Star Wars Galactic Racer Keeps Crashing Fixes
Star Wars Galactic Racer has several different crash problems on PC right now, so the right fix depends heavily on when the game fails. NVIDIA 50-series systems have an officially acknowledged DLSS and Frame Generation crash issue, while players are also reporting crashes during shader compilation, random exits during races, and campaign-specific loading crashes, making it much better to diagnose the symptom first than blindly reinstall everything.
Jump To Section:
Why Galactic Racer Keeps Crashing
What to Try First
DLSS and Frame Generation Crashes
Crashing While Compiling Shaders
Crashing in the Middle of a Race
Campaign Crashes at the Same Spot
Steam Deck Appears Frozen
If You Mean Your Vehicle Keeps Crashing
Why Does Star Wars Galactic Racer Keep Crashing?
There is not one universal Galactic Racer crash right now. The developers have specifically acknowledged crashes on some NVIDIA RTX 50-series setups when DLSS and Frame Generation are enabled, while the October 8 PC hotfix also changed the minimum graphics-driver requirement and made additional DLSS stability fixes.
That means your first question should be where the crash happens. A game that closes while compiling shaders is a different problem from one that runs for 20 minutes and dies halfway through a race, and both are different from a campaign save that crashes every time one specific event loads.
Crashes with RTX 50 + DLSS/Frame Generation: Test those graphics features first
Crashes during shader compilation: Check drivers and whether shaders are actually still building
Random mid-race crash: Test DLSS features individually and remove unstable graphics combinations
Always crashes at one campaign load: Update the game and verify files before touching your save
Steam Deck looks frozen: It may actually be the invisible EOS overlay
Do These Four Things Before Changing Anything Else
Start by making sure Galactic Racer itself is fully updated. The October 8 hotfix was specifically aimed at PC stability, so troubleshooting an older build can waste a lot of time.
Next, update your GPU driver. The game now checks a higher minimum graphics-driver requirement at startup, and the developers warn that your first launch after updating may take longer because Galactic Racer rebuilds its shader cache.
Let that rebuild finish if the shader counter is still moving. A slow first launch is not necessarily a crash.
Then verify the installation through Steam:
Steam: Library → Star Wars Galactic Racer → Properties → Installed Files → Verify integrity of game files
I would do those steps before deleting configuration files, clearing saves, reinstalling Windows components, or using command-line fixes. There are already reports of players spending time on much more invasive workarounds when the underlying problem was game-side.
Turn Off Frame Generation First on RTX 50-Series GPUs
If you have an RTX 50-series card, this is the strongest place to start because it matches a crash the developers have actually acknowledged.
Turn off Frame Generation and test the game again. If it still crashes, disable DLSS as well and restart Galactic Racer with both features off.
Do not change five other graphics options at the same time. Establish whether the game is stable without those two features first, then re-enable them individually if you want to identify the exact trigger.
Test 1: Frame Generation Off
Test 2: Frame Generation Off + DLSS Off
If stable: Re-enable DLSS by itself
If still stable: Frame Generation or the combination is the likely trigger
The October hotfix added DLSS stability improvements, but that does not mean every graphics-related crash is necessarily gone. If you were crashing before the patch, retest after updating rather than assuming your previous settings are still unstable.
Galactic Racer Crashing While Compiling Shaders
Shader compilation has created two problems that can look almost identical: a legitimately long shader build and an actual crash during the process.
If the shader counter is moving, leave it alone and let the process finish. This is particularly important after a graphics-driver update because the latest hotfix can force the cache to be rebuilt.
If Galactic Racer closes to the desktop, Steam changes back from Stop to Play, or an Unreal crash window appears, then you are dealing with an actual failure rather than a slow shader compilation.
For that version of the problem, update your driver and verify the game files first. Temporarily disabling overlays such as Discord, NVIDIA, AMD, Steam, MSI Afterburner, or RivaTuner is also a reasonable isolation test, although it has not fixed the problem for everyone reporting shader crashes.
Check the Error Before Trying the NPU Workaround
There is also a much more specific startup crash being reported with an error stack containing entries such as npu_d3d12_umd, D3D12Core, and D3D12.
If your crash report actually contains those NPU references, some players have managed to launch the game after temporarily disabling their Neural Processing Unit in Windows Device Manager.
I would only test this if your error specifically points toward the NPU. It is a community workaround, not an official fix, and there is little reason to disable unrelated hardware if your crash does not match the same error.
More aggressive suggestions involving Windows hypervisor settings have also circulated among players, but I would avoid changing virtualization settings just to troubleshoot Galactic Racer unless official support specifically directs you there.
What to Do if Galactic Racer Crashes in the Middle of a Race
Random race crashes are harder to isolate because players are reporting otherwise normal performance immediately before the game freezes or exits.
One useful test is again to strip the DLSS stack back rather than lowering every graphics preset. A player experiencing crashes after roughly 10 to 20 minutes reported getting a longer stable session after disabling DLSS Ray Reconstruction and removing the in-game FPS limit, although this is a community result rather than a confirmed universal fix.
If your game runs well and then randomly closes, I would test in this order:
1. Disable Frame Generation
2. Disable DLSS Ray Reconstruction
3. Test with DLSS completely off if crashes continue
4. Remove the in-game FPS cap as a test
5. Verify files again after any new Galactic Racer patch
The reason for testing features separately is simple: if the game already runs smoothly before crashing, dropping every graphics setting to Low may do nothing useful. You want to identify the unstable feature rather than sacrifice image quality without learning anything.
If the Campaign Always Crashes at the Same Loading Screen
A repeatable crash at one specific race or campaign transition points more toward a game or content-loading issue than general GPU instability.
One recent report involved the first race on Lantaana. The campaign would crash on the loading screen every time, even though Multiplayer continued working normally. Deleting the campaign save did not solve it, because the fresh run eventually crashed at the exact same place.
After the latest hotfix, that player verified the files again and reported that the campaign started working.
That makes the order of operations important: do not delete your campaign save first. Update the game, restart Steam, verify the files, and test the same event again.
If Arcade or Multiplayer runs normally while one campaign event crashes every time, that is also useful information to include in a bug report. Our Star Wars Galactic Racer multiplayer guide covers the other modes you can use to test whether the problem is isolated to Campaign.
Back Up Your Save if Crashes Start Affecting Progress
The developers also list save-file corruption as a known issue and specifically note that the game does not always warn the player when corruption has occurred.
That makes repeatedly deleting saves a poor troubleshooting strategy. If you have significant campaign progress, back up your save data before experimenting with manual file replacement or deletion.
There are already player reports of campaign and Log Book progress disappearing after a PC crash, so the safest rule is to troubleshoot the installation and graphics side first and treat the save itself as something to protect rather than the first thing to reset.
Avoid Fullscreen Alt-Tab Problems
Another officially listed PC problem is specific to Fullscreen mode. Switching focus between Galactic Racer and other applications can cause the monitor to blink and make the system highly unresponsive.
If your PC appears to freeze specifically when you Alt-Tab, this may not be the same problem as a normal crash-to-desktop.
Until that behavior is fixed, avoid repeatedly switching applications while using exclusive Fullscreen. Testing another display mode is more useful than treating it as a GPU failure.
Steam Deck Can Look Frozen Without Actually Crashing
On Steam Deck, the Epic Online Services overlay has a known display problem where the overlay itself does not appear and Galactic Racer can look like it has completely hung.
Press B to cancel the invisible overlay and return to the game.
This is worth trying before force-closing Galactic Racer because the game may still be running normally underneath the invisible EOS screen.
How to Tell When the Problem Probably Needs a Patch
If Galactic Racer is fully updated, your GPU driver passes the new requirement, the files verify successfully, and the game still crashes with DLSS and Frame Generation disabled, you may simply be dealing with a bug that does not currently have a reliable local fix.
That is especially true if the failure is perfectly reproducible at one event, cutscene, dialogue sequence, or loading screen while the rest of the game works normally.
At that point, record exactly where the crash occurs, your CPU and GPU, driver version, whether DLSS or Frame Generation is enabled, and whether other modes work. That gives support much more useful information than a generic report that the game "keeps crashing."
Crashes everywhere: Look at drivers and graphics features
Crashes only after several minutes: Test DLSS, Frame Generation, Ray Reconstruction, and FPS behavior
Crashes at exactly one event: Suspect a game/content bug and verify after every patch
Crash report mentions npu_d3d12_umd: Investigate the NPU-specific issue
Only appears frozen on Steam Deck: Press B before force-closing
What if You Mean Your Vehicle Keeps Crashing?
If Galactic Racer itself is not closing and you actually mean your vehicle keeps smashing into walls, that is a completely different problem.
Speeder Bikes in particular can become difficult to control when Kinetic Burst is triggered too early in a corner. The extra speed pushes the Bike outward while you are still trying to rotate, so most crashes are fixed by finishing more of the turn before releasing the Burst.
Our Star Wars Galactic Racer Kinetic Burst guide covers the correct exit timing, while the drifting guide is the better place to start if you are struggling with cornering in every vehicle.
