Process Lasso

[shamrockflyer 647]

I started using Process Lasso as a way to handle which cores P3D V4 uses, I set it up to use 2 - 7 for P3D leaving 0 - 1 free for windows applications etc. I started a flight from Shanghai to Leipzig, all was going well until I got a CTD 9 hours into the flight over a remote part of Russia. It couldn't have been a scenery conflict issues as I have no scenery in the area it occurred. The CTD was an ntdll.dll, one I haven't seen in a while which is the reason I ask - can Process Lasso be the cause of the CTD?

Edited June 4, 2018 by shamrockflyer

[Jim Young 2,356]

The ntdll.dll is usually caused by a bad overclock, too high or low cpu voltages.  It can also be caused by bad textures in an addon.

[shamrockflyer 647]

4 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

The ntdll.dll is usually caused by a bad overclock, too high or low cpu voltages.  It can also be caused by bad textures in an addon.

I use my boards cpu overclock feature (OC Genie) so I highly doubt an overclock or incorrect voltages are the issue. Just for reference, I have throughly tested to make sure the OC is stable.

As for the ntdll issue and all other issues P3D users seem to have - why can programs such as DCS or X-Plane go without such frequent dll issues that P3D has? It has always intrigued as to how P3D can have such many issues, but the above programs do not (or atleast not as frequent as the latter). 

[honanhal 1,420]

There's a lengthy thread here about an ntdll.dll crash off the coast of Canada that's almost definitely not overclocking related -- this sounds similar. It's likely that fewer people are flying over this part of Siberia than the Canadian area that's the subject of that thread, but very possible that the two crashes are related.

James

[shamrockflyer 647]

1 minute ago, honanhal said:

There's a lengthy thread here about an ntdll.dll crash off the coast of Canada that's almost definitely not overclocking related -- this sounds similar. It's likely that fewer people are flying over this part of Siberia than the Canadian area that's the subject of that thread, but very possible that the two crashes are related.

James

Yes I have seen that thread. I don't often fly around that part of the world therefor haven't come across the ntdll in that part. I have removed Process Lasso and I have just over 50 minutes remaining in a flight from CVG to LEJ, I am assuming that my configuration with Process Lasso had something to do with the ntdll crash yesterday. I also updated some drivers and windows as well as FSUIPC. 

[Jim Young 2,356]

3 hours ago, shamrockflyer said:

As for the ntdll issue and all other issues P3D users seem to have - why can programs such as DCS or X-Plane go without such frequent dll issues that P3D has? It has always intrigued as to how P3D can have such many issues, but the above programs do not (or atleast not as frequent as the latter)

This one is easy to answer.  X-Plane is a sim that is original.  It did not come from the remnants of another sim or from something that started back in 1995 and earlier.  Therefore, all of the addons are original and were never developed back in 1995.  DCS is the same.  Originally developed.

Prepar3D is basically an upgraded version of FSX.  FSX is basically an upgraded version of FS2004.  FS2004 is basically an upgraded version of FS2002 and so forth and so forth back to when MS FS was first developed.  A lot of addons were made for FSX and previous versions and many simmers have addons that were developed way before FSX because developers would never ever upgrade their scenery or aircraft for FSX users.  So they manually installed the product to make it fit somehow in FSX.  Then FSX went out of business but addon developers continued to develop new products for FSX but never updated the stuff from FS2004 and before then.  Along comes Lockheed Martin who brought the ESP-based version of FSX and brought in that development team too and called the sim Prepar3D.  Since it is based on FSX, many were able to easily use FSX developed addons until Lockheed decided to release V4.  That's when P3D went from a 32-bit application to a 64-bit application and suddenly many of the old addons made for FSX no longer worked.  Many found old FSX addons worked with some limitations and they liked the scenery so used it.  Some developers refused to upgrade their products from 32-bit to 64-bit so individuals installed the program anyway.  Now we are seeing more and more crashes in v4.2 because members are using old stuff.  Instead of 32-bit modules, members need 64-bit modules but they cannot wait for any developer to update those modules. 

Much of the same problems occurred when FSX/Acceleration replaced FS9.  Textures in different format.  No longer could one use their old FS9 stuff.  Couldn't wait so manually installed and lots of "unexplained" crashes.

In regards to your comments on overclocking.  I had my system professionally overclocked several years ago, ran several different stability tests, and the overclock was rock solid until I loaded up FSX.  I then started to get unexplained crashes.  Only when I returned my BIOS settings back to the Optimal Defaults did the crashes stop.  The same has occurred with many other members over the years.  Perhaps FSX and P3D should replace the system stability testing software...

21 minutes ago, honanhal said:

There's a lengthy thread here about an ntdll.dll crash off the coast of Canada that's almost definitely not overclocking related -- this sounds similar. It's likely that fewer people are flying over this part of Siberia than the Canadian area that's the subject of that thread, but very possible that the two crashes are related. 

James

Anything is possible but OP is using Process Lasso and his crashes started after that.  I do not think that long thread was related to someone using Process Lasso.  From my understanding, the OP had the problems after messing around with his CPU Cores.

[shamrockflyer 647]

5 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

Perhaps FSX and P3D should replace the system stability testing software...

Anything is possible but OP is using Process Lasso and his crashes started after that.  I do not think that long thread was related to someone using Process Lasso.  From my understanding, the OP had the problems after messing around with his CPU Cores.

Yes, I agree with that! 

I am almost certain that Process Lasso was the cause of the CTD as I have had no problems what so ever since uninstalling it and had no problems before installing it either. I appreciate your support as always Jim and thanks for your explanation above. 

Ciaran 

[Luke 782]

2 hours ago, Jim Young said:

This one is easy to answer.  X-Plane is a sim that is original.  It did not come from the remnants of another sim or from something that started back in 1995 and earlier.  Therefore, all of the addons are original and were never developed back in 1995.  DCS is the same.  Originally developed.

Prepar3D is basically an upgraded version of FSX.  FSX is basically an upgraded version of FS2004.  FS2004 is basically an upgraded version of FS2002 and so forth and so forth back to when MS FS was first developed.

With respect, that's overemphasizing the point. X-Plane 11 is basically an upgraded version of X-Plane 10, which was an upgraded version of X-Plane 9, and so on. The fact that they were marketed under different names doesn't change the fact that MSFS went through 10 versions (actually fewer than X-Plane) and internally it was just MSFS v10.0 (hence the name FSX).

One may have a point that there is better continuity of development under Laminar Research than Microsoft, but I would suggest that Microsoft could spend exponentially more on QA than LR, so that's probably a wash.

I would suggest that the answer is equally simple - the relative stability of XP (if it exists) is due to the relative scarcity of add-ons. Stock P3D, FSX and XP are all equally stable assuming stable hardware and a properly configured OS. Once people start adding third party add-ons of dubious quality, the stability of the sim will go down. If anything, 64-bit has done us a great service as the old content simply will not run due to limitations of the x86-64 architecture.

I'd personally be suspicious of blaming Process Lasso unless it's doing something more than changing process or thread affinity; FSX and P3D do that using the same Windows API calls using the affinity mask setting and any decent software (which includes FSX, P3D and XP) should not care as to how many processors it could be executing on, or which processors they are. I wonder if Ciaran can duplicate the problem at will.

Cheers!