Hello, I have been trying to get unreal engine to run on and off for the better part of a year with no results despite anything I do. I have deleted and redownloaded UE about 7 times now, verified the files on each download AT LEAST twice before deleting and attempting the process over again. I can launch UE fine, but after I load up a project, the engine crashes after about 1-3 minutes and gives me:
I have already downloaded and redownloaded the latest Nvidia drivers, restarted my computer at least a dozen times (during this months attempt to get it to run) and for the life of me I cannot get this engine to run properly on my computer. What am I doing wrong?
The only way I’ve seen this solved is by (when you get it to start) QUICKLY go to File → Project Settings → Default RHI → Change from DirectX12 to DirectX11.
Give that a try and get back to us! You’ve done most of the other things, I just know that “28” SPECIFICALLY seems to be solved by this since UE5.1!
First, don’t give up life of a creator wouldn’t be half as fun without the occasional software crash!
It’s hard to pinpoint the cause from a distance, but here are a few things that come to mind from my own crash notes. Maybe one of them will fit your situation or point you in the right direction:
GPU Timeout Fix: Check out Rosie Dinh’s article “How to Fix a GPU Driver Crash on Unreal Engine” (Google). It explains how to extend the GPU timeout on PC - super useful if your scenes are heavy. This fix worked for me in the past.
Switch Graphics: In your project’s Config folder, open the DefaultEngine.ini file and change
DefaultGraphicsRHI=DefaultGraphicsRHI_DX12
to
DefaultGraphicsRHI=DefaultGraphicsRHI_DX11
(Disclaimer: this is from my UE4 notes, but it might still help in UE5.)
Check High-Poly Assets: If you’re using any very high-poly assets (especially from Blender or a marketplace), try completely removing them from the project or even from the Content folder externally to test. I once solved repeated crashes this way. If you find a culprit, reduce subdivisions or poly count -same goes for heavy hair .abc files.
Other ideas: Disable any unused Blueprints. If it crashes during rendering, try adjusting camera movement or focus near the crash area. Rendering frame-by-frame can help spot the exact frame before the crash.
When I’m diagnosing persistent crashes, I usually (not necessarily in this order):
Create a new empty project and see if it runs fine.
Migrate my existing content into the new project piece by piece.
Delete or disable suspect assets or disable all clusters until I isolate the problem.
Monitor GPU load (memory, temperature), disk space, and permissions + drivers (as you did)
And of course - always back up before testing changes.
life of a creator wouldn’t be half as fun without the occasional software crash!