MSFS is on an SSD and the 2 Windows installations point to it. For the 1st, it is a classic installation. For the 2nd Windows, all you have to do is indicate the directory on which MSFS is already installed.
The advantage of having at least Windows installations is in the event of a hardware or software problem on one of the 2 installations, there is the 2nd as backup.
To do the tests with MSFS I only installed Windows. But if not, once Windows and all the software is installed, I make an image that I copy to another hard drive. I am making a clone. In the event of a problem, it is quickly repaired, since everything, software and drivers are already installed on the clone image.
Chiming in. Having multiple physical drives and cloning is best done with a drive caddy if you have a front case bay available. Making its ports hot swappable in BIOS allows you to handle drives like USB except a lot faster. The MSFS move function is in Windows apps where you would uninstall it.
With 3080 generating heat like an oven, I went with a high-flow case, even upgraded 3 front 120mm fans to 140mm, so there are no front bays - had to retire my BluRay burner.
Now that’s a nice build. There are inexpensive eSATA, or the like, external drive enclosures if you start playing with lots of drives. I’ve been using clones for full medal backups for years. If the wife picks up something nasty from web, I do a crash off, pull the infection out and turn on the clone. Back in business.
I have experimented a bit with the tuning settings of my RX 6900 XT (Gigabyte Gaming OC Model, please keep that in mind, your particular RX 6900 XT might need different values):
I did two consequent flights of each taking about one hour in an area where I’d usually see CTDs frequently. No crash at all, also my junction temp was never exceeding 78°C while still delivering constant 30 fps.
Please note that fiddling around with tuning / overclock settings is at your own risk.
Thanks for reporting with your effort, but I do believe that the software/driver is broken at the moment and the only way to stop the CTD will be ASOBO and AMD getting their code fixed.
I have tried all sorts of underclock, undervolt thinking it’s the oc setting. My 6800XT never breaks the junction temp of 65c under waterblock. When I tried under volting it was running in the mid 50c. It’s not the temp or oc settings. VCRUNTIME is related to the visisual c++ components and the CTDs are due to poor coding. The sad thing is ASOBO does not know how to fix it at the moment.
I don’t want to contradict you on that assumption. My observations show that the vcruntime breaks first, then the driver, IF the driver crashes at all, that is. Most of the time vsredist dies off and no other entries are in the event log at all.
Honestly, I am not even sure if AMD is to blame at all, sure they have a large history of driver issues, but so far the one and only issue is with MSFS in VR Mode (pancake didn’t crash a single time for me). Everything else I have thrown at my 6900 just worked flawlessly, be it pancake or vr games.
I had a lot of troubles with DWM.exe. I have Windows 10 Home 20H2 installed and I seriously believe that since update KB5001391 these problems have been fixed. I have no troubles with DWM.exe anymore.
Also, my GPU fans would make a lot of noise because of reasonable high GPU temperatures (> 90 degrees). Because of this I undervolted my GPU and had a lot of crashes because of this. Maybe I undervolted too much and I could not find a sweet spot. But since Radeon software version 21.4.1 I feel things have stabilized. I use the software with default settings now and GPU temperature stays below 90 degrees. GPU fans are not too noisy now. I also disabled “issue detection” in the adrenaline software settings->system section like @Mayhem6633 did to get rid of driver timeout issues.
I use MSFS steam version. I always start MSFS first (with my HP Reverb G2 connected) , go to World Map and create a flight plan and just before I press FLY button I first start SteamVR (OpenXR runtime version: Windows Mixed Reality) which will start Windows Mixed Reality Portal automatically. Finaly I put my headset on (goggles up) select MSFS on the taskbar so it gets focus and press CTRL + TAB to enter VR mode and put the goggles down to immerse myself in the fantastic virtual world of MSFS. For the last days this worked without problems. I use 100% render resolution (SteamVR and MSFS). Sometimes just a little bit stuttery but the clarity is the best you can get at the moment. I hope AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution, which will be introduced soon, will bring the necessary performance improvements. At the moment I am a happy simmer!
Hi, guys! Just a quick update… I tried Mayhem6633’s settings as far as rolling back to 21.3.1 driver, then disabling issue detection in Adrenaline software. So far after about 2 hours total flight time, zero CTD’s!!
I have G2, i9-10850, XFX Merc319 RX 6800, and 32GB RAM xmp oc’d to 3200. No other OCing.
Tried running first through SteamVR, but experienced lots of jitter and one CTD. Switched back to OpenXR @ 70 render scale, MSFS render scale to 80. Flew touch and go’s between LAX and Santa Monica with no CTD, no jitter. Started all settings low, then increased to medium without issue. Today flew around D.C. area in Cessna turboprob and CJ4 jet. Increased terrain vector to high and clouds to medium. Still nice and stable with no CTD. That issue detect disable is a godsend! Will be tweaking Adrenaline next, and perhaps MorePowerTool as well. Thanks so much!!
UPDATE: Experienced a couple of CTD’s since, but probably because I’m pushing settings in the sim to find my upper limit.
Could not remain stable even a minute at sim render scale 100 with OpenXR at 50. Yesterday was able to fly crash free at 80/70 and 90/50 at medium settings with a couple of them on high (terrain vector and clouds). Ran developer mode in sim for FPS reading. Can’t see it inside the G2, so propped the headset on top of my head and flew the biplane in VR in and around Chicago skyline at top speed with barrel rolls and loops. Was surprised to see FPS in the high 30’s to mid-40’s!
Later on I had successful flights around D.C. between Reagan and Dulles airports, then tried out other planes out of Toronto and Niagara Falls/Buffalo. The couple of CTD’s I did get were “Wattman” related errors and not driver timeouts, so I agree this is all about AMD’s drivers and power limitations on Radeon cards. Obviously the 6800 has ample VRAM considering the relatively high FPS I was achieving. So until we get decent drivers (or score an Nvidea card), imo our best hope is to tweak to whatever settings are playable for our respective systems. I appreciate all of the opinions shared here, as well as all the suggested ‘fixes’ based upon the success of others.
I wouldn’t want to be an ominous bird, but a total of 2 hours of flight is nothing at all. Once with an nth solution to the CTDs, I managed to do a total of 15 hours of flight time. BUT at the 16th hour the CTDs returned.
I agree. These CTDs are as random as they get. No pattern. I believe it’s due to memory leak and the developers probably have no clue where to begin. It’s been there from day 1 and I’ve tried every driver combination, new components, multiple reinstall of the sim and the OS, swapping out RAMs, MB, CPU. Only happens with AMD and G2 at the moment.
Glad it helped. Yes, I haven’t had any “driver timeout” issues since I disabled issue detection in the adrenaline settings so that’s definitely a fix for that. Regarding CTD’s, I still get them randomly so changing drivers is not a fix but for sure I get more of them with some drivers than others. I’ve actually rolled back one more version to v21.2.3 which is giving me even better results than 21.3.1.
I’m a little nervous about the upcoming sim update. I have fingers crossed that this makes things better! We all know it doesn’t always work out that way.
Last month I was on a chat with an AMD rep about a different matter, and brought up my issues with MSFS2020 VR. He suggested I try the 20.12.1 driver, claiming it had specific optimization for MSFS. I downloaded, but haven’t tried it yet. Just FYI.
Thanks for the heads up. I did try that. It’s actually the first driver released for my 6900 xt. I can’t go any older than that. But I did try it and so far the 21.2.3 works better than that one for me.
Well, it’s not “nothing” to me. My simming time is limited, so an hour or two of uninterrupted flight is a major leap vs what I’ve dealt with the past 4 months. I’m still planning on switching to Nvidea 3080 or better as soon as I can manage to get one, but at least this tweak makes it playable for me. Just wanted to add my positive results to the overall project here is all. Every system is different just like every body is different. Two people get the same dose of COVID vaccine – one is bedridden for a day with side effects, the other feels nothing. I appreciate any new info that could lead to a permanent fix, or even just a slight improvement of performance.
Yes 2 hours would be more than good, when I spent 30 minutes flying, I already have more than enough, and I want to do something else.
There, I realize that I was so jaded by all these CTDs, that I no longer want to play.
As I said before, since 1.15.8.0 I only played 2 times 5 minutes, and last 1:45 to test a new solution, which ended up in CTD.
If at the beginning, when I had MSFS I got hooked very quickly, I wanted to learn, now I think that I have done the trick.
I would be interested in whether the CTD’s are actually just a driver or software problem? I use an RX 6800 xt and this achieves a maximum of 260 watts under full power. I didn’t overclock it. However, I only have a 650 watt power supply. However, AMD recommends a 750 watt power supply. What kind of power supplies do you have?
the 750W recommendation is a boat recommendation that goes everywhere.
If you watch the videos on Youtube devoted to PC assembly, the vast majority of them all recommend a 750W power supply as peroquets, without saying that there is a calculation to be made to know exactly how much power you really need. .
Of memory an RX 6800 XT consumes less than 300W, and my Ryzen 5 3600 95W without counting the hard disks and the RAM, I think that with 650W I have a little margin.
