I have been playing Witcher 3 through GOG since release. Out of nowhere, today the game no longer launches. I have not changed a single thing to my PC since last played.

The screen flickers to black for a fraction of a second and then the "PLAY" button is highlited again to indicate ready to play.

I have reinstalled/repaired the Redist folder items in case it was that but no joy.

I have done multiple restarts of Windows 8.1 and tried launching the game with the exe in the bin folder.

I'm not alone in this as I've noticed a couple of threads in the Steam forums also - to which no success is offered.

Same for me. I have tried everything except reinstalling windows, which i am not willing to do.

This just started happening to me this morning, trying to launch the game brings up a windows dialog saying 'Witcher 3 has stopped working'.

Tried verify/repair in GOG Galaxy and it says the install is fine.

I've played 55hrs according to Galaxy and haven't had any issues till now. No changes have been made to my computer.

is it anything to do with the new DLC? disable it if on/ enable it if off

Try installing and running it without Gog Galaxy. I definitely had less issues once I stopped using Galaxy. I think I will wait for the full release of Galaxy before trying it again.

Just saw that there's new DLC, I installed it and tried again, still not starting.

Noticed there are a lot of modified files with todays date in the x64 folders. Lots of .dll changes. Shame we can't rollback on GOG yet.

After disabling RivaTuner Statistics server the game launches. Which is great but now I'm back to the stuttering and jerky framerates. Whatever they updated recently must not like Riva Tuner (and perhaps other programs like it).

I doubt your issue is the same - I don't even get a pop up saying it's stopped working. It just flashes black and goes straight back to where it was.

I have no outside applications running that relate to game performance apart from a G-Sync monitor, and i've tried running it with G-sync disabled.

It happens to me sometimes, too (when my father fiddles with the pc) but a simple restart has always solved the issue. However, I have windows 7 so I don't really know how windows 8.1 works

If possible, go to your Bin > x64 folder and open the crash file with wordpad or notepad. Check to see what the error is.

Mine is: Crash reason: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (3221225477), Error reading location 0x00000002

I have done a Google search for the violation and they all point to this game and it appears it is not a new issue but one still unsolved from release. This is annoying the hell out of me as they've obvsiously screwed up somewhere.

...and now to further annoy me. I tried uninstalling GOG Galaxy to see if it made any difference - it didn't.

I then re-installed GOG Galaxy, and when I boot it up I get an error message for Galaxy saying some components are missing, please re-install - which I did - three times with the same crap.

SOLUTION:

I fixed this by going to my bin>x64 folder and deleting the following two objects:

d3d11.dll
dxgi.dll

I had a feeling as I stated earlier that it was something to do with the .dll files updated today. Try it and see if it works.

Tried to log on today to play and having same issues as stated above. Tried the rename d3d11.dll
dxgi.dll , new ones just appear and game still doesnt work. Tried deleting said files as DiceDUP says... game still wont play (and btw, d3d11.dll and dxgi.dll just reappear again if you delete them).

Any other actual workarounds for this ? this is annoying that i cannot play a game i have bought

This worked for me, I can now launch the game while still running Riva Tuner. Thanks!

Hopefully CDPR will get this resolved before the next DLC or patch. Otherwise we'll have to keep doing this 'fix' ourselves.