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Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Troubleshooting Guide - Steam

  • Updated

While we really do hope everyone will be able to enjoy the game, there are always cases where the game may not launch or run correctly under certain software environments, hardware combinations, or otherwise.

Please follow these steps to try and resolve the issue:

Troubleshooting Guide

  1. Check the game's system requirements
  2. Add the game's files and folders to your anti-virus software's exception list
  3. Give Administration Privileges to Steam and the game
  4. Verify the game's cache in Steam
  5. Update your Video/Graphics Drivers and Windows Operating System
  6. Still having trouble

1. Check the game’s system requirements

Please make sure you meet the minimum requirements for the game, outlined on the bottom of the game’s Steam Store page; if you do not meet the minimum requirements for the game, this may result in poor framerate, or the game not running.

If you do meet the minimum specifications but not the recommended specifications, you may want to try turning down the graphics settings, if you haven't already.

Some high end integrated graphics chips and modern laptop integrated GPUs may work, but have not been tested, nor are they officially supported by Capcom. If you’re using a laptop with a dual GPU dedicated graphics card and integrated graphics processor, we recommend disabling your integrated graphics via the BIOS settings prior to launching the game. For more information on accessing your BIOS, please see your laptop/motherboard manufacturer manual.

If you’re using a multi-GPU setup such as NVIDIA’s SLI or ATI’s Crossfire technologies, we recommend experimenting with disabling these settings, as they may cause compatibility issues with the game.

Capcom does not warrant nor officially provide technical support for PCs that do not meet the official, minimum system requirements.

2. Add the game's files and folders to your anti-virus software’s exception list

Some launching issues may be attributed to certain Anti-Virus software preventing the game executable from launching due to a false-positive error. We recommend users add all of the following files and folders to the Anti-virus and Firewall exclusion list to prevent this issue. If these files and folders were already added previously, try removing them from the exclusion list and re-adding them.

Note: To quickly access the following folders, press Windows Key + R then copy and paste the folder URL below.

DDDA.exe Default Location:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\DragonsDogmaDarkArisen

Steam.exe Default Location: 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam

Steam AppData Default Location:

C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Steam

 

For a guide on adding exceptions to your anti-virus software, please visit one of the following links:

For Bitdefender, you will need to also add the game’s .exe file to the program’s Whitelist. To do this, follow these steps:

  • Open Bitdefender
  • Go to the Protection tab
  • Click “View Feature”
  • Click the gear icon inside the “Advanced Thread Defense” box
  • Select “Add applications to the whitelist”
  • Browse and navigate to the .exe file
  • Once the .exe file is added, close Bitdefender and relaunch the game

3. Give Administrator Privileges to Steam and the game

Some users can get the game running properly by running Steam.exe in administrator mode. This can be done by right-clicking on the .exe file and selecting “Run as administrator.” If that doesn’t work, try running the game’s .exe file in administrator mode as well.

4. Verify the game’s cache in Steam

Try verifying the game's cache in Steam. You can do so by following the steps outlined in this Steam support article (reposted below). This may find missing or damaged files that need to be repaired, even if you've just installed the game. You may also try temporarily disabling your anti-virus while verifying the cache or launching the game, as on occasion anti-virus programs may flag games or the files necessary to play them as a virus.

To verify the game’s cache, follow these steps:

  1. Restart your computer and launch Steam
  2. From the “Library” section, right-click on the game and select “Properties” from the menu.
  3. Select the “Local files” tab and click the “Verify integrity of game files...” button.
  4. Steam will verify the game's files - this process may take several minutes.
  5. Important: One or more files may fail to verify. This is normal for most Steam games. The files that fail to verify are local configuration files that should not be replaced as part of this process. You can safely ignore this message.

5. Update your Video/Graphics Drivers and Windows Operating System

We also recommend making sure you have the latest drivers for your graphics card. Some high end integrated graphics chips and modern laptop class discrete GPUs may work but have not been tested, nor are they officially supported by Capcom.

If you still experience crash issues, you may want to try performing a clean installation of the driver set. This will remove any extraneous driver DLL files or game profiles that existed with the previous driver installation.

IMPORTANT! Please don't forget to reboot Windows upon completing the driver installation. This will help reinitialize the driver and the graphics card using the new driver.

6. Still having trouble?

If you continue to run into issues with the game, providing a DxDiag report along with your current graphics settings for the game and the region / location you are based in with your response may help us better investigate.

To create a DxDiag report:

  1. Open a "Run" dialog in Windows. This can either be done by typing "run" into Start Search, or by holding the Windows key and pressing "R." (Either method works in Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10.)
  2. Type "dxdiag" (with or without quotes) into the box that comes up.
  3. From the DirectX Diagnostic Tool window, wait for the tool to gather the information it needs, then click "Save All Information..." which will ask you to save a text file, named "DxDiag.txt" by default. Save this file somewhere where it will be easy to find, then attach it in your response.

To share your graphics settings:

  1. Navigate to the game’s installation folder:
    • Default Location: C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\CAPCOM\DRAGONS DOGMA DARK ARISEN
  2. Locate the following files:
    • config.ini
  3. Attach these files to your response along with the DxDiag.txt file and your region / location

We apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any additional questions or feedback, please let us know.

 

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Last update: 2026/07/08