How To Fix Hogwarts Legacy Crashing on Startup Issue on PC

The game might be running out of memory here is what to do.

M. Mateen
May 8, 2023

Hogwarts Legacy is able to get a good response from the games community. Just like any other game, there are also performance-related issues that ruin the gameplay. One such issue is the Hogwarts Legacy crashing on startup. When launching the game it crashes on startup without showing any error.

Although developers have released the patch fixes the problem of startup crashing in Hogwarts increased after the update. Now many players are complaining that they can’t even run the game.

While exploring the causes behind this issue we have read several threads that are confirming that it is the overclocking, low memory, and misconfigured setting in GeForce or Nvidia control panel that have triggered the issue.

If you have already installed the latest game patch and still you are dealing with crashing issues on startup or launch. Then this article is for you.

How To Fix Hogwarts Legacy Crashing on Startup

Make sure you apply the following tips to avoid crashing.

1. Update Graphics Card Driver

Hogwarts Legacy startup crashes will haunt you if your PC’s GPU driver is outdated or missing. To resolve this issue, it is recommended that you update your GPU driver by following the steps provided below.

Press Win + X on the keyboard and go to Device Manager.
Expand Display Adapters.
Right-click on the graphics driver and choose Update driver.
Select Search automatically for drivers.
Once the process finishes restart the PC

Best Alternate To Update Graphics Driver

NVIDIA and AMD do release game-specific updates that you can download and install on your PC but it takes time.

Especially, if you are a newbie or you don’t have time or skills then there are chances that you might end up installing the wrong graphics drivers.

So we recommend downloading Driver Easy software on your PC. This program is a professional system driver updater that automatically scans a PC’s old driver and updates them instantly.

We have personally used this tool on our Windows 11 PC. The most favorite part is its outstanding scanning feature. You can instantly know which PC part needs to be updated.

The Driver Easy is an N0.1 software updater tool in its field with a mega database of more than 600000 drivers. Users have been using this tool for the last 12 years to fix their PC errors.

So download Driver Easy and let it deal with all the system drivers.

2. Lower Graphics Settings Via GeForce Experience

In case, Hogwarts Legacy keeps crashing on startup then try to lower all graphics settings in Geforce. Ensure that you have also turned off the frame regeneration. Now play the game. In case you can access the game’s graphics settings disable motion blur, film grain, and RTX.

3. Disable GPU overclock

Many players who are using overclocking software reported that Hogwarts Legacy crashed on startup issues were resolved once they disabled overclocking.

If you have ASUS PC then you might have Armoury Crate. It allows us to manually set overclock for both CPU and GPU. You should simply turn the sliders from the GPU side to 0 and it worked

4. Set CPU Process To Priority

For many players setting the process on CPU priority stabilized the crashing on the startup issue. To do that read this guide How To Set CPU Process Priority for Applications in Windows 11.

5. Proposed Workaround

A Redditors name Kuthro proposed that following these steps solved the Hogwarts Legacy keeps crashing on startup

Run as Administrator
Download the latest Nvidia driver from the website. Searching for updates via Windows won’t work – you need to get it straight from the source
Set the paging file size to the system’s default
Once the game advances past the initial loading bar, go to Task Manager and close explorer.exe (and other unnecessary processes). This will force you to restart or shutdown via CTRL+ALT+DEL rather than the start menu
In-game settings: set too low and custom graphics settings set to low/disabled. Cap your game at 30fps.

6. Increasing the paging file size

The Hogwarts Legacy startup crashing also occurs due to insufficient RAM. Many players highlighted the fact the game is crashing due to running out of ram.

To increase the pagefile size follow these steps:

(On computers that have 8 GB of RAM, the suggested paging file size is 16 GB.)

Click Start > Run and then type sysdm.cpl, and press Enter.
Click the Advanced tab.
In the Virtual Memory section, click Change.
If necessary, clear the Automatically manage page file size for all drives check box.
Find the list of drives and select the drive that contains your paging file.
Select Custom Size.
Reset both the Initial Size and Maximum Size values to higher values.
Click Set.
Click OK.

7. Disabling Full-Screen Optimization

Follow these steps:

Locate the Hogwarts Legacy executable file (.exe) in the installation folder.
Right-click on the file and select ‘Properties.’
Click on the ‘Compatibility’ tab.
Check the box next to ‘Disable fullscreen optimizations.’
Click on ‘Apply’ and then ‘OK.’

8. Set High-Performance Mode in Power Options

Another workable solution is to change the power plan settings. To do that:

Press Windows + R and type control.
Once Control Panel opens up change the Large icon under the View by option.
Click on Power Options > High-Performance Mode
Click on Change Advanced Power Settings to change USB Settings & Processor power management.

9. Change Nvidia Control Panel Settings

To fix Hogwart Legacy crashing on startup open the Nvidia control panel and tweak these settings.

Navigate to “Manage 3D settings” under the 3D settings drop-down on the left.
Click the Program Settings tab
From the drop-down menu, find Hogwarts Legacy OR click Add and select Hogwarts Legacy.
Change these settings and try to replay the game.
- Image scaling – Use global setting
- Ambient occlusion – not supported
- Anisotropic filtering – OFF
- Antialiasing FXAA – global setting (off)
- Antialiasing gamma correction – global setting (on)
- Antialiasing mode – global setting (app-controlled)
- Antialiasing setting – global setting (app-controlled)
- Antialiasing transparency – global setting (off)
- Background App Max frame rate – global setting (off)
- CUDA GPUs – global setting (all)
- Low latency mode – OFF
- Monitor tech global setting(G-Sync compatible)
- MFAA – global setting (off)
- OpenGL GDI compat – prefer performance
- OpenGL rendering GPU – My GPU is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
- Power management mode – prefer maximum performance
- Preferred refresh rate – App controlled
- Texture filtering Anisotropic sample optimization – ON
- Texture filtering Negative LOD bias – ALLOW
- Texture filtering quality – High performance
- Texture filtering trilinear optimization – ON
- Threaded optimization – global setting (auto)
- Triple buffering – global setting (off)
- V-sync – OFF
- Virtual reality pre-rendered frames – global setting (1)
- Virtual reality variable rate super sampling – not supported
- Vulkan/OpenGL present method – Global setting (auto)”

10. Verify the Integrity of Game Files

Startup crashing in Hogwarts Legacy can also occur due to missing or corrupted game files. You should check the integrity of game files on Steam.

Open Steam.
Got to the Library and right-clicked on Hogwarts Legacy
From the Local File tab select Verify the Integrity of Game files
Wait for a while till this process completes.
Restart your PC and then play the game.

11. Disable Antivirus & Windows Security

If you are using any antivirus program on your PC then turn it off or you can add the game to the software’s whitelist. In case you are only using the Windows Security protection on your PC then make sure to disable the real-time protection feature.

Follow these steps:

Press Windows + I shortcut keys to open the Windows Settings menu.
Click on Update & Security > Click on Windows Security from the left pane.
Now, click on the Open Windows Security button.
Go to Virus & threat protection > Click on Manage Settings.
Next, you’ll need to turn off the Real-time protection toggle.
If prompted, click on Yes to proceed further.

12. Force Use the Dedicated GPU

For Nvidia :

Right-click on the blank desktop screen > Open Nvidia Control Panel > 3D Settings > Manage 3D Settings.
Open Program Settings > Hogwarts Legacy > preferred graphics processor for this program from the list.
When finished, it will appear as a High-Performance Nvidia Processor.
Restart the computer after saving your modifications.

For AMD :

Right-click on the blank desktop screen > Open Radeon Settings > Additional Settings > Preferences > Power > Switchable Graphics Application Settings.
Select Hogwarts Legacy [If the game is not visible, select Add Application to include the game]
Select High Performance from Graphics Settings > reboot the PC to apply changes.