The biggest FPS of the year is here, yet PC owners of Modern Warfare 2 are starting to report some strange problems with the game that starts freezing or crashing to the desktop after a few hours of playtime or after you try to restart a game after quitting to the desktop. Let’s try here to find out more about these problems and how to fix the Modern Warfare 2 freezings.

Most of the freezing reports on various discussion boards state that it happens when running the game on systems that have Windows 7 installed. When Modern Warfare 2 is launched, it simply freezes upon startup right when the logo appears. Some users report that the game’s sound can still be heard, while others report that the game freezes after they get to the main menu and try to start the game. The MW2 freezings occur both in multiplayer and singleplayer and some users even report that they got a Steam error telling that one file is invalid… Why does Modern Warfare 2 freeze? That’s not clear at the moment but we might have the question for another important question:

What to do then to fix the Modern Warfare 2 problems and play the game?

• First of all, check out the minimum system requirements for the game. If you don’t meet them, you can’t play the game!

• If your system specifications are OK, try updating the video and sound drivers on your computer. Also, try lowering the resolution levels and load the game once more.

• If this still doesn’t solve your problem and Modern Warfare 2 keeps freezing, and you are running Windows 7, right click the game executable and select its properties, then set it to run in compatibility mode with previous versions of Windows (Vista, 32 bit or XP).

• Although Infinity Ward did not confirm any of these MW2-related problems, I was able to find on the Steam forums a couple of other suggestions that would make the game work. First one, posted on the Steam forums by user ultra_ausie is setting the game to run in Windowed mode instead of full screen. Here’s what you will have to do to run Modern Warfare 2 in windowed mode:

“Go to C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\call of duty modern warfare 2\players where you will find 2 .cfg files called config and config_mp. Find the line seta r_fullscreen “1” and change it to 0” Please note that this might make all your Steam games to run in Windowed mode, so if you want to change things back, simply replace the 0 with 1.

• Finally, another possible Modern Warfare 2 fix is suggested for those who have Windows Vista. Jlesamiz suggests trying the same tweak that worked with the original Modern Warfare:

“Click Start > Run (or Windows Key + R), type in this command followed by Enter:

mmsys.cpl

Click on the Recording tab.

Right click on *any* entry in this list, make sure “Show Disabled Devices” is checked.

If you have an entry for Stereo Mix, right click on it and choose ‘Enable’.

Then, restart your computer and retry running the game.”

UPDATE: There are some really unbelievable reports that suggest to simply wait for about five minutes after the screen freezes and the game will start working. Incredible, but it’s worth a try if all the other fixes fail.

Please let the other users who are experiencing Modern Warfare 2 freezing and crashes if any of these suggestions worked for you, or please share with the world if you found any fixes yourself!