Back 4 Blood Crashes on Windows

Back 4 Blood is a four-player co-op game that has been described as a spiritual successor of the fondly remembered Left 4 Dead series. The game's launch was met with a mostly positive response from both critics and gamers alike. Unfortunately, some PC players have been reporting running into crashes while trying to start or playing Back 4 Blood. We have outlined several possible solutions that might be able to resolve this issue.

Verify the Integrity of the Game’s Files

This is always a good first step when dealing with crashes. Files that may have become corrupted and could have run into issues while being downloaded could be the reason preceding the game from running as intended. 

1. Open Steam, and go to your Library.
2. Locate the Black 4 Blood entry, right-click it, and select 'Properties' from the available options. 
3. Look at the left pane of the new window and select 'LOCAL FILES.'
4. Click the 'Verify the integrity of game files...' and wait for the process to complete.

Check for Software Interference

Sometimes programs that are running at the same time as the game could cause conflicts resulting in crashes. To see if this is indeed the case, you will need to do a clean boot.

1. Open the Run dialog box by pressing the Windows key + R on your keyboard.
2. Type msconfig in Run and press Enter. 
3. In the 'System Configuration' window, select the 'Services' tab.
4. Enable the 'Hide all Microsoft services' option.
5. Now, uncheck all services that are not associated with hardware manufacturer's services such as NVIDIA, AMD, Realtek, Intel, etc.
6. Click 'OK' to save the changes.
7. Open the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc simultaneously.
8. Select the 'Startup' tab.
9. Disable all programs that might be interfering with the game.
10. Restart your PC and check if Back 4 Blood now runs normally.

Disable the NVIDIA DLSS

If your NVIDIA card has DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), it may be worth a try to disable it and see if doing so has affected the performance of the game positively. 

1. Launch Back 4 Blood.
2. Go to the 'OPTIONS' menu.
3. Select the 'GRAPHICS' tab.
4. Locate the Anti-Aliasing option and turn it off.
5. See if the crashes have disappeared.