Apex Legends is getting 'fatal error' crashes with RX 9070 XT GPUs, but there is a workaround
Overview & Key Takeaways
Just paste a few commands into the Steam launch options.
Apex Legends seems to be having trouble working with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT right now. As relayed by the Apex Legends account ApexCommunityJP on X (machine translated), "We have confirmed an issue causing crashes for players using the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU, and we are currently investigating the cause."
I can confirm on my end that Apex Legends crashes when I try to launch it using a rig with an RX 9070 XT. I get the following game/engine 'fatal error': "The application's device failed due to badly formed commands sent by the application. This is a design-time issue that should be investigated and fixed."
The aforementioned X account does recommend trying to roll back your AMD graphics driver; however, some replies to this claim that doing so doesn't resolve the problem.
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One suggestion in the replies that does seem to have worked for me as a temporary workaround is to add the following to the game's Steam launch options: "+staticprop_color_use_bindless 0 +staticprop_depth_use_bindless 0 +r_drawworld_depth_bindless 0". To do so, on the game's Steam page, click the cog, then Properties, then paste those commands into the launch options.
A pretty neat side-effect of the crash is that it does this when I try to screenshot the bug splash. (Image credit: Future)
These seem to be options related to bindless rendering, which is where the GPU accesses shaders without mediation from the CPU. It looks like these commands disable that newer tech, which could mean a bit of a performance hit. I can confirm that adding these commands to my game's launch options did allow me to boot up and have a quick game, so it looks like it works.
Of course, it's only a workaround, and we'll have to hope AMD or Respawn come up with a proper fix for something a little cleaner and more permanent. It's unclear at this time what is causing the crashes and what can or will be done about it, so we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for updates.
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