Avoid New Radeon 21.3.2 Drivers - Constant CTD

StopHalfling310 · April 4, 2021, 2:19pm

Fellow VR flyers,

I updated to the latest Radeon 21.3.2 drivers, only to notice that this version is close to the worse I ever had. I can’t fly 10 minutes without a CTD, this is when it doesn’t crash within the first 3 minutes. This morning, it CTD 4 times and I was unable to complete a single flight.

I decided to go back to 21.2.2, which was very stable for me and was immediately able to complete a flight without a CTD.

So, update at your own risk and be ready to downgrade if you get into the same trouble as me.

teivadog · April 5, 2021, 10:41am

My experience has been the opposite. I’ve got a Radeon VII and have found 21.3.2 to be quite stable for me. I chose factory reset when installing the drivers though. So far so good.

StopHalfling310 · April 5, 2021, 11:50am

Good for you. One of the worse thing with MSFS is when you change driver and it ruins your experience.

One difference I noticed is that, sometimes, I get a complete one third of a second freeze followed by about 1 or 2 seconds of loss of image (black VR display). With version 21.2.2, everything comes back to normal and I can pursue the flight. This usually only happens once.

My suspicion is that with the other versions, this event ends-up as a crash.

I analyze every crash dump from MSFS and they usually are all related to 1 of 3 causes:

A path creation error in their UI library
A grammar exception in the Azure speech stuff
A Radeon driver issue

I presume they receive telemetry about these and I guess a fix is a release away…

teivadog · April 5, 2021, 8:53pm

MSFS 2020 is certainly a beast. I was on the beta and that was interesting but a nightmare.I was amazed when Microsoft released it to the public as it was nowhere near ready.

In my experience I found most of my CTDs came from aggressive overclocking of the CPU, GPU and memory. Everyone is different as each system is configured differently hence the different outcome for even those with the same hardware.

I am looking forward to the DX12 update just for the greater use of more GPU and multicore CPU resources (hopefully).

I have previously had those blackouts before and most of the time the driver has managed to recover. It’s really russian roulette when it comes to drivers and MSFS versions. You just never know what you are going to get everytime they update the software.

lviuts · April 5, 2021, 9:24pm

Radeon 6800xt here. I downvolted gpu until i read in gpu z voltage of 1.038 playing furmark, with 2450 minimum and 2550 max frequency, and memory at max. Now it consumes below 250w, from 295w. No more crashes, when before i had constant ctd’s.

teivadog · April 8, 2021, 9:18am

I’m considering getting a 6800XT. I also run VR (HTC Vive Pro with ETSY lens mod) and it seems to be OK on my Radeon VII. I’m hoping the 6800XT will give me a little more framerate and smoothness

StopHalfling310 · April 8, 2021, 11:45am

Same here for the GPU.
But, I have to say, I’m starting to wonder whether I should aim for an nVidia card instead. They’re not immune to issues but, considering the significantly higher proportion of owners, I think they do have an edge in the stability department.

Meanwhile, it’s not like I’ll be able to grab one anytime soon. Been trying. Never succeeded yet.

Zeppos · April 8, 2021, 1:32pm

Traditionally my feel is that there’s lots of noise over AMD GPUs and their far-from-ideal drivers, but in this particular case I’d be reluctant to blame AMD for everything. It’s one thing to have a driver that crashes only in MSFS (without even being 100% sure it’s the driver’s fault, as MSFS seems to crash over 153,378 different reasons) and another thing to see frequent crashes in several games.

In my case (6800XT) it’s just MSFS and nothing else. And I didn’t have crashes with my older GPU (R9 290X). Even so, in retrospect I’d be more inclined to try an nvidia RTX even if that meant fewer GBs of VRAM, as stabiliity > all. But I’m not switching GPUs now, I’ll just wait for Asobo and/or AMD to get their act together.

StopHalfling310 · April 8, 2021, 1:34pm

You have a point.
My setup is rock solid, even in VR. Never had app crashes related to the video driver, MSFS being the only one.

I finished Half-Life:Alyx 3 times with 80+ FPS without any similar issue.

EmergencyNICK · April 8, 2021, 1:47pm

I was having no end of AMD driver timeouts with the Adrenalin drivers, both in VR and in 2D - I was lucky if I could complete a 30 min flight. Since switching to the Windows certified driver I have far fewer crashes, sometimes I may be crash free for 2-3 hours, which still sucks, but means it is at least playable now.

Downside is I can’t fly in VR with the Windows certified driver, it causes a CTD straight away.

pwmacbert · April 9, 2021, 9:31pm

Mine has been rock solid under 21.3.2. I’m using an “old” RX-590 (because it works just fine in VR with XP11 and everything else) so that could be that.