While many players are already having fun with Battlefield 2042 on PC, there are also many other players who are struggling to deal with Battlefield 2042 bugs and launch issues — including plenty of crashes to desktop. These can happen regardless of what hardware your rig is outfitted with, so even people using high-end CPUs, beefy graphics cards, and lots of RAM can run into crashing problems.
How are you supposed to enjoy what could be one of the best PC games ever if you can't stop it from crashing to desktop? Sadly, EA and DICE haven't deployed any fixes that help with the crashing issues yet, but thankfully, there are some workarounds that you can use to try and stop further crashes from happening. Here are some of the solutions we recommend.
Update your graphics drivers
If they're not already up-to-date, one of the best ways to reduce crashes in Battlefield 2042 is to update your graphics drivers. The latest drivers for both NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards have optimizations for Battlefield 2042 that will improve your system's performance and stability in-game. This will significantly reduce the chances of a crash occurring, and may also fix other Battlefield 2042 PC issues as well.
To update your graphics drivers when using an NVIDIA GPU, you can use the GeForce Experience app. Alternatively, you can download drivers directly from NVIDIA's driver page. AMD Radeon users can update drivers with AMD's Auto-Detect and Install tool. This tool is available on AMD's Drivers and Support page.
Verify the integrity of your game files
If updating your drivers doesn't work and you're a Steam user, you should verify the integrity of your game files. You can do this by right clicking Battlefield 2042 in your Steam library, selecting Properties, and then selecting the "Verify integrity of game files..." button in the Local Files tab. This will take a few minutes, but if there's a missing file in your installation that's causing a crash, this process will prompt Steam to download it and add it to your install, fixing the problem.
Lower your graphics settings
Another great way to reduce crashing issues is to lower your graphics settings. Battlefield 2042 often automatically uses Ultra settings if it detects relatively powerful hardware in your rig, which generally leads to poor performance due to the game's launch issues. By reducing these settings, you'll be less likely to experience the heavy performance drops that often result in a crash.
Use borderless fullscreen
Using the Borderless Fullscreen display mode is another good way to boost performance and mitigate the risk of crashing. Battlefield 2042's standard Fullscreen mode seems to be less optimized than Borderless Fullscreen, and because of that, the game is more likely to crash when using normal Fullscreen.
Avoid using Alt+Tab
Finally, we recommend avoiding the usage of the Alt+Tab shortcut, especially if you're using normal Fullscreen. This is because Alt+Tabing out of the game generally causes big performance drops or freezes when you tab back into it, which can often result in a crash to desktop. Alt+Tabing is safer when using Borderless Fullscreen, but it's still not recommended.
Ultimately, none of these workarounds are guaranteed to stop crashes entirely. However, they will significantly reduce the chances of them happening, which will hopefully lead to a better experience for you.
Battlefield goes back to the future
Battlefield 2042 debuts Electronic Arts' next-generation vision for the military shooter, supporting up to 128 players, the largest ever maps, devastatingly destructive weather systems, and more.
