Different solutions provided by players until an update appears for the game

Apr 28, 2014 09:33 GMT  ·  By

Dark Souls 2 on PC is plagued by game crashes at startup, and Bandai Namco has confirmed that a fix is coming in the first big patch for the game. Until then, more workarounds have been posted by users who tried to play the game.

Dark Souls II made its debut on the PS3 and Xbox 360 back in March, and last week it finally reached the PC, much to the delight of quite a few gamers who were eagerly awaiting the challenging role-playing game made by From Software and Bandai Namco.

Unfortunately, the game is suffering from a large amount of issues, ranging from bugs relating to the detection of the mouse and keyboard or the controller, to pure game crashes when the title is starting.

Bandai Namco acknowledged these issues last week and has now confirmed that a solution for the game's many crashes is coming in the next patch but, unfortunately, it doesn't have a release date for it, so it's unclear when it will be available for download.

"A fix is being worked on and will come in the form of a patch. We're hoping to deploy in the next few days. We'll make an announcement once it is available. Thank you very much for hanging in there and apologies for the delay," it said on the Steam forums.

Fortunately, the Dark Souls 2 players have compiled a list of known workarounds that have had some degree of success.

The first involves forcing the GPU Scaling option for your AMD or Nvidia graphics cards, so that the game can start utilizing them.

"For AMD graphics cards. Go to the AMD control center. Go to Properties (Digital flat-panel). Enable GPU scaling. Apply and start the game. For Nvidia graphics cards. Open your Nvidia Control Panel. Go to 'Adjust desktop size and position.' Set 'Perform scaling on' to 'GPU.' Tick 'Override the scaling mode set by games and programs.' Apply and start the game."

The second known workaround involves selecting the game in the Steam client, unplugging the HDMI/DVI/VGA cable, hitting enter, waiting a few seconds, and then plugging the cable back in. The game will run in a lower resolution but you can select fullscreen and then restart it, and it should no longer crash.

Of course, another solution involves upgrading the graphics card drive to the latest beta build, like the GeForce 337.50 driver. Multi-screen users should also try leaving just one screen enabled to see if the crash persists.

Expect to see the first Dark Souls 2 PC patch appear in the following days.