March 2016
It's now 2016 ... I've just downloaded this game from Origin, and have this exact problem. There are one or two idea's there I can try, so I'll see how that goes. I believe that patch 1.5 fixes these issues, but don't know whether the origin version has this patch or not. Is there anywhere I can download patch 1.5 separately?
April 2016
I've been playing this game since it was made available on the house and just recently started experiencing pc crashes during certain car collisions while driving the Aston Martin Vantage. One time the game crashed as soon as I crossed the finish line. After changing the 3D settings in the Nvidia control panel the crashes stopped.
Steps
Nvidia control panel--> 3D settings--> Adjust image settings with preview--> Let the 3D application decide
Sorry I don't know the ATI/AMD equivalent steps.
Hope this helps
April 2016
For me, the game plays marvelously, but most of the time, I can't get into the game. Giving the game window focus seems to crash it ... The only other time I have problems is a MOST WANTED race. It always crashes at the cutscenes. So to recap, once it's up and running it's perfect unless I try a Most Wanted race. Is there any way I can NOT show MW cutscene movies? I know I can hit SKIP but that also crashes the game. I would just like to avoid them completely.
October 2017
this game is *. Drops frames on powerful systems, runs CUTSCENES at 3fps, crashes at MW race entry, steering is awful, theres no progression, no customization, u can slam from mw race to mw race just from escaping pursuits after getting the most wanted car