[Solved] Red Dead Online Crashing on PC

Rock Star has finally launched Red Dead Online as a standalone game. While enjoying the multiplayer-only mode for the game, you may be experiencing some annoying game crashes, such as Red Dead Online crashes at launch or randomly, the game exited unexpectedly, etc.

In this article, you will find the most effective fixes and workarounds that have helped many other PC players.

Check your PC specs first

Before you try the following fixes, please make sure your PC specs meets the minimum requirements for Red Dead Online.

Try these fixes

You don’t have to try them all; just work your way down the list until you find the one that works for you. The first three are some basic troubleshooting steps, you can skip these fixes if you’ve already tried them.

1. Verify game integrity
2. Disable third-party software
3. Run Red Dead Online as admin
4. Update your graphics driver
5. Stop overclocking your GPU
6. Install Graphic Tools

Fix 1: Verify game integrity

The first thing to do when Red Dead Online crashes (or any game crashes) is to verify the game integrity. Corrupt or incomplete game files can cause your game to crash. To see if this is the culprit, here’s how:

1. Launch Steam.
2. Go to Library.
3. Locate Red Dead Online.
4. Right-click the game and select Properties.
5. Select the Local files tab and click the Verify integrity of game files… button.
   
6. Steam will verify the game’s files – this process may take several minutes.

If you’re on Rockstar game launcher, you can verify integrity by:

• Navigate to Settings
• Select Red Dead Online from the list under My installed games on the left
• Select Verify Integrity under Verify game file integrity from the options on the right

Fix 2: Disable third-party software

Some third-party tools or software can interfere with your Red Dead Online, especially if you’re using tools like MSI Afterburner or RGB software, OBS, and Bandicam. Open Task Manager (Esc + Shift + Esc) to close all these background apps or simply uninstall them.

In addition, another possible cause of Red Dead Online crashing is your antivirus software. Disabling some of these services won’t always work. You can temporarily uninstall the software or add Red Dead Online to its exclusions.

Fix 3: Run Red Dead Online as admin

Red Dead Online crashing can be caused by a lack of admin rights. So it’s recommended to run Red Dead Online as administrator.

1. Right-click the game’s executable file and select Properties.
2. Click the Compatibility tab, tick both Run this Program as an Administrator and Disable Fullscreen Optimizations.
   
3. Click Apply > OK and now you can run this game as administrator permanently.

Now launch Red Dead Online and see if the game crashes again. If running it as an administrator did not work, you can try the next fix.

Fix 4: Update your graphics driver

Graphics card manufacturers keep releasing new drivers to fix known bugs and add new features. Outdated or corrupt graphics drivers can cause your game to crash. For game players, it’s important to keep your graphics drivers (and sometimes sound card drivers) to make sure your game runs smoothly.

There are two ways you can update your graphics driver:

Option 1 – Manually – You’ll need some computer skills and patience to update your drivers this way because you need to find exactly the right driver online, download it and install it step by step.

OR

Option 2 – Automatically (Recommended) – This is the quickest and easiest option. It’s all done with just a couple of mouse clicks.

Option 1 – Manually update your graphics card

To manually update your graphics driver, you can head to its official website:

• NVIDIA
• AMD

Note that you should download the driver for your operating system, and install it manually.

Option 2 – Automatically update your drivers (recommended)

If you prefer to do it in a much easier way and update your graphics driver as soon as there’s an update, you can do it with Driver Easy.

Driver Easy will automatically recognize your system and find the correct drivers for it. You don’t need to know exactly what system your computer is running, you don’t need to risk downloading and installing the wrong driver, and you don’t need to worry about making a mistake when installing.

You can update your drivers automatically with either the FREE or the Pro version of Driver Easy. But with the Pro version it takes just 2 clicks:

1. Download and install Driver Easy.
2. Run Driver Easy and click the Scan Now button. Driver Easy will then scan your computer and detect any problem drivers.
   
3. Click the Update button next to the flagged driver to automatically download the correct version of that driver, then you can manually install it (you can do this with the FREE version).
   
   Or click Update All to automatically download and install the correct version of all the drivers that are missing or out of date on your system. (This requires the Pro version which comes with full support and a 30-day money-back guarantee. You’ll be prompted to upgrade when you click Update All.)
   
4. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

Fix 5: Stop overclocking your GPU

If your Red Dead Online is still crashing, the reason might be your GPU. If you’re overclocking your GPU, you can revert it back to its default GPU clock.

But if you don’t feel like messing with the GPU clock, you can lock the game’s max FPS instead.

1. Right-click the desktop and select NVIDIA Control Panel.
2. Go to Manage 3D Settings on the left pane. Then select Program Settings > select Red Dead Online/ Red Dead Redemption 2.
   
3. Turn on Max FPS Limit and set the value to 30. This will lock the game to 30 FPS and will reduce CPU and GPU load.

Fix 6: Install Graphics Tools

Some players find adding a Graphics Tool helped fix their Red Dead Online crashing issue. So if these methods above didn’t do the trick, you may want to have a try:

1. In the Windows Search bar, start typing feature, and select Manage optional features.
2. Click Add a feature.
   
3. Choose Graphics Tools from the results list.
   
4. Launch your game again to see if you can get rid of game crashes now.
5. If not, you can go to Graphics Settings > Advanced Graphics, and make sure Graphics API is set to DirectX 12.
   
6. If changing it to DX12 didn’t help, you can try reverting it back to Vulkan.

Did the fixes above solve your Red Dead Online crashing issue? Feel free to drop us a line if you have any suggestions or questions. We’ll see what we can do to help.

If none of these methods worked, you can try performing a clean boot, or contact Rockstar game support.

• game crash
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Windows 10