Windows 11 Games Crash or Freeze? Don't Miss Quick Fixes Here!

"Anyone had games just freeze and crash after a Windows 11 update? More specifically, the game crashes, and in event viewer, it shows a 0x8000003 error. This isn't tech support, I know the problem is related to Windows 11 in some capacity. I want to know if anyone else is having this problem."

Great News! Microsoft has released Windows 11 in October. For PC gamers, you can't imagine how appealing the game features of the new system are. However, game crashing happens on someone's device. Which culprit behind it? How to fix Windows 11 games crash or freezing? Read this complete guide and get your answer.

Why Does My Game Keep Freezing and Crashing?

On the average side, games got freezing due to:

Game bugs
Outdated drivers
Driver incompatibility
The disk is run out of space and has other hardware issues.

To fix such an issue, we recommend you check game requirements on Windows 11 first. Then, if your machine meets the requirements, you can go ahead and see how to fix it.

Option 1. Update Graphics Card Driver
Option 2. Uninstall Sonic Studio 3
Option 3. Use SFC Command Prompt
Option 4. Clear Temp Files
Option 5. Uninstall and Re-install Crashing Game
Option 6. Increase C Drive

Option 1. Update Graphics Card Driver

Updating the graphics card driver can be achieved on Device Manager.

Step 1. Right-click Windows icon and select Device Manager from list.

Step 2. Locate the Display adapters. Then right-click it and click on the Update driver button.

Step 3. Select Search automatically for updated driver software.

Step 4. Choose to update graphic driver.

If you can not find any new drivers, don't worry, go to the manufacturer's website and find your driver update.

How to find the manufacturer of the graphic card?

Step 1. Go to Settings > System > Display

Step 2. Click the Advanced display settings on the Multiple displays section.

Step 3. Check manufacturer info under Display information.

If you are ready to install the Graphic Card Driver, follow the steps to download it manually. Here we take Intel Driver as an example:

Intel has unveiled an Intel Driver & Support Assistant (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html) to easily identify your driver and get hardware updates.

intel drive support assistant

After installation, check whether your installed driver is correct:

Open Device Manager > Right-click the Display Adapter and click Properties > locate Driver tab > Verify your Graphics driver version.

Option 2. Uninstall Sonic Studio 3

As we test, some game crashing issues were caused by the Sonic Studio 3. So you can try to uninstall this audio suite and see if your games run again. This option do works to end game freezing for some users. Moreover, if you download and install any third-party software and then a game crash happens, uninstalling the newly installed apps is a good choice.

Step 1. Click the Windows icon and choose Settings.

Step 2. Choose Apps from the left panel and then click Apps & features.

Step 3. Locate Sonic Studio 3, click the 3 dots and click Uninstall.

Option 3. Use SFC Command Prompt

Step 1. Click the Search icon and type the command prompt. Choose Run as administrator.

Step 2. Type sfc /scannow and hit Enter.

run sfc

Step 3. Then the system scan is beginning. If there are some bugs on your device, this method will work to repair it. Wait for the process to be completed and restart the PC.

Option 4. Clear Temp Files

Step 1. Press Windows + R key to see the Run box. Type %temp% on the blank and click the OK button.

Step 2. Press Ctrl+A simultaneously to select all temp files. Then right-click files and select Delete.

delete temp files

The risk of this method is you may delete some necessary files by accident. To avoid this problem, you can download a tool to clean up temp files without extra risk.

Free Download
Windows 11/10/8/7, 100% Secure

Step 1. Download and install Qiling Partition Master Suite on your PC. Click to download PC Cleaner on panel.

Step 2. Install Qiling CleanGenius on your PC. To begin with, navigate to "Cleanup" and click "Scan."

Step 3. Qiling CleanGenius will start immediately to scan all the useless files, select system junk files and invalid entries, and click "Clean" over all your PC.

Step 4. Once completed, you can see clearly how many MBs or GBs of data are cleaned. Click "Done" to finish the process.

Option 5. Uninstall and Re-install Crashing Game

Step 1. Choose the Windows icon and select the Settings.

Step 2. Locate Apps from the left panel. Under the Apps section, choose Apps & features.

Windows 11 apps and features

Step 3. Check the crashing game > Click the 3 dots and choose Uninstall.

Option 6. Increase C Drive

Most hit games have large file sizes taking up a lot of disk space. Make sure your C drive has enough space. If not, the computer crash will happen and you can not play games smoothly. Here, Qiling Partition Master for Windows 11 can easily expand C drive space in 3 steps.

Free Download
Windows 11/10/8/7, 100% Secure

Step 1: Free up unallocated space for C drive.

If there is no unallocated space on the system disk, right-click on a partition next to the C: drive and select "Resize/Move".
Drag left panel of the partition to shrink and leave unallocated space behind the system C: drive and click "OK".

Step 2: Increase C drive space.

1. Right-click on C: drive and select "Resize/Move".

2. Drag the system partition end into unallocated space so to add space to C: drive.

Step 3: Keep all changes to extend C: drive.

Click the "Proceed" to keep all changes so to extend the system C: drive.

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Concluding Thoughts

Windows 11 games crash or freeze goes easy by using these six solutions. You can pick one of the options according to your needs. We recommend using Qiling Partition Master and Qiling CleanGenius to do the space extension and system cleanup first because these two ways are the fast ways to fix the Windows game freeze.