Wow, there's a lot to unpack in this thread.   Almost everyone has a valid point to one extent or another.   As with so many things, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.   So let's tackle things one at a time.

• It is simple fact that flight simulators have always pushed computers to the absolute extreme.   Back in the early days of IBM PC clones, Flight Simulator 1.0 was used, along with Lotus 1-2-3, as one of the benchmarks for hardware "PC compatibility", it was that demanding.  If there is something wrong with your system, even when it works fine 99.9% of the time, a flight sim has a decent chance of finding it.
• Many people are able to use the sim with a high degree of stability.  I, myself, said here just the other day that I can count on one hand the number of times I've had a CTD during flight during 8 months of heavy use, and at least one of those was due to an unstable overclock.  Which leads me into the combination of these two points:
• A lot of people push their rigs for that extra percent of performance, whether it's through an overclock that they think is stable but which actually crumbles under load, or a configuration that cranks their RAM usage in flight to 95% so the slightest increase in utilization causes an OOM condition, or any of a number of things that they may not think are "their" problem.  In spite of their protests to the contrary, there problems are theirs, not Asobo's.
• However, a number of people with actual, credible technical expertise have claimed that they have stability issues even on completely stock system, with no mods and a fresh install.   I have no reason to question these assertions when they come from someone who has obviously done the legwork and has sufficient knowledge to do it correctly.  Many of the complainers who swear their systems are perfect haven't or don't.  Sorry, but it's true.  But that doesn't negate the people who truly have actual legit problems on a clean, stock install.
• MSFS is an extremely complex product, and it almost certainly has legitimate bugs that cause CTDs, sometimes only in particularly rare or extreme cases.   These have existed in the past, and I'm sure some do still exist, probably even ones that have not been discovered yet.  It's the nature of the beast.
• AVSIM is full of people who push their rigs to the limit and have extremely particular and specific needs and requirements.  Basing any estimations of the percentage of the installed userbase having issues from discussions here is just idiotic.  End of.  The MS forum itself isn't much better, even if it's less extreme in terms of AVSIM's unique brand of elitist grumpiness, it's still subject to the rule that the complainers are always much louder than the satisfied people on the internet.

My own belief, based on all of these, is that there are indeed some legitimate issues that need to be ironed out which cause stability issues with specific combinations of hardware and/or software.  And, yes, it is churlish and unhelpful to respond to peoples' complaints with "well it works for me, the problem must be on your end" if you don't offer at least some helpful advice...  but it's similarly churlish and unhelpful to throw up your hands and have a rant about how because you have issues -- even if they're legit -- then the sim is obviously a broken POS.

Because it's not.  For many, many people it works just fine.   Your issues, assuming that you have actually put the honest work in to rule out all other possibilities, are legitimate.  But, if that's where you are, you are almost certainly in a small minority.   The gaming press loves nothing more than a "Well-Known Publisher released a Big Title and really effed it up" story;  look at the reception Cyberpunk got for proof of that.   That we don't have countless articles like that about Flight Simulator I think says more about its reception outside our niche than any amount of extrapolation from thread view counters ever can.

And, finally, can we please stop misusing "gaslighting"?  It has a very specific meaning, in that it represents attempts to make someone question their own reality and mental stability by denying their actual lived experience.   Someone responding to "the sim crashes a lot" with "it works for me, it must be your system" isn't gaslighting you, they're just being unhelpful.  Gaslighting would be responding to that with "no it doesn't, I've been standing here watching you play and everything is fine.  It's all in your head."   It's a completely different class of thing -- the sort of thing that abusers do to their partners, and tyrants do to their countries -- and shouldn't be used as a way of dismissing someone's disagreement with you.

Edited April 19, 20215 yr by kaosfere

I don't doubt that somewhere in the works there probably are some hardware/software  combinations which MSFS doesn't play nicely with, and with a view to that, it would be helpful if anyone who genuinely is tearing their hair out trying to get the thing running, it would be helpful if those people provided as much information as possible on what hardware and software settings they have.

I will give you a couple of little stories about software which I had to spend about weeks getting to run when pretty much everyone, with the exception of a few users (including me) simply could not get to work. Those unfortunate users were posting about this problem and offering all kinds of suggestions, mostly to no avail, but eventually it turned out to a bizarre option in the Windows OS settings for local language choices on the PC which was preventing the thing making it past the load screen (this was the beta recent version of Taleworld's Mount and Blade Bannerlord).

Another weird example of a setting in Windows causing an issue, was with the old Abacus MS Design Studio software, where it simply would not export the model you had created in spite of all the paths to the export stuff and dependent files being correct. This turned out to be another case of a windows option causing the problem, on this occasion the default option to use a , (comma) instead of a . (full stop) as the divider on certain numerical values. Once you changed that, the thing worked fine.

This is the kind of thing which takes ages to locate, and you simply would not think stuff like that would stop some software in its tracks, so it rarely occurs to you to even try such things, but this absolutely was the case with those two examples that something this simple made the software misbehave.

1 hour ago, kaosfere said:

It's all in your head."   It's a completely different class of thing -- the sort of thing that abusers do to their partners, and tyrants do to their countries -- and shouldn't be used as a way of dismissing someone's disagreement with you.

Just to echo and amplify this, it also dilutes the impact of the word to describe real gaslighting so yes, please don’t use it to describe someone who’s just reporting a contrasting experience.

5 hours ago, Aristoteles said:

There are so many wondeful things to do in life apart apart from testing new configurations to avoid CTDs that I think I may give them a try now.

Hope it doesn’t come across as equally unhelpful / simplistic but have you tried flying in areas that don’t have problems? Luckily I’ve never had problems with CTDs (except for the vfr map one a few builds ago) but the stutters / tree LOD impede my experience occasionally, especially in the areas I’m used to in the US / UK so I try to fly in areas where performance is more stable and tree LOD is less noticeable.

Certainly get the frustration, but ever optimistic that these issues will be ironed out eventually!

In MY experience all of MY CTD's (except for stupid ones I caused) were due to mostly hardware setups. 

Since hardware / software needs to coexist it is easy to blame one or the other.  Generally, new software wrongly gets the blame.  The new thing with MSFS is the expanded use of web services so there is now more to consider.

The problem with reporting and expecting a valid response for a CTD in this forum is like nailing jelly to a tree and only causes frustration for everyone reacting to the thread.  Basically don't do it and report to ZenDesk or Latest Community/General Discussion topics - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums instead.

What irks me the most is that frustration for the CTD reporter usually takes hold and leads to bad analysis and usually results in yet another mucked-up thread like this one or worse a plea for sympathy that may lead some (me included) to blame the user because "hey it's his / her stuff so why should I help fix it."

Again - wrong venue IMO.

Simmers now need to factor in that software is no longer static like in the old days (before August 2020).  This will be a hard one but over time we will get used to it and appreciate the constant flow of updates / bug fixes.

Finally we need to appreciate what has been (the good parts) and what will be done.  Keep in mind the commitment is there or else it's game over for MSFS.

bs

 

Edited April 20, 20215 yr by bean_sprout

I'd like to be sympathetic here, but multiple people have asked the OP for detailed system specs and we never got them. I'm not saying the specs will magically trigger some lightbulb over someone's head to what the issue is, but it's at least a starting point for a productive discussion.

Crashes log to the event viewer... we didn't get any of those either. Sometimes they're useless, but other times they point to a DLL or miscellaneous program that can pinpoint the issue. Also, OP says they aren't overclocking, but we can't be sure of that either without the specs. A lot of motherboards these days have one-button "performance" modes that basically run the CPU at boost values all the time (aka overclocking).

I've dealt with CTD's... the first was caused by a bluetooth keyboard (MSFS did not like devices going into lower-power modes), the second was WU3 plus an Nvidia driver update all of the sudden not liking my GPU undervolt. And both were cause by my system being "outside of the norm" and took quite a bit of searching and trial and error to track down.

I have 91 hours since August 18th...  I played 18 minutes after WU4 and prior to that hadn't touched it since Feburary.  I had 40-55 per month in FSX even in July 2020.

 

Does the game generate a detailed log file after a CTD?

 

1 hour ago, ThrottleUp said:

Does the game generate a detailed log file after a CTD?

 

CTD's typically show up in the Windows Event Viewer log in the Application section. It's important to cross-reference with the System section as well and check for any errors immediately before or after the crash. For instance, when my graphics card was causing the issue, I found this in the application log:

Faulting application name: FlightSimulator.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x60420f33
Faulting module name: VCRUNTIME140.dll, version: 14.28.29231.0, time stamp: 0x5f4c66c9

However, I also found this in the System log at the same time, which pointed to a video card hardware or driver issue:

The description for Event ID 13 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

Setting my video card back to stock clocks/voltages fixed the issue.

When I was having the bluetooth related crashes, I used a free Microsoft program called Process Monitor (procmon for short). I kept this running in the background until the sim crashed, then filtered procmon by errors. Sure enough, there were errors pointing to the hardware ID of my bluetooth keyboard. I tried a hardwired keyboard and no longer had issues. I then packed all those details and attached them to a Zendesk ticket. I believe Asobo has since fixed the bluetooth issues, although the last time I tried my old keyboard the sim would freeze for a few seconds if the keyboard fell asleep and was woken back up.

Edit: Also, I don't expect that everyone can or should do this amount of troubleshooting, but the alternative is hoping someone else has the same issue and has reported it to Asobo, then waiting for a patch.

Edited April 20, 20215 yr by Funky D

2 hours ago, aniiran said:

I have 91 hours since August 18th...  I played 18 minutes after WU4 and prior to that hadn't touched it since Feburary.  I had 40-55 per month in FSX even in July 2020.

 

I've got 300 hours, oops, not any more I haven't 🤣

 

1 hour ago, Funky D said:

When I was having the bluetooth related crashes, I used a free Microsoft program called Process Monitor (procmon for short). I kept this running in the background until the sim crashed, then filtered procmon by errors. Sure enough, there were errors pointing to the hardware ID of my bluetooth keyboard. I tried a hardwired keyboard and no longer had issues. I then packed all those details and attached them to a Zendesk ticket. I believe Asobo has since fixed the bluetooth issues, although the last time I tried my old keyboard the sim would freeze for a few seconds if the keyboard fell asleep and was woken back up.

This is how you properly troubleshoot, and it doesn't involve blaming Micrsoft/Asobo for your hard-/software issues. 

1 hour ago, Funky D said:

I don't expect that everyone can or should do this amount of troubleshooting

Yes, but you will need to do this to get at the heart of the issue. 

1 hour ago, Funky D said:

the alternative is hoping someone else has the same issue and has reported it to Asobo, then waiting for a patch.

often, you'll be waiting in vain...

On 4/19/2021 at 8:27 PM, kaosfere said:

..............

And, finally, can we please stop misusing "gaslighting"?  It has a very specific meaning, in that it represents attempts to make someone question their own reality and mental stability by denying their actual lived experience.   Someone responding to "the sim crashes a lot" with "it works for me, it must be your system" isn't gaslighting you, they're just being unhelpful.  Gaslighting would be responding to that with "no it doesn't, I've been standing here watching you play and everything is fine.  It's all in your head."   It's a completely different class of thing -- the sort of thing that abusers do to their partners, and tyrants do to their countries -- and shouldn't be used as a way of dismissing someone's disagreement with you.

A couple examples about this.

When I say that the sim is stuttering a lot and the answer I get is: lower your settings, as if that wasn't the first thing I tried, because it is what I did in FS5 when things were too slow, so yes, I know the basics.

When I say there's an area right in front of Florence where the sim was very good before the last update and now it's a slideshow, and the answer is that I should stop complaining and uninstall all addons, meaning that they didn't even read my post in the first place;

well I think that's more than useless: this is insulting. It is not gaslighting, ok, so let's find another word for it, but believe me it is not nice.

A.

23 hours ago, scotchegg said:

Just to echo and amplify this, it also dilutes the impact of the word to describe real gaslighting so yes, please don’t use it to describe someone who’s just reporting a contrasting experience.

Can you say "useless" ?

If I have a problem, I honestly don't need to listen to those who do not have it. I need some advice from those who had the same problem and solved it.

A.

On 4/20/2021 at 3:07 AM, Funky D said:

CTD's typically show up in the Windows Event Viewer log in the Application section. It's important to cross-reference with the System section as well and check for any errors immediately

When I was having the bluetooth related crashes, I used a free Microsoft program called Process Monitor (procmon for short).

Edit: Also, I don't expect that everyone can or should do this amount of troubleshooting, but the alternative is hoping someone else has the same issue and has reported it to Asobo, then waiting for a patch.

Thats useful info thanks. Procmon is great, all the tools in that kit are awesome Systernals Suite if I recall. 

As a researcher, after an internal validation, I like to have external confirmation of my observations.

After tinkering with apps monitoring fans, cooling and whatnot, I have a consistent statistics and can give some simple piece of advice: KEEP IT COOL.

I'm not sure if it is the 2080TI, but the faster the fans, the lower the temps, the smoother the performance. It's reproducible.

So, I would advice against overclocking, especially if not assisted by effective cooling.

Also, Economy or Silent settings for cooling do not work well. Set it on Max (and enjoy the noise).

Is it perfect now? No, but some stutters, flashes and artifacts are gone.

Others are still there, even with the hardware working in its comfort zone, meaning that something should be done on Asobo side, but if you want to decouple software problems from hardware problems, just try with the temps.

Andrea