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Well actually Dragon Age is a pretty nice game, but it is freezing pretty often: i.e. i have to push the reset-button. Some pixels get weird colors and the sound gets in a loop.

I ...

  • installed the newest patch (1.04)
  • installed newest graphic card driver (also tried it with some older versions 190.x)
  • switched down graphics
  • started DA with only one processor
  • stopped AntiVirus
  • installed Windows new
  • played in windowed mode (i actually could play pretty long without any freeze)

Actually I even called the EA-Hotline ...

First I thought it freezes only during dialogs, but just right now it freezed somewhere standing in the landscape...

Some information on my system:
Windows 7 64bit, Intel i5, Geforce 9400GT, 4 Gig ram, Asrock P55M Pro mainboard

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  • removed "bug" for "pc" so that folks know where you're running it by tags alone. – Raven Dreamer Aug 3 '10 at 1:44
  • What's your hard disk like? DA:O gives my hd a run for it's money. – Ritwik Bose Sep 28 '10 at 14:59
  • HD wasn't the problem. After buying a new graphic card it worked - though I don't really know the problem's source. – eL13 Sep 28 '10 at 22:35
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Your grahpics card could also be defective. I had a similar problem with a graphics card that later ended up dying on me. If you have a spare kicking around, try swapping it out and see what happens.

Or alternatively, install the card in another PC (if available) and see what happens.

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  • Yeah, bought a new Ati 5770 - now it works. – eL13 Sep 8 '10 at 10:18
  • Bioware games are notoriously buggy... For instance, Mass Effect 2 crashes on just about every computer with an NVidia graphics card when you see a specific (very strong) enemy's eyes... I had to fight several fights without looking at the enemy's face! So don't assume the graphics card is dying quite yet. – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Sep 8 '10 at 21:48
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Usually when a 3D program (games) freezes, especially with visual artefacts (like your "weird colored" pixels), either your cpu or your graphics card is overheating. This is good, it's easy to fix, just dust the heatsinks on your cpu and graphics card and you should be good to go. I reccomend using something like AIDA to see the temperatures on your system as you play.

Another possibility is defective ram. To test this, run memtest86 overnight and see if you get any errors.

Of course the game might be bugged itself (Fallout 3 comes to mind, I despise how unfinished that thing is), but dragon age is pretty stable overall.

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  • as usual, only open the case of your computer if you know what you're doing, and never while it is still turned on. Heatsinks can be HOT, otherwise find someone who is knowlegable. – alexanderpas Aug 8 '10 at 4:35
  • Agreed, sounds like a classic case of 3D card over-heating. I've played Dragon Age for many hours and never had it freeze, so it's stable itself. – Dan Diplo Aug 8 '10 at 9:21
  • My GPU heats up to 74° C, my CPU to 64° C - I think those temperatures are ok...? – eL13 Aug 9 '10 at 0:00
  • That doesn't sound too bad actually. Try testing your ram. – Blindy Aug 11 '10 at 7:38
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Try playing the game using a new user account, that worked for me sometimes but I can't explain why.

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  • Doesn't matter, I switched off all the online-options. It also doesn't help if I play logged out. – eL13 Aug 4 '10 at 8:42
  • I think he meant a new Windows user account ... at least that's how I took it. This can help if you have some weird configuration problem in your Windows profile. – Michael Herold Aug 8 '10 at 3:22
  • tried that too - no difference :( – eL13 Aug 9 '10 at 16:52
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Maybe you should check the sound card drivers/ Do you use an onboard sound card?

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  • Yes, I'm using onboard sound card. I installed the newest drivers from the mainboard's homepage. Just looked up VIA's homepage, the drivers there are much more recent. I'll give it a try. – eL13 Aug 4 '10 at 8:41
  • nope, didn't help. Game freezed right after start :( – eL13 Aug 4 '10 at 21:39
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This is going to be a shot in the dark but try running in Administrator mode once. Also the obligatory check that your graphics card is working ok and latest drivers blah blah.

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