How To Stop Sons Of The Forest Crashing

Sons of the Forest, a sequel to The Forest, enhances gameplay and graphics but is plagued with crashing issues and black screens. These issues can pop up at launch or while playing, resulting in lost progress. The crashing problem, in particular, stems from hardware incompatibility, missing game files, or conflicts with your antivirus.

However, no matter the cause, I have a few solutions to get you back to your island.

In this article, Disabling XMP and Removing Overclocks are some solutions I’ll detail for the Crashing problem in Sons of the Forest.

Verify Game Files Via Steam

Experiencing various errors, from Sons of the Forest crashing to the game not launching, can result from disordered local files. Even a single corrupted or missing file can disrupt gameplay entirely. So, first and foremost, I suggest verifying the integrity of your game files.

Fortunately, clients like Steam already provide this utility to recover damaged files. Once the process begins, it could take anywhere from a couple of minutes to several hours, depending on your storage drive. However, any damaged files will automatically be replaced or redownloaded, potentially resolving the problem.

Disable Anisotropic Texture Setting

Anisotropic Textures help retain the sharpness of the plane or the floors, making them appear more life-like in games. However, as also discovered by many players, the setting seems to be bugged. This is especially true for AMD GPUs, as the shader used in the game seems more or less broken.

So, if you’ve encountered crashes and have this setting enabled, it’s worth trying to switch it off. Doing this might stabilize the game, preventing further interruptions, and alleviating crashing issues experienced during gameplay.

Remove GPU Overclocking Profiles

If you’re using any overclocking profiles through Intel XTU, AMD Ryzen Master, or Throttlestop, I suggest disabling them. This is because while overclocks may work wonders in some titles, they can also create instability in others. As Sons of the Forest was still in early access until a while ago, this can especially be the case.

So, at this point, your overclocking profile might be at fault. To do this, restore your original clock speeds and check whether the game runs fine. If it does, you have found the culprit for the crashing problem in Sons of the Forest, and I suggest removing the profile. However, if not, you can just as easily revert the changes.

Turn Off XMP

XMP Profiles are sometimes automatically set by default. These are done to set tighter memory timings to improve performance. However, as mentioned above, a finely tuned overclock can cause applications to become unstable and crash.

However, this is especially true when it’s done with memory as the game is essentially loaded into it. Because of this, a popular solution in the community has been to disable XMP (eXtreme Memory Profile) entirely. So, I recommend removing any active ones.  

Here’s how you can do so:

1. Restart your Computer and Boot into Bios (Press the designated key ~ Del, F2, F10, or Esc).

   

2. Look for Memory Settings or XMP (Typically under Advanced or OC) > Select the XMP Setting.
3. Switch it to Disabled or Off > Navigate to the Exit Menu > Save and Exit from BIOS.

Once done, check if the crashing problem in Sons of the Forest persists.

My Thoughts

From my research, the problem seems somewhat widespread, with players reporting similar crashing experiences on Steam, AMD, Reddit, and Microsoft Forums. Further, what makes this more annoying is no proper acknowledgment of issues anywhere, not even on the Official Endnight Games Twitter handle.  

Anyone else crashing on Sons of the Forest anytime you do something in the water? 😅

— JD (@JDXRCY) March 2, 2023

However, having said this, the developers have been pushing hotfixes to fix these issues. Additionally, since the game was fully released, the problem has started to subside. But, it hasn’t been fully eliminated yet. So, while I believe there is room for improvement, the game is on the right track.

It is important to remember that at the end of the day, Endnight Games is an indie studio. So, in my opinion, they should be cut some slack.

Having said that, until a rock-solid update is pushed, I am confident the methods listed here will get you back on track. While the solutions are a bit specific and somewhat hard, you won’t have too tough a time.

So, with this, I hope to see you on the servers, survivor!