Why is Apex Legends Crashing?

The hardest part about writing or porting games to PC is that you must adapt them to so many different builds and architectures. Even through rigorous testing it is hard to catch every bug or prevent every compatibility issue.

That’s why it’s easy to sympathize with the developers – as frustrating as it may be sometimes. It’s no different for Respawn Entertainment’s Apex Legends. Despite having the best gaming PC that money can buy, you’re still susceptible to freezes and crashes.

Fortunately for you, if you find that Apex Legends is crashing or freezing on your PC, you can easily remedy this issue by following one or more of the solutions in this guide.

How Do I Fix Apex Legends Crashes and Fixes?

These days, you can’t even trust a multinational billion-dollar company like Microsoft to write an operating system that doesn’t almost completely cripple your PC completely.

But for every error, there is a fix or a workaround. In this guide, we have compiled an extensive list of solutions to help you troubleshoot Apex Legends crashing on your PC. We made sure that this is the most comprehensive guide you’ll find on the internet.

But before reading the rest of this guide, make sure that you’re using the best settings for Apex Legends. You also need to ensure that you’re not running any other games while trying to run Apex Legends and you’ve tried to perform a clean boot at least once.

If you’re still running into issues after trying the above suggestions, you can try the rest of the solutions in this guide.

1. Ensure that Your PC Meets Minimum Requirements

If you checked out our guide on the best settings for Apex Legends, you would have noticed that there is a section detailing the minimum and recommended system requirements for the game. If you’re having any issues with running Apex Legends, you need to ensure that you meet these requirements.

Furthermore, it is unfortunate but Apex Legends will not work on PCs using AMD Phenom processors. It just does not support it, no matter how good your processor may be. If you have one in your build then maybe it is time to upgrade.

If you are looking for some recommendations, check out our guide on the best CPU for gaming. You might find that you need a new mobo too. If that’s the case, have a look at our list of the best motherboards for gaming.

2.  Ensure Windows 10 is Up to Date

With Windows 10, Microsoft has not had the best record of accomplishment when it comes to releasing stable updates. You cannot go four months without reading another horror story.

While this may make you apprehensive about installing the next update, it can be crucial for your system. Microsoft usually patches wonky updates within days. So, if you are experiencing crashes from Apex Legends or Windows 10 itself, your best option might be to update it or just jump ship and install an awesome gaming Linux Distro.

Depending on your settings, Windows 10 automatically checks and installs updates. But if you want to do it manually, you can follow these steps:

Checking for Updates and Update Windows 10:

1. Open the Windows start menu by clicking on the Start (Windows) icon.

2. Click on the gear icon (Settings).

3. Click on Update & Security.

4. Click on the button labeled Check for Updates.

5. If Windows finds any updates, it will start downloading them automatically. After it’s done downloading them the Check for Updates button will change into a Restart button. Click on the Restart button to restart Windows and install updates.

*Note: When you open the Update & Security Window, you may find that Windows has already checked for updates and it requires you to download them. In that case, you need to click on the Download button.

3. Ensure That Your GPU Drivers Are Up to Date

You should notice that your graphics card has constant updates. This is due to the constant release of new games. Even after release, they may require patches and updates. Your GPU needs to keep up. Driver updates ensure that your graphics card is optimized and compatible with the latest games. This fact is independent of whether you’re running a high-end graphics card or budget one.

If you haven’t updated your graphics card driver or software in a while (or never before), you can follow these steps to learn how to do it.

How to Update Your Graphics Card (For all Graphics Cards):

1. Open the Windows Power User Tasks Menu (Win+X).

2. Click on Device Manager.

3. Expand the Display adaptors node and right-click on your graphics card.

4. Select Update driver from the context menu.

5. Click on the option labeled Search automatically for updated driver software.

6. If Windows finds any drivers online, it will automatically download and install them. If your drivers are up to date, Windows will inform you that the best drivers for your system are already installed.

7. If you want to make doubly sure that you have the latest drivers, click on Search for updated drivers on Windows Update.

8. Click on Check for updates.

9. Windows will then check for updates. If it finds any, it will automatically download and install them.

If you want an easier way to update your Nvidia drivers, you can use Nvidia’s Smart Scan. Alternatively, you can download and install GeForce Experience which will notify you of driver updates. If you prefer to do it manually, you can search for the drivers and download them from Nvidia’s website.

For those with AMD Graphics Cards, you can use Radeon Settings. All you need to do is:

How to Keep Your AMD Graphics Card Drivers Up to Date:

1. Right-click on an empty area of your desktop and select AMD Radeon Software from the context menu.

2. Click on the System tab.

3. If the toggle next to the Check For Updates option is off, toggle it on.

4. If Download Drivers & Software is disabled, enable it.

This will ensure that AMD’s Radeon Software delivers the latest drivers to you.

4. Lowering Apex Legends’ Graphical Settings

If Apex Legends is still crashing after using the above suggestions and you’ve tried to optimize it with our guide on the best settings for Apex Legends then maybe it’s time to lower Apex Legends’ graphical settings.

Configuring Apex Legends Settings

1. Open Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc).

2. Sort Processes by Name.

3. Find every single AMD related process and terminate it i.e. select it and click on the End Task button.

4. Run Apex Legends.

5. Open Settings.

6. Click on the Video tab.

7. Make Sure that your settings are as follows:

• Display Mode: Full Screen
• Aspect Ratio: native
• Resolution: native
• Field of View: 90
• Color Blind Mode: Off
• V-Sync: Disabled
• Adaptive Resolution FPS Target: 50
• Adaptive Supersampling: Disabled
• Anti-aliasing: TSAA
• Texture Streaming Budget: None
• Texture Filtering: Bilinear
• Ambient Occlusion Quality: Disabled
• Sun Shadow Coverage: Low
• Sun Shadow Detail: Low
• Spot Shadow Detail: Low
• Volumetric Lighting: Disabled
• Dynamic Spot Shadows: Disabled
• Model Detail: Low
• Effects Detail: Low
• Impact Marks: Disabled
• Ragdolls: Low

8. Restart Apex Legends

If that does not work, try capping Apex Legends’ Frame Rate.

Locking Apex Legends Frame Rate

1. Launch Origin.

2. Click on My Game Library on the side panel.

3. Find Apex Legends in the main panel and right-click on it.

4. Select Game Properties.

5. Click on the ADVANCED LAUNCH OPTIONS tab.

6. Under Command line arguments, set the max fps to a lower figure. For instance, if the max fps is currently +fps_max 60, set it to +fps_max 50. You’ll have to use your own judgment here and it may take some trial and error.

You should also turn off all overlays for software such as Origin and Discord. Another suggestion is to run Apex Legends or Origin with Windows 8 compatibility.

5. Fix Easy Anti-Cheat Issues

Easy Anti-Cheat is a module that comes with Apex Legends’ installation. It’s essentially software that prevents players from cheating online. If it is not installed or working properly it may cause issues with the game.

If Apex Legends is launching but crashing or freezing during gameplay, then try setting the Easy Anti-Cheat background process to low priority. You can accomplish this by following these steps:

Setting Easy Anti-Cheat to Low Priority

1. Run Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc).

2. Click on the Details tab.

3. Find the Easy Anti Cheat (EasyAntiCheat) process.

4. Right-click on the Easy Anti Cheat process.

5. Select Set priority from the context menu and set it to low.

For those of you who cannot launch Apex Legends and see a message that reads: “Error: A redistributable package (EasyAntiCheat_Setup.exe) was not installed successfully. Setup cannot continue. (4)” (or similar), you’ll need to reinstall Easy Anti-Cheat.

You can do that with the following steps:

How to Re-Install Easy Anti-Cheat

1. Open Windows File Explorer and navigate to the Origin Games folder is (C: > Program Files (x86) > Origin Games)

2. Find and open the Apex folder.

3. Find the EasyAntiCheat folder and open it.

4. Click and run the EasyAntiCheat_Setup program.
5. Near the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, click on ‘Uninstall’

6. It will take a few seconds to uninstall. Once that’s done, click on the big button labeled Install Easy Anti-Cheat.

7. It will not take long to install and as soon as it’s done, you can click on the Finish button.

If you’re still experiencing issues with running Apex Legends, make sure that you’re running Apex Legends or Origin as an admin.

6. Repair Apex Legends’ Game Files

It’s not uncommon to find that Apex Legends’ files on your computer are corrupted. It could also be a registry issue. Luckily for you, Origin allows you to repair these files easily.

Repairing Apex Legends’ Game Files

1. Launch Origin.

2. Click on My Game Library on the side panel.

3. Find Apex Legends in the main panel and right-click on it.

4. Click on Repair from the context menu.

5. Origin will then check your game files. If it should find any corruption, it will start downloading and replacing the missing or corrupted files.

7. Disable Windows 10 Fullscreen Optimizations

With Windows 10, Microsoft introduced Fullscreen Optimizations. They allow games to be played in an optimized borderless window mode that mimics Fullscreen exclusivity. This makes it easier to run other applications in the background and receive notifications from them.

This also allows for easy and quick window swapping (alt+tab), simple native multi-display, and overlay support. It also makes it easier for gamers to record and stream their in-game footage with applications like OBS.

Usually running a game in a windowed or borderless windowed mode means that it will take a performance hit. Through testing, Microsoft has posited that enabling Fullscreen Optimizations yields identical performances to running a game in a Fullscreen Exclusive Environment for nearly all users.

However, as we’ve said previously, different people have different builds. What may work for one computer, may not work for the other. While this feature has been refined over the years, some users may still experience frame rate drops, freezing, crashing, or other performance issues and run issues.

Disabling Fullscreen Optimization might fix your issues with Apex Legends. This is how you do it:

1. Right-click on the Apex Legends shortcut on your desktop and then select Open file location from the context menu. Alternatively, you can use Windows File Explorer to manually locate where the Apex Legends game executable is. By default, Origin installs it on ‘C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Origin Games\\Apex\\ r5apex.exe’.

2. Right-click on the executable and select Properties from the context menu.

3. Click on the Compatibility tab.

4. Under Settings, tick the textbox labeled Disable fullscreen optimizations.

5. If you haven’t already, check the Run this program as an administrator check box, then click on OK.

8. Uninstall Visual C++ Redistributables

Just like many other programs, games require certain libraries and APIs to run. The Visual C++ Redistributables package is a bit like VulkanRT. Apex Legends and/or Origin have certain dependencies linked to the Visual C++ library.

Because of Windows updates or the installation of another program that also installs a different version of the Visual C++ Redistributables package, there may be a version clash or compatibility issues. When you run into these issues and they’re causing Apex Legends to freeze or crash, the easiest way to solve them is to uninstall the Visual C++ Redistributables package on your computer. This is how:

Uninstalling Visual C++ Redistributable Packages

1. Open the Windows Power User Tasks Menu (Win+X).

2. Select Apps and Features.

3. Scroll down through the list of programs until you find all the versions of the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. Click on the first instance and then click on the Uninstall button. Once the first instance is uninstalled, uninstall the other redistributables.

4. Repair Apex Legends’ game files (see fix 6)

*Disclaimer: This solution may cause issues with your other programs. You might have to reinstall or repair them. Implement this fix with some discernment.  

9. Increase Virtual Memory

Virtual memory is a feature that uses hard drive space to compensate for random access memory shortages (probably thanks to Google Chrome). Despite virtual memory not being as efficient as RAM, it can still be useful when your computer runs low on system resources.

Not enough resources during game loading can cause your game to freeze or crash. In fact, it can cause your entire system to crash. So how do we fix this?

Increase Paging File Size

1. Launch the Windows Run Dialog (Win+R).

2. Key this command into the open text field: ‘%windir%\system32\SystemPropertiesPerformance.exe’ (without inverted commas).

3. Click on the Advanced tab.

4. Under the Virtual memory section, click on the Change… button.

5. Uncheck the text box labeled ‘Automatically manage paging file size for all drives’.

6. Click on the drive you want to use for virtual memory. We recommend that you use the C: driver or where your main Windows operating system is installed.

7. Click on the radio button marked ‘Custom size:’

8. Next, input the initial size and maximum size of virtual memory you want your PC to allocate. Make sure that both values are the same. If you are unsure of how much memory to allocate, you can use this simple equation: (System Ram in MB) x 1.5.If you have 4GB of RAM, your equation and answer will look something like this: 4 x 1024 x 1.5 = 61444.

9. Click on the Set button.

10. Click on OK.

Virtual memory and file-swapping work more efficiently when you’re using an SSD. If you’re looking to upgrade your old tired HDD, check out our guide on the best SSD for gaming. And maybe it’s time to increase your RAM too. Take a minute to peruse through our guide of the best RAM for gaming too.

10. Disabling Windows Game DVR/ Game Bar

You may have noticed that Windows 10 launches its Game Bar every time you play a game. Sometimes it does this in the background. With the latest versions of Windows 10, it’s called the Xbox Game Bar.

Amongst other things, it allows you to capture game footage. Not only can it be annoying but it may cause performance issues or contribute to Apex Legends Crashing on your PC. You can remedy this by disabling it.

Disabling Game Recording

1. Open Settings from the Start Menu.

2. Click on Gaming.

3.You will see an option that reads: ‘Record game clips, screenshots, and broadcast using Game Bar’. Toggle it off.

11. Prevent Windows from Switching Your Hard Disk Off

If you’re still using an HDD, depending on your settings, Windows will turn it off when idle after a specified period of time. This saves energy, especially for budget gaming laptops. However, it will not affect computers running SSDs. However, if you are using an old HDD, it may actually hinder your game’s performance or even crash it. You can stop Windows from switching off your hardware with the following steps:

1. Open the Windows Power User Tasks Menu (Win + R or right-click the Start Menu).

2. Click on Power Options.

3. Select your current plan from the drop-down menu if it’s not selected already.

4. Expand the Hard disk tree.

5. Set Turn off hard disk after to 0 for both On battery (Minutes) and Plugged in.

6. Click on Apply and if that produces no error message, click on OK.

12. Restarting Windows Audio Service

For some users, Apex Legends seems to be interacting badly with Windows’ sound service resulting in crashes or freezes. This is especially common for gamers using an AMD FX Series CPU. It has been reported by numerous users that restarting the audio service while in-game can remedy this situation – even if just temporarily.

Restarting Windows Sound Service

1. Launch Apex Legends.

2. Tab out of it (Alt+Tab or Win+D).

3. Open the Windows Run Dialog (Win+R).

4. Type services.msc into the Open text field and hit enter.

5. Scroll down until you find Windows Audio Endpoint Builder, right-click on it and then select Stop.
6. It will then display a warning. Click on Yes.

7. Wait for the service to stop and then right-click on the Windows Audio service (above the endpoint builder service if you’ve sorted the list according to name) and click on Start.

8. Tab back into Apex Legends.

Final Thoughts

Other suggestions include disabling overclocking – both factory and custom or temporarily disabling your computer’s security system (antivirus and firewall). It is also imperative to avoid any third-party software purporting to remedy or patch any issues you have with Apex Legends. That is a very easy way to infect your PC with malware. Other drastic measures include reverting back to an earlier version of Windows (7/8/8.1).

Tabbing out or switching Windows (Alt+Tab) while you have Apex Legends running has also been known to crash the game. Try to refrain from doing this. We hope that at least one of the solutions in this guide can help you stop Apex Legends from crashing on your PC. As always, thank you for reading and good luck.