Why Does Sea Of Thieves Keep Crashing

Experiencing constant crashes in Sea of Thieves? The most common fixes involve updating your graphics drivers, verifying the integrity of game files, and closing unnecessary background applications. This article will guide you through these solutions and more to get you back to sailing the high seas.

Understanding Why Sea of Thieves Crashes

There’s no single definitive answer to why Sea of Thieves keeps crashing, as causes range from minor glitches to significant system issues. However, understanding the typical suspects is the first step toward a solution. Here are some of the most frequent reasons:

Outdated or Corrupted Graphics Drivers: These drivers are crucial for translating game instructions into visual output. Issues can lead to instability.
Insufficient System Resources: Sea of Thieves demands a decent amount of processing power (CPU) and memory (RAM). If your system struggles to meet these requirements, crashes are more likely.
Software Conflicts: Background applications, especially overlays, anti-virus software, or resource-intensive programs, can interfere with the game’s operation.
Game File Corruption: Damaged or incomplete game files can trigger errors and crashes.
Network Instability: While less common, unstable internet connections can sometimes lead to client-side crashes, especially during server communication.
Hardware Issues: Overheating or failing hardware components, especially the GPU or RAM, can lead to system instability and game crashes.
Operating System Issues: Outdated or corrupted system files within Windows itself can cause issues.

Troubleshooting Steps: Fixing Those Pesky Crashes

Here’s a systematic approach to diagnosing and resolving Sea of Thieves crash issues:

Safety First: Before making any hardware changes, ensure your device is powered off and unplugged.

1. Update Your Graphics Drivers

Outdated or corrupted graphics drivers are a frequent cause of game crashes. Updating to the latest versions can often resolve compatibility issues.

Identify Your GPU: Determine which graphics card you have (e.g., NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT). You can find this information in Device Manager (search for it in the Windows search bar).
Download Latest Drivers: Visit the NVIDIA or AMD website to download the latest drivers for your specific GPU model.
Perform a Clean Installation: During the installation process, choose the “Custom (Advanced)” option and select “Perform a clean installation.” This removes older driver versions and prevents potential conflicts.

2. Verify Game File Integrity

Damaged game files can trigger crashes. The Steam and Microsoft Store launchers offer tools to verify the integrity of your game files.

Steam: Right-click Sea of Thieves in your Steam library, select “Properties,” go to the “Local Files” tab, and click “Verify integrity of game files…”
Microsoft Store:
- Open the Microsoft Store app.
- Click on the three dots in the top-right corner.
- Select “My Library.”
- Find Sea of Thieves and click the three dots next to it.
- Select “Manage.”
- Choose “Files” and then “Verify and repair.”

This process will check for and replace any corrupted or missing files.

3. Close Unnecessary Background Applications

Background applications can consume valuable system resources and conflict with Sea of Thieves.

Close Unused Programs: Close any programs you aren’t actively using, especially resource-intensive applications like video editors, streaming software (OBS), or multiple browser tabs.
Disable Overlays: Overlays from programs like Discord, NVIDIA GeForce Experience, or AMD Adrenalin can sometimes interfere with the game. Disable these overlays to see if it resolves the issue.
Check Task Manager: Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and monitor CPU and memory usage. Identify any processes that are consuming excessive resources and close them.

4. Adjust Graphics Settings

Lowering graphics settings can reduce the strain on your system and potentially prevent crashes.

Reduce Resolution: Lowering the resolution from 1920x1080 (1080p) to 1280x720 (720p) can significantly improve performance.
Lower Graphics Quality: Set the graphics quality settings (e.g., Textures, Shadows, Water Detail) to “Low” or “Medium.”
Disable Advanced Features: Turn off features like anisotropic filtering, anti-aliasing, and ambient occlusion.

5. Check System Requirements

Ensure your PC meets the minimum and recommended system requirements for Sea of Thieves. If your hardware is below the minimum specifications, upgrading your components (e.g., RAM, GPU) might be necessary. Sea of Thieves uses a lot of RAM, so make sure you have at least the minimum recommended.

6. Run Sea of Thieves as Administrator

Running the game with administrator privileges can sometimes resolve permission-related issues.

Right-click the Sea of Thieves executable file (usually found in the game’s installation directory or through the Steam shortcut’s properties).
Select “Run as administrator.”

7. Temporarily Disable Anti-Virus Software

In rare cases, anti-virus software can falsely identify Sea of Thieves files as threats and interfere with the game.

Temporarily Disable Anti-Virus: Disable your anti-virus software temporarily and try running the game. If the game runs without crashing, you may need to add Sea of Thieves to your anti-virus software’s exceptions list.

8. Check for Hardware Issues

Overheating components can cause system instability and crashes.

Monitor Temperatures: Use hardware monitoring software (e.g., HWMonitor, MSI Afterburner) to check the temperatures of your CPU and GPU while playing Sea of Thieves. If temperatures are excessively high (above 80-90°C for CPU or GPU), you may need to improve cooling (e.g., clean dust from fans, reapply thermal paste).
Run Memory Tests: Use a memory testing tool like Memtest86 to check for RAM errors. Faulty RAM can cause random crashes.

9. Check Event Viewer for Errors

The Windows Event Viewer logs system errors and warnings. Checking the Event Viewer can provide clues about the cause of the crashes.

Search for “Event Viewer” in the Windows search bar and open it.
Navigate to “Windows Logs” > “Application” and “Windows Logs” > “System.”
Look for errors or warnings that occurred around the time of the crashes. The error messages may provide hints about the underlying cause.

By systematically working through these troubleshooting steps, you should be able to identify and resolve the underlying cause of the Sea of Thieves crashes and return to your pirate adventures. Remember to document any changes you make so you can revert them if they don’t help!

Frequently Asked Questions