Apex Legends is getting ‘fatal error’ crashes with RX 9070 XT GPUs, but there is a workaround
Apex Legends is experiencing critical compatibility issues with AMD’s latest Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card, causing the game to crash with fatal errors upon launch. The Apex Legends community team confirmed the problem on social media, stating they are actively investigating the root cause affecting players with this GPU.
When attempting to launch Apex Legends on a system equipped with an RX 9070 XT, users encounter an engine-level fatal error: “The application’s device failed due to badly formed commands sent by the application. This is a design-time issue that should be investigated and fixed.” This error suggests a low-level graphics API compatibility problem between the game engine and the new GPU architecture.
The issue appears to be a driver or engine compatibility problem rather than a hardware defect, as it specifically targets the RX 9070 XT. Respawn Entertainment’s development team is investigating, though no timeline for a fix has been announced.
In the meantime, the Apex Legends account recommended a workaround: rolling back to a previous version of AMD’s graphics drivers. This temporary solution allows affected players to continue playing while developers work on resolving the underlying compatibility issue. Players experiencing crashes should revert to an earlier driver version until an official patch is released.
This situation highlights the challenges developers face when supporting newly released hardware. The Apex Legends team’s proactive communication demonstrates responsiveness to player concerns, though affected players must apply the workaround until a permanent solution is implemented.