In Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, you can master the art of destruction and gadgetry. Like some other games, however, there can be multiple reasons causing the game to crash at times. If Rainbow Six Siege keeps crashing or freezing on your PC, it’s highly recommended to follow this troubleshooting guide completely to resolve the issue.

Quick Fixes to Try

  1. Check the game’s system requirements
  2. Perform a clean reboot
  3. Launch Rainbow Six Siege as administrator
  4. Update your graphics drivers
  5. Turn off the in-game overlay
  6. Delete Rainbow Six Siege sound data and verify the game files
  7. Update Rainbow Six Siege

Before we start the troubleshooting today, please close other background applications or restart your computer to free up CPU resources for Rainbow Six Siege. Once done, continue with the steps below.

1. Check the game’s system requirements

To start with, it is important to check the game’s system requirements to make sure they are compatible with your PC. Older PC builds or low-end hardware specifications are obviously to blame for this problem. Below are the system requirements.

MINIMUM RECOMMENDED
OS Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64bit versions required) Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64bit versions required)
Processor Intel Core i3 560 @ 3.3 GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 945 @ 3.0 GHz Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3 GHz or better or AMD FX-8120 @ 3.1 Ghz or better
Memory 6 GB RAM 8 GB RAM
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 5870 (DirectX-11 compliant with 1GB of VRAM) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (or GTX 760 / GTX 960) or AMD Radeon HD 7970 (or R9 280x [2GB VRAM] / R9 380 / Fury X)
Network Broadband Internet connection Broadband Internet connection
Storage 61 GB available space 61 GB available space
Sound Card DirectX® 9.0c compatible sound card with latest drivers DirectX® 9.0c compatible sound card 5.1 with latest drivers
Additional Notes SUPPORTED VIDEO CARDS AT TIME OF RELEASE: GeForce GTX 460 or better, GTX 560 or better, GTX 650 or better, GTX 750 or better, or any card from the GT900 and Titan Series, Radeon HD5870 or better, HD6870 or better, HD7770 or better, R7 260X or better, or any card from the R-300 series and Fury X. Laptop models of these cards may work but are not supported. These chipsets are the only ones that will run this game. Additional chipsets may be supported after release. For an up-to-date list of supported chipsets, please visit the FAQ for this game on the support website: http://support.ubi.com. SUPPORTED VIDEO CARDS AT TIME OF RELEASE: GeForce GTX 460 or better, GTX 560 or better, GTX 650 or better, GTX 750 or better, or any card from the GT900 and Titan Series, Radeon HD5870 or better, HD6870 or better, HD7770 or better, R7 260X or better, or any card from the R-300 series and Fury X. Laptop models of these cards may work but are not supported. These chipsets are the only ones that will run this game. Additional chipsets may be supported after release. For an up-to-date list of supported chipsets, please visit the FAQ for this game on the support website: http://support.ubi.com.

If your PC build is compatible with the game, you can move on to the next method. Otherwise, upgrade your hardware so that you can play.

2. Perform a clean reboot

Sometimes third-party software conflicts can cause your Rainbow Six Siege to crash, and multiple programs running when the PC starts may consume the system resources and internet data without your knowledge. In this case, a clean boot environment is recommended.

To do a clean reboot:

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and R together to invoke the Run prompt. Type MSConfig and press Enter.
  2. From the top menu, select the Services tab, check Hide all Microsoft services, and then click Disable all.
  3. Now, click the Startup tab from the top menu and click Open Task Manager. Click each of the tasks and click Disable.
  4. Now, back to the System Configuration page and click the OK button to reboot your computer.
  5. Once rebooted, re-launch your Rainbow Six Siege.

Now, check if the problem persists. If Rainbow Six Siege still crashes, try the next troubleshooting tip.

3. Launch Rainbow Six Siege as administrator

If Rainbow Six Siege still crashes when launching, it’s also recommended to always run the game executable file as an administrator. As a result, Rainbow Six Siege will have full access to your computer. Please follow the steps below to do so:

  1. Right-click the Rainbow Six Siege exe shortcut file, then click the option Properties.
  2. On the pop-up menu, click the Compatibility tab, then tick the checkboxes for the option Run this program as an administrator (and also Disable fullscreen optimizations).
  3. Click Apply and OK to save changes.

Once done, do the same for your game launchers, like Steam or Epic Game Launcher. Then, try to play Rainbow Six Siege and see if the problem is resolved. If not, move on to the next tip.

4. Update your graphics drivers

When Rainbow Six Siege keeps crashing or freezing, one of the first things you should do is to update your graphics card driver, since an up-to-date graphics driver always ensures the best gaming performance and fewer bugs.

To update your display card driver, here’s what you can do (please note that the following screenshots are taken on Windows 11, but the instructions work on Windows 10 as well):

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows key and X at the same time, select Device Manager.
  2. Double-click to expand the category Display adapters. Then right-click your graphic card driver and click Update driver (the name of the device can be different on your computer).
  3. Then click Search automatically for updated driver software.
  4. Wait for Windows to find the latest driver available for you.
  5. When the driver update is done, restart your computer for the change to take effect.
  6. Then check and see if the problem is fixed.

If Windows says that it’s already found the latest driver for you, so no newer drivers are found, then you should consider updating your graphics driver in a different way with the help of Driver Techie.

Its ever-growing driver database allows you to always have access to the latest device drivers that you need. More importantly, Driver Techie simplifies the driver update process, so all it takes is just 3 clicks (for Pro users), and all your drivers are updated.

To use Driver Techie to find you the latest drivers:

  1. Download and install Driver Techie, then launch it.
  2. Click Scan Now.
  3. After the scan, select all the drivers you need to update and click Update All. Then all your drivers will be updated automatically without you having to do anything else.

Please note that Update All is available for Pro subscribers only, otherwise, you can only manually update the driver one at a time. To see how to manually update the drivers one by one, please check this post.

If you’re a Pro user of Driver Techie, and need our technical support to help with the Rainbow Six Siege crashing problem, please feel free to contact <support@drivertechie.com>.

5. Turn off the in-game overlay

If your hardware is powerful enough, then enabling the in-game overlay for Rainbow Six Siege would be a good choice. However, overlays can conflict with game files when you’re using limited hardware resources, leading to FPS drop, black screens, and crashes. In this case, you need to disable the in-game overlay. To do so, there are three ways you can try:

On Discord:

  1. Launch Discord.
  2. Click the Setting icon at the bottom.
  3. Select Overlay from the left panel, then toggle on Enable in-game overlay.
  4. Click Game Activity from the left panel, select Rainbow Six Siege, then turn off the Enable in-game overlay toggle.
  5. Restart your computer for changes to take effect.

On Xbox Game Bar:

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and I to open Windows Settings.
  2. Click Gaming > Xbox Game Bar > Turn off the Record game clips, screenshots, and broadcast using the Game bar option.
  3. Restart your computer for changes to take effect.

On Nvidia GeForce Experience:

  1. Launch Nvidia GeForce Experience and click Settings.
  2. Click the General tab, and disable the In-Game Overlay option.
  3. Restart your computer for changes to take effect.

Once you turn off the in-game overlay setting, re-launch Rainbow Six Siege to check if it works properly. If the problem still, please move on to the next solution.

6. Delete Rainbow Six Siege sound data and verify the game files

The crashing problem may be resolved by deleting the sound data and then verifying the game files, according to officials of Rainbow Six Siege. You can give it a try since it helped many of those affected.

Firstly, you will have to open the installation directory of the game and locate Rainbow Six Siege’s sound data folder. However, you can press the Windows logo key and R together on your keyboard to invoke the Run prompt, and then paste the following locations and hit Enter to access the Sound Data folder:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege\sounddata\pc
Steam\steamapps\common\Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege\sounddata\pc


Once located, right-click the folder and select Delete. Note that you will need administrative permissions to perform this step. Afterward, you can verify the game files to fix corrupted or missing game files and restore Rainbow Six Siege to a clean version.

To repair corrupted game files for Rainbow Six Siege, you can do it through Ubisoft Connect or Steam:

On Ubisoft Connect:

  1. Launch Ubisoft Connect and click the Games tab.
  2. Choose Rainbow Six Siege and click the Properties option from the left sidebar.
  3. Press the Verify files button under Local files.
  4. When prompted, click Repair and let the game launcher repair the damaged game files.

On Steam:

  1. Launch Steam and select Library.
  2. Right-click Rainbow Six Siege and select Properties.
  3. Click the Local Files tab, and click the Verify Integrity of Game Files button
  4. Steam will automatically scan and repair the game files.

Once done, re-launch Rainbow Six Siege to see if the problem is fixed. If not, continue with the next tip.

7. Update Rainbow Six Siege

If the crashing issue still annoys you after going through the tips above, you can try updating Rainbow Six Siege, as the outdated game version is usually buggy and may cause such a crashing issue. Please follow the steps below to get the latest version of Rainbow Six Siege.

On Steam:

  1. Launch Steam, go to Library, and select  Rainbow Six Siege.
  2. Steam will automatically check for the available update. If it’s available, make sure to click Update.
  3. Once done, close Steam and reboot your PC.

On Epic Games Launcher:

  1. Open Epic Games Launcher > Library.
  2. Click the three dots icon of Rainbow Six Siege.
  3. Turn on the Auto Update option.

Now, you should be using the updated Rainbow Six Siege version without issue. If you have any ideas or any follow-up questions, please leave a comment below. And if you’re a Pro user of Driver Techie, and need our technical support to help with the Rainbow Six Siege crashing problem, please feel free to contact <support@drivertechie.com>.