Gaming Fixes: Game Bar and Out of Memory Crashes

Two repairs on the Fixes page target problems that only show up while gaming.

Xbox Game Bar Missing

If the Game Bar overlay no longer opens, or its recording and screenshot features have stopped working, the components behind it have usually been removed or disabled. Debloating tools are a frequent cause, including aggressive settings in optimizers generally.

The fix restores the overlay and its recording features.

Out of Memory Game Crashes

If games crash after a while with a memory error, or crash on loading large maps, and you have enough memory installed for the game, the usual cause is Windows managing its overflow file too conservatively.

The fix sets sensible sizes for big games. It is one of the more effective repairs in the list, because the symptom looks like a hardware problem and is not.

When it is genuinely not enough memory

If you are running a demanding game on eight gigabytes with a browser open, no setting will save you. Check what you have on the Specs page, then decide whether this is a settings problem or a hardware one. We would rather tell you that than sell you a fix that will not work.

After applying

Restart before testing. The memory change in particular does not take effect until you do.

If the crashes continue

Note whether it is one game or all of them. One game points at that game, all of them points at your PC, and that difference decides what we look at first. Send us a message from the support bubble at the bottom right with that detail.

Related: Memory tweaks, The Fixes page.