Driver timeouts on AMD Hardware (with driver 23.9.1)

[青木 果報]

This thread is for anyone experiencing the following issue on AMD hardware:
After playing for 30-60 minutes, the game freezes and Radeon software informs of a "driver timeout" having occurred.

For me, this happens mostly in outdoor areas. In-game graphics settings are all low, with film grain and motion blur along with all supersampling and variable resolution settings turned off.

R7 5800X, 7900XTX, 1600W power supply, BAR resizing enabled. Max temperatures for both CPU and GPU at 70°. Windows 10 19044.3324.

UPDATE: AMD pushed out a new driver version right after the launch of the early access, make sure you're running 23.8.2 OR LATER before posting here!
I was able to turn all settings back to maximum apart from FSR and variable rate shading.

UPDATE 2: Drivers since 23.9.1 don't specifically mention Starfield in the changelogs.

Possible fixes to reduce crashing:
- Use newest driver (23.10.2 at time of edit)
- Reduce all settings to Low, increase incrementally one by one
- Turn off all Variable settings such as FSR, variable rate shading etc
- Don't ALT+TAB
- Set a GPU Core clock limit ~200-300MHz below stock (<3GHz tested mostly stable on 7900XTX)
- Use the "Auto Undervolt GPU" option in Radeon Software

[mistamichal]

R9 7900X, Radeon 7900XTX, 850W power supply, BAR enabled, 64gb 6000Mhz RAM, max temps 82 CPU and 70 GPU. Windows 11. Same issue.

[MagicHp]

Are you on the latest driver? It fixed that exact issue on Baldur's Gate 3 and added performance improvements for Starfield, might fix it too.

7950x and 7900XTX , not a single crash. Amd drivers 23.8.2 , Win 11 fully updated.

[Prismaa]

I had timeout issue on starting new game with 7900xtx, I noticed the core clocks shot to 3200mhz which is way too high, I limited it to 2600mhz and after playing 6hours I had no issues anymore

[Shadow of Bessarabia]

Known issue (23.8.2). I refunded after first driver timeout (5900x and 6900xt).

[black]

AMD is the issue. They never finish things. Like a Chinese remake of Nvidia.

[Liquidous]

Make sure you turn fsr off . This was a major issue for me when starting out . With it off I ran perfectly on a 7900xtx .

[Canned_Meat]

I have had the game crash twice while leaving the inventory menu -- same thing with the AMD driver hang-up or some such...

[MagicHp]

Originally posted by Liquidous:

Make sure you turn fsr off . This was a major issue for me when starting out . With it off I ran perfectly on a 7900xtx .

Originally posted by Prismaa:

I had timeout issue on starting new game with 7900xtx, I noticed the core clocks shot to 3200mhz which is way too high, I limited it to 2600mhz and after playing 6hours I had no issues anymore

This, I also run without FSR and not a single crash or issue.
I do have my GPU clocked and set up to my liking , so is my Ram and CPU (respectively OC'ed and undervolted) so there might be something here.

Also this driver timeout tends to happens with too much OC or UV , try to set your clocks to default and fixed if possible.

[mistamichal]

Just updated the AMD driver and the game is running fine now.

[The Kaz]

Same problem with a 6800 XT, can't move a little at the start of the game without crashing so i can't play it at all. FSR unable or not, doesn't change anything

[Maximus Mors]

Had the same issue. Fixed it by using DDU to uninstall all graphic drivers and reinstalled the latest one. Haven't had a crash since. I have a 7900XTX.

[Stalker Jewcy]

Originally posted by askittle123:

Had the same issue. Fixed it by using DDU to uninstall all graphic drivers and reinstalled the latest one. Haven't had a crash since. I have a 7900XTX.

I feel like it's working for me, thank G

[青木 果報]

Update 2: Don't pause the game and alt+tab out of it for long periods of time, it will crash. Arguably, this is a given as the exact same thing happened with Skyrim but it's odd that it still hasn't been fixed.

[Liftr]

Updated drivers(23.8.2) do not fix this issue for me, Still having crashing for driver timeout despite trying a plethora of different suggestions. Its a shame, I really enjoy playing the game when it works.

[青木 果報]

Originally posted by Liftr:

Updated drivers(23.8.2) do not fix this issue for me, Still having crashing for driver timeout despite trying a plethora of different suggestions. Its a shame, I really enjoy playing the game when it works.

There's an even newer driver released yesterday, 23.9.1. The release notes don't mention Starfield specifically but it's worth a shot anyway.