[9 Methods] Red Dead Redemption 2 PC Crash on Startup

Red Dead Redemption 2, an action-adventure game released in October 2018, is a prequel of Red Dead Redemption. With the publishing of PC version on November 5, 2019, now the game is available on most platforms, including PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Stadia.

It’s good news for users who love to play video games on PC. Unfortunately, some PC users encounter Red Dead Redemption 2 crashing issue while they’re trying to launch the game. It’s quite frustrating.

If you are bothered by the same problem, take it easy. Here are some solutions for you. You don’t need to try them all. Just follow them one by one until your issue disappears.

Solution 1: Check the System Requirements to Run RDR2

If you want to run a video game on your PC, you need to make sure your PC meets the basic system requirements. Otherwise, you will be unable to run the game or encounter some unknown problems.

So, to fix Red Dead Redemption 2 PC crash, you need to check your PC specs at first. If your PC satisfy the requirements, you can jump to the next solution. If there are any problems, you need to upgrade the hardware.

Now, let’s see the system requirements and how to check your PC specs.

To check your specs, you can use the System Information tool in Windows. You just need to press Win + S to open Search utility, type msinfo32 in the search box and select System Information from the search results. Then you can view the PC specs from the following branches.

• In System Summary category, you can get most of the information you need, including the OS Name and Version, Processor, Installed Physical Memory, etc.
• To view the information about your graphics card, you need to expand the Components branch and select Display
• For sound card information, you need to go to Components > Sound Device.
• For storage, navigate to Components > Storage > Drives.

If you find that your PC specs (including Processor, Memory, Graphics card, Sound card) don’t meet the system requirements to run RDR2, you should ask professionals for help to upgrade your hardware.

For the storage, if it turns out that there is not enough free space on the drive where the RDR2 is installed, you need to free up the drive and even expand it. To enlarge the target drive easily without data loss, you’re recommended to use credible third-party software. MiniTool Partition Wizard is a nice helper and you can use its Extend Partition feature to solve your problem quickly.

Step 1: Click the following button to download and install the software free.

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Step 2: Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard. Then right-click the target partition and select Extend.

Step 3: In the pop-up window, select a drive beside the option Take Free Space from and drag the slider to decide how much free space you want to take. Then click OK to confirm the operation.

Step 4: Click Apply to execute the pending operations.

When the process is finished, you can exit MiniTool Partition Wizard and check if Red Dead Redemption 2 PC crashing issue has been solved. If it doesn’t work, you should go to the next solution.

Solution 2: Run RDR2 as an Administrator

Sometimes you encounter Red Dead Redemption 2 crashing on PC due to the lack of administrative permission to access your game files. In this case, you need to run the game as an administrator to fix the problem. Besides, you can also modify some settings here to get better gaming experience.

Here are the detailed steps.

Step 1: Open File Explorer and navigate to the location where the game is installed.

Step 2: Right-click the executable file of the game and select Properties.

Step 3: In the pop-up window, switch to Compatibility tab. Then check Disable fullscreen optimizations and Run this program as an administrator.

Step 4: Click Change high DPI settings. Under High DPI scaling override section, check Override high DPI scaling behavior and select Application. Then click OK to save the changes and go back to Properties window.

Step 5: Click Apply and OK.

Then you can run the game again to test the RDR2 crashing PC.

Solution 3: Verify the Game Files

Another reason for Red Dead Redemption 2 PC crash on startup is that the game files are missing or corrupted. To fix the problem, you can verify the integrity of game files in the game platform you use.

If you have Steam installed on your PC, you can follow the steps below to verify the integrity of game files.

Step 1: Restart your computer and launch Steam.

Step 2: Click LIBRARY to view your game list. Then right-click Red Dead Redemption 2 and select Properties.

Step 3: Select LOCAL FILES tab and click VERIFY INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES.

Then Steam will verify your game files automatically. The process might take several minutes, and you need to wait patiently. Then you can open your game again and check if it works properly.

Solution 4: Disable Third-party Antivirus Applications Temporarily

Antivirus does help you protect your PC from being attacked by virus and malware, but it might also lead to certain problems.

Since games like Red Dead Redemption 2 use a lot of memory and CPU resources, it is possible that some third-party antivirus software will regard them as potential threats. That could be one of the reasons why you encounter Red Dead Redemption 2 PC crashing issue.

To troubleshoot the problem, you can:

• Add the RDR2 installation folder to the exclusions list of your antivirus software.
• Disable the antivirus temporarily while the game is running.
• Uninstall the antivirus.

Solution 5: Update Your Graphics Card Driver

Besides the factors above, corrupted or outdated graphics card driver might also cause Red Dead Redemption 2 PC crash on startup. In this case, you should update your graphics card driver to the latest software.

Here is how to do it.

Step 1: Press Win + X to open Start menu and then select Device Manager.

Step 2: Double-click Display adapters to view your graphics card.

Step 3: right-click the graphics card and select Update driver.

Step 4: In the pop-up window, select Search automatically for updated driver software.

Then Windows will search for the latest graphics card driver software automatically. You just need to wait until the driver is downloaded and installed successfully. Once it’s finished, Windows will ask for a restart. Save your work and restart the computer. After that, you can launch the Red Dead Redemption 2 to check if the problem has been solved.

Solution 6: Change Virtual Memory Settings

Improper virtual memory settings could cause Red Dead Redemption 2 PC crash on startup. To fix the problem, you can let Windows manage virtual memory automatically. Here are the detailed steps.

Step 1: Press Win + Pause Break to open Windows System control panel quickly.

Step 2: Select Advanced system settings from the left panel.

Step 3: In the following window, click Settings under Performance section to modify Performance Options.

Step 4: Switch to Advanced tab and click Change button under Virtual memory section. Then check Automatically manage paging file size for all drives option and click OK to save the changed settings.

Now you can close all the System Properties control panel and restart your PC for the changes to take effect. Remember to run your game to check if the issue disappears. If it still exists, move on to the next solution.

Solution 7: Change the Audio Sampling

According to the report, some players have fixed the RDR2 crashing PC by changing the audio sampling. You can also have a try.

Step 1: Press Win + R to invoke Run window. Then type mmsys.cpl in the box and click OK to open Sound settings.

Step 2: Under Playback tab, right-click your Speakers and select Properties.

Step 3: Switch to Advanced tab. Under Default Format section, click the drop-down menu and select 16/24 bit, 48000Hz option.

Step 4: Click Apply and OK to save the changed settings.

Solution 8: Run SFC Scan

If there are any corrupted or missing system files on your computer, you could also encounter Red Dead Redemption 2 crashing issue. To play RDR2 without any problems, you can run System File Checker (SFC), a Windows built-in utility which is used to scan and restore problematic system files. You just need to:

Step 1: Open Run window. Then input cmd and press Shift + Ctrl + Enter to run Command Prompt as administrator.

Step 2: In Command Prompt, type the command sfc /scannow and press Enter to execute it.

After running SFC command, the utility will start to scan the computer and then replace the problematic system files with new ones. The process might take some time and please wait patiently until it’s finished. Then restart the computer and check if the issue has been removed.

Solution 9: Perform a Clean Boot

If all the solutions above fail to solve Red Dead Redemption 2 PC crash, there might be other applications preventing your game form working properly. In this case, you can try performing a clean boot to disable them and then check if it works.

Step 1: Open Search tool and type msconfig in the search box. Then select System Configuration from the search results.

Step 2: Click Services tab. Then check Hide all Microsoft services and click Disable all.

Step 3: Switch to Startup tab and select Open Task Manager.

Step 4: Under Startup tab, select each startup item and click Disable in order to stop these items from opening on startup.

Step 5: Close Task Manger and go back to System Configuration. Click Apply and OK.

Step 6: Restart your PC to perform the clean boot.

Then you can launch Red Dead Redemption 2. If it runs without crash, you can open System Configuration again and enable the services and apps that you have disabled one by one to find out the problematic software. Then you can keep it disabled while playing the game or uninstall it.

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Bottom Line

If you encounter Red Dead Redemption 2 PC crash on startup, you can try the above solutions one by one to troubleshoot the problem. You can leave your ideas in the comment zone below. For any questions about MiniTool Partition Wizard, please don’t hesitate to contact us via [email protected].

Red Dead Redemption 2 PC Crash FAQ