(PC) Dragon Age Inquisition Low Frames then Crashing

[Jbh23456]

Currently having some issues running Dragon Age Inquisition off of Steam. I have Origin downloaded as well so I can launch the game.

Basically, whenever I enter the game the framerate is very low. Like 8 frames per second according to my GeForce counter. This happens during the "don't turn off your system while this symbol is showing" section, and then smooths out in the main menu. After that, I go into the character background selection screen and the framerate tanks again. I tried going through this and it gets to the initial loading screen into the game, loads for about a year, and then eventually crashes.

I tried uninstalling Steam and the game, uninstalled all my antivirus software, put the game folder into the exception zone in my windows antivirus so it wouldn't be affected, uninstalled my steel series app which I heard would sometimes help, performed a clean boot, and downloaded a few drivers off the internet that some forums said would be helpful.

I'm totally stumped here. Nothing is running in the background with the clear boot, so it must be something with the game or something that's incompatible. Would love some help.

[mcsupersport · Accepted solution]

What resolution and refresh rate have you set the game for??  And have you tried lowering them down if they are high?

To give you an idea of what I am running, I have a AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and AMD RX Vega 64.  The CPU runs about 20% in game, and the Vega is maxed out 99% per task manager, and this combo gives me about 30fps at 4k resolution on a 28 inch monitor. 

Even though it is an older game, DAI is VERY hardware intensive....now the 2070 super SHOULD be able to handle it, but it is odd that it is only running 70% and not maxed if you are getting low framerates....I have 2 monitors so I can fairly easily have taskmanager up and a game on fullscreen.

As a work around, how does the game play on borderless windowed mode?

Quick edit to add....what does Geforce experience offer for optimizations and changes that could help you??  OR whatever Nvidia calls their games and settings interface.

[mcsupersport]

We need some information on your hardware, so please post a dxdiag file here, per the how to post information sticky.   There are way too many things that could be causing this to hazard a guess without info.

[Jbh23456]

Here ya go. Hope this helps.

[mcsupersport]

Nothing in hardware jumps out, but you have logs of errors at the bottom and in those logs you have multiple BEX64 errors, usually around an error for Corsair.service.displayadapter.

Corsair is a CLR20r3...usually an install error, or update error, or sometimes a base Windows install error.

BEX64 usually means two programs trying to use the same space of memory at the same time.

So, first step I would recommend would be to disable/uninstall Corsair programs and see how everything works. 

Next would be to run a sfc/scannow check and repair on your windows install.

Also one thing to look at as far as slow running is to run both a taskmanger window and a game window at the same time to see if you can pinpoint what is happening in your system...meaning is the CPU just not running, is the GPU not fully ramping up, is another program using the CPU while the game is trying to run....basically, what isn't working, if you can see anything.

[Jbh23456]

Alright, so I ran through the processes that you suggested and they came up with no errors or corrupted system files. Then I tried checking task manager. When I opened the game CPU usage immediately hit 99 percent, something that I didn't see with any of my other games when launching them. This smoothed out a bit after a while but shot back up to 70 percent when at the main menu. Everything else seemed normal, with about 74 percent usage of my GPU when out of the menu. I noticed that frames seemed totally normal when in windowed mode, but as soon as I put the game in fullscreen the frames went back down. I don't think it's possible to check task manager while in fullscreen, so I couldn't see what was changing. All through this, task manager said that the game application itself was what was creating all of the traffic.

[mcsupersport · Accepted solution]

What resolution and refresh rate have you set the game for??  And have you tried lowering them down if they are high?

To give you an idea of what I am running, I have a AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and AMD RX Vega 64.  The CPU runs about 20% in game, and the Vega is maxed out 99% per task manager, and this combo gives me about 30fps at 4k resolution on a 28 inch monitor. 

Even though it is an older game, DAI is VERY hardware intensive....now the 2070 super SHOULD be able to handle it, but it is odd that it is only running 70% and not maxed if you are getting low framerates....I have 2 monitors so I can fairly easily have taskmanager up and a game on fullscreen.

As a work around, how does the game play on borderless windowed mode?

Quick edit to add....what does Geforce experience offer for optimizations and changes that could help you??  OR whatever Nvidia calls their games and settings interface.

[Jbh23456]

Figured out a solution. I turned the settings down to their lowest option possible, loaded into the game and went through the intro to the first playable section, and then turned the settings back up to their recommended locations and continued from where I left off. Game works well now! Guess the only issue was that initial character background selection screen. Thanks for all the help troubleshooting!