Quick answer: Mini-dumps are smaller than full dumps but still give you stack traces, register state, and loaded modules. A 500KB dump from a player's machine beats their typed description by a mile.
Players send 'it crashed when I jumped'. A mini-dump tells you which thread, which DLL, which line.
Install an unhandled exception filter
SetUnhandledExceptionFilter(MyFilter);Custom filter calls MiniDumpWriteDump with MiniDumpNormal flags. ~500KB; useful for symbolication.
Symbolicate server-side
Upload PDBs to your crash server. Dumps come in; symbolicated traces come out. Players never need to install symbols.
Auto-submit
On crash, post the dump to your endpoint. The Bugnet SDK does this; rolling your own is also reasonable.
Test with a deliberate crash
Add a console command that triggers an exception. Verify the full pipeline. Discover problems before players do.
“A crash without a dump is a story. A crash with a dump is a debug session.”
Mini-dumps strip a lot. For specific bug classes (heap corruption), use larger dump types. Pay the bandwidth where it matters.