I'm encountering this issue sometimes. There are no specific points of this game where it freezes. But mostly in cut-scenes, and not always. It crashed one time during regular gameplay and 3 times during cut-scenes and I had to restart the game every time. When the cut-scenes played the second time it didn't crash, but it's annoying to load the game over and over again if it freezes again. It also seems to happen more frequent the longer I play.
My notebook stays pretty cool during the game, so overheating can be excluded.
It runs on a 2.5 ghz dual core and a NVS 5100m and surpasses the system requirements.

Does anyone know what is causing this or how to avoid these freezes?
I appreciate any advice.

EDIT: The game already froze 3 times in the same cutscene where Raziel and Kain meet again in the mountains. I simply don't know why it is keeping freezing.

Solution: After setting the game to Windows 95 compatibility mode I could play through the whole game without freezes or crashes.

Thank you Sequiro and Paradoks for the answers.

What Compatibility mode are you playing it in if any?

I have an issue like that with Blood Omen 2 and even in XP compat mode it would freeze. I needed to put it in windows 98 compat mode to play the game to stop the freezing.

It fixed this issue for me when I've set the compatibility mode to Windows 95. I could play the game to the end without any freezes or crashes. It still froze in Windows 98 compatibility mode, but with Windows 95 everything went fine.

Thank you for the answers guys!

I hope I don't get into trouble for mentioning this but anyway. I own the GOG version legitimately but I also have a cracked version. I haven't gotten around to testing the GOG version just yet but the cracked copy worked just fine.


If there is a problem with the GOG version, then maybe taking a look at the crack will reveal a possible solution.

There is no need to look at the crack. The solution is known. I don't have a cracked version, but the chances are minimal that there is something in there that fixes the stability. You may have been simply lucky, have a game in compatibility mode, a single core CPU.
The crashing is random. Sometimes it occurs after 2 hours, sometimes after 5 minutes.

So do you need to change the cores, or is compatibly mode enough?

Like I said elsewhere - depends on the system. In some cases compatibility mode is enough. In others you need to set the affinity manually.

Okay, thanks.

I had the game freeze during realm phases. So I ensured V Sync is enabled, either with Nvidia control panel and or the games setup. I created a .BAT file with ....

cd {Game directory}
:start
sr2.exe -setup

I also had the game not start and crash out to the desktop.
To fix this I accidentally opened the game folder properties and Unticked the "Read Only" box. The game runs with all settings set.

I hope this helps as it drove me mad. Have loved these game since the the 90's and really want to finish the story.

I just finished a full play-through. Pauses between plays and it still worked fine (save for some issues with the music) no freezes. I had it in Windows 95 compatibility and the d3d8.dll file that someone else in the forum suggested. Seems like there's some contention on what actually makes it work, so I'm putting my set up for anyone who may come looking here later.

The simplest solution of all problems with SR2 and BO2 (just one wrapper): this. I described what exactly will solve each part of it.