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Gears of War: E-Day crashing every 2 hours (memory leak)

Gears of War: E-Day server status →

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IsThisGameDown

Last checked

October 12, 2026

The Coalition: launch known issues (memory issues line) ↗

On PC, Gears of War: E-Day closes or freezes after roughly two hours of play, often with no error and nothing in Event Viewer. Some players see it sooner, and some get a "Reset Graphic Settings" prompt on the next launch.

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Steam and Reddit players report E-Day crashing on PC at around the two-hour mark, in campaign and Horde, and many call it a memory leak. It looks like a game-side bug that local workarounds only soften.

The only official acknowledgement is a launch known issue: "Playing through the entire length of the game without reloading checkpoints or restarting may cause memory issues." It does not name a 2-hour crash, and the October 5 patch notes only mention generic stability improvements.

About 50 replies across three Steam threads and a 71-comment r/GearsOfWar thread describe it. Players say it continued after patches.

Fix it, step by step

  1. Restart the game every hour, or between Horde matches

    Players in the memory leak thread say they restart the game every hour, or before each Horde siege. A commenter on r/GearsOfWar said restarting every couple of Horde matches let them play five in a row. The launch known-issues list also names restarting as a way to avoid memory issues, but it does not say this prevents the 2-hour crash.

  2. Reload a checkpoint if the game blocks you at an encounter

    The Coalition's launch known issues (September 30) say: "Playing through the entire length of the game without reloading checkpoints or restarting may cause memory issues. Please reload a checkpoint if you get blocked at an encounter or objective." That is the advice as published; it is about memory issues and getting blocked, not specifically about the 2-hour crash.

  3. Switch the upscaler from DLSS to FSR or XeSS (unconfirmed)

    On r/GearsOfWar (24 upvotes, 71 comments), one commenter said changing DLSS to FSR4 resolved the crashes for them, and another said Intel XeSS stopped the out-of-memory crashes for a while. Both are single self-reports.

  4. Lower VRAM-heavy settings such as mega geometry (one report)

    In the Steam "Freezing after a couple of hours" thread, one player said lowering VRAM-heavy settings like mega geometry helped, but that crashes remained likely in the semi-open areas after a couple of hours. Single report; they said they couldn't find a full fix.

  5. Power-limit the GPU to 85% and raise the fan curve (one report)

    On r/GearsOfWar, one commenter said power-limiting their GPU to 85% with a custom fan curve moved their crashes from every 15 to 20 minutes to every 2 to 3 hours. Self-reported by one player, and it does not stop the crashes.

  6. Note

    One Steam commenter said the 2 to 3 hour crash is a server-side Easy Anti-Cheat token renewal problem and "has been confirmed". They gave no source, another player asked where it was confirmed, and another reported freezes with EAC disabled. We treat it as unconfirmed and don't act on it.

    Unconfirmed
  7. Note

    As of October 12 we found no developer reply naming this crash and no hotfix that addresses it, and new Steam threads (such as "FIX THE GAME CRASHING PLEASE") say it is still happening. This page will be updated if that changes. For the separate "LowLevelFatalError" crash dialog, see the LowLevelFatalError page.

    Unconfirmed

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What people are saying

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