Discussion + Poll: Hotfix 1.18.14.0

[BubbaBlitz7348]

I dont know but I think there working on it as we speak, upto today around 12 noon, it was running real good, now tonight all of a sudden the gpu is down to using 65-70 percent and the temp has dropped from the optimum 82c to a blistering hot 72c or less.

Well I had a sim to fly for a few days I guess. The strange thing about it is, this evening Im still pulling a good steady 20mpbs but my fps has droped in 1/2 and is now back to 20 @ 1920, previous after the update I was getting with on ultra and PG on and 20fps in DSR 3840@2160 I freaking give up.

[PacificSet90456]

@SierraHotel2873

I think I got that update

It is an optional Windows update which means users have to request it. It is not automatically installed by the Windows Update process. BTW I installed it when it became available last June and it significantly improved the performance and quality of MSFS for me. From various posts, it either helped users or there was no noticeable difference reported.

[FaultedBirch573]

Just downloaded SU5 plus the hotfix last night. Took under an hour. Prior to this, I removed my community folder. That’s the only thing I did to prepare for the update. The rest of the sim is stock, no other add-ons. Took my first flight today. Very apprehensive given everything I’ve read. After a short 30 min flight, I think… I’m ok with where things are at.

First off, load times for the game and for the flight are significantly reduced. I flew the stock 152 from Plymouth, MA to Provincetown, MA. Max altitude was 8K, broken clouds. This is a flight I’ve done multiple times with SU4, all settings on ultra, TAA antialiasing, All admit that I’m not an expert but from this brief flight, I’m quite content. The graphics don’t appear to be step back from SU4. The clouds look fine, I had no “pop ups” while shifting views (or at any other time). The colors did seem a bit more vivid than I remember with SU4, I also noted some shimmering of the digits on the nav/com displays, same thing with a light tower at the Provincetown airport. It was just some shimmering vertical lines until I got close to it. I know this is a very small sample size but at this stage, I’m pleasantly surprised and figure this sim will only be getting better.

I know many of you are having issues and I feel for you. I truly hope they get sorted out ASAP. For me, it looks like I’m back in business. Next step is to reload my saved community folder. Fingers crossed. If it helps, my PC is an Alienware R12, 10.7K, 16 gig RAM, 3060Ti video card. No overclocking, latest drivers.

I’ll report back if anything goes south on me in the next few day.

[LilyCRose]

My gripes with SU5 have been very minor, can’t release the brake with a button, have to use the mouse… that’s about it, and it flies very smoothly for me. It’s the biggest update since the initial release, so expected some issues. It’s not perfect, but I’m happy with it.

[SIedDriver]

This sim has some real problems.

I’ve had nothing but CTDs and BSOD’s since 1.18.13. So this evening I decided to go through everything possible methodically and see if I could find the culprit.

I had already removed everything from the Community folder with out any benefit.

Then the hotfix 1.18.14 arrived. After that, I couldn’t get to FLY mode at all. The sim started loading the FLY session but never finished, with CPU usage draining away to almost nothing, and the blue bar at the bottom of the screen taking an age - like half and hour or more - to get to the end, but never actually finishing or moving into FLY mode.

So with the Community folder already empty, I took my next option of uninstalling all 3rd party addons from the Marketplace, using the Content Manager.

After doing that, the sim would finally make it to FLY mode. Yay!

So I then started to add back the Marketplace content one at a time and then testing. Some time later and all of those were back in place, and what do you know, the sim still launched and flew successfully. So, now the sim is configured exactly the same as before these tests when it was CTDing. BSODing and never making it to FLY mode. Exactly the same setup now, yet now it flies perfectly.

So on to testing the Community folder addons. I have something approaching 300 addons in there in normal times. But I added just one tiny grass airfield back into the sim, and now the sim is back to the point where it never makes it to FLY mode again.

So I removed the offending airfield and tried again. Nope. Still doesn’t make it to FLY mode.

Something is very wrong with this sim. It is a very fragile thing which can be knocked out of operation permanently by nothing more than adding one addon, even after that addon is removed.

Just to complete the picture, I also tried HAGS on and off. No difference.

And I have the KB5004296 update installed.

Is it too much to ask that the sim scans all addons to make sure they are written well, at least so they are not going to crash the sim? I mean, the fact it doesn’t even check for a unique model_lib.bgl is inexcusable, especially as this is a well known way of causing CTDs.

That’s another 10 hours of my life gone, and I am no further forward. I simply can’t afford the time to keep doing these extensive tests, so I sincerely hope they sort this mess out in short order.

I cannot see anything else I can possibly do to help this situation until Asobo come out with a well considered update, and hopefully soon.

If anyone has any ideas what could be causing my loop of doom, I’d be very grateful.

[ssy523]

Actually I’m in the same situation you have experienced. I succeeded to fly after deleting all the marketplace purchases. And now I’m adding one by one again.

[SIedDriver]

Yer. As my post above explains, I did all that, and then it worked until I added just one Community folder small airport, and that upset everything again, even after again clearing out the Community folder.

I’ve ZenDesk’d this.

Let me know how you get on.

Cheers

[BostonJeremy77]

I had some issues with the FBW A320 today… Same kind of deal. I ended up removing the 58 airports I bought that have not received an update since SU 5 from both Community and Marketplace folders. So far so good… I only had 2 freeware airports and those are gone too. It seems to be an issue where A LOT of payware and freeware airports are not working after SU5 and cause this infinite loop. City Landmark packages are included in this mess, they can cause this too. The problem is… good luck testing 58 airports one-by-one in my case… So unfortunately, my policy is that until an airport receives some update or I read somewhere that it’s fully compatible, I am keeping all those stored away in the backup folder. Of course, it makes it necessary to keep an eye on Marketplace to see what gets updated every week because I will no longer receive notifications on updates available. With Orbx, it’s a matter of sticking all those things back into my library and launching Orbx Central to see if there any updates periodically. If there are, the airport can be updated and can live in the Orbx folder.

So far I know SamScene and Drzwiecki Designs products are definitely affected because they are working on updates…

Since this is TOO much fun for me, until all this settles, I am not buying anything else for the sim…

58 payware products is a pretty nice chunk of change to have them just sit in a backup folder without use.

[RM10GoSu]

Almost one year further, the community is torn apart, graphical fidelity has been downgraded over time and time again. Most features are broken or incorrect operating such as the pushback as example. CTD is still a thing. Our beloved old tooltips are gone, instead we have now new cockpit interactions blooming highlights info killing the immersion and wondering if the nornal tooltips will comeback someday. Mouse behaviour is bugged. And don’t forget that white dot. We al know and hope that the Asobo team are working hard to fix it. They earn some love too no matter what.

Sim Update 5 should,ve been the 5TH of Beethoven.
But instead we are even beyond where we started last year. The FPS boost is excellent. The new next gen terrain and water splash effects are sublieme. But for what cost? So therfore we wish a seperate version of the SIM. Its the best of both sides.

• Blackshark AI

AI Buildings looks flat, colors are washed out, the lightning is poor with less contrast. Blackshark AI buildings never have looked so bad like this. And everything is set to Ultra and 200 LOD, all MAX out.

This was before SU5. I am not the only one who spend alot for their hard working money for their new hardware for just this SIM. I even had to ask my little brother to help me financial. I bet many people did.

At the end of the day i rather spend another 1K or 2K to a new hardware than getting downgraded like this. The PC community wish for the 18th of August the anniversary of this SIM is a roll back to SU4 or enhance the graphics and the light contrast like it was before.

More SU4 screenshots

Before SU5.

This was taken back in 2020 few weeks after the release date, on a laptop GTX 1060 high/medium on 1080p. Looking at this brings pain.

[SIedDriver]

Adobo must know if they’ve made significant changes to the base sim which are likely to affect so many addons.

All the more reason they need a much better beta phase for sim updates so 3rd party devs can respond in a timely manner.

Anything else leans towards incompetence on Asobo’s part.

People have lots or time and money invested in this sim, and it’s no longer the early days where these type of problems are perhaps acceptable.

If anything, it’s getting worse.

And why doesn’t this complex software have any built in log reporting or dump files with links directly to Asobo. I realise you don’t want extra debug code running on a cpu intense application, but this should at least be available as an option in dev mode.

And how about a simple “safe-mode” offered as a pop up on restart after a crash, automatically disabling all 3rd party content for the next start, you know, like many other complex apps do.

It’s understandable that Asobo devs struggle to keep up with problems when they have to rely on lay-person’s untechnical voluntary feedback to find incredibly technical faults.

And it’s been almost a year.

Who’d of thought when I was moaning about Tree draw distance pre-launch over a year ago, that a year later it would finally be properly fixed, but I wouldn’t be able to fly the sim at all due to other problems.

[KodiakJac]

Asobo didn’t do this to us, Microsoft did when they forced Asobo to use the same code for Xbox as they offer for PC.

But there is a positive to this. Asobo built a beautiful world class flight simulator for the PC before they were forced to degrade their code for Xbox and force that same code on PC users. I read that Microsoft was shocked when over 2 million PC users bought MSFS 2020, as everybody knows PC gaming is dead…lol That would have generated $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 in revenue for Microsoft. And that has demonstrated a market to 3rd parties who will go after that market now that Microsoft has abandoned it.

There will be another flight simulator just like the one we grew to love over the past year, only it will not be from Microsoft, it will be from another company.

Asobo, you did a great job! And we know it wasn’t you who has done this to us. And we’ll be back flying another sim that will follow in your brilliant example of what can be achieved in flight simulators on the modern PC! Thank you.

[MrDenimLP]

So, current specs:

LAPTOP
CPU: Intel Core i7-10750H 2.60GHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070
RAM: 16GB DDR4 Memory

Game Version: Steam
Install Location: External 2TB SSD

==========

Bought game day one, played for two weeks, and uninstalled it due to needing the hard drive space (did not have an external SSD at this time). On the day of the SU5 update + Hotfix, I reinstalled on to the SSD. Brand new, clean Packages folder with nothing in Community folder or external programs hooking into MFS2020.

I literally cannot do anything with the game. I can go through the various main menus just fine, but I get an instant CTD with no error message anytime I try to actually play the game. Tutorial? CTD. Discovery flight/Bush Flight? CTD. Landing challenges? CTD. Whenever I enter the World Map it will either CTD while I’m using it or after I click “Fly”.

I have turned off all online aspects of the sim including weather, ai traffic, and players. I have lowered the graphics settings. I have deleted and reloaded the RollingCache. I have increased the RollingCache amount and reloaded. My drivers are up-to-date. I have a full PC reboot and a full reinstall of the game and nothing has worked.

[PacificSet90456]

@SIedDriver

I’ve had nothing but CTDs and BSOD’s since 1.18.13.

Usually BSODs are either broken hardware or a fatal Windows error. Since the hotfix, I’ve had several complete system hangs caused by MSFS needing a power reset. I’d prefer a CTD instead of a system hang.

[CptBayer]

after 1.18.13 I had 3-4 CTD. After 1.18.14 I had 0 CTD till now … I am flying mostly IFR so the graphics are ok for me. Also VFR around Los Angeles wasn´t so bad. Fo rme it is most important to get rid of the stuttering thing. That happend. If you compare it with P3D, the scenerys with downgraded LOD or loss in graphic quality is nevertheless much more better. Always remember, when someone said “as real as it gets”, than notice, that most of the time a haze is hanging around you and the ground is not really visible sharply. You have only a few days in a year with really clear conditions…

I hope the stutters are past and will never come back. The only thing I miss is the shadows of the clouds. That´s a bit unreal …

… and the lost AA !!!

Greets

[ememPilot]

I’m very close in specs as you are. I have a 2060.

It’s working okay here, but for the FBW I have to set my power profile to ‘balanced’, making sure the processor doesn’t go beyond 2.6 Ghz.

Not saying that’s gonna solve it, but perhaps worth a try.

I also read someone who solved CTDs by not installing on an external drive. FWIW.

[FoxBauOld]

there is a big mixed up, the Content is the same like the Packages- Folder. The Content Manager updates the packages…

[FoxBauOld]

Dear [Jummivana] Another tip,if the store update is not coming (even searching updates)
Search manual for MSFS or over my bibliothek, then click left on the MSFS.

Im am member of a small German FlightSim Club with 300 members. https://fsc-ev.de
My hobby is the MSFS Support there. This tip up to now helped 4 times for the update.

We are not amused about the last week. Innovations are wished and necessary but what can MS/Asobo make better ?

• Make more Beta testing and dont fix a release date. Better later than bad!

• Some items from the" Troubleshooting & Support List" could be done by the launcher or by one user button or question (Shall I delete?):
  clear the rolling and one cache, the \CustomFlight, Content.xml. Then the MSFS has the chance to built it up new!

Nevertheless thanks for the best Sim ever.

[Warp757]

Does it make sense? If you own a car and the maker releases a new version which embarrassingly yours looks better than, would you be OK with them coming round your house and taking a sledgehammer to it, as long as they come back in a month to repair it?

People own this game remember. If they have deliberately reduced the quality of something people own, without their approval, to save their own face, why do we accept that because it’s software rather than a physical thing?

[monkeytennis245]

I certainly don’t accept it. Gave up permantly.

[Warp757]

I think it’s worth nothing that this was not a world class flight simulator before this update. It was a world class 3D rendering of the globe.

However as a flight simulator, it was still crawling with bugs (excuse the pun) in the fundamentals, ATC, weather, flight planning, autopilot, loading approaches, flying characteristics which it doesn’t seem there is any real desire to fix, a lot of people seem fine as long as it looks pretty.