Black Ops 7 PC Crashes: TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, and 0x3

Black Ops 7 refuses to launch or crashes mid-match on PC for a short list of concrete reasons. Most are fixable in under half an hour. Work through them in order — start with the one that matches when your crash happens.

1. TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are mandatory

BO7 requires TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot enabled on PC. They’re not optional performance settings — they’re required by the Ricochet anti-cheat. If they’re off, the game either crashes to desktop or shows a security warning and locks you out of modes including Ranked Play.

How to check:

• Press Win+R, type tpm.msc — it should say “The TPM is ready for use.”
• In System Information, BIOS Mode should be UEFI and Secure Boot State should be On.

If either is off, enable them in your motherboard’s BIOS/UEFI (UEFI mode, GPT disk, Secure Boot on). If an AMD PC reports a TPM 3.x attestation issue, update the motherboard BIOS. Activision’s Call of Duty Secure Attestation Wizard walks you through exactly what to change.

2. Dual installation sources cause error 0x3

If you have BO7 installed and launched from two platforms at once — for example the Xbox app (Game Pass) and Steam — you’ll hit crash error 0x3. Uninstall the game from one source and launch from the other. One install, one launcher.

3. GPU drivers: clean-install or roll back

DirectX talks directly to your graphics driver, so a broken or stale driver is the most common crash cause.

• Clean install: run DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) in Windows Safe Mode, then install the latest Game Ready (NVIDIA) or Adrenalin (AMD) driver fresh. An “express” update over a broken install leaves the bad state in place.
• Roll back: if crashes started right after a driver update, drop back one version and stay until a newer build proves stable.
• One rule: don’t update your GPU driver and BO7 on the same day — if something breaks you won’t know which caused it.

4. Clear the shader cache and verify files

• BO7 runs on DirectX 12 — do not switch to DirectX 11; that path is gone and causes its own crashes.
• After a season patch, clear the DirectX Shader Cache (Windows Disk Cleanup → DirectX Shader Cache), then launch and wait 5–10 minutes on the main menu for shaders to recompile. Don’t skip this — compiling during a match spikes VRAM and crashes.
• Run Scan and Repair (Battle.net) or Verify integrity of game files (Steam). Patches can fail silently; one bad file is enough to crash. Restart after.

5. Turn off overlays

Overlays inject into the render path and are a frequent crash trigger:

• Discord overlay
• GeForce Experience / NVIDIA overlay
• Steam overlay
• RivaTuner / MSI Afterburner
• Xbox Game Bar

Disable them one at a time (or all at once for testing) and re-launch.

6. Return overclocks to default

Unstable CPU, GPU, or RAM tuning causes access-violation and DirectX errors even when other games are fine:

• Disable XMP/EXPO RAM profiles in BIOS.
• Reset GPU overclocks/undervolts to stock.
• Load default CPU settings.

If default settings stop the crash, reapply tuning gradually rather than restoring everything at once.

7. Heat and VRAM pressure

• Cap your frame rate to your monitor’s refresh rate to cut power draw and heat.
• Lower Texture Resolution, turn Ray Tracing Reflections off, reduce shadow/volumetric quality, and lower the VRAM Scale Target.
• Clean fans and check temps. Thermal shutdowns look exactly like random crashes.

Console error CE-34878-0

On PlayStation, CE-34878-0 means the application crashed. Activision’s steps: close the game fully, restart the console, install system updates, ensure airflow, and delete old saved data (rebuild database only if crashes persist). On Xbox, remove BO7 from Quick Resume and restart.

If nothing works

Allow the launcher and Activision services through your firewall, run the launcher as administrator to test permissions, and if files verify clean, file a PC Crash Report through Activision’s form. For how the rest of the game behaves online, see our matchmaking guide and controller settings guides.