Black Screen Events

For a while now I have been experiencing random, short (5sec +/-) but quite frequent ‘black screen events’ but I can’t recall specifically when it started to happen, so I am unsure whether this may be linked to any particular update. They typically start after 15 to 20 minutes airborne and then repeat randomly. I have never used Dev Mode.
I fly exclusively VFR and exclusively in either the BLL Cubcrafters XCub or the Got Gravel Savage Cub. I do not use Garmin or autopilot – ever! I do sometimes have Plan G running on a separate monitor for longer, multi destination routes. My use of ATC is infrequent because it is so poor.
My system is:
MSI B450 Pro Carbon MB
MSI AMD Radeon RT5700XT GPU (Software V 20.11.2)
Ryzen5 3600 CPU
32 Gbyte (4 x 8) DDR4 3200 RAM

3 x LG 24” monitors.

My first thoughts were an issue with the GPU so I ran the sim with MSI Radeon Software displayed on a 2nd monitor. Everything there seemed to be operating within parameters. Typically I was seeing detail around the following:

Frame Rate: 45fps
GPU: 90%
VRAM: 75%
CPU: 60%
RAM: 45%
Temp: 55°
Junction Temp: 100°

The black screen events did not appear to be connected to anything within the visible GPU stats with no noticeable peak or trough at the times the monitor turned black.

Next I ran with the Ryzen Master CPU monitor open, again on a 2nd monitor. Whilst I don’t pretend to understand most of the information available there it seemed that T’s & P’s were all ok, most relevant to me was the fact that it seemed to be multi-threading successfully.

So my next effort was to empty the community folder and run a flight with the default Cub. Twenty minute flight with no black screen. Repeated that flight and – it was back after about 15 minutes with 5 or 6 periods in the final 7 – 8 minutes of the flight.

I have now hit the buffers of my (very) limited knowledge of how these things work so any guidance would be much appreciated.

Dave

Have you checked your system for viruses, root kits, and other such malware? Could be you picked something up,

I found a root kit installed on my system, and while it was only a means to add commercials to my web browser, it was still there, and after cleaning it my performance went up a bit.

Not something that occurred to me as this rig is used solely for simming, but I guess that something could have been introduced via an add on download. I have Kaspersky Total Security installed which does a rootkit and malware scan on every system start up and I run a full scan weekly. However, good point, well made, so I have just run a full scan - no threats detected.

Thanks for the pointer.

it may be also a bad monitor cable, in special if nowhere an error is logged or GPU made strange things and it happens only at one monitor. Possible easy try to switch the cables from monitor A->B :slight_smile:

Id go grab the adlice root scanner, Rouge killer, I had malwarebytes, norton and a couple of others not see the root kit at all, but Rouge Killer found it and dealt with it…Theres a free version that works real well.

all of these stuff is not necessary because:

Same thing here but I always fly in VR. The black screen is about 3 seconds total. I am pretty sure it’s a Radeon issue.

I suspect that a lot of my CTD issues were cause by this underlying problem. The driver version 21.2.2 is the only one that seems to survive to this problem for me. I installed 21.3.2 few days ago and this driver is a total wreck for me, yielding an almost guaranteed CTD within 2 to 10 minutes.

I reverted to 21.2.2 and voilà, problem fixed, super stable setup.

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Interesting. I have only ‘Recommended’ updates enabled so, in theory I should only be notified of updates relevant to the games that I have on the hard drive - which would be FSXSE (which functions just fine) and MSFS. My current AMD Software version is 20.11.2. I might try installing 21.2.2 and see if that has an impact.

Thanks.

I installed AMD updates to 21.2.2 and ran a short flight (15 mins) in the Cub with empty community folder. I experienced the black screen during taxi to the runway and on 4 occasions during a wide circuit and landing. Viewing the AMD metrics it was notable that all of the logged parameters had changed. The frame rate was up slightly to around 50fps, the GPU was running at an almost constant 99% and the RAM and VRAM utilisations had also increased, as had the ‘Current Temperature’ which had risen from a previous figure of 50-55 degrees to 70-75 and the Junction Temperature was running at 106 - 110 degrees up from 95 - 100.

I have submitted a bug report to AMD but I don’t suppose that anything will come of that.

This problem persists and I don’t know where to go next. There are some suggestions that I have found in my search which might help but that I am not comfortable to attempt, like updating BIOS and updating chipset drivers. A fair bit beyond my skill set. What I have done is ensured that Windows is bang up to date and changed window Power Setting to High Performance ( I did try High Performance Optimized for Ryzen PCU and it got worse). I have also increased the Rolling Cache to 32Gig, although I have deliberately been repeatedly flying the same low density scenery route. I have just 2 aircraft in the community folder; removing them and flying default aircraft seems to make no difference.

One thing that I have noticed is that if I fly the route in the Got Gravel Savage Cub I don’t have the problem but if I do it in the BLL Cubcrafters X Cub (with Working Title G3X mod removed) then I do. GPU and CPU metrics don’t change between aircraft and they are all within limits.

Again, if anyone can offer a pointer to an old guy who isn’t on point with computer wizardry I will be grateful.

to be sure… if you fly a not mod’ed aircraft , the problem not exist ?

Have you tried to remove ALL mods from your community folder ? Does the issue persist ?

Thanks for responding Michal, much appreciated.

If you see my opening post you will note that I have run default aircraft with the community folder empty and the problem persists. In addition to emptying the community folder completely I then added MODS one at a time to see if any particular MOD might be at the heart of it. To be clear, there are not a lot of MODS in the folder when they are all there, two aircraft, the Working Title Garmin MOD and about 10 small airfields in the UK and New Zealand.

So, whatever configuration - default aircraft (Cessna 172 & 152) and Community Folder ‘full’ or empty flying MOD aircraft - it appears to make no difference. Flights are around 25 to 30 minutes long, all out of EGCK and termination at EGOV. Avionics on or off, ATC involved or not, AI aircraft on or off, flying at 70kts or 120kts the brief black screen events occur randomly.

sorry… sometime it’s hard to read for me (english) and therefore I ask to be sure :slight_smile:

our experiance tell us, that also a “mini” mod can cause issues. May be you made a re-tests without any kind of installed mods ( you can simple re-name the existing comminity folder :slight_smile: ). Then we can be sure that we not searching issues “at wrong side”.

If it also happens without mods, I fear it will hard to analyse ( we had already brainstorming about ). It may be then driver issue, or config thing because triple monitor setup, or the graphicscard, or… hmmm…

You are saying Michal, that I should start the programme without a community folder at all and that simply emptying the community folder may not be sufficient?

I have noticed that, since 1.15.7.0 (European update) the black screen events have started to occur almost immediately upon starting the Sim and happen several times throughout the starting sequence. Additionally, yesterday evening I flew a 30 minute flight in the Got Gravel Savage Cub, which had previously seemed immune from trouble but which suffered multiple black screens throughout the flight. Fun when you are 30 feet from touchdown at 35kts, the screen goes black and the stall warning starts chirping away :smile:

It is my suspicion that this is a graphics card problem, more specifically as StopHalfling310 said earlier, a Radeon problem. My next plan is to investigate a clean install of the Radeon card drivers. Not something that I have ever done before. However, I will try your suggestion of renaming the community folder on my next start up and see what happens.

Thanks for your help.

Dave

no no… only ensure folder is empty. Without any kind of installed mod we get a comparable installation. Thats the only reason :slight_smile:

I also searched again in forum and found not a report about these black screens in e.g. middle of flight. The idea with cleanup drivers is good.

A question… do you use all your monitors with msfs ? If yes, these might be also a configurion which not may users have.

If your going to reinstall graphics drivers, go over to github, and get a program called DDU, it will remove all traces of your graphics card driver, and let you start a new driver install clean as if it had never had a card in it before. It works well, just follow the instructions and you’ll have the old driver striped and the new one installed in 10min.

I am pleased about that as I didn’t understand the rationale behind removing or renaming the Community Folder. I have emptied the Community Folder completely and run the Sim in that condition over a period of several days - no change at all.

Equally, I have searched both here and on the AMD Forum and found a few references but no solutions. I also left a post on the AMD Forum and had no response and I have raised a Bug Report with AMD, again no response.

I do not use all of the monitors with MSFS as a rule. I will sometimes use a second monitor to run Plan G if I am flying long, multi stop routes or bush flying. I have also used the ‘spare monitors’ to run GPU and CPU metrics whilst trying to resolve this issue.

Thank you Bubba, that’s saved me scouring around the net. I will gladly take your advice and get my head round the process tonight :+1:t2:

BTW, it was reported on TV here in the UK a couple of days ago that people who use the thumbs up emoji are definitely old fashioned and usually old. Amen to that :wink:

Rofl Ive progressed over the years usually it would be a ;p you’d get.

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Fixed! I think :thinking: I have said that before. However, now 2 hours without a black screen period at all. I tracked it down, I believe, to a glitch in the MSI Afterburner/RivaTuner which, rather than try to fix, I uninstalled - with some difficulty - but they are currently gone.

I did do a clean install of the AMD graphics drivers, although I didn’t use DDU. Reading the DDU instructions I thought wow, there are a lot of caveats here, also it did say that it should be used only if the conventional uninstall methodology didn’t work. So I went down the Radeon Adrenalin route first and that worked fine. Latest driver installed - no change, still getting black screens for 3-5 second intervals.

Removing the MSI Afterburner and RivaTuner has produced a performance hit with FPS dropping down to 35-40, GPU utilisation from a constant 99% to fluctuating between 50-95% and all temps down by 10 - 15 degrees. CPU, RAM and VRAM utilisation hasn’t changed much. I haven’t tried tweaking anything yet but I think that what I will do is to fly for a while and confirm stability and once I am happy that it is working ok, re-install the MSI Afterburner.

My thanks go to all of those who answered my cries for help, especially to MichaMMA and BubbaBlitz who helped to focus my less than knowledgeable efforts.

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