What to know

  • Disabling Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling stops crashes for many.
  • Rolling back to a previous NVIDIA driver restores stability.
  • Clearing shader cache and verifying game files help resolve corruption issues.
  • Turning off overlays (Steam, Discord, GeForce Experience) prevents GPU conflicts.

Players have been reporting that Borderlands 4 crashes frequently on PC, often with “GPU crash dump triggered” or fatal errors tied to NVIDIA GPUs. Some workarounds are from devs (Gearbox), others from users, especially on Reddit. The common threads are driver issues, hardware acceleration, overlays, and recent driver versions being problematic.

Confirmed Fixes as reported by users

Here are fixes that have been posted recently, that seem to help. I list them roughly in order of ease + how many people say it worked.

Fix 1: Disable Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling
  • Go to Settings → System → Display → Graphics → Default/Advanced graphics settings.
  • Turn off Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling and reboot.
  • Reported by multiple players as the single most effective workaround in the 24 hours since game's launch.
Fix 2: Roll Back NVIDIA Driver
  • If you installed the newest NVIDIA driver (released this week), uninstall it.
  • Install the previous stable version instead.
  • Users say this stopped crashes completely.
Fix 3: Verify Game Files
  • In Steam or Epic, right-click Borderlands 4 → Properties → Verify integrity of game files.
  • This will re-download missing or corrupted files.
Fix 4: Disable All Overlays
  • Turn off overlays in Steam, Discord, GeForce Experience, and Windows Game Bar.
  • Overlays can interfere with GPU processes and trigger crash dumps.
Fix 5: Update Windows and Drivers (or use stable versions)
  • Ensure your OS is fully patched.
  • Use the latest GPU drivers only if they are confirmed stable; otherwise stick to the last known good version.
Fix 6: Clear Shader Cache
  • For NVIDIA: delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\NVIDIA\DXCache.
  • For AMD: clear shader cache via Radeon Adrenalin software.
  • This forces shaders to rebuild and removes possible corrupt cache files.
Fix 7: Run as Administrator / Compatibility Mode
  • Right-click the BL4 executable → Run as administrator.
  • Optionally, set compatibility to Windows 10 if you’re on Windows 11.

What Some People Found Worked Best So Far

From Reddit (within hours) and other report threads:

  • A user said disabling hardware acceleration fixed their crashes. (Reddit)
  • Another said rolling back to the previous NVIDIA driver (i.e. not the one released “yesterday”) completely removed crashes, and performance improved. (Reddit)
  • A combo of the two above (rollback driver + disable hardware acceleration) is being tried by several people, with good results. (Reddit)

Steps to try (Suggested Order for the fixes above)

Here’s a recommended plan to try removal of the crash, in order of least disruption:

  1. Disable hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling → reboot & test.
  2. Turn off overlays (Steam / Discord / etc) → test again.
  3. Update Windows / ensure all patches → test.
  4. If you recently updated a GPU driver, try rolling back to a version that people report is more stable.
  5. Clear shader caches as described above.
  6. Verify game files.
  7. Run game as admin / compatibility mode.

Things to Watch Out For

  • Make sure your GPU model is supported and driver version is stable. New releases often have bugs.
  • Check temperatures / hardware health; sometimes what looks like a driver bug is exacerbated by poor cooling.
  • If you have overclocked GPU / GPU core clock settings, try resetting them to default. (Not many reports yet specifically for overclocking in BL4, but it's a common source of instability.)
  • Be cautious with “latest” drivers — the newest one may have introduced the bug. Always keep a backup.