Last night I was trying to figure out what the deal was with the crash when opening the VFR map, which had not happened to me so far, although I don’t use the VFR map as much as some people, I guess. Even when I do use it, before yesterday I had never used the V key to open it, and instead used the menu bar at the top of the screen with my mouse. Seriously, I never had CTD that way, or for any other reason.
Anyway, I hopped into the TBM at Innsbruck (first time at that airport) and took off, got about 5 minutes out from the airport, and hit the V key to open the VFR map… and, it opened just fine. Not unexpected, but okay.
I went back, started a new flight, tried again. Still no CTD with the V key. I did this (new flight, take off, 5 minutes out, press V) probably 8 or 9 times. No CTD.
But then on the 10th try or so, I started a flight with the steam gauge Cessna 182, a plane I almost never fly… got 5 minutes out from the airport, hit the V key… and BOOM… CTD!!! 
Okay cool, I restarted the sim, started another flight, and this time I took the Savage Cub. Got 5 minutes into the flight, press the V key… and CTD again! Ohhh, interesting!
Although two CTD’s in a row is hardly enough to draw any conclusions, up to this point the only common denominator was that they were both steam guage planes, and all my attempts before that (with no CTDs) were in glass cockpit planes, but whatever.
Now, the sim is crashed, so I’m on my desktop and I notice that the nVidia tool tray icon is showing that a driver update is available, so I install it and reboot my computer.
After that, I restarted the sim and another flight this time with the G1000 Cessna 182… no CTD this time. Tried again with the TBM, no CTD. Again with the G1000 182, no CTD. Went back to the steam gauge 182, still no CTD. Even the Savage Cub… NO CTD with the V key! Now I’m like, “The heck?”
From there, I started about 20 more flights, and I could NOT get the game to crash using the V key during the flight! So, although it did finally happen to me, I couldn’t reproduce it more than twice, and I was really hoping I could narrow it down to a particular set of circumstances and report it. I even tried running in a window instead of full screen because it was in windowed mode during both of the CTD’s, but subsequent tests didn’t seem to make a difference.
Was it the video driver update? Did that have an effect? I can’t say, although it is a variable, and it’s possible, but it could also mean nothing. I’ll fiddle with it some more tonight.
