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Why GTA 5 Crashes for Dummies

Let's be honest. Game crashes are part of gaming and are expected when you mod. But why does your GTA 5 game crash in the first place? To answer adequately we have to make the distinction between the un-modded GTA 5, what we call Vanilla, and the modded GTA 5.

Vanilla Un-Modded GTA5

If your GTA 5 game crashes, or loses textures, or has low FPS and overall poor performance in Vanilla mode, it is likely due to one or many of the following factors:

1. Your PC hardware is below or barely meeting the recommended requirements set by Rockstar. See below. (Forget about minimum requirements, that's just marketing).

2. Your Windows software is not adequate and/or not properly setup. For example your video drivers might need updating or, in rare instances, aren't compatible with the game. Other software issues could be linked to DirectX, or in some cases folder or file permissions cause problems. For scripts you may need updated Microsoft . NET Framework files.

3. Your GTA5 in-game settings, such as graphics and advance graphics, are set too high for your PC.

Recommended System Requirements:

  • OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1
  • Processor: Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHZ (4 CPUs) / AMD X8 FX-8350 @ 4GHZ (8 CPUs)
  • Memory: 8GB
  • Video Card: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD7870 2GB
  • Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible
  • HDD Space: 65GB

 

Modded GTA5

If your modded GTA 5 game crashes, the possible culprits are multiplied astronomically. The first thing you need to understand is that just having Scripthook V, dinput8.dll, a gameconfig.xml, a packfile limit adjuster, and a heap limit adjuster installed is absolutely no guarantee your modded GTA5 will load or be stable. You many still have infinite loops, crashes, texture loss, collision problems, and low FPS.

The second item of consequence is that Modding generally requires additional computing resources, so ideally you want to exceed the Recommended System Requirements - if not, don't install too many mods.

In other words, and unfortunately, having those essential mods properly installed in combination with the right hardware is just the starting point for modding. 

So what exactly is the problem? Sadly again, you won't know exactly until you start to troubleshoot, but you need to understand your game is broken because of the mods, whether Rockstar updated the game again or not.

Finding the problem, first ensuring your game does run in Vanilla mode, is recognizing where the problem can lie and thankfully there are only 3 possibilities:  in the root folder (game installation folder) where your asi mods are, in the mods folder where your addons and replaces and meta files are, and in the scripts folder where your scripts are.

So assuming you're smart enough to use a mods folder, and not mod the game files directly, you will need to determine, by a process of elimination, where the problem or problems reside. 

This isn't an easy process because, with bad luck, you might have problems in all three areas. And it could be more than one mod, more than one script, or conflicts between mods/scripts that cause your frustration and aggravation.

Recommended Reading

The good news? Follow this guide faithfully and with time and experience you'll become an expert troubleshooter, able to identify and resolve any modding issue thrown at you - or work around them.

However before your tackle that guide, we strongly recommend you read this one first, Modding 101.

If you really want to get paranoid about everything that could go wrong, read the post entitled Game Failures - Common Causes.