Having tried in the past and failed I tried again today (first since SU5 optimisations to some code) and yet again MSF cries to a crash even at the slightest overclock (2070Super using VR), I barely touch the Core and it crashes making any small adjustment completely pointless.
I’ve never known a Sim or Game to hate overclocking so much, having been doing this for years (if not decades!) I’m baffled as to why even the slightest touch causes a hard crash. Such a shame as I know with other Sims & Benchmarks that I can get a lot more out of my GPU than stock, every FPS counts in VR as well
WOW!!! i thought it was just my setup. It actually runs better when I set everything back to factory default. No more CTD’s, better performance and running in ultra. it just purrs like a kitten. Have to turn the graphics back a little in the rift but dont overclock it whatever i do. I really thought it was just my setup till i saw this post. hey… they made it run on an xbox…lol
Weirdly I have both my 2080ti’s VRAM and clock overclocked using Afterburner and it’s fine - it also makes a noticeable difference. I’ve got 170mhz on the clock and 900mhz on the VRAM.
I did have CTDs post SU5 but solved them after a long drawn out process. The OC was not to blame. It is now totally stable, it’s just all the other stuff that is messed up still. At least it’s not crashing anymore.
When I purchased my Rig for MSFS in November 2019 I notice that came with the CPU turbo boost Eenabled @4 5 ghz.
Default core speed is 2.9 ghz.
I didn’t touch anything and I’m keeping turbo boost from the beggining without issues but I decided to buy an MSI water cooling system and my temperatures are 60 -65 degrees maximum while running MSFS even in the sumnmer days when ambient temperatures reach 32 degrees.
( I live in Mallorca island)
Never I had overclocked my GPU.
Some games are more sensitive to GPU overclocks - MSFS seems to be one of them. I’m only able to overclock +70 Mhz on the core offset on my 3090. Anything higher results in CTDs. I’m able to play other games and run benchmarks at +120 Mhz core offset with no issues.
By overclocking my PC-3200 ram using the “memory try it” function on my MSI B550 pro wifi right up to 4400MHz I had the sim and especially GTA5 running like never before … Until Windows 11 Explorer crashed on me even though MSFS that I was running at the time didn’t. Well of course this prompted investigation and I was shocked to find my cpu running about 800MHz beyond it’s normal 4.5 GHz boost clock, so shocked in fact I turned it off right away and opened the case thinking My PC was about to explode (although actually all seemed fine). Unfortunately I forgot to look at what it did to the gpu clock before reducing my ram speed back to a more sedate 3600MHz but all the same let this be a warning that overclocking is never as simple as it sounds.
You say that but using Afteburner I have a nice vram overclock on my fanless GT1030 albeit without any voltage increases (because that is factory limited at 100% anyway). No problems whatsoever either in or out of the sim with the gpu only ever topping out at a pretty reasonable 83° and no throttling.
Before you say anything I only bought it for use in a 12v 45 watt campervan PC, I need a new card but no way are the scalpers getting my money
I’ve just had to request my money back from paypal after Xstra.eu’s promised 5 - 12 weeks turned into a six month wait for nothing so if anyone knows of a good and reasonable source for a mid to high range card then please let me know (Europe only).
Quick update: I have just managed to secure a 3060 from cyberport.de … €600 which is way more than RRP but still much less than I found one for three months ago. Of course I wanted to say no but just couldn’t resist as it’s the 12GB version which for MSFS might be the better choice due to the sim’s data streaming and it’s aversion to overclocking.
There’s a reason I bought a K processor. Its meant to be overclocked. The problem is most dont overclock properly and take it way overboard. The quality of the motherboard in dealing with power without fluctuations is also key. Typically you need a much better quality MB than what is mainstream out there.
A high quality power supply that again provides stable power without alot of noise being introduced also goes a long way. A stressed PS in overclocking situations with not much overhead can also be a problem but in this case you would get a windows reset rather than just a CTD.
CPU overclocking is largely dependent on motherboard VRM capability. Typically higher quality VRMs are found on the higher-tier motherboards. That’s not to say you need a $400 motherboard to get stable overlocking. Unless you plan some type of extreme overlocking with LN2, a mid-tier $200 motherboard will usually suffice. Even a budget motherboard can take quite an overclock depending on the VRM used.
My experience with Nvidia cards is what will cause a guaranteed CTD is the card hitting the voltage limit that’s set in its BIOS. My EVGA 2080ti has the “better” BIOS that allows the power limit to be raised to 130% and the temperature to 88 c. I never get close to the temp limit as it’s water cooled but I quite often hit the power limit. That’s generally not a problem, but if the card hits the voltage limit, it crashes immediately.
To avoid this happening, I under volt to between 918 and 925 mV using MSI Afterburner and it seems to be 100% stable. Any higher and it crashes every time. This locks the speed at a relatively low 1830 MHz, but performance is fine.
Ultimately, I think it depends on the silicon lottery. Despite mine being factory overclocked, I think my GPU is a poor performer and can’t handle much abuse.
I was previously running my 9700K at 5.1 GHz but took off the o/c to diagnose the CTD issue. Now it’s resolved, I’ll try speeding the CPU and memory up again to see if it remains stable, although I suspect there will be few fps gains from that.
From what I’ve read, the issue is actually mostly due to RAM instability. Obviously MSFS is CONSTANTLY moving data through RAM. How many people pay attention to cooling their RAM?
IOW, it’s not the overclock of the CPU or GPU causing problems, it’s instability in the memory chips, which, I imagine, typically, people don’t pay much attention to properly overclocking their RAM. And this may not have anything to do with the RAM per se, it could be the chips and pipes into and out of the RAM that are causing problems.
Suffice to say, with all the paging in and out of RAM, if a bit gets flipped, you could have a CTD in the making.
