Blessed are the ones who dont get CTDs

All the blessed people out there who get little to no CTDs on PCs, may ye share the secret of keeping CTD demon at an arms distance? Says captain sim sparrow…

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I can honestly say, since starting in August of last year, I have only had 2 CTD’s. Both were on approaches and back to back. Suspect network issues at the time.

My PC is Windows 10, clean installation with nothing else other then what is required for all aspects of my sim setup.

  • All Windows 10 updates
  • All Driver updates
  • All Firmware update

nVidia Control Panel is all defaults with the following exceptions;

  • Monitor refresh set to 144hz
  • vsync disabled

I always do a “clean install” of the nVidia drivers and do not have the GeForce experience installed.

MSFS settings;

  • Ultra
  • 4K
  • vsync / frame rate limiter off
  • 400 LOD
  • Lens Flare off
  • Motion blur off
  • All assists off (true to life)
  • All tool tips, etc… turned off
  • All HUD’s turned off
  • ATC, Voices, Etc… all turned off (I use Pilot2ATC)
  • Live Weather turned off (I use REX WeatherForce)
  • Rolling Cache set to 16GB
  • DirectX 11

At the end of each session (turning off sim for the day) I delete the rolling cache and re-create it so it’s fresh for the next session.

Before turning off the PC I clear out C:\Temp and C:\Windows\Temp, I also perform a disk cleanup and select clean up system files and then shut down.

As for various Windows settings, page file is set to 1.5X the physical memory, environment variables for tmp and temp are set to C:\Temp.

Before any sim updates, I use navigraph FMS and Nav Data Center to remove all the navigraph addons / plugins. I then re-name the community folder and update. Shut the sim down, delete the new empty community folder, rename the original back, run the navigraph plugins and re-install.

I keep LittleNavMap up to date anytime I add new scenery or theres an update (update the navigraph library), I also use MakeRunways anytime there is new scenery and use that to backfill Pilot2ATC so it is current with runways, taxiways, gates, etc…

I check all my sources (ORBX, flightsim.to, simmarket, etc, etc, etc…) about twice a week ensuring everything is up to date and current.

I’m currently running 134 different applications / addons / mods / etc… Internal and external to the sim, so it is not just a vanilla install and run.

I absolutely get / understand that allot of this is not required / necessary / is overkill. But I am a creature of habit with allot of OCD tendencies :slight_smile:

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(1) Keepeth thy PC clean, and free from the demons and malicious software,
(2) Visit the not the unholy places on the Internet, that are sinful.
(3) Honor thy Windows Updates and file maintenance tools.
(4) Blessed are the PC owners, and they will inherit MSFS

I must be doing some or all of the above, and now I have “Seen the Light”, I no longer get any CTS or Slowdowns, even though I may fly in 10+ Hours sessions.

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I generally haven’t had many problems over the months. But a short while ago it was getting to the point that I couldn’t even spawn into a certain gate at Heathrow without a CTD. So I went back to Windows 10. Haven’t had a CTD since (touch wood)
Also I didn’t download MSFS again after the install of Windows 10, I had the packages folder backed up. So its the same files I was using with Win11, not a clean install.

I generally don’t mess too much with my pc settings. Keep the number of mods limited. And no overclocking on my cpu/gpu. Other than that, I think I’ve just been lucky or there are numerous more people like me that happily sim away and keep quiet (which makes it look like a lot of people have ctd’s)

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Recently discovered pausing OneDrive before I start to fly seems to completely eliminate CTD on longer flights.

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An Interesting Observation … who would have thought that !!!

Had a few CTDs and lagging landing at airports recently. I now only fly with 2 or 3 addons in the Community Folder and do flights less than 100 nms.

Very, very little lagging now and so far no more CTDs. FWIW.

I’m thinking of getting the Hjet tonight and doing longer flights. Should be interesting to see how that pans out.

Bit of background.

Been flying fir months testing a new aircraft, so haven’t been doing any flights using flightplans.

Started on fuel burn and thought it would be more interesting to fo some calculations while flying the Macrobertson Air Race route.

1st leg from Mildenhall could barely get as far as Paris without a CTD. Tried everything. Thought it might be the TACAN, but no. eventually changed the power settings so that the USB ports always ran at full power and didn’t go into power-saving… and this helped. But still got CTD, particularly when taking screenshots or using LNM.
All of my files relating to this project are in my OneDrive, including flight plans, screenshots etc.
By pausing OneDrive while flying I haven’t had a single CTD in the last 11 hours of flying (about 9 flights).

Yes, the still present BUG where MSFS to “Throw a Fit”, when a USB device is plugged in . Asobo did reduce the detrimental effects, but its still, there.

A USB device going into power save and then coming out, could well be sufficient to cause MSFs to “Throw a wobbly” !!

Note: The highly technical terms “Throw a fit” and “Throw a wobbly” to describe the “Twitchness” of MSFS :partying_face:

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To overcome this, the only USB devices plugged directly into PC are my mouse and keyboard.

Otherwise I am using external powered USB hubs for everything else (and of course those are plugged into the PC).

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0797NZFYP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And of course power settings on PC set to maximum performance (custom built profile) and in device manager all USB hubs have enable active suspend turned off (both for internal and external).

Don’t overclock. [Update: stable overclocks do exist, but the first thing you should test in case of CTDs is restoring to default config on voltage/clock/etc. Instabilities in an overclock are insidious – also simply having an underpowered power supply can produce similar problems even if you’re at the rated speeds.]

Should have mentioned in my OP,

XMP enabled, CPU is overclocked.

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Incomplete. It must be said, don’t overclock if you don’t know how what you do.

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Good point! Not all overclocks are created equal; it comes down to whether your particular setup can handle what you’re telling it to do. It’s a real good first-thing-to-check though… :smiley:

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No CTD here for a long time, not since I mistakenly installed 2 different versions of the same airport :person_facepalming:

I have XMP + O/C. Play in VR, HPG2. i9 9900KF + 3090. HAGS On and Game Mode On - Windows 11.

Plenty of mods.

Some things I don’t do:

  1. Adjust any NVidia control panel settings
  2. Follow any “non-standard” guidance found on YT promising increase in FPS, e.g. registry changes, driver de-bloating, etc.

I accept each PC is unique though.

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The AVX clock is critical in the FS. And he doesn’t like hard timings on the ram either.
With the latter, the recommended XMP value can already be too high. The software is really fragile.

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Yes some of us are mildly invested in safe overclocking.

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heatkiller :heart_eyes: jepp … i love my mora too

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Agreed. I’ve never had any probs from launch day 'till SU 9 and I really don’t think the issue is my over clocked system.

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