Hogwarts Legacy keeps crashing, freezing or stuttering on PC

Does Hogwarts Legacy keep crashing, freezing, or stuttering on your Windows PC? Hogwarts Legacy is a role-playing action game set in the late 1800s inspired by events from the Harry Potter novels. The game is available on different platforms, including Windows. While it works well for most, some Windows users have complained of experiencing performance issues in Hogwarts Legacy.

Some users have complained that the game crashes instantly after startup or in the middle of the gameplay. While some gamers reported that Hogwarts Legacy keeps on freezing and becoming unplayable. For some users, the game keeps stuttering.

One of the primary reasons could be system compatibility issues. If your computer doesn’t meet the system requirements of the Hogwarts Legacy game, you will face issues like stuttering, crashing, etc. So, make sure your computer fulfills its system requirements. Other reasons for these issues include outdated graphics and device drivers, broken or missing game files, enabled overclocking, unnecessary background programs running in the background, and incompatible in-game graphics settings.

Hogwarts Legacy keeps crashing, freezing or stuttering on PC

If Hogwarts Legacy keeps crashing, freezing, or stuttering on your Windows 11/10 PC, you can use the below solutions to fix these issues:

1. Make sure your device drivers are up-to-date.
2. Verify the integrity of the game files.
3. Enable/disable V-Sync.
4. Turn off Ray Tracing.
5. Disable overclocking.
6. Lower in-game graphics settings.
7. Disable Control Flow Guard (CFG).
8. Close background programs.
9. Reinstall Hogwarts Legacy.

1] Make sure your device drivers are up-to-date

Device drivers especially graphics drivers need to be up-to-date to play games like Hogwarts Legacy smoothly. If you are using an older version of display drivers or your drivers are corrupted or faulty, you will likely face performance issues in Hogwarts Legacy. Hence, if the scenario is applicable, update the device drivers on your PC and then check if the problem is resolved.

First, press Win+I to launch Windows Settings and navigate to the Windows Update tab. After that, click on the Advanced options > Optional Updates option and download and install pending graphics and other device driver updates. When done, you can launch Hogwarts Legacy and check if it has stopped crashing, freezing, or stuttering.

2] Verify the integrity of the game files

In a lot of cases, the performance issues in Hogwarts Legacy and other games are caused because of infected game files. Or, if essential game files have gone missing, the game is likely to crash at startup. So, in that case, ou can verify the integrity of the game files and then run the game to see if the problem is fixed.

STEAM:

• First, launch the Steam client and go to LIBRARY.
• After that, locate and right-click on the Hogwarts Legacy game, and from the appeared context menu, select the Properties option.
• Next, navigate to the LOCAL FILES tab and hit the Verify integrity of game files…. button.
• Steam will now start detecting bad and missing game files and restoring clean files from its servers. The process might take some minutes depending on the size of the game files.
• Finally, you can reopen Hogwarts Legacy and see if it performs smoothly or not.

EPIC GAMES LAUNCHER:

• First, launch the Epic Games Launcher app and move to Library where you can see all your installed games.
• After that, locate Hogwarts Legacy and click on the three-dot menu button associated with the game title.
• Now, from the appeared menu options, press the VERIFY option and the launcher will start fixing the bad game files.
• When done, relaunch Hogwarts Legacy and check if the performance issues are resolved.

See: Computer keeps restarting when launching or playing games.

3] Enable/disable V-Sync

You can try enabling or disabling V-Sync to fix the problem. V-Sync (Vertical Sync) is a handy graphics technology that basically prevents screen tearing and stuttering by synchronizing the game’s FPS with a gaming monitor’s refresh rate. However, this feature might work well for some and might not work for others. So, you can change the state of V-Sync accordingly and see if the problem is fixed.

If you have an Nvidia graphics card, you can follow the below steps to configure the V-Sync option:

• First, open NVIDIA Control Panel and click on the 3D Settings > Manage 3D Settings option.
• Now, under the Global Settings tab, scroll down to the V-Sync feature and turn it On/Off.
• Next, press the Apply button to save new settings.

For AMD graphics card users, use the below steps:

• First, launch the AMD Radeon Software and move to the Gaming tab.
• Now, scroll down to the Wait for Virtual Refresh option and change its value accordingly.

You can change the V-Sync option in the game using the below steps:

• First, open Hogwarts Legacy and enter its SETTINGS.
• Now, navigate to the Display Options tab.
• Next, look for the VSync option and disable it.
• After that, press the APPLY SETTINGS button.

When done, you can reopen Hogwarts Legacy and see if stuttering, crashing, or freezing issues are resolved.

Read: Screen flickering issues while playing games on Windows.

4] Turn off Ray Tracing

The next thing you can do to fix stuttering in Hogwarts Legacy is to disable Ray Tracing in the game. Ray Tracing is graphics rendering technique that simulates the physical behavior of light in video games. It is a very useful feature that improves your gaming experience. However, if you have a low-end system, this feature might not work correctly for you. As result, you are likely to experience performance issues like stuttering in the game. Hence, you can turn off the Ray Tracing feature and then check if the problem is resolved.

Here are the steps to do that:

• First, open the Hogwarts Legacy game and enter its main settings.
• Now, navigate to the Graphics Options tab and look for the RAY TRACING option.
• Next, disable the RAY TRACING REFLECTIONS, RAY TRACING SHADOWS, and RAY TRACING AMBIENT OCCLUSION options.
• Also, lower RAY TRACING QUALITY and then press the APPLY SETTINGS button to save changes.
• Finally, open the game and check if the stuttering issue is fixed.

If you still experience performance issues in Hogwarts Legacy, move ahead with the next solution to fix the problem.

Read: Fix High Disk & Memory Usage when playing Games.

5] Disable overclocking

Overclocking is a useful function that enables your to increase the performance of your processor and GPU. However, in some cases, it causes instability with games and apps. As a result, the games keep crashing or stuttering. If this scenario is applicable, stop overclocking on your computer and then check if Hogwarts Legacy is performing well or not.

See: Steam Games not launching or opening on Windows.

6] Lower in-game graphics settings

In case you have a medium or low-end computer, setting up high graphics settings in games will cause performance issues like stuttering, crashing, etc. So, you can try lowering your in-game graphics settings and then see if it helps. Here are the instructions you can follow to do that:

• First, launch Hogwarts Legacy and click on SETTINGS.
• Now, move to the Graphics Options tab.
• Next, lower the graphics settings as mentioned below:
  Global Quality Preset: Low
  Effects Quality: Low/Medium
  Material Quality: Low/Medium
  Fog Quality: Low
  Sky Quality: Low
  Foliage Quality: Medium
  Post Process Quality: Medium
  Shadow Quality: Low
  Texture Quality: Medium
  View Distance Quality: Medium
  Population Quality: Low/Medium
• After that, go to the Display Options tab and change the settings:
  Window Mode: Windowed Fullscreen
  Upscale Type: NVIDIA DLSS
  Upscale Mode: NVIDIA DLSS Quality
  Upscale Sharpness: 0
  NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: On
  Frame Rate: Uncapped
  Field of View: 0.0
  Motion Blur: Off
  Depth of Field: Off
  Chromatic Aberration: Off
  Film Grain: Off
• Finally, click on APPLY SETTINGS and exit the settings window.

You can now reopen the game and see if there is an improvement in its performance.

Read: Fix Black screen when playing games on Windows.

7] Disable Control Flow Guard (CFG)

If you are still facing stutters in Hogwarts Legacy, you can try disabling Control Flow Guard (CFG) on Windows. A few affected users have reported that disabling this function has improved their performance of Hogwarts Legacy. So, you can also do the same and see if it helps you. Here’s how to do that:

• First, open Windows Search and enter Exploit protection in the search box.
• Now, open the Exploit protection system settings from the search results.
• Next, go to the Program settings tab and press the Add program to customize > Choose exact file path option.
• After that, browse and choose the main executable of Hogwarts Legacy.
• Once the game is added, select it and press the Edit button.
• Now, scroll down to the Control flow guard (CFG) setting and tick the Override system settings checkbox.
• Then, turn it Off and press the Apply button.
• Finally, exit the settings window and relaunch the game to check if the stuttering is now fixed.

See: Fix Game Stuttering with FPS drops in Windows.

8] Close background programs

If there are too many unnecessary programs running in the background, Hogwarts Legacy might not run smoothly and it might crash, freeze, or stutter in the middle of the gameplay. Hence, if the scenario applies, you can close the background programs to free up system resources to play the game and get its best performance. To do that, open Task Manager using Ctrl+Shift+Esc and use the End task button to terminate background apps.

Read: Fix Hogwarts Legacy Out of video memory error

9] Reinstall Hogwarts Legacy

If the game installation is incorrect or faulty, it won’t perform well. So, the last resort to fix the issue is to reinstall the Hogwarts Legacy game on your computer. For that, you will first need to uninstall the game.

Read: Fix WoW Low FPS on high-end PC.

How do I make Hogwarts Legacy run smoothly?

To make Hogwarts Legacy run smoothly on your Windows PC, ensure that your computer meets the recommended system requirements for the game and graphics driver is updated. Apart from that, change your PC’s power mode, enable DLSS or FSR in your game’s settings, turn off in-game overlay, disable V-Sync, enable the Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling, optimize in-game graphics settings, and terminate background apps to run the game better.

Why does Hogwarts Legacy crash when preparing shaders?

Hogwarts Legacy crashes when preparing shaders because, during shaders compilation and game preparation, your computer runs out of video memory (VRAM). And as a result, the game crashes abruptly and you are unable to play the game.

Now read: Fix Hogwarts Legacy Robotic Voice glitch.