also overclocked your GPU speed and you’re experiencing bottleneck or lagging or crashing-related issues, just set it to default mode.

You can also use the MSI Afterburner tool or Zotac firestorm application to lower clocking speed. Once done, you can run The Outer Worlds game to check whether it’s crashing at startup or not.

That’s it. We hope this guide was useful to you. You can comment below for any queries.