GTA Online Crashing and Freezing PC

[Pikastan]

I recently bought GTA 5 and so far, even though I seem to be able to play the single player campaign just fine (I completed the prologue), I am unable to play the online mode for more than 5 minutes. I have created my character, done the tutorial, and played around for a little while until either the game crashes or my computer completely hard freezes and requires a manual restart. When the game crashes, no launcher or game log or dump is created and it says only that the game encountered an error with no further guidelines other than to try again, enter "safe mode" (which doesn't help), or to email support (which I did and they didn't help). When my computer hard freezes, no buttons on my keyboard work, not even caps-lock and number-lock so I cannot tab out, force quit, or do anything to fix the issue. The only thing I can do is hit the power button on my PC. I have tried adjusting my overclocks and uninstalling that software, validity steam, exiting discord, changing my memory allocations and reinstalling the game, but nothing works. Yes, I have already searched online for the issue. It might be a power supply issue but I have no way of confirming that. I would attach my DxDiag and whatnot but I can't add files. Anything helps, thanks.

[daisymollie]

3 hours ago, Pikastan said:

...I would attach my DxDiag and whatnot but I can't add files. Anything helps, thanks.

Try this first...

 

-- Uninstall any "Razer Surround" Software...

-- Go to your Windows device manager, double click on "Sound video and game controllers", then right click on each sound device and disable them.

-- Go to your device manager and check to see if you have the latest BIOS and Graphics card updates for your particular computer.

 

1. Download the free version of CCleaner http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner and run it with it's default selections. Say OK to delete files. When done, run the included registry cleaner. Analyze first, then Fix All. Repeat the registry process until there are no issues left.

2. Download the free version of SpyBot https://www.safer-networking.org/ Select the update icon, then the update tab to update Spybot to the latest signatures. Repeat update until all boxes are green. Close out that dialog box.

3. Select the "immunize" tab, then the "check system" tab. When finished, select the "apply immunization" tab. Repeat the immunization until it says "congratulations". then close Spybot.

4. Shut down the computer, unplug it, wait 10 seconds then plug back in and restart.

5. If it works, re-enable your sound.

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by daisymollie

[Rotorhead359]

23 hours ago, Pikastan said:

I recently bought GTA 5 and so far, even though I seem to be able to play the single player campaign just fine (I completed the prologue), I am unable to play the online mode for more than 5 minutes. I have created my character, done the tutorial, and played around for a little while until either the game crashes or my computer completely hard freezes and requires a manual restart. When the game crashes, no launcher or game log or dump is created and it says only that the game encountered an error with no further guidelines other than to try again, enter "safe mode" (which doesn't help), or to email support (which I did and they didn't help). When my computer hard freezes, no buttons on my keyboard work, not even caps-lock and number-lock so I cannot tab out, force quit, or do anything to fix the issue. The only thing I can do is hit the power button on my PC. I have tried adjusting my overclocks and uninstalling that software, validity steam, exiting discord, changing my memory allocations and reinstalling the game, but nothing works. Yes, I have already searched online for the issue. It might be a power supply issue but I have no way of confirming that. I would attach my DxDiag and whatnot but I can't add files. Anything helps, thanks.

If I am reading this correctly, you jumped online straight after the prologue. That does not mean you can play the campaign just fine, it just means you survived the prologue. Have you tried playing the main campaign for at least a few missions/hours straight without any crashes? Just to make sure the game isn't completely unstable on your PC.

I can blame the crashes on the game itself, GTA Online on PC has all the hackers and none of the anti cheat, but that should not hard freeze your system.

Since you mention you have overclocked your system: Hard freezes could be indicative of an unstable overclock. How far have you overclocked it?

Have you tried setting all overclocks back to stock to see if the crashes go away? GTA V is somewhat sensitive to overclocking and stability.

Do you play other games than GTA V and do you get crashes there too? Does your computer ever randomly hang even when you are not gaming?

 

Some things I learned about overclocking (I think this belongs on overclocking forums, not GTAforums, so I'll put it in a spoiler):

Spoiler

 

1. If you want to overclock, make sure your power supply has a 80+ Bronze rating or better, and supplies about 1.5-2x as much wattage as your CPU and Graphics Card use combined. If not, do not overclock. Overclocking puts huge stress on the power supply and you risk damaging components if the power supply can not handle it.

2. Do not overclock without adequate cooling. If your overclock results in temperatures over 80-90C, it is too high.

3. Yes, you can overclock a computer, start Windows and game on it. That does not mean it is stable, and it might crash/hang at some point.

4. Sure, overclocking will give you higher fps/benchmark scores. That does not mean it is stable. It just means you get a higher score/more fps. Stability testing takes a lot more time.

5. If you want to make sure your overclock is 100% stable and won't cause seemingly random crashes, you need to run a good stress test for 12-24 hours. Running it for an hour means nothing, some tests take 10-13 hours to find errors/instability. An hour of stress testing might just about reach maximum temperatures and tell if your cooling is adequate.

6. You need to run more than one stress test. There is not one test that catches everything. Some systems will pass one test for 24 hours and fail another in minutes. Depends on what exactly is being tested.

 

Spoiler

I once thought my Ram was unstable because my system was hanging and crashing games (not just GTA V) after I had enabled XMP on the Ram (which is technically an overclock), so I ran Memtest86 and HCI Memtest overnight, both passed for 12 hours. Then I ran Prime95 Blend, crashed 4 hours in, which pointed me to an unstable CPU (which was not overclocked mind you, but I have a cheap motherboard), and I was able to fix it by lowering the CPU's power limit. AMD Ryzen 2700x on AsRock X370 Killer SLI, not recommended.

 

 

Could you post which Motherboard, CPU, Ram (not just how many GB but exact name please), GPU and power supply you have?

Edited April 4, 2020 by AirWolf359

[Pikastan]

1 hour ago, AirWolf359 said:

If I am reading this correctly, you jumped online straight after the prologue. That does not mean you can play the campaign just fine, it just means you survived the prologue. Have you tried playing the main campaign for at least a few missions/hours

Thanks for the reply. You're right, I did just jump in to Online directly after. I went back and played some of the campaign and it crashed after about 30 minutes each time so the game just doesn't run at all on my computer. This also happened while playing The Outer Worlds so I think it's not an issue with the game itself. I have reset the overclock to base levels and uninstalled the software just in case and that did not fix the issue. I'm starting to think more and more its the power supply's fault because I don't think its has quite enough wattage but I am not sure.

 

Motherboard: ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 6; CPU: Intel i5-9600k (not overclocked because of this issue); RAM: 16GB GSKILL Trident Z RBG DDR4-3200MHz (F4-3200C16D-16GTZR); GPU: AORUS GeForce RTX™ 2080 XTREME 8G; Power Supply: Seasonic M12II EVO 620 SS-620GM2 620W 80+ Bronze EVO Edition

[Rotorhead359]

12 hours ago, Pikastan said:

Thanks for the reply. You're right, I did just jump in to Online directly after. I went back and played some of the campaign and it crashed after about 30 minutes each time so the game just doesn't run at all on my computer. This also happened while playing The Outer Worlds so I think it's not an issue with the game itself. I have reset the overclock to base levels and uninstalled the software just in case and that did not fix the issue. I'm starting to think more and more its the power supply's fault because I don't think its has quite enough wattage but I am not sure.

 

Motherboard: ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 6; CPU: Intel i5-9600k (not overclocked because of this issue); RAM: 16GB GSKILL Trident Z RBG DDR4-3200MHz (F4-3200C16D-16GTZR); GPU: AORUS GeForce RTX™ 2080 XTREME 8G; Power Supply: Seasonic M12II EVO 620 SS-620GM2 620W 80+ Bronze EVO Edition

Thanks for replying. At this point I'm pretty sure you have/had some hardware instability. I'm not really into overclocking the CPU/ram through software, I prefer to use the Uefi Bios. I only use MSI Afterburner for the graphics card.

 

Have you also disabled Memory XMP and reset Cmos? It will draw more power with XMP enabled and the CPU's memory controller may require more voltage to be stable with XMP.

 

The motherboard should be fine, supports DDR4 up to 4300MHz, as long as you put them in the correct slots (A2 and B2, or #2 and #4 counting from the CPU)

The board even has 2 connectors for CPU power (8-pin and 4-pin) so I'd say it is plenty for an i5, at least with the 8-pin connected. This board is built to handle an i9 with both of them connected.

 

A 620 Watt power supply is a bit on the low side for your graphics card. I looked it up and Gigabyte recommends 650 (recommended, not minimum required)

You might get away with a 620W power supply, unless it gets hot and the fan becomes noisy.

 

If your system only crashes during gaming and not during desktop use or applications that don't use the graphics card, the graphics card may be overloading the power supply.

 

If you suspect the power supply is the issue, you could use MSI Afterburner to lower your graphics card's power usage by setting the power limit under 100% (with all other sliders at stock, and power/temperature limits not linked) Mine can go down to 60% (Gigabyte windforce gtx980ti), might be different for your graphics card.

Edited April 5, 2020 by AirWolf359

[Pikastan]

On 4/5/2020 at 5:38 AM, AirWolf359 said:

If you suspect the power supply is the issue, you could use MSI Afterburner to lower your graphics card's power usage by setting the power limit under 100% (with all other sliders at stock, and power/temperature limits not linked) Mine can go down to 60% (Gigabyte windforce gtx980ti), might be different for your graphics card.

I tried this but it didn't work. I set my power usage all the way down to 70% at one point and the game still crashed. I disabled the memory and CPU things you mentioned but that didn't work either. I honestly have no idea where to go with the issue at this this point.

[jargonaut]

Could well be a hardware issue, but I'd test this:

1) Uninstall Geforce Experience

2) Install Nvidia's latest STUDIO DRIVERS (not GAME READY drivers - replace GRDs with Studio Drivers)

3) Did it help?

 

4) Remove the Studio Drivers and install >3 months old Game Ready drivers (still keeping Geforce Experience off your system).

5) Did it help?

 

 

[Twisted98]

Did you fix the issue? I'm having exactly the same issue as yours. Need some help here

On 4/7/2020 at 3:55 AM, Pikastan said:

I tried this but it didn't work. I set my power usage all the way down to 70% at one point and the game still crashed. I disabled the memory and CPU things you mentioned but that didn't work either. I honestly have no idea where to go with the issue at this this point.

What did you do to fix the issue?