DAI 'From the Ashes' quest - game freezes when I try to approach Varric

[Meisiluosi]

So the Quizzy arrived to Skyhold, cutscenes played, Varric mentioned his 'friend' and is now waiting on the battlements...

Trouble is, whenever I try to approach Varric, the game simply freezes.
I tried:

- going to a pre-Skyhold save

- leaving Skyhold, running a few errands, closing a few rifts and coming back

- repairing the game in Origin
- upgrading the game

- deleting about 50% of my saves

Didn't help.
Whether I go straight to Varric or whether I talk to a few companions/do a few quests before approaching him, whenever I set my foot on that battlement where he is waiting (doesn't matter where from) - *freeze*. I can go to character record page, ESC to menu (though attempts to exit game that way usually result in a blackscreen and I have to kill the game via task manager anyway).

Not sure if it's got to do anything with Hawke (I imported a DAO world state from the Keep, but left DA2 at default, as I haven't played it yet).
I play in windowed mode.
Never encountered something like that on my first playthrough. (I did encounter freezes, but they were never triggered by a specific moment/event/location in the game.

It's getting frustrating.
Please help.
*puppy eyes*

[mcsupersport · Accepted solution]

I think this is where the Hawk character creator is supposed to pop up and let you make a customized Hawk for "import".  Can you create a new Inquisitor without issue??  Reason I am asking is, I am curious to know if it is an issue with the character creator or just this specific spot.  Other question is do you have any mods installed??  You may also double check to make sure your base Intel graphics chip isn't trying to do some of the work when this happens, by that I mean, make sure your graphics settings on your laptop lean heavily toward quality and only use the Nvidia 750M card.

[Fred_vdp]

When you say you approach Varric, does that mean you used the interact key on him? This should normally cause a dialog wheel to pop up. Do you see this at all?

[Meisiluosi]

No. I don't even get anywhere near him, certainly not close enough to click on him and initiate dialogue.
This is where it always freezes:
http://imgur.com/XJSFsgs
Either at the top of the stairs, or when I'm jumping over the wall on either side.

DXdiag file here.

[mcsupersport · Accepted solution]

I think this is where the Hawk character creator is supposed to pop up and let you make a customized Hawk for "import".  Can you create a new Inquisitor without issue??  Reason I am asking is, I am curious to know if it is an issue with the character creator or just this specific spot.  Other question is do you have any mods installed??  You may also double check to make sure your base Intel graphics chip isn't trying to do some of the work when this happens, by that I mean, make sure your graphics settings on your laptop lean heavily toward quality and only use the Nvidia 750M card.

[Meisiluosi]

Thanks!
Looks like it was the graphics settings after all. 
I changed the settings and disabled all the mods and the problem disappeared. Tried again with the mods enabled and everything still works fine.

(On the 1st playthrough I just used the default world state - so the option to create a custom Hawke never came up and this never became an issue.)

[GefrorenerZahn]

I know this is a very old submission, but I'm having the same issue and can't find anything else about this problem. 

I'm very new to PC gaming and am very inexperienced in dealing with technology. I've tried to figure out what to on my own and it's just not working, I have no mods installed, I've updated everything, set my graphics towards quality and yet I still get the same freeze. 

I don't have the Nvidia 750M card, but do have the GTX 960M. 

I don't know if I'm just stupid with this and didn't do something right or messed up the process, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

[eisdamme]

I also had this issue and was ultimately told to reinstall Windows by EA tech support. But! What did help was someone IRL suggesting I go into the Nvidia Control Panel and disabling VSync. After having this issue with three different characters, mods, no mods, a repair, etc ...disabling VSync was what worked. Hope that's some help to a future person maybe.

[EA_Atic]

@eisdamme Thanks for sharing!

I'm closing this thread to stop it from being necroed.

If you have any issues with Dragon Age: Inquisition, please make a new topic about your problems and what kind of steps you have tried to solve them.

/Atic