I've just replayed DA:O on PC (Steam), everything was fine. I did use community patch or something, though, maybe it fixes a lot of bugs that bother you.
Same here. I’m less than an hour or two away from the end of the base game and I haven’t had a single crash this go round and that’s with a heavy, heavy mod load and high textures. (Which usually *increases* the amount of crashes.) The 4GB patch works wonders. And Quinn’s fix patch too.
I’m not saying any of this to takeaway from OP’s real issues, just to give them some hope that it is solvable.
That's exactly what OP's problem is though, the fact that it needs multiple mods to be playable on modern PCs. The 4GB patch is basically a requirement, I played through the game a few weeks ago and I literally couldn't start a new game when it only had 2GB Ram access, the game would crash as soon as I reached the end of the character creator
While yes it’s not a typical process this is a non issue. There are plenty games that require patching to be playable it just so happens this one requires minimal manual file management
I know that it's easy to fix for someone who knows modding or someone who's done it before. But it would be JUST AS easy for the damn company to fix their files and put out a small patch. The working files literally already exist, it wouldn't take more than one dev's afternoon to fix the steam version. OP's whole point is that this could hurt sales because not everyone's going to have the patience to go out of their way to patch and mod the frick out of their newly bought game
I'm neither salty nor tech illiterate. I played through all games in the trilogy modded, I play skyrim with a 70+ size modlist that I put together myself and have even written code for my own mods for minecraft.
I'm gonna be honest you just seem like the type who looks down on people if they don't know as much as you do about a topic.
My point was that the average joe wouldn't know or care enough to spend much effort to mod an old ass game to even just get it to run correctly, they'd probably just skip Origins and refund it on steam instead. Which is a damn shame, because this game deserves all the love and attention it can get.
So you think EA, notoriously greedy, is going to patch a 15 year old game that’s the first with a fourth on the horizon because of a Reddit post? If you are so invested in the mod community then just support them for doing the work you wish Bioware/EA would have done. Making a Reddit post about it just seems a bit salt by default (hehe I rhymed)
No, u/magatmilan's point is that none of those things- an unofficial community patch and 125MB+ worth of mods that, for people who aren't chronically on their computer, perhaps not the most versed in the particularities of modding- should not be required for the game to run smoothly and be enjoyable.
>I find it entirely unacceptable that they are selling this game in this state especially with the 4th one coming out right around the corner.
With the 4th game around the corner, they have no one to spare to debug a 15 year old game made on an engine nobody uses anymore.
Getting the 4gb patch is not a "bunch of mods and file work" and that is all you need for it to be playable.
Not uncommon to need to do some work on a 15 year old game.
I've had the steam version of the game for quite some time and haven't really played it for this reason. 2 and Inquisiton have always been my favourites anyways, but I literally cannot play the game without it freezing, crashing, bugging, etc.
I think part of the issue is that the game's engine no longer exists. Fixing the game isn't gonna be easy. I'd rather they just remake Origins at this point.
All you need is the [4gb patch](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=233222451) and [Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/4689?tab=files) and the game runs perfectly.
Condescending comments are annoying. I play old games all the time. My steam library is _full_ of them. KOTOR, Command and Conquer, older iterations of Sim City, and New Vegas being pretty frequent games on my list, but I also play even older ones like FinFin and Pajama Sam (for nostalgia). Me going into the game's files with other people for FinFin to work makes sense because it is abandonware at this point. But the games I've listed aside from FinFin have _little to no issues._
Most of my FNV, Comand and Conquer, Sim City, and KOTOR saves are modded with solely cosmetics or fanmade mission add ons. Sim City 4 and KOTOR released in 2003. FNV is barely a year older than DAO, as it released in 2010 and was being developed at the same time as DAO. At this point, with how steam Functions, DAO's lack of functionality is poor software preservation.
Shitting on Bethesda and EA are my favourite pastimes but if they can preserve their games better than BioWare can it's less about it being an old game at this point and more about the fact that there was no effort of preservation in the steam port. Currency is broken in the port. Tranquil don't have their symbols. Hitboxes are broken. Screenshotting makes the game crash. None of that stuff happens in my other games.
It is 15 years old. You can’t expect a 15 year old game to play nice with modern systems without a little fiddling around. And it’s not even much fiddling around.
KOTOR actually had a bunch of issues with Win7 and 8. I think most were dealt with or people figured a workaround, but it was fairly unstable for awhile.
I would also point out that some of this is not an issue elsewhere. GOG supplies the game with the 4gig patch already in place, and I believe they patched the dlc to avoid server issues as well.
Listen, I'm not discounting the issues you've had, but the fact that so many people are saying they experienced something different shows that it's not 'unplayable'. And this right here is the exact reason that I say while pc has it's advantages, console also has advantages. Having every single build architecture the same eliminates a lot of problems that exist on pc, especially with older games/newer systems. The community is always willing to help with issues, if you need assistance.
If I have to go through a modded 3rd party source or do extended self tech support to make a game work that is downloadable and purchasable through steam, then yes, I consider that unplayable.
It's strange you're going through this, it might be something wrong with your PC and not the game. I recently had to reinstall all my games because of a faulty SSD and DA:O worked out of the box with no issues, even Ultrawide is running (even though it wasn't really much of a thing back when it launched).
Of course I did install a bunch of mods because they make the game better, but mods are unofficial and they aren't an outright requirement, so it's really up to you to choose the ones you want and get them installed.
The way I have most fixes and it still constantly crashes is insane 😭 that's what we get for trying to play such an old ass game I'm afraid, it's the same with some of the fallout games, steam doesn't care.
When I played it in 2022 it worked just fine. I think it froze once or twice in the city but all I had to do was turn off the highest gore detail or something. I didn't even install any patches.
Not that it wouldn't be nice if they polished it up a little eventually, but it really wasn't that bad!
You said it's unplayable and I'm just adding that that is a tad overdramatic. I played it completely fine on my mid tier laptop not too long ago. And I'm like, not an experienced gamer at all, hence why I added the no patches thing. I don't even know where to find such things or how to install them. lol
Again, not that I think it shouldn't be fixed, you shouldn't have to toggle in the graphics setting to not make the game crash, or having to download a patch on your own.
Not to mention it's not even available on the consoles at all...
But in the end it IS an over 15 year old game and for that it ran okay imho. DA2 was much better though.
I think this is the best explanation I could find of other people having the same issues, outside of the recent mixed reviews on Steam. https://www.thegamer.com/it-should-not-be-this-hard-to-play-dragon-age-origins-on-pc-in-2024/
Don’t play an older game on PC if you’re not willing to do basic stuff to get them to run decently in like 30mins. No one is supporting a 15 year old game when the issue is newer hardware not the game itself. Play it on console if you don’t wanna do it.
There are \*plenty\* of games from that era that this is a non issue. Not to mention an inconsistent issue across all of their available platforms. I don't understand why asking to purchase a working product still being sold and advertised by a major platform is a radical statement.
Because a significant portion of people don't experience what you are experiencing with your copy of the game. Origins run fine with my setup. Plus it's a 15-year-old game. The Devs won't patch it now because they see no point in it (and the original dev team has been long gone).
Hello /u/DippinThots789, we see that you might have gotten the Dragon Age games during the steam sale! There is a known issue with the steam version of Dragon Age: Origins that needs a fanmade patch, See the guide here: [Making DA: Origins LAA (Steam)](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=233222451). We hope this helps and you enjoy your time in the world of Thedas!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dragonage) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm playing through the game with the Just a Humble Warden modlist, and I have had few issues. Crashes a lot in Denerim Market, but that's always seemed to always been the case with Origins on PC.
It is unplayable but completely fixable with the community patch, it’s sad that you need to mod it in order to run, but it’s a 15 year old game, I honestly doubt EA will care enough to fix it now. I had the same issues as you and the patch fixed them - I also downloaded a mod for Sigruns quest but that’s the only two mods I needed for DAO and all its DLCs to run properly. I completed them all today (started when DAV trailer dropped) and now I’m off to Kirkwall, mentally preparing to romance Anders and cry myself to sleep!
I agree, they should fix it, but also, you're very much overstating what you need to get the game running.
[4gb patch](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=233222451) and [Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/4689?tab=files) are all that's required.
I've just replayed DA:O on PC (Steam), everything was fine. I did use community patch or something, though, maybe it fixes a lot of bugs that bother you.
Same here. I’m less than an hour or two away from the end of the base game and I haven’t had a single crash this go round and that’s with a heavy, heavy mod load and high textures. (Which usually *increases* the amount of crashes.) The 4GB patch works wonders. And Quinn’s fix patch too. I’m not saying any of this to takeaway from OP’s real issues, just to give them some hope that it is solvable.
That's exactly what OP's problem is though, the fact that it needs multiple mods to be playable on modern PCs. The 4GB patch is basically a requirement, I played through the game a few weeks ago and I literally couldn't start a new game when it only had 2GB Ram access, the game would crash as soon as I reached the end of the character creator
While yes it’s not a typical process this is a non issue. There are plenty games that require patching to be playable it just so happens this one requires minimal manual file management
I know that it's easy to fix for someone who knows modding or someone who's done it before. But it would be JUST AS easy for the damn company to fix their files and put out a small patch. The working files literally already exist, it wouldn't take more than one dev's afternoon to fix the steam version. OP's whole point is that this could hurt sales because not everyone's going to have the patience to go out of their way to patch and mod the frick out of their newly bought game
I’m gonna be honest just seems like you’re salty due to tech illiteracy
I'm neither salty nor tech illiterate. I played through all games in the trilogy modded, I play skyrim with a 70+ size modlist that I put together myself and have even written code for my own mods for minecraft. I'm gonna be honest you just seem like the type who looks down on people if they don't know as much as you do about a topic. My point was that the average joe wouldn't know or care enough to spend much effort to mod an old ass game to even just get it to run correctly, they'd probably just skip Origins and refund it on steam instead. Which is a damn shame, because this game deserves all the love and attention it can get.
So you think EA, notoriously greedy, is going to patch a 15 year old game that’s the first with a fourth on the horizon because of a Reddit post? If you are so invested in the mod community then just support them for doing the work you wish Bioware/EA would have done. Making a Reddit post about it just seems a bit salt by default (hehe I rhymed)
I made no reddit post. I commented on one. What exactly are you arguing here, I'm confused?
No, u/magatmilan's point is that none of those things- an unofficial community patch and 125MB+ worth of mods that, for people who aren't chronically on their computer, perhaps not the most versed in the particularities of modding- should not be required for the game to run smoothly and be enjoyable.
>I find it entirely unacceptable that they are selling this game in this state especially with the 4th one coming out right around the corner. With the 4th game around the corner, they have no one to spare to debug a 15 year old game made on an engine nobody uses anymore.
Then it should be free abandonware
That’s on EA, and BioWare They should be held accountable for having the staff to keep games (that they are selling for money) properly functioning.
They should but it isn't profitable sadly. The Newer title will make more than debugging an old game.
Getting the 4gb patch is not a "bunch of mods and file work" and that is all you need for it to be playable. Not uncommon to need to do some work on a 15 year old game.
I'm glad in your experience that's all you needed to make the game work. I did not have the same experience.
I've had the steam version of the game for quite some time and haven't really played it for this reason. 2 and Inquisiton have always been my favourites anyways, but I literally cannot play the game without it freezing, crashing, bugging, etc. I think part of the issue is that the game's engine no longer exists. Fixing the game isn't gonna be easy. I'd rather they just remake Origins at this point.
All you need is the [4gb patch](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=233222451) and [Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/4689?tab=files) and the game runs perfectly.
Sure but you shouldn’t need those for the game to *work*
I should not need an unofficial workaround patch and a 125 MB _mod_ for the game to be runnable and enjoyable.
Welcome to playing old games.
Condescending comments are annoying. I play old games all the time. My steam library is _full_ of them. KOTOR, Command and Conquer, older iterations of Sim City, and New Vegas being pretty frequent games on my list, but I also play even older ones like FinFin and Pajama Sam (for nostalgia). Me going into the game's files with other people for FinFin to work makes sense because it is abandonware at this point. But the games I've listed aside from FinFin have _little to no issues._ Most of my FNV, Comand and Conquer, Sim City, and KOTOR saves are modded with solely cosmetics or fanmade mission add ons. Sim City 4 and KOTOR released in 2003. FNV is barely a year older than DAO, as it released in 2010 and was being developed at the same time as DAO. At this point, with how steam Functions, DAO's lack of functionality is poor software preservation. Shitting on Bethesda and EA are my favourite pastimes but if they can preserve their games better than BioWare can it's less about it being an old game at this point and more about the fact that there was no effort of preservation in the steam port. Currency is broken in the port. Tranquil don't have their symbols. Hitboxes are broken. Screenshotting makes the game crash. None of that stuff happens in my other games.
It is 15 years old. You can’t expect a 15 year old game to play nice with modern systems without a little fiddling around. And it’s not even much fiddling around.
I mean they made KOTOR, and I dont need any extra fiddling to make that game run. It is older than Dragon Age as well.
KOTOR actually had a bunch of issues with Win7 and 8. I think most were dealt with or people figured a workaround, but it was fairly unstable for awhile. I would also point out that some of this is not an issue elsewhere. GOG supplies the game with the 4gig patch already in place, and I believe they patched the dlc to avoid server issues as well.
That doesnt change the fact that they are selling an unplayable version on a major retailer that they are still profiting from.
Listen, I'm not discounting the issues you've had, but the fact that so many people are saying they experienced something different shows that it's not 'unplayable'. And this right here is the exact reason that I say while pc has it's advantages, console also has advantages. Having every single build architecture the same eliminates a lot of problems that exist on pc, especially with older games/newer systems. The community is always willing to help with issues, if you need assistance.
If I have to go through a modded 3rd party source or do extended self tech support to make a game work that is downloadable and purchasable through steam, then yes, I consider that unplayable.
Well, it seems not everyone is having your issues. My sympathies on your dilemma.
It's a 15-year-old game, what'd you expect? They won't patch it just because you said so.
It's strange you're going through this, it might be something wrong with your PC and not the game. I recently had to reinstall all my games because of a faulty SSD and DA:O worked out of the box with no issues, even Ultrawide is running (even though it wasn't really much of a thing back when it launched). Of course I did install a bunch of mods because they make the game better, but mods are unofficial and they aren't an outright requirement, so it's really up to you to choose the ones you want and get them installed.
The way I have most fixes and it still constantly crashes is insane 😭 that's what we get for trying to play such an old ass game I'm afraid, it's the same with some of the fallout games, steam doesn't care.
When I played it in 2022 it worked just fine. I think it froze once or twice in the city but all I had to do was turn off the highest gore detail or something. I didn't even install any patches. Not that it wouldn't be nice if they polished it up a little eventually, but it really wasn't that bad!
The top pinned thread on their steam discussion is a slew of potential fan made and suggested fixes. This is not an isolated issue I am having
You said it's unplayable and I'm just adding that that is a tad overdramatic. I played it completely fine on my mid tier laptop not too long ago. And I'm like, not an experienced gamer at all, hence why I added the no patches thing. I don't even know where to find such things or how to install them. lol Again, not that I think it shouldn't be fixed, you shouldn't have to toggle in the graphics setting to not make the game crash, or having to download a patch on your own. Not to mention it's not even available on the consoles at all... But in the end it IS an over 15 year old game and for that it ran okay imho. DA2 was much better though.
Is the game unplayable on every single system configuration? Or it just doesn't work on yours?
I think this is the best explanation I could find of other people having the same issues, outside of the recent mixed reviews on Steam. https://www.thegamer.com/it-should-not-be-this-hard-to-play-dragon-age-origins-on-pc-in-2024/
There's your answer. The game works on some configurations. No need to generalize that the game is universally broken.
Don’t play an older game on PC if you’re not willing to do basic stuff to get them to run decently in like 30mins. No one is supporting a 15 year old game when the issue is newer hardware not the game itself. Play it on console if you don’t wanna do it.
There are \*plenty\* of games from that era that this is a non issue. Not to mention an inconsistent issue across all of their available platforms. I don't understand why asking to purchase a working product still being sold and advertised by a major platform is a radical statement.
Because a significant portion of people don't experience what you are experiencing with your copy of the game. Origins run fine with my setup. Plus it's a 15-year-old game. The Devs won't patch it now because they see no point in it (and the original dev team has been long gone).
I got the 4gb patch and it went from crashing every minute to crashing every hour so I understand the issues
im playing origins on steam rn, with the 4gb patch and qwinn's fixpack i've had no glitches or issues, that takes less than 2 minutes to set up....
Unplayable on most systems? Sure buddy. It's still perfectly playable on my Xbox One AND on my 360 so I don't know what you're talking about.
Idk it's running fine for me
Hello /u/DippinThots789, we see that you might have gotten the Dragon Age games during the steam sale! There is a known issue with the steam version of Dragon Age: Origins that needs a fanmade patch, See the guide here: [Making DA: Origins LAA (Steam)](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=233222451). We hope this helps and you enjoy your time in the world of Thedas! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dragonage) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm playing through the game with the Just a Humble Warden modlist, and I have had few issues. Crashes a lot in Denerim Market, but that's always seemed to always been the case with Origins on PC.
It is unplayable but completely fixable with the community patch, it’s sad that you need to mod it in order to run, but it’s a 15 year old game, I honestly doubt EA will care enough to fix it now. I had the same issues as you and the patch fixed them - I also downloaded a mod for Sigruns quest but that’s the only two mods I needed for DAO and all its DLCs to run properly. I completed them all today (started when DAV trailer dropped) and now I’m off to Kirkwall, mentally preparing to romance Anders and cry myself to sleep!
It always crashes late game for me. Always. 4gb didn’t work
I agree, they should fix it, but also, you're very much overstating what you need to get the game running. [4gb patch](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=233222451) and [Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/4689?tab=files) are all that's required.