MW3 Steam Launch Error - 0xC0000005 (0) N - Anyone else dealing with this?

[u/AUR0RIC]

Hey everyone,

I recently reinstalled MW3 because I've been wanting to jump back into it, but I've run into an issue that I can't seem to fix.

Whenever I try to launch the game through Steam, I get the following error:

0xC0000005 (0) N

What's confusing is that every other game on Steam works perfectly fine, including Black Ops 7. This issue seems to be specific to MW3.

Before diving into troubleshooting, I made sure all the basics were covered:

• GPU drivers are fully up to date
• Windows is fully updated

I've also tried a bunch of fixes already, including:

• Reinstalling the game
• Verifying game files through Steam
• Deleting the cache/Call of Duty files in File Explorer
• Running the game as Administrator (when I do this, the game doesn't even attempt to launch—no loading screen, no error, nothing happens at all)
• Checking BIOS settings (XMP is already disabled)
• Disabling the Discord overlay (I noticed it was appearing during the loading screen and saw some posts suggesting it could cause issues, but disabling it didn't help)

At this point I'm running out of ideas. Has anyone else experienced this error recently, or managed to find a fix for it?

In case it helps, my PC specs are:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (8-core, 16-thread)
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[u/Shortyy06]

The issue is caused by the latest drivers, rollback your drivers to 26.3.1 from this link. https://www.amd.com/en/resources/support-articles/release-notes/RN-RAD-WIN-26-3-1.html

[u/AUR0RIC → u/Shortyy06]

Oh nice, I’ll give this a try when i get back home. Thanks so much!

[u/Sebsarafian_ → u/Shortyy06]

Update: It worked setting it back to version 26.3.1 worked. Thanks so much!

[u/Shortyy06 → u/Sebsarafian_]

No problem glad it worked and you can play

[u/AUR0RIC → u/Shortyy06]

Same here! Thank you so much!!🎉

[u/MiLeSmAn45]

I'm getting the same on a similar setup (7500x3d, 9070). Tried reinstalling but no dice.

[u/AUR0RIC → u/MiLeSmAn45]

Check out the other comment on this post, this looks like it could work!

[u/Shortyy06 → u/AUR0RIC]

It works as i had the same issue, 7900xtx here even their own support couldn't figure it out and had me doing all the stuff i had already done way before the issue was starting.

[u/AUR0RIC → u/Shortyy06]

Much appreciated! I’ll report back as soon as I have a chance to give it a try. So would this essentially be a newer kind of issue since it’s connected to a newer driver update?

Feel like I haven’t seen any posts about this kind of issue as of recently. All troubleshooting posts are from 2024 and earlier.

[u/Shortyy06 → u/AUR0RIC]

Yeah it’s a relatively new issue. No clue why it’s messed the game up but anytime someone mentions it the solution with rolling back the driver works

[u/Sebsarafian_]

Any luck bros. I’m running into the same issue for two days. So should I rollback my drivers?

[u/AUR0RIC → u/Sebsarafian_]

Unfortunately I haven’t been home to give it a test yet, but it looks like this method has been mentioned in similar posts with great success.

I would give it a shot if you’re able to

[u/Sebsarafian_ → u/AUR0RIC]

Too easy thanks man. Hopefully it works for our sakes ahahha