Hi,

So long story short, I kept getting crashes every 30-50min and want to share this information in case it can help someone, just like others do.

Try disabling the BITS service in Windows:

Windows > Start > Type "Services" > Find "Background Intelligent Transfer Service" (BITS) > Right-click > Properties > Then set "Startup type" to "Disabled". Windows will work without it. So far I haven't had crashes. If you need Windows Updates that's your problem.

I previously tried:

- DDU'ing drivers to remove them.
- Using the latest AMD drivers.
- Using old AMD drivers. Including PRO versions.
- Installing only the drivers, instead of the entire Radeon suite (Minimal install).
- Turning off VPNs. (BITS clashes with VPNs. Other sources confirm this. Then amdrivers afterwards if no VPN).
- Updating Windows.
- Updating chipsets etc.
- Using DirectX.
- Using Vulkan.
- Running the game as Admin.
- Running the game in compatibility mode.
- Re-seating RAM and GPU.
- Using a different GPU slot.
- Using the AMD Cleanup utility.
- Using Revo uninstaller when Ryzen Master didn't want to uninstall and seemed like a possible cause.

No other games had these crashes. The error messages changed at various points, but in Event Viewer there was always either an Error or Warning showing. Usually there's a BITS warning just before an AMD driver called amduw23g crashes, I found. But the error messages do not suggest this is linked to BITS at all:

"Unsupported Graphics Card: There is a problem with your graphics card. Pleasure ensure your card meets the minimum system requirements and that you have the latest drivers installed".

"Display driver amduw23g stopped responding and has successfully recovered"

"AMD Radeon Software not compatible with current driver (PA-300)".

5700 XT Nitro+ GPU.
32GB RAM.
3700x CPU.
1440p Monitor.
Win 10.

Hope it helps someone.

Did you try the BITS trouble-shoot/repair stuff before disabling it?

No, I was completely fed up with all kinds of troubleshooting. Maybe I'll get around to checking it, cheers.

just so you understand that "Background Intelligent Transfer Service" is also what downloads Windows updates and will be needed to get them installed

it sounds like your AMD monitoring software is really behind this but if you are happy then great

I'm a little surprised if BG3 uses it. Or does Galaxy? Some few games do, but it requires (from what I understand) a bit of knowledge and debugging to get it to do what you want.

its a basic building block of your systems networking so yes both the game and Galaxy CAN use it depending on your options
Larian launcher has a send us gameplay stats tick box, an option to check for Gpu driver updates, multiplayer matching and attachment tracking

Galaxy also checks for game updates, is one of your pals online and they both run little adds for upcoming dlc on sale etc so yes turning off Bits is pretty bad for your general system health and i assume this guy has other problems or perhaps has been mucking about in the regeditor

Most games that have various needs to call home do not use BTS. The reason to use it is that it actively seeks instants where there is spare bandwidth and only then schedules the requested access. It is a clever utility, that has some overhead, and needs care to use properly.

correct the game itself doesn't use bits at my end [see image] which is why i assume something else is happening at his end

Galaxy can/ does download updates in the background even if you tick the don't do this box found in settings under 2 senarios
1 Galaxy updates i.e, patches for galaxy itself
2 linked games that are not Gog but still played within the galaxy shell so something like SWTOR or Mass Effect may be actually playing while Galaxy decides to grab updates

as a side note just having task manager open with the "always on top" option ticked can block BG3 [or most other games] from booting up because they can not make a true full screen but opening it after the game has booted should work around that

I have to say, it would be weird if a background download service like BITS could conflict with BG3, especially when we take into account that BG3 can run in the single player offline mode from start to finish (no networking is needed).

It is understandable that VPN software may conflict with a low-level network service, because they may clash when both are trying to take low level control of the network traffic. However, BG3 is no VPN. Modern games should run top of something like VPN, rather than trying to replace VPN (or whatever is equivalent) with its own version of network control.

It is also understandable that something running in the background that utilizes BITS may conflict with BG3. If this is the case, typically it causes sudden drops of the frame rate, rather than destabilizing the game running in the front and thus causing it to crash once in a while.

My best guess is, you may have a special background service running a task scheduled to activate once in a while.

That's the case with my HP gaming laptop. Every once in a while, HP's network diagnostics app displays a message telling me everything is up to date - why would I need to be notified in such a prominent way if everything is fine - even when I'm running BG3 (or other video games like Fallout 3) in full screen. I hate that app. It does have an OK button obviously meant for me to click to dismiss the message. However, when BG3 is running in full screen (not in Windowed mode), there is no way I can click that button without forcing Windows's default mouse cursor to show up first, which is simply impossible when running a video game full screen. In the end, I disabled the app.

In your case, I guess you may have a similar app with the only relevant difference being that your app destabilizes BG3 (rather than just popping up a message box blocking the central area of my game interface for 10 or 20 seconds).

Additionally, Microsoft has a Bluetooth-related app with similar behaviors, with the only relevant difference being that it displays a notification (not a big message box at the center of the screen, as in the case of that HP app) whenever it detects one of my Bluetooth-enabled devices present near my laptop. I configured Windows to suppress all notifications while I am gaming. Yet, that one specific notification is unique, as it always shows up, no way to suppress it - unless I physically remove the related device far, far away whenever I start to play a game full screen. Or, simply disable Bluetooth entirely. Note: Bluetooth forms a network similar to the network that enables the Internet.