Are you shutting down all non-essential programs (especially anti-virus) before starting the game? Firewalls can cause conflicts (generally on startup or loading screens) and overlays from graphics tweaking/monitoring programs or chat programs can also caused issues.

If you have any generic or obscure USB controllers (or other devices) plugged in, try disconnecting them. Crashes on startup with faulting module names of ntdll.dll and EZFRD64.DLL, can (particularly for the latter) be related to USB controllers or PS2 to USB adapters (for various games). That usually causes an immediate crash though, with no black screen.

If you check the Event Viewer, does that give an error code or 'Faulting Module' file name that might help identify the cause of the crash?
- click Start (or WinKey-R), then type "event viewer" into the search box. in Windows 10, 'event' should bring up 'View event logs'.
- after starting the Event Viewer, expand 'Windows Logs' in the left column and select 'Application'
- in the center column, look for a recent error for the game (maybe sort by Date and Time, or search for 'EoCApp')
- check the information under the 'General' tab below the list of events, starting with "Faulting application name..."


Check for updated graphics drivers, and Windows updates in general.

Normally, GOG will install the redistributable packages if required, but you can check, and reinstall them manually:

- Visual C++ Redist 2017 (64bit), now included with the 2019 release (if this is a problem, generally there should be an error when starting from the executable, mentioning a VC related dll)
C:\Program Files (x86)\GalaxyClient\Dependencies\__redist
or https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads

- .Net Framework 4 (if the launcher starts, this should be fine)
https://www.microsoft.com/net/download/dotnet-framework-runtime


Try browsing to the '..\Documents\Larian Studios' folder and delete the 'Divinity Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition' folder.
This folder contains the saved games, configuration files and a level cache folder. Normally I would suggest renaming the folder for troubleshooting purposes, but if you don't have any saved games that isn't an issue.
Next, extract the replacement folder from this download into your '..\Documents\Larian Studios' folder, and see if that will let you start the game.

The graphicSettings.lsx file is set to 1280x720 Windowed mode, Very Low quality preset and low audio quality, which you can change in the options (manually, or hit autodetect) if this gets the game to start.


Try doing a clean boot and then test the game. Click Start, or hit WinKey-R, type in msconfig and hit enter; in the General tab, click Selective Startup, uncheck Load startup items (if required) and leave Load system services and Use original boot configuration options checked. Next, click on the Services tab, check the box to Hide all Microsoft services, then click the Disable All button (maybe make a note of which are currently enabled/disabled), then click OK and reboot the computer.
Run msconfig again to switch back to the normal boot configuration.


If that doesn't help, please email supportdos2@larian.com with a dxdiag report (WinKey-R, type in dxdiag and hit enter, then when it finishes loading click on the 'Save All Information...' button and save the report somewhere handy). Also check the '..\Divinity Original Sin 2\DefEd\bin' folder for the gold.log file, and if there are any 'CrashDump' files being created, zip a few together to include.