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I know this has little to do with gaming, but more to do with lack of gaming. On both my Vista PC as my Windows 7 laptop, Burnout Paradise crashes 9 times out of 10 just a few frames after going in-game.

The odd thing is that it happens on both machines (PC has a nVidia 8600 GTS, laptop has an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650). The game was downloaded via Steam on each machine separately. Disabling anti-virus (MS Security Essentials) or, via Steam, defragmenting, verifying and redownloading has no effect.

At first, I only ran the game on my laptop. Correspondence with EA promised a patch for Windows 7 after several e-mails, but it regularly crashes on my PC as well.

A list of about 15 other Steam games run without hitches on either machine. Has anybody run into such an issue with Burnout Paradise?

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  • Burnout Paradise needs to log into EA before the game loads, could your firewall be blocking it?
    – Delameko
    Aug 18, 2010 at 13:30
  • No, it (usually) logs in okay, although sometimes it crashes even before it gets that far. Other games log in without any issues.
    – Paul Lammertsma
    Dec 6, 2010 at 11:07

7 Answers 7

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I had this issue on Burnout Paradise on Win7 64 installed via Steam with an ATI(AMD) 4850 with latest drivers. It worked fine when I first installed it and then, when I came back to it after a long period, crashed immediately on start-up. After a bit of research I saw people had similar problems caused by incompatible web-cam drivers. As I'd just installed a web-cam I uninstalled the web-cam drivers, rebooted, re-verified the game and it has worked fine since.

I can't say whether this would help you, but if you have a web-cam try uninstalling it and seeing if this helps.

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  • I suspected the webcam might be the cause, but when the game still worked, it worked with the webcam and I've never changed the firmware. Moreover, disabling the webcam functionality in the configuration tool has no effect; the game crashes nonetheless. I'll try uninstalling the driver and giving it another swing when I have the opportunity.
    – Paul Lammertsma
    Dec 6, 2010 at 11:05
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I haven't experienced any problems on my Vista machine since updating Games for Windows Live. It could be coincidence, but I thought I'd leave this behind nonetheless.

Edit: I have noticed that the problem definitively disappeared after removing Internet Explorer 9 from my Vista machine, following problems with GTA IV. I'm fairly sure this was the cause of the problems, as both games use an in-game browser.

At the time of posting this question, I believe I had the first beta of IE 9 installed, but the problems are still there when using the released version. Only by uninstalling and rebooting have I found both games to work again.

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Burnout Paradise is known for having several bugs in newer systems. I'm still struggling with making it to work for myself in my laptop, and after digging a while in the internet, the best answer so far gathering the possible solutions is described in this Steam Topic.

However, I believe the way it's structured is addressing by solutions, but not by steps of failure (which is what I'll try to do here). So here it goes:

Normal steps running the game

  • Launch game
  • Appears the 'Click any Button'
  • Game asks for EA Network login - First Bug
  • You start a new game
  • Narrative that appears the first time you run appears
  • During narrative, 'DMV' appears - Second Bug
  • You pick your car / bike
  • You start playing
  • Game crashes always in less than 1 min - Third Bug
  • Game crashes randomly, in 1 min or in 30 min - Forth Bug

First Bug - EA Network login issues

Once you enter your EA network login details, a screen behind the game window appears, which a 'back to game' blank button on the lower right corner. For some people, after clicking this button game crashes.

Solution 1: Enter in contact with EA support and ask them to fix your accounting.

Solution 2: Do not log into the EA Network. Obviously, you won't be able to use multiplayer functionalities and store. If you have already logged in and don't know how to 'cancel' your subscription, you can delete the folder %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Criterion Games\Burnout Paradise

Second Bug - DMV license crash

Here, Burnout Paradise tries to take a picture of the gamer to add into the License. It's funny, but buggy.

Solution: For these crashes, follows the suggestion on disabling webcams (described above). Also, shown in YouTube.

Third Bug - Game crashes after a few moments

The most likely root cause here is incompatibilities of an old game running in newer systems.

Solution 1: The most logic solution that applies to most gamers is using the Multi Core CPU fix, which is adding the -multithread option on the game launching options.

Solution 2: Run in Compatibility mode. Some say XP sp3, others say Vista, others Win8. Pick yours.

Solution 3: Repair your game. That's what worked (I believe) for me.

Forth Bug - Game crashes randomly

This is caused by the buggy Soundtrack.

Solution: Follows steps described in EA Burnout Paradise Support, which is disabling soundtrack #25.

Hope this helps people to understand that there are different bugs at different stages of the game, so when reporting it, would be good to explicitly mention when the crash happens.

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I was having a lot of crashes lately as well. Not sure if this applies to you, though. I can play the game just fine, but after countless crashes I realized that the game was crashing whenever the songs from EA Trax changed either when it ended or when I skipped them myself (yeah, go figure). I disabled all the songs in the list and I haven't crashed since then.

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I have Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate, nvidia 8500GT along with Microsoft Security Essentials. Downloaded Burnout Paradise from Steam and have not encountered any issues.

Try the latest nvidia drivers. Also check whether your router or internet connection might be a problem. When you start the game, it pings the server and connects to the Burnout Paradise Network and maintains the connection throughout your play. Please disconnect your internet connection and try whether it works.

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I had the same problem. After logging in it would crash trying to connect to Burnout Paradise server. My sis and I searched on Google for solution and found one blog that has HELPED SOME but missed others - http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/651447-burnout-paradise-fix-those-crashes.html. It didn`t help my problem.

I tried for days experimenting and FINALLY found a something that WORKED for me! I was disabling and enabling several things in Device Manager found in the Control Panel. It was when I disabled Bluetooth Module, Atheros Bluetooth Bus, and NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M that I was able to play the game!

These options to try may not work for everyone.

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    Atheros drivers are known to be buggy, but I can't imagine that disabling the network device is a good solution if you want to use networking to play multiplayer. I'm similarly unsure how disabling the 3D graphics card can be a good idea for a 3D game…
    – SevenSidedDie
    Sep 10, 2013 at 20:20
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Use the Windows compatibility mode and set it to Windows XP SP3. Also try to disable your webcam. It worked for me that way.

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