What's The Problem -- System or Application?

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
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Please don’t beat me about the head and shoulders for what I am about to say. I’m simply trying to share my experience dealing with personal computers since my first Apple II purchase in 1978, and being a paid systems programmer for 25 years at a phone company.

Sometimes, when dealing with a problem on personal computers, we are not sure if the cause is the system (OS, Hardware, Configuration, Addons) or the application. I have found that you can break this problem into two by running this program, which thoroughly exercises your system (OS and Hardware). I recommend disabling everything in Windows startup while debugging, including virus checkers (Task Manager>Startup). Basically, if your system completes this benchmark OK, you can focus on the application as being the culprit (or maybe one of the startups you disabled).

Caveat: The above is on the assumption that you have run a malware checker to eliminate a virus as the problem.

Disclaimer: If this diagnostic procedure does not work for you at least you’ve eliminated some of the possibilities.

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Wouldn’t the same company’s stress test software be more appropriate for these purposes?

I’m not convinced that a pass in either case completely rules out all issues with the system, there’s too many interdependent processes going on.

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Personal Comments and Observations

Benchmark programs only tell part of the story. It’s entirely possible to pass a test and still not have a consistent and stable application execution experience. And the system could still be a contributing factor. For a stable overall experience, it requires a very disciplined and comprehensive approach. Not everyone is interested in doing this, but it works for me.

MSFS presents an entirely different framework compared to previous FS iterations, Microsoft or otherwise. Namely, it’s a SaaS application, with everything that implies. The nearest comparable gaming experience is a Massively Multiplayer Online platform, but with a complex sim thrown in.

When troubleshooting, it’s important to eliminate as many variables as possible. That means stability and consistency in the underlying services to the sim - Playfab, XBox Gaming Services for starters. Under that are the individual data streams feeding the sim through Playfab and XBox Gaming; Live Weather, Live Traffic, Multiplayer, Bing Maps Streaming.

Some of those services are reliant on data feeds outside the sim and outside of MS Control - they’re APIs - Meteoblue for Live WX, FlightAware for Live Traffic. If they’re down or malformed, you get experience issues in the sim.

Then there’s the infamous Authentication Chain to provision and privilege the end user. MS Store is a lot more convoluted than Steam, but all of it needs to work together to properly allow the end user to gain access to their account, attribute which License version they own, and any Marketplace DLC they purchased.

Many long time players are frustrated because when any part of the above isn’t working, their experience is degraded. They’re used to having near absolute control because most previous versions of FS were locally installed, with very little dependence upon external services and Internet connectivity (other than the occasional first and third party license verification calls). Now they feel the exact same pain points familiar to any MMO player. It’s new, and uncomfortable.

Let’s throw in Windows OS stability. Then atop that peripherals and external programs talking to the sim via SimConnect and FSUIPC. And let’s not forget the Community folder and it’s denizens of add-ons that have historically been root cause to much instability in the sim operation.

For me personally, they keys to a successful and relatively satisfying (YMMV) sim experience is:

A) Maintain Windows OS and keep it as clean as possible. For those who can afford it, go so far as to dedicate an entire PC just to the sim, not even any other applications. That is my situation, to be transparent.

B) Recognize when underlying services are degraded or down that could impact your sim experience or even prevent access. I have notifications turned on for Playfab and XBox Gaming outages, and of course I keep a close pulse on any potential outage reports via the forum, Reddit, Discord and other community channels.

C) Simplify and streamline the sim footprint - despite the wealth of storage space and PC resources on my current rig, I practice a very lean install footprint. Like many, I have way too many planes and add ons but I don’t use them all enough to justify long term installation. I strip all undesired sim components - stock planes, Discovery Flights, Bush Trips, Landing Challenges. The added bonus to this approach is my update size and time to install for any future Sim Update is as small as possible because of my dearth of components.

D) Run only what is basically needed to talk to the sim. I have Navigraph Charts, Little Nav Map, Mobiflight talking to this sim as external programs. That makes the sim run very clean without sacrificing the benefits of a comprehensive Flight Planner and a peripheral support for custom hardware controls.

E) Update x3. Once a week, I check for updates to supporting programs. Same for products bought outside the Marketplace and anything resident in Community folder. Exception - I don’t automatically update to the next video driver just because the version rolled over. There’s benefits to staying in a stable driver version. Read the Changelogs and decide if you really need to move to the next version. If you do, perform a clean install.

F) Nothing beats a 1 a week reboot of the PC. And it triggers other scheduled tasks on restart that can help contribute to OS Stability.

Long story short, it’s a lot of work to keep a system stable. And the answer to your question is: Both and Neither.

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It may be a good idea to start with running sfc /scannow in a command prompt as administrator before stress testing.

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Plus or minus, I basically go along with your suggestions. I keep everything up to date, only use addons I really need, run a systems check on the rig from time to time. Since the Alpha test days, I’ve had plenty of glitches but never any catastrophic failures that prevented me from using the sim.

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Yes, I forgot about that one. It is actually better than the benchmark because it exercises everything simultaneously, including sound and internet. If your PC can run the 3 minute test with internet and sound enabled there is probably nothing wrong with your OS and hardware. Thanks for your response on this.

I agree that this kind of test is not foolproof, but it can be helpful in eliminating issues when diagnosing problems. As @casualclick says below, MSFS is very complex in it’s operations. Testing your system at a global level is but one of the tools in the toolbox. When I read about problems people are having and see responses to the affect that “it’s your system”, running Passmark or BurninTest can help determine if that is true. Neither of these will stress the same components in the same way as MSFS, but it can be useful in the “divide and conquer” method of diagnosis. It helps eliminate MSFS itself in the equation while doing problem determination (in my humble opinion).

:slightly_smiling_face:

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I agree. Thanks for your detailed and informative explanation. With the inherent complexity of MSFS, problem determination is not simple. MSFS is a whole new game (pun intended) in terms of exploiting the many resources currently available for computer gaming, and is really pushing the envelope compared to say FSX. As you say, maintaining a “clean/minimal” system helps a lot. Yet at the same time, when trying to diagnose “system” or “application” as the root cause of a problem, many of the things you listed seem to me to fall on the “application” side of the fence. Perhaps the geniuses at Asobo who have given us MSFS can someday come up with some kind of diagnostic tool to run that can help point the way to problem resolution (diagnostic tools from the developer may be the way of the future as more developers delve into the complexities that Asobo is pioneering [“Pioneers are those people with arrows in their backs!”]. In the meantime 3rd party programs/utilities/diagnostics like mentioned above can be one of the tools in our toolbox.

P.S. I have never had any problems running MSFS beyond the initial learning curve issues or things where I’ve shot myself in the foot. So I don’t know why I even get into these conversations. I guess I can’t control the compulsion to try and be helpful after 40 years of doing so in the world of electronics and computers. I apologize for this. I will try and show more self control! :o)

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Yet at the same time, when trying to diagnose “system” or “application” as the root cause of a problem, many of the things you listed seem to me to fall on the “application” side of the fence.

It’s really a 50/50 problem.

These are just a small sample of some of the root causes of common problems on launching/running the sim:

Pending Windows OS updates
Outdated drivers
Missing or malformed supporting software that should affect other applications - such as outdated .Net framework.
Unexpected behavior and interaction from external programs and utilities communicating with the sim via FSUIPC/SimConnect.

Those items above won’t necessarily trigger alerts in diagnostic software or tally as a failed system pass. Nor are the majority of those items specific to MSFS (with the exception of the last bullet).

Given the relative open nature of the FS Ecosystem, MS/Asobo should only be focused on solving for and maintaining a stock environment. The multitude of PC systems and hardware quality can’t be accounted for in a scalable and supportable test environment. The best that anyone can do is create a tiered set of test systems, preferably based on the Low-Medium-High matrix of system requirements and as reasonably varied collection of common peripherals.

The key practice to identifying and potentially resolving defect reports is the ability to reproduce the issue.

Both the end user and the Dev Team have to get to a common configuration - and that usually means stripping the sim back down to vanilla state, because Dev Team may not have the ability or the hardware/software assets to perfectly clone the end-user’s configuration. More importantly, the limited amount of time and resource available for defect triage, identification and management must be focused around the base simulation. It’s not surprising that upon removing a lot of the end-user’s customization (which again by itself is not accounted for in a PC functionality diagnostic framework), more often than not resolves the defect report.

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:+1:
This has been a good discussion.

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Upon further reflection concerning your posts in this thread, the thought occurred to me that MSFS requires a whole new base level of computer literacy than previous architectures like FSX. I understand now how it is that using MSFS demands more from the user than just your standard client based software. To fully and successfully exploit that potential of MSFS requires a base level of computer literacy more akin to a “systems programmer”.

Here’s some thoughts on what Asobo could do to mitigate/minimize the computer literacy level.
_ A diagnostic utility that “feels” your hardware and system software to look for problems in those areas.
_ A self-tuning/optimization utility that “feels” you hardware and system software, and then set’s critical parameters in MSFS for best reliability and performance.
_ A web page of “What to do when you experience problems” created by Asobo that contains a checklist of things the user can do to help diagnose and isolate the problem. This page would include things like reboot with nothing in your Windows startup folder, empty the common folder, set frame rate to a max of 30, turn off internet connection in MSFS, turn off all options like POI’s/ai traffic/atc and other things that reduce the system load, update your GPU driver to the latest, and I’m sure a lot more other things Asobo can suggest to simplify and reduce the execution thread. In summary a list of things folks experiencing things like in this thread can do to resolve their problems.
_ A utility that entirely removes all of MSFS everywhere to prep your system for a clean re-install.
_ A trace log that can be enabled/disabled, and messages that replace CTD’s so that when an abnormal termination occurs the user has something to go on for solving the issue.

I’m sure others here on the forum can think of things than can be done, or tools provided, or problem determination suggestions to minimize the computer literacy level required to have a good experience with MSFS.

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This link exists right at the top of each Forum Page. There’s a lot of good info in there.

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I have built my own PCs for years, and I would say hand on my heart that my latest PC build has been as solid as a rock, I actually cannot believe just how reliable it has been, especially through the 3 years of development of MSFS. I would have given up trying to use this flight SIM if I couldn’t tell if it was my system or the SIM that was broken. ( Windows 11 is just a re-hash of 10 and just made life difficult by unnecessarily changing menus) Using the free version of AVG, nags but just ignore.

I originally came on here to tell everyone about a video I had seen, as I have stopped using DLSS and gone back to TAA as since the last update I cannot use the higher resolution on my monitor for god only knows!

I have reverted back to TAA for the sharp glass-screens as I seem to only be flying Airliners at the minute ( the glass-screens were acceptable with higher res) and I was getting around 65fps with DLSS.

Gettings back to the video, I would get the usual very small stutter at some major airports on approach but nothing to write home about, but when I spotted this video I thought I would try his settings, as it’s been probably over a year since I played around with them.

1, Since installing MSFS over a year ago I have never cleared out the nVidea DXCache and GLCache as I didn’t know they existed!
( I had thousands of DXCache files)

2, In the " Nvidia Control Panel " I changed my settings to his in the video, many I had already but a few were different, I followed his just to give it a good go.

3, Shader files, Rolling Cache files even if it set on " Off "

The result is very very smooth, I cannot believe just how smooth it is, I have done 3 or 4 flights and I am super impressed.

Worth a go if you’re having problems with stuttering.

Window 11 pro 64
Thrustmaster Airbus Sidestick
Thrustmaster Airbus Throttle Quadrant
Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE
Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Fuma 2 Cooler
Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (DDR4-3200)
Gigabyte RTX™ 3060 Ti GAMING OC PRO 8G
Gigabyte 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe “C” Drive
MSI Optix MAG341CQ 34" UWQHD FreeSync 100Hz Curved Gaming Monitor

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