Much more frequent CTDs after SU13

[mmcmah 421]

I have seen many others deal with the increasing frequency of CTDs after updating to SU13 and I have also seen Microsoft deny that they have seen any increase in the frequency and therefore disclaim all responsibility for the CTDs.

As such, perhaps more as a PSA, I thought I would detail below some things that have helped me reduce my CTDs:

In my testing and experience with the almost 100% crashes on pressing Fly, the problem seems to be tied to graphics rendering (I always saw small graphics anomalies/glitches on the flight loading screen right before a crash) and I'd almost say the sim can't keep up (data requests to the servers, processing, who knows what...) if you press Fly too quickly.

 

I've tried with many add-ons and with no add-ons and it definitely started with SU13. If I move at all in the world map or change anything (like the plane) before selecting Fly, I always give a 20-25 count before pressing Fly. Do that and I successfully load. Don't do that and I CTD.

 

I normally run my 4090 GPU at 80% power limit. I find that if I reduce it to 60%, I can press Fly without the wait and it's leading me to think that there's something that isn't being executed/finished quickly enough when the GPU isn't being some kind of a gatekeeper. In other words, constrain the GPU enough, and the sim seems to load fine. if I run the GPU at 100%, it seems to crash more quickly than at my usual 80%, but still within the loading process after pressing Fly.

 

Also, the World Map itself will cause CTDs if you pan around or zoom too quickly and so I changed from Satellite view to IFR view to stop that from happening. There's something seriously wrong with SU13 and rolling back video drivers did not change the behavior.

[MDFlier 2,031]

44 minutes ago, mmcmah said:

the problem seems to be tied to graphics rendering (I always saw small graphics anomalies/glitches on the flight loading screen right before a crash) and I'd almost say the sim can't keep up (data requests to the servers, processing, who knows what...) if you press Fly too quickly.

Graphic anomalies or glitches are not a common complaint here. Those are almost always the result of data corruption. It could be caused by bad system memory, system bus, GPU buss, GPU memory, or GPU itself. Sorry to hear about your troubles.

I think trying to tie a problem to pressing the fly button too quickly is a bridge too far. I am hovering in that spot waiting to click it as soon as it appears quite often, and I haven't had a CTD in months.

[mmcmah 421]

1 hour ago, MDFlier said:

Graphic anomalies or glitches are not a common complaint here. Those are almost always the result of data corruption. It could be caused by bad system memory, system bus, GPU buss, GPU memory, or GPU itself. Sorry to hear about your troubles.

I think trying to tie a problem to pressing the fly button too quickly is a bridge too far. I am hovering in that spot waiting to click it as soon as it appears quite often, and I haven't had a CTD in months.

Thanks for the reply. I would ordinarily agree with you and it's why I started stress testing the system and the GPU. No issues with any of the benchmarks and tests. I also reseated and rewired the GPU to no difference.

I have seen a huge increase in CTDs both for myself and for many others on various Discords. The only consistent theme is that it's after SU13, often while panning/zooming in the World Map and often after pressing Fly and having the flight loading up. In addition, changing cameras seems to sometimes freeze the system and cause a CTD.

I honestly feel like it's a bit of black magic at this point to figure out of the sim is going to load. My hope is that MS/Asobo fix this, either unwittingly or on purpose without ever having to acknowledge the issue.

[Vitold69 47]

Microsoft/Asobo definitely knows how many copies of MSFS they have sold and how many hardware/CTD complaints they got. And I believe the ratio is allowing them do nothing. 

[odourboy 1,290]

2 hours ago, Vitold69 said:

Microsoft/Asobo definitely knows how many copies of MSFS they have sold and how many hardware/CTD complaints they got. And I believe the ratio is allowing them do nothing. 

Do the track analytics? Virtual every flight I take since SU13 ends in a CTD, but their bug portal has made me reluctant to bother reporting it.

[Pilot53 544]

Ive noticed vram usage seems to be causing more crashes post su13.  Ive had to lower my resolution in VR to keep from crashing.  Sadly my 4090 can keep up just fine performance wise, but 24GB of vram just isnt enough for VR flightsimming.  

[monica6211 179]

For me, shortly after SU13 I started having a CTD with every flight. I removed all of my addons, tried the "repair" feature in the "apps and features" but I was still having the CTD with every flight. But for me it was right at 40 minutes into the flight, every time. I too wanted to blame it on SU13, since my CTDs started within days of updating. What ended up fixing my issue was using the "Reset" option in the "apps and features" for MSFS. Sadly I had to re-download all of my addons from the Marketplace, but I have not had a single CTD since. I figure my computer must have had a glitch which corrupted one or more files in the sim. I fly everyday now and have been completely free of any CTDs. Just a suggestion.

[monica6211 179]

10 minutes ago, Pilot53 said:

Ive noticed vram usage seems to be causing more crashes post su13.  Ive had to lower my resolution in VR to keep from crashing.  Sadly my 4090 can keep up just fine performance wise, but 24GB of vram just isnt enough for VR flightsimming.  

I'm on a 3060 with 12GB of vram and I fly in VR all the time for several hours at a time with no CTDs. And I run with fairly high settings, and make sure I use lots of AI traffic, all with only 12GB of vram. I'm using the HP Reverb G2. Does the Aero tax your card that much?

[Pilot53 544]

29 minutes ago, monica6211 said:

I'm on a 3060 with 12GB of vram and I fly in VR all the time for several hours at a time with no CTDs. And I run with fairly high settings, and make sure I use lots of AI traffic, all with only 12GB of vram. I'm using the HP Reverb G2. Does the Aero tax your card that much?

I was running at 5000x5000 resolution with dlss quality, with the fenix or pdmg yes it did usually run at 80-100% vram usage.  Now im trying FXAA with 4000x4000, it usually sits at around 80 to 90% vram usage, but does spike to 95% when entering/exiting VR.  That is when I was getting a lot of crashes that didnt happen before su13.   The aero actually uses less vram and give me better fps than the g2 did because of the foveated rendering.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Pilot53

[odourboy 1,290]

58 minutes ago, monica6211 said:

What ended up fixing my issue was using the "Reset" option in the "apps and features" for MSFS

Tried it. Nope.

[monica6211 179]

3 hours ago, odourboy said:

Tried it. Nope.

Maybe you have the old "carenado" bug that causes crashes if a certain combination of their planes are installed?

[monica6211 179]

3 hours ago, Pilot53 said:

I was running at 5000x5000 resolution with dlss quality, with the fenix or pdmg yes it did usually run at 80-100% vram usage.  Now im trying FXAA with 4000x4000, it usually sits at around 80 to 90% vram usage, but does spike to 95% when entering/exiting VR.  That is when I was getting a lot of crashes that didnt happen before su13.   The aero actually uses less vram and give me better fps than the g2 did because of the foveated rendering.

At that resolution I can see why you run out of vram.

[boez 85]

9 hours ago, mmcmah said:

often while panning/zooming in the World Map and often after pressing Fly and having the flight loading up

Is your internet connection a high speed fibre > 100mbps with a LAN cable to the router? 

[Zangoose 1,631]

Can't say I have noticed an increase - I've done quite a number of long hauls in the 787-9 recently and it's been stable. I did have a few CTDs when I had REX AccuSeason installed so I got rid of that for troubleshooting purposes and since then not had an issue so far. 

Edited November 2, 2023 by Zangoose

[cianpars 1,171]

19 minutes ago, Zangoose said:

Can't say I have noticed an increase - I've done quite a number of long hauls in the 787-9 recently and it's been table. I did have a few CTDs when I had REX AccuSeason installed so I got rid of that for troubleshooting purposes and since then not had an issue so far. 

I suspect an issue with REX as well.  Not sure what or why, but I too had to uninstall it.

I also suspect that my RTX3080 does not have enough VRAM to run the current version of MSFS with all of the addon scenery I use, but that is more likely to do with my addons than MSFS.