Hi all,

I don't know how widespread this problem is, but for anyone having crashes in Denerim (and attached areas), try lowering your graphics settings. I had my graphics all maxed and for some reason the market was very unstable and I couldn't re-load any saves I made if it crashed. Lowering graphics to medium "fixed" it for me and was able to continue.

I hope this helps someone.

Crashes in Denerim can also be caused by some of the mods installed.

Another alternative is to patch the game to enable it to use up to 4GB of RAM with this:
https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371

Or set the CPU affinity to use only one core within the task manager.

Never once had this problem in Win 7 but now I'm getting it in Win 10.

You can also start the game using a previous save (on that isn't in Denerrim) and THEN load your most recent Denerim save.

Hello everybody.

I have GOG edition of DAUE, and am having the same issue.

The game crashes just after loading a save file, with no error msg. It happens with any save I made after entering Denerin the first time, even if after that I leave the city, regardless if where I am it crashes. If I load a file prior to entering Denerin it works, and after that I can load the latest save and it works too, it seems to be related to something that only runs on first load.

I'm currently doing 2 chars. First time it happened I didn't notice where it was, as I use to play for hours without closing the game. That was when I discovered that using an old save for first load and then loading the latest one works.

I got mad on that and moved to my other char, and his save was working. Then, just now I came back to play, it was just after entering Denerin... and crash again! Luckly I had another save seconds before, and that one worked. That's how I discovered it's Denerin related.

I tried to set process affinity to CPU 0 and still crashed. Then I tried quoted patch, and it worked!! I'm finally free to enter Denerin with my mods!

Hi all, I have a very simple fix for the Denerim crash.



I myself tried the 4gb patch and it didn't work for me and locked me out of my DLC. I play un-modded by the way.



I was desperate not to lose all the played hours and re-bought it on GOG when I already own it on Origin, Steam & Xbox 360. My preferred platform is PC for better control & graphics. After 20+ crashes I actually started looking for my 360 copy.



The simple fix is this: I read that DA:O has trouble with memory management due to it being written for older pc's so if it exceeds a certain amount, the glitches start which end in crashes. (weird shadows, npc's armor glitching in and out of existence. So I used the configuration tool to drop the texture settings to medium instead of high. And to make sure you can also drop the graphic settings to high instead of very high.



Works like charm for me. Just be careful not to transition from inside to outside real quick or else the memory fills up again and it glitches.



Even with hese settings, it still looks better then my 360 copy, so no worries about that. (the controls part weigh more for me though)

Thanks man. I've had this problem for years now. Never got past Denerim. But now I can finally play it again:)

FYI this isn't anything to do with (PC) memory management - these type of symptoms occur when your GPU runs out of memory (use a tool like MSI Afterburner to monitor GPU memory usage). Lowering texture settings reduces GPU memory usage, which is why that fixes your problem.

In my experience (on WinXP) Dragon Age Origins can use up to 750-800MB GPU memory when in Denerim market. This can go up to 1GB if you are using "high quality texture" mods.

That sounds pretty logical and probably above my understanding. I have a 6 gig videocard so it shouldn't be a problem at all, but I guess when the game recognizes the video ram goes over a certain amount it glitches out?

Not sure, I just know that after I lowered the texture settings I only glitched out 1 time because I went to an indoors section, accidentally went back out and quickly went back in again.

6GB GPU memory rules out any memory shortage then. Since DA:O uses DirectX9, you may find installing the full DX9 runtime helps:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109

If you're running Windows 10, others have reported poor performance with DX9 games - the following thread may be useful:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-10-update-breaks-directx-9-games/eece0f29-4134-4e82-8e5e-feabe71c2a8d

PCGamingWiki has all the possible solutions:

[url=https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Dragon_Age:_Origins#Crash_to_desktop]https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Dragon_Age:_Origins#Crash_to_desktop[/url]

The 2nd one worked for me (use laa on the exe).

First of all, thanks to all above with the suggestions as I also found this to be a problem quite recently. Oddly enough, I never had this sort of problem playing on my MacBook (through wrapper), but it could be due to the fact that I have about 60 mods installed (excessive?). I'm currently playing on an ASUS TUF F17.

To get Denerim to work, I've enabled the game to use up to 4GB of RAM and I've had to lower graphics and textures to their minimum. With this, I'm able I'm able to wander the market quite freely and access the other locations (stores, warehouses) within it fairly consistently. As far as I've been able to test out, only the market place seems to be glitchy (have yet to test the alienage). So while doing all this does make the market place a bit of an eyesore, it seems I'm able to bump the graphics and textures back up in other Denerim locations without issue.

That being said, I haven't tested extensively with combat and quests yet. All these tests were on an old save (which I started before adding all these mods), so hopefully things will be smoother once I start a new game. If I notice any other bugs and solutions, maybe I'll add an update. Cheers!

I had this problem (loading a Save Game that was in location Denerim Market, and while loading crashes to the desktop).

What worked for me, was loading another Save Game, any Save Game, that was NOT in location Denerim Market.

When that loaded, I then loaded my most recent Save Game that WAS in Denerim Market, which then loaded fine.

I then got in the habit of not Saving in the Denerim Market location.

So for me, I did not need any RAM patches or settings adjustments.

Thanks for this comment, this trick seems to work for ctds when loading a save. Works on Steam version too.