How to Fix Batman: Arkham Asylum Crashes and Freezes

Mainstream Batman: Arkham Asylum, Crash fix, Crashes, Freezes, How to, Lock ups, Mainstream, Tips and tricks Calin September 15, 2009

How to Fix Batman: Arkham Asylum Crashes and Freezes

With Batman: Arkham Asylum just released, some users have already started to complain on the official forums that the game is crashing and freezing after a few minutes of play. Even though at the moment the forums are not flooded with such complains which might meant that the problems are not widespread, it’s worth knowing how to fix such crashes in case they occur.

Apparently, there are two different types of crashes experienced until now: one in which after a few minutes of gameplay the screen goes black, the computer locks up and the audio starts to stutter; and another one in which the “beloved” blue screen appears on the monitor and nothing can be done.

Well… there might be something you can do to fix the Batman: Arkham Asylum crashes, freezes and lock-ups. From the discussions on the official Batman boards as well as experience from past similar experiences, it appears that some Realtek Audio Cards are causing the problems.

In such cases, all you have to do is to disable the Realtek sound card from your device manager (extreme caution is needed and unless you know what you’re doing, it might be wiser not to do it) or simply try and mute the sound completely. Reports from players who had problems with Batman freezing and crashing are great: all of them turned off their sound cards and the game worked fine!

There is another possible trick to do in order to reduce the intensity, but for now there are no reports whether it works or not (a trick to fix Batman: Arkham Asylum crashes suggested by forum user The Coca Cola Company):

Open file BMEngine.ini in C:\Users\***username***\Documents\Eidos\Batman Arkham Asylum\BmGame\Config with a text editor and change the following lines:

[FMODAudio.FMODAudioDevice]
MaxChannels=200
UseEffectsProcessing=True
EnableMIDIMixing=False

to:

[FMODAudio.FMODAudioDevice]
MaxChannels=32
UseEffectsProcessing=False
EnableMIDIMixing=False

If it doesn’t work and the game still crashes, try turning the sounds off completely and wait for Eidos to find a fix to this problem. If the method above worked for you and Batman: Arkham Asylum doesn’t crash anymore, please let the world know in the comment section below!

Tag Batman: Arkham Asylum Crash fix Crashes Freezes How to Lock ups Mainstream Tips and tricks

46 comments

Pumpkinhead September 16, 2009 4:39 am

After about 10 mins of playing the fps starts to drop and the sound stutter, then it goes and comes about every 5 min, but the game doesn’t freeze/crash.
I tried changing the BMEngine.ini but it CTD’ed after trying to load my save

My sound card is also a Realtek. I hope they release a patch soon.

AkirA September 16, 2009 7:19 am

My game freezes with no certain amount of time.
Sometimes freezes with 5 min of play, sometimes after 1 hour, but everytime it freezes sooner or later.
I tried changing the BMEngine.ini file too, but it CTD after trying to load my save, same as the above.

My sound card is Analog Devices.

This is driving me insane.

Calin September 16, 2009 9:16 am

Did you guys try turning the sound off completely? It’s not something to be happy with, I know, but at least you’ll be able to play the game…

Pumpkinhead September 16, 2009 1:27 pm

@Calin,

Playing the game with no sound is definetly not an option to me. I prefer to wait for a patch or a workaround wich I’m sure will be available soon.

AkirA September 17, 2009 3:15 am

I think the same as Pumpkinhead,
playing the game with no sound is not an option.
The sound it’s responsable for at least half of the immersion.

paopaopao September 28, 2009 3:56 am

I didn’t buy batman to destroy my console. !!!

Calin September 28, 2009 9:42 am

You probably won’t, paopaopao. The said problems were reported by computer users only, and I heard nothing alarming regarding the console versions of the game.

Doom## September 28, 2009 6:59 pm

same here…the sound is laggy…..any ideas anyone??

Pumpkinhead September 30, 2009 12:28 am

Guys, I still need to run some more tests, but after updating my sound driver the problem seems to be gone. The driver was released a fortnight ago after BAA launch and may contain some fixes for the game.

It’s worth a try.

Pumpkinhead October 1, 2009 3:58 pm

Ok, problem solved. Applied patch 1.1 and updated sound drivers from Realtek official web site.

Not sure wich one did the trick, but the game now running like a dream.

Hope it works for you too.

lucius October 22, 2009 6:49 pm

got a problem here..
hope someone might read this…
i can’t play th game (batman:AA)
the reason is that the camera keeps on looking up..
i can’t figure out what is the problem?

RiZoss October 25, 2009 3:30 am

I have realtek onboard sound, the game would crash after a few mins of play. Updated drivers and installed the 1.1 patch but no good. Tried the fix above but it actually made the behavior worse, the game would crash on load game. Had a crappy $7 sound card laying around, swapped that in and disabled the realtek now I’m totally good to go, no more crashes at all.

Gunnar Young October 29, 2009 7:39 pm

I have been trying to play Batman Arkham asylum and my game keeps freezing up on me expecially in two differant places, i paid way to much money for this game for it not to work. I know it is the game because i took it to best buy, and it frooze on them also. could someone please help me i wold love to be able to finish this game…Thanks Gunnar young

Galatasaray November 4, 2009 10:18 pm

Sorry Guys but the Crashes are still there so the new Realtek doesnt helped for me. Damn

JamesT November 10, 2009 4:31 pm

Patched to 1.1, updated video and sound card (Realtek), changed the .ini, disabled PhysX, lowered graphics… NOTHING works. And I’m not turning the sound off, that is ridiculous. This game is one of those frustrating cases where i’ll just have to keep reloading after every crash. Or throw the game out. Too bad Eidos, this is a good game made worse by not testing it thoroughly.

Isawman January 9, 2010 2:17 am

guys problem solved.. if you have a high definition soundcard available like mine.. u will just cancel the on board sound card on the device manager.. i have win xp sp3 works fine no crash..

Necrid January 21, 2010 6:05 am

Mmm.. I have the same problem, and not only with Batman: AA, happens to me trying to play Saints Row 2 too. For what I’ve read, the only solution until now is to get a non-Realtek sound card and using that one instead, is that correct??

I’d appreciate any help, I really want this to stop..

Necrid January 31, 2010 6:10 pm

I’ve come to the same conclusion…

sadpanda February 13, 2010 11:32 am

I have tried all possible solutions for these intermittent black screen hard crashes. Including all types of edits to the configuration files shown above. I have also tried re-installing, clean installing, playing with/without windows live, moving settings folder back and forth, killing the realtek HD audio panel, and lowering the default sound quality from the drivers among other things. Nothing works. I am on Windows 7 btw, I may try installing WinXP as it gives better control over D3D sound (hardware acceleration slider?).

In conclusion, f*ck Eidos for being so dismissive of this problem. I have 30 other more recent games on my computer and they all run perfect, and here Eidos comes and blames a memory leak in Realteks drivers. For f*cks sake, it hard crashes the whole computer, it cant be solely blamed on realtek. Really good game btw, shame for this issue.

Also, I can’t believe some people say turn the sound off and play!?? bahaha gtfo. dumbest suggestion ever. Why dont you go and try playing crysis with monitor turned off? lol.

Johngoaway July 18, 2010 10:15 pm

agree with you. I don’t know how the hell anyone is going to play Batman w/out sound.

NAPUCO October 1, 2010 1:49 pm

thats true.
who is playing without sound?!

its also possible to read a comic without images…

anyway. eidos makes not a good job… :-(

possibly best solution today is to swap an old card or to buey one for small cash…

Joker February 18, 2010 4:37 am

Hi,

Where did youI get the text editor to edit the file? Thanks.

keith February 23, 2010 5:26 pm

I have a Dell Studio XPS 1640, no Realtek soundcard but the audio pops, snaps and stutters and causes the whole game to lag. I have updated both the audio and video drivers, adjusted triple buffering on and off, and adjusted every other video setting and still the exact same thing. The game in unplayable in this state. Opinions?

Chris April 3, 2010 11:34 pm

Well at one Time I had it working then couple updates later after no problems at all with 2 9800 gtx oc’s and my xfi creative sound card and now I have no clue what happened. I have a steam version and it wont even load it shows the loading Icon then the whole thing freezes. No mouse movment no ctl alt delete action. Total system lock. I don’t have any other problems with any other game on steam or anything. I will check out windows live just in case thats the problem i had a similar problem with Dirt 2 so im gonna check if it is live!!

Pierre April 8, 2010 12:39 am

I have the stuttering problem. I have a Dell XPS 1530, no realtek soundcard, running the staem version of the game. game gets an avg of about 45 in the benchmark. runs fine but then sound starts to stutter.

tried the above hacks but changing both values = instant crash, changing channels to 32 only = a few seconds of play, seemingly improved, then crash.

Anvay Mishra May 18, 2010 4:47 pm

bought the game one month ago I played it once the uninstalled it for battlefield bad company 2
after when I tried to re-install, everytime it showes error:”G/data3.cab not found”during halfway of the installation

rohit July 12, 2010 8:14 am

did u get the 4 gb pack or 8 gb?

Johngoaway July 18, 2010 10:13 pm

Damn I wish there was an absolute solution to these crashes. I hate it when it freezes and I have to hard shut it down.

Don’t know if anyone is experiencing this, but how come my Nvidia card doesn’t crash when playing BatmanAA than my more powerful ATI card?

8400gs = no crash
4670 = crash

that is not right.

No sound options November 4, 2010 8:42 am

I have the steam version, Win 7 64bit.

The game will start and play fine, but after the cut scenes the in game sound will crackle and cut out completely. After testing on four, count them four sound cards, the solution that has worked for me is to first, do the above in the post. After that, go in the windows sound applet(easiest way is to right click on the speaker icon in your taskbar), select playback, select your current default device(green check mark)click properties, advanced tab, and then deselect(uncheck)”Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device”. Hit ok.

Finally, finally, this seems to have worked.

Ulukai January 12, 2011 4:38 pm

That worked perfect for me!!!! Doing this i can play without modifying the .ini file!
Thanks a lot!!!

Will Throw Computer at Wall Soon December 29, 2010 9:25 pm

I can’t get past Killer Croc’s “I have your scent and will hunt you down!!!” part for some reason. The game doesn’t crash, I can still move around (to a certain extent) but aside from him moving around the screen nothing else is really happening. I watched a video walkthrough to see if I was supposed to do something and what SHOULD be happening but isn’t is that KC is supposed to be electrocuted. Tried turning sound card off and restarting but no result.

Prasoon March 3, 2011 3:07 pm

first the showed error in finding a file xlive.dll but when i downloaded it and restarted it. Now it shows a message “The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0150002)” and asks to terminate the program. What to do ? help me out. Plzzzz

Anurag Bhargava April 9, 2011 6:47 am

I have batman on my PC. It gets started no problems.The ‘F’ button is to throw the rope OK . but sometimes sorry many times the ‘F’ appears on the wall as there is no way when i press ‘F’ it the batman goes outside the Arkham City don’t know where please Guide ME THROUGH because thats MY MAIN PROB..PLZZZ HELP ME…………

geo May 11, 2011 12:27 pm

did u find a solution?

shift4 June 7, 2011 8:08 am

Just extra information for ATI HD 4600 graphic users. If having crashes playing BAA try to “underclock” the “GPU clock settings” in your AMD Engine Control Center. Normal setting is 7500MHz. Underclock it to 7000MHz. It solve many crashes in BAA. Not sure why this works. But it works and help me a lot.

Please Help June 18, 2011 6:16 am

I have installed batman.. and it was running correctly.. but my cousin accidently deleted it without properly uninstalling it.. So when now I am trying to install it again it is making the button of “Install Game” greyish(unable to click). I have removed the files from Install Shield Wizard also. But it is still not running. It is now not even being shown in the add/remove program files in the control panel for uninstalling.
Please suggest me something as I was so close to its end.
THANKS.

ivo June 30, 2011 2:48 pm

sistem restore…

Leo July 23, 2011 10:02 am

For the person whose cousin accidently deleted the game without properly uninstalling it… follow instructions found on this thread: http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=116380

me July 26, 2011 1:45 pm

every time i try to download this game, i get a blue screen and my computer starts to restart itself.

BeakerUK August 24, 2011 10:49 am

The fix above didn’t work for me. However I did find one that did!

Uninstalled all the Realtek software and drivers, then rebooted. Let it set itself as a the default “High Definition Audio Device”, and it played for 3 hours without crashing! Working fine now.

Annoying if you have a 5.1 or similar, but as I’m on headphones or a 2.1 system it doesn’t bother me too much.

Racsi10 October 20, 2011 5:29 pm

Guys, well I´ve got for you a nice trick its simple and almost the same like in the description.If your game still crashes after you made that change in FMOD with General Protection fault…Here´s a simple way in your FMODAudio (the same like in the description) make these changes: [FMODAudio.FMODAudioDevice]
MaxChannels=200
UseEffectsProcessing=True
EnableMIDIMixing=True
I was playing with this configs and It really helped me out Good Luck!

Linghy December 12, 2011 9:46 pm

I can’t believe I bought this game over two years after this article and it still has this problem. Thanks everyone for your suggestions, I am willing to try them all