How to fix Satisfactory 1.0 crashing on startup

Satisfactory 1.0 is finally here but unfortunately, players have been experiencing a crash error on launch preventing them from jumping into the game.

Coffee Stain Studios Satisfactory has taken Steam by storm with its immersive factory-sim gameplay. Before you can start farming important resources like reinforced iron plates and crystal oscillator, you’ll need to get past the crashing issues.

How to fix Satisfactory 1.0 crashing

There are a variety of methods you can use to fix the crashing error, and we’ve detailed each below:

Changing to DirectX 11

The first solution that should fix crashing on launch is to make Steam launch Satisfactory with DirectX 11 instead of 12. You can do this by following these steps:

1. Right-click Satisfactory in your library and select Properties.
2. On General, type “-dx11” (excluding the quotations) under Launch Options.

Now Satisfactory should automatically launch using DirectX11 instead of the newest 12 version.

You can still make this work if you’re playing on Epic Games via the Store:

1. Find Satisfactory in your library.
2. Select the three dots beside the title and choose “Manage.”
3. Go to “Launch Options” and check the box.
4. Type “-dx11” (excluding the quotations).

Verify integrity of game files

Another way to try and fix the problem is by verifying the integrity of your game files. You can easily do this through Steam by following these steps:

1. Right-click Satisfactory in your library and select Properties.
2. Under “Installed Files,” select “Verify integrity of game files.”

If you’re playing through the Epic Games Store, here’s how it’s done:

1. Find Satisfactory in your library.
2. Select the three dots beside the title and choose “Manage.”
3. Click on “Verify.”

Update drivers

Sometimes the solution is just to update some of your drivers. I’d prioritize updating your graphics driver first, as it can be one of the many reasons for games struggling to run if they require high-fidelity graphics.

You can do this through GeForce Experience if you have a NVIDIA GPU, or with AMD Adrenalin Edition if you have an AMD one. Intel driver updates can be found online through Google searches.

Other than these solutions, your last case scenario should be to uninstall and reinstall Satisfactory. Honestly, the crashing issues are most likely due to the DirectX API problem, so you shouldn’t even have to try out any of the other fixes.

Coffee Stain Studios

“An Unreal process has crashed” error causes

The crash message that’s popping up for players is most often due to your PC attempting to run the game on DirectX 12 API instead of DirectX 11, which is better for older machines. Your GPU could be trying to run the game on DirectX 12 but failing because of older technology.

Otherwise, crashes can happen with faulty files in your game, or perhaps it wasn’t installed correctly.

Due to these causes, attempting the fixes above should solve the problem, and you can get back to building your ideal alien factory.

For more on Satisfactory, check out our guides for all SAM Ore locations, how to make dedicated servers, console commands, best factory base layouts, and all Hard Drive locations.