Switched to DX12 and had quite a few micro stutters during  test flight today, maybe every minute or so, especially in cruise with and without Lossless Scaling. Settings are unchanged and just turned on DX12.

On 9/3/2025 at 3:07 AM, psolk said:

It is just the Nvidia App that requires DX12 with MSFS2020.  If you have the Nvidia App DX11 will CTD before it even loads.  Removing the Nvidia App resolves the issue although outside of VRAM reduction there is really no good reason to avoid DX12 at this point.  

So DX11 without Nvidia App should be fine DX11 with Nvidia App will crash however you do NOT need the app for the drivers.  They are completely independant and the app is not required.  

Hope that helps

Sorry mate but your wrong 

I do not have the app installed and cannot load without being in dx12with new drivers.

 

Just tried with dx11 and TAA and i get CTD 

 

Im on a 5080.

Mike

12 minutes ago, mikeymike said:

Sorry mate but your wrong 

11 minutes ago, mikeymike said:

Sorry mate but in my case my experience differs 

Fixed that for you as we clearly had different experiences and as this thread has shown, some can load in DX11, some can't so not sure there is an empirical right or wrong here. 

 

18 minutes ago, psolk said:

Fixed that for you as we clearly had different experiences and as this thread has shown, some can load in DX11, some can't so not sure there is an empirical right or wrong here. 

Correct it is happening like this my case.

My apologies.

Is this from Nvidia? 

6 minutes ago, mikeymike said:

26 minutes ago, psolk said:

Fixed that for you as we clearly had different experiences and as this thread has shown, some can load in DX11, some can't so not sure there is an empirical right or wrong here. 

Correct it is happening like this my case.

My apologies.

Is this from Nvidia? 

I also don't use TAA, DLSS over here so not sure if that is a factor and the last driver I tried DX11 with was probably a 576.xx maybe even a 566.xxx

So are you now "locked" out of 2020 altogether?  When I has the App installed with DX11 set in the the sim I could not even get into the sim at all.  It would CTD on load.  The only way to get 2020 to even load to switch it back to DX12 was to uninstall the app. 

Can you even load the sim at all with DX11?  Can you revert to an older driver? 

 

26 minutes ago, psolk said:

I also don't use TAA, DLSS over here so not sure if that is a factor and the last driver I tried DX11 with was probably a 576.xx maybe even a 566.xxx

So are you now "locked" out of 2020 altogether?  When I has the App installed with DX11 set in the the sim I could not even get into the sim at all.  It would CTD on load.  The only way to get 2020 to even load to switch it back to DX12 was to uninstall the app. 

Can you even load the sim at all with DX11?  Can you revert to an older driver? 

 

Yes i had that issue before with app installed. 

And now without app installed and dx11 with TAA it wont load sim at all

On 9/5/2025 at 2:51 AM, Egbert Drenth said:

I guess I'm the exception to the rule then.... I never had any CTD in relation to DX11

 

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/msfs-2020-ctd-during-loading-with-or-without-nvidia-app-installed-dx11/732584

23 minutes ago, mikeymike said:

Yes i had that issue before with app installed. 

And now without app installed and dx11 with TAA it wont load sim at all

That sucks... Someone else linked to a post on the Official Forums about that earlier in this thread, not sure if there is a "fix" in that or if you can roll back drivers 

@udidwht beat me to it...  Looks like there are a few workarounds and also 580.88 seem to be an issue... 

Edited September 8, 2025Sep 8 by psolk

Try:

• Roll back to an older NVIDIA driver version and see if the issue goes away.
• Or, open the UserCfg.opt file, change DX11 to DX12.

To do this, you need to edit usercfg.opt file and modify the line
PreferD3D12 0

 

image370×592 14 KB

Change the number 0 to 1

 

image366×593 14.1 KB

and save the changes.

22 minutes ago, udidwht said:

Try:

• Roll back to an older NVIDIA driver version and see if the issue goes away.
• Or, open the UserCfg.opt file, change DX11 to DX12.

To do this, you need to edit usercfg.opt file and modify the line
PreferD3D12 0

 

image370×592 14 KB

Change the number 0 to 1

 

image366×593 14.1 KB

and save the changes.

@micstatic I "think" (dangerous for me) you are a mod, can we get this pinned in tips and tricks please? 

Thank you @udidwht

Edited September 8, 2025Sep 8 by psolk

Thanks for the advise guys

Well to be honest we should not be doing word not allowed.

Its on them .we dont pay thousands of dollars for us to be testers.

We should be able to install driver for its benefits if there are any. 

And go fly!!!!

 

On 9/2/2025 at 4:44 PM, jm2a said:

There are many posts in a number of forums that indicate that it is necessary to upgrade fs2020 to DX12 for proper operation with the latest NVIDIA drivers. What about this?

With MSFS 2020, I've been using DX11 from the beginning and never experienced a CTD. I tested DX12 and didn't see any difference.

My config: • Intel Core i7 12700KF - MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 - RAM 2 x 32 GB (64 GB) - DDR4 3200 MHz - • MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ventus 3X 24G

Edited September 8, 2025Sep 8 by Area

43 minutes ago, Area said:

With MSFS 2020, I've been using DX11 from the beginning and never experienced a CTD. I tested DX12 and didn't see any difference.

My config: • Intel Core i7 12700KF - MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 - RAM 2 x 32 GB (64 GB) - DDR4 3200 MHz - • MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ventus 3X 24G

Maybe the issues are related to only 5 series cards?

Mike

I have used the Nvidia 566.36 graphics drivers since the start of the year. Until a few weeks ago, I had been happily using MSFS 2020 in DX11 mode......and then suddenly it started crashing and rebooting my PC. This was (suspiciously) straight after a Windows 10 update. I switched to DX12 mode by changing the UserCfg.opt file (as described above), and that resolved the problem. However, I was now being forced to run MSFS 2020 in DX12 mode. Performance was OK, so I decided to just live with it.

I purchased the new Atelic ELLX Luxembourg airport scenery yesterday. When I loaded my plane at the airport, performance was absolutely terrible. Virtually a slideshow. Since this was in DX12 mode, I decided to see if loading in DX11 mode was still a problem. Surprisingly, the simulator loaded fine, and it loaded successfully at several different times during the day. For the record, this did not solve my "slideshow" problems with Atelic ELLX Luxembourg, but that is another story.....

I have absolutely no idea why it is now working. I have not changed the graphics drivers, and I have not installed (or removed) any other Windows 10 updates.

Edited September 8, 2025Sep 8 by Christopher Low

1 hour ago, mikeymike said:

Maybe the issues are related to only 5 series cards?

Mike

Yes, maybe.
When a forum user reports a CTD issue related to their configuration, the use of DX11 or 12, etc., wouldn't it be helpful to specify the configuration, the drivers installed, and certain options (DX, Frame Generation, DLSS, etc.)?