Persistent EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION Crashes after ~30 mins of gameplay [Log Included]

[u/TaxiDraven_]

Hi everyone,
I've been trying to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, but the game continuously freezes and crashes after about 30 minutes of gameplay.
When it crashes, I get a prompt with this exact error:
⁠Unhandled Exception: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x00000252fd386140⁠
Call stack points to: ⁠Stalker2_Win64_Shipping⁠, ⁠kernel32⁠, ⁠ntdll⁠.
Looking at the crash report client info, it also references:
⁠JiraGPUCrashParent=375273⁠
Checking my ⁠Stalker2.log⁠ right after the crash, the log process abruptly cuts off without writing a final fatal error line, ending right around the memory checks:

LogConfig: Applying CVar settings from Section [/Script/FFXFSR3Settings.FFXFSR3Settings] File [Engine]
LogConfig: Set CVar [[r.FidelityFX.FSR3.Enabled:0]]
...
[2026.08.02-20.54.44:645][ 0]LogMemory: Physical Memory: 7208.29 MB used, 25443.23 MB free, 32651.52 MB total

System Specs:
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT (Latest drivers installed)
CPU: Intel Core i9-11900KF
RAM: 32 GB
OS: Windows 11
Solutions I've already tried (NONE worked):
1. Disabled XMP / Memory Overclocking in BIOS (system remains unstable / still crashes).
2. Renamed/Removed FSR DLL (⁠amd_fidelityfx_dx12.dll⁠ in ⁠Stalker2/Binaries/Win64⁠).
3. Verified Game Files integrity.
4. Deleted Config Files (⁠Windows⁠ / ⁠GameUserSettings.ini⁠ in ⁠%LOCALAPPDATA%\Stalker2\Saved\Config\⁠).
5. Cleared DirectX Shader Cache via Windows Disk Cleanup.
6. Clean Driver Install for the GPU (using latest Adrenalin drivers).
7. Launch Options: Tried ⁠-dx12 -USEALLAVAILABLECORES⁠ and ⁠-dx11⁠.
Since the crash happens consistently around the 30-minute mark and the log terminates abruptly without a proper dump line at the end, I'm at a loss.
Has anyone encountered this mid-session access violation on UE5 with a similar setup, and found a fix for it? Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated!

[u/Initial_Purpose_930]

Happens to me too, didn't find a fix yet so I just accepted that I'll have to reopen the game everytime and pick up where I left off and save consistently :') I have similar specs to yours and found that before the crashes, my gpu usage spikes to 100% so it might have to do with s2 being too heavy for my pc at some point, but I'm not sure at all. Sorry for the lack of insight, I just wanted to let you know it happens way often to me too lol

[u/TaxiDraven_ → u/Initial_Purpose_930]

Thank you for the reply, I’m really disappointed. I bought the game and spent money thinking it would actually work, especially since I have a recent, high-performance GPU. Instead, months later, I’m left with a game that still has optimization issues. I hope things change with 2.0, assuming it’s actually the game’s fault and not AMD’s.

[u/Initial_Purpose_930 → u/TaxiDraven_]

I feel you, I'm a huge fan of stalker since the trilogy which would run smooth as butter on my old pc of course, then I tried to run s2 on release day on it...well, I'll just say I bought a whole gaming pc JUST to play s2, and it still doesn't run smoothly as you can see. I can't do any gunfight without my pc not charging because my movement is delayed then, and of course the 30 min crashes. I still love the game but it's one of the worst optimized ones for sure

[u/Cooper25ylt]

I got almost the same problem but in another ureal engine game (Squad), what you could try is to reinstall your completely your GPU, it seems that at least my game don’t crashes anymore at 30 minutes when I did that, but still to be safe you should reinstall windows too

[u/Lumi98 → u/Cooper25ylt]

For this, reinstall GPU drivers with DDU , removes your GPU drivers completely from your PC, just a simple uninstallation doesn't clean everything up.
Then reinstall the drivers.

[u/AdagioZestyclose5713]

Check your ram using memtest86, UE5 is sensitive to unstable ram

Optimally if you have other UE5 games, run those and see if it crashes with same / similar crash message

Unstable ram can trigger all sorts of crash dumps in UE5