I am fascinated to learn why some players seem to have so many issues with CTDs, and Sim not running, while others do not.
I am one of the fortunate ones, I very seldom, if ever, get a CTD these days, MSFS always updates without issue, and MSFS always starts without any issues.
I cannot figure out on my system, what others are having issues with.
Consider this my way to pay back to this MSFS Commuity for all the help & advice I have got from this forum.
So, I am willing to try to help someone, one-on-one , who is having CTD issues, and has all but given up, and would like some help.
Criteria.
(1) PC only, less than 3 years old, running Windows 10.
(2) Over 21 years of age. (legal issue - sorry)
(3) Familiar with using Discord
(4) If needed, willing to let me remote into their PC
(5) Offer is currently just for one person,
No Guarantees,( No charge) but if you are finding MSFS impossible to use due to above issues, what’s to loose.
If interested, Private Message me here in the Forum, giving a brief description of your issues.
Along with this kind offer from @N6722C, a reminder that the Official MSFS Discord server has a community support section where the Flight Crew and other server members are always happy to help troubleshoot issues you may be having. There’s a #basic-flying-help channel for any questions about gameplay/techniques/procedures, and a full #community-support channel for wider help and support. In addition, a couple of voice channels are available to aid troubleshooting.
So if you’ve never visited, do head over to the official discord server to check out the support available, along with a range of general text and voice channels for chatting all things MSFS (and beyond). And don’t forget to say hi in #introductions whilst you’re there!
Based of my my personal experience of almost 3 decades building my own computers and helping others build/update/maintain their computers. I think you will find there are several factors on why some are getting CTD’s and others are not.
For a lot of people who do not have other software issues, consider that for many this is the single most demanding piece of software they run, I know a fair number of people who will not touch video games that have this installed.
Driver issues, incorrect/ outdated drivers windows generic drivers instead of device specific drivers etc.
Over clocking I see this all the time and not just with MSFS computers over clocked to the point they are just not stable period.
Poorly optimized computers, this could be anything from the Best Buy special that still has all the junk software on installed on it to computers that have been up and running for 5-6 years and nothing has been done to upkeep them.
Hardware issues, a common one being the Best Buy special with a better graphics card stuck in it that the PSU struggles to put out enough power for. Faulty RAM / Faulty drives etc
Computer does not meet basic requirements for the software, and they insist on running it on Ultra Settings.
As SharpWave already pointed out incompatible mods.
and it’s almost certainly a nasty combo when MSFS might be the only thing that the OC can’t handle.
Highly recommend backing off any GPU overclocking and seeing if that helps things, for people with CTD issues, and reconsider any CPU overclocking if you didn’t confirm stability with a stress test like Prime95. (FWIW I’m overclocking a 9700k to 5Ghz without any CTD issues).
tl;dr: for a bunch of people MSFS is probably serving as the stress test they didn’t bother running.
I have not experienced a single CTS since SU5, except when I use the printer in the a320, but that is an issue with a mod.
I can’t tell why people are crashing, but that is unfortunately the nature of PC gaming.
Mission Accomplished … and a few interesting lessons learnt with this one.
Not so much an installed MOD causing the issue, but the results of a previously installed Mod, now uninstalled, leaving an issue behind after being un-installed !!
With the recent admission of Asobo that faulty live weather was causing CTD’s a few days back. I think that this is actually going on infinitely since launch and that random glitches in streaming data such as live weather can cause the game to crash.
This makes it 10 times harder to actually pinpoint causes of CTD if even streaming data from Asobo themselves like weather can cause a crash. Impossible to know which thing is causing the crash at any given time.
It would be interesting to see if there is something common amongst those crashing,
I did tech support years ago for a company, they thought a problem that was occurring was something with ISP, or some internet issue with people having echos when developing some voice over IP stuff.
I started asking what kind of computer, and other common stuff. I figured out pretty fast, where I could just pin down one audio card they had in their computer.
Everyone with an echo had a Yamaha OPL3SA Audio card, They were able to fix the echo after this, as they found out why it was occurring only within that card.
If I had not asked the questions of common parts, they would of been scratching their head still….
We need people to do the same with the CTDs, it might just be the software itself, but odds are there is something that a majority of the people have that is common….
I changed to another version of nvidia driver. It started a series of ctd`s. After trying a number of versiones, I was advised to make a thorough cleanup in leftovers from earlier drivers. I installed a small prog. called DDU (display driver uninstaller). It removed all of old trash. I then installed a 496.84 driver. After that it is stable as a rock.
Personally I don’t carry much that isn’t Asobo or Microsoft and can see at a glance but many others have much more 3rd party stuff and it’s hard to keep track … So another new trick mentioned elsewhere is to do a MSFS reset but before re uploading your content check in official for anything that shouldn’t be in there, it should be empty assuming you uninstalled 3rd party mods first. (warning: resetting includes the large default scenery folders so if you are certain they are uncorrupted it’s a good idea to back them up before pressing reset and put them back before updating). Alternatively back up the whole official and compare the reset version to root out offenders but don’t then forget to put your official back in it’s original place.
It’s always funny. If only FS crashes, not other soft, it is actually a sign that the Sim is already running at its upper limit. They are delivered without sufficient headroom.
What should the CTD-owners of the X-Box say? MS delivered defective hardware?
For me personally sources of error were:
3 defective Commy Sceneries (of over 1000) after the upgrade from SU04 to SU05 - Can be traced back to a non-suitable SDK, supplied by Asobo. Solution - were deleted until the update.
problems because AVX instructions put too much load on the CPU. More than any benchmark I know! As soon as the CPU applies the thermal emergency brake, CTD.
Solution, I decoupled the ring bus and AVX step by step from the clock until it became stable. (only for experienced)
2x RAM OC
Solution, clock rate reduced by 200MHz, timings adjusted, voltage adjusted. (only for experienced)
And again and again the reference to the Commy folder. Yes, it is important, but some people obviously think that it is the only source of error.
Ohh, I forgot, I also had a CTD because the OC for the GPU was too high for FS / VR. Solution, slightly lowered.
And yes, my system is still highly overclocked and still stable.
Addendum - this is a very important part, by the way. Modern systems automatically go beyond their limits for a short time, even without OC. That means, if you have lost in the silicone lottery, the only thing that helps in principle is to underclock the system.
Yup not all chips are equal and binning doesn’t seem to exist outside of ram production. However I have been blessed with both a very solid cpu and gpu with both staying well under expected temps under load.
