Fresh Install -- repeated CTDs

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Fresh Install -- repeated CTDs

Postby denrainwater » Wed Nov 22, 2017 4:58 pm

Hello,

I've just spent more than 70 labor hours (over a couple of weeks) performing a completely fresh install of P3D V4.1 along with all compatible add-ons, and the new version of FlyInside Pro V4. At every stage until actually entering VR, everything has worked properly. But having attached the Rift, and starting the sim via FlyInside, the process of loading the sim felt rather unstable. I'm used to the annoying monitor flickers until everything is completely up and running. But other issues manifested...

During the first launch process (through FI, wth the Rift attached), a few times I got windows messages declaring my system 'low on memory', sometimes followed by a crash to desktop. Eventually, P3D would fully launch -- but it appeared to load through a sort of jittery process. At first, just the selections (aircraft, location, weather, etc) window would load -- flickering a time or two (just the window -- not the monitor this time). Eventually (like perhaps 10-15 seconds later), the sim window would appear -- also flickering a bit before becoming stabilized.

Now putting the Rift on, I was able to bind my zoom buttons and other controls. I got the plane started and warmed up with everything starting to feel normal. But as I began to taxi toward the runway for the first time, I noticed that on the near horizon (perhaps a mile beyond the parameter of the airport), rather than the expected ORBX textures, it looked like I was seeing the pale blue texture of P3D's 'nothing' (blank). Moments later, the scene froze for several minutes. It made a few momentary advances (the Rift showed the "waiting for sim" scene during this) in the scene displayed on the monitor -- hiccuping ahead just a frame or two at a time -- and they it crashed, giving me the attached dialog window.

Thanks in advance for helping me figure this out.
Dennis
Attachments
Crash.jpg
Crash.jpg (78.25 KiB) Viewed 8772 times
Prepar3D V5 | i7-6700k OC@4.6GHz | 32 GBs DDR4 3000 RAM | OS, P3D, Pilot's Mesh, Other Addons each installed to 4 separate Samsung EVO 850 SSDs | GTX 1080Ti | Win 10 Home 64-bit | CV1,
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Re: Fresh Install -- repeated CTDs

Postby denrainwater » Wed Nov 22, 2017 5:00 pm

Apparently the crash log file is too large to upload via the forum page. I'll try sending it by e-mail...

Dennis
Prepar3D V5 | i7-6700k OC@4.6GHz | 32 GBs DDR4 3000 RAM | OS, P3D, Pilot's Mesh, Other Addons each installed to 4 separate Samsung EVO 850 SSDs | GTX 1080Ti | Win 10 Home 64-bit | CV1,
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Re: Fresh Install -- repeated CTDs

Postby denrainwater » Wed Nov 22, 2017 5:32 pm

Another crash -- with a C++ error message, and the Task Manager Performance tab showing my memory usage, etc.

Even when flying with the native VR in P3D V4.0, I would sometimes get these windows 'low on memory' messages. And since I have plenty of RAM, and since the Task Manager always shows no more than about half of my RAM being utilized, it's really a mystery to me why I keep bumping my head on apparent 'memory issues'. Even while I'm only using one of my video cards, they each have 6GBs of GPU memory, so... :roll:
Attachments
Crash2.jpg
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Prepar3D V5 | i7-6700k OC@4.6GHz | 32 GBs DDR4 3000 RAM | OS, P3D, Pilot's Mesh, Other Addons each installed to 4 separate Samsung EVO 850 SSDs | GTX 1080Ti | Win 10 Home 64-bit | CV1,
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Re: Fresh Install -- repeated CTDs

Postby Tony » Thu Nov 23, 2017 10:53 am

This is bizarre mate, Dan is aware and having a think about this but I have a sneaky feeling something might of messed up in the windows install???

What version of windows is it ? The fall update ?
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Re: Fresh Install -- repeated CTDs

Postby denrainwater » Thu Nov 23, 2017 11:06 am

Hey Tony,

My version of Windows is 10 Home 64-bit. It was originally Windows 7 (which I liked). Reluctantly, I upgraded to Windows 10 -- on advice, back when Windows was pushing the 'free upgrade'. I've hated Windows 10 and regretted that move ever since. (I had just tripped over the 'restore to 7' threshold when I decided to go back to what worked for me... But couldn't.)

The Anniversary update destroyed my sim. Nothing but trouble -- so I found a way to roll back to pre-anniversary and lock out future updates.

I have always known that eventually that would likely screw me. But given how many complaints I keep seeing from other simmers about new Windows updates they can't control, I'll keep milking my current situation as long as I can. Unless this is the day I no longer can... :oops: :x

As I said, everything prior to 'going under the hood' (connecting the Rift and going into VR through FlyInside) seemed great. A few prior concerns seemed to be completely gone, P3D would load smoothly (no longer hanging up on 'loading autogen', as it was doing before), great FPS in most areas, etc.
Prepar3D V5 | i7-6700k OC@4.6GHz | 32 GBs DDR4 3000 RAM | OS, P3D, Pilot's Mesh, Other Addons each installed to 4 separate Samsung EVO 850 SSDs | GTX 1080Ti | Win 10 Home 64-bit | CV1,
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Re: Fresh Install -- repeated CTDs

Postby denrainwater » Thu Nov 23, 2017 6:15 pm

Small update: The aforementioned crashes were happening when trying to leave KSTS (ORBX's Sonoma County airport). Though they also happened when I tried to spawn in KCIC (Chico -- at a fair distance from any payware airport).

Today, I decided to keep fiddling with it, to see if I could learn anything. Regardless of where I'd try to launch, starting P3D without FI resulted in an easy start with good FPSs. And while this is the first time since installing V4.1 that I've tried to load native VR, it was odd to notice that I can't seem to start in that mode. It will give me my 'virtual cockpit' view on the monitor, but it's frozen. No interaction possible, and no ability to look around. Putting the Rift on, all I can see is the Oculus message apologizing for the delay in loading P3D. It gets nowhere.

Finally, I decided to try to load from within FI again -- this time choosing Helena, Montana, using a simple old Carenado Cessna 185 (low res, etc, with the hope that it would put a low demand on the sim/FI). (I had also reduced most of my graphics settings for this experiment.)

It worked!! Though with a big FPS hit. P3D without FI gave me around 60-70 FPS (withOUT the reduced graphics settings). In FlyInside, I was in the teens and twenties (WITH the reductions). But, it did work!! :D

I flew successfully from Helena down to Ennis - Big Sky, and then over the mountains back toward Bozeman (ORBX Payware). Everything performed acceptably. Until I got within perhaps 15 miles of the KBZN Bozeman.

At this point, I got a flurry of messages (which disappeared before I could capture them), then a complete system crash, including resetting the screen resolution to minimum settings, and then Win 10's BSOD.

I'm really puzzled.
Prepar3D V5 | i7-6700k OC@4.6GHz | 32 GBs DDR4 3000 RAM | OS, P3D, Pilot's Mesh, Other Addons each installed to 4 separate Samsung EVO 850 SSDs | GTX 1080Ti | Win 10 Home 64-bit | CV1,
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Re: Fresh Install -- repeated CTDs

Postby denrainwater » Thu Nov 23, 2017 8:32 pm

I don't mean to be so verbose, but I have no idea what little new piece of insight I discover might actually MEAN something...

So, another item of note: I figured out why I couldn't get P3D Native VR working -- hadn't noticed they'd added a "Enable Virtual Reality" item to the toolbar.

Trying that just now, it took my 60-70 FPS in non-VR down to the mid-teens in Native VR. Wow!! :o

I hadn't noticed such a drastic contrast before! Was the SLI support in V3's FI making that much difference??

I am out of time now. But as soon as I can get back to it, I'll try flying some of the same locales in Native VR that have been giving me problems in FlyInside, and report back. FWIW, the settings I am trying (so unsuccessfully) to fly with now are the same or lower than what hadn't been a problem in V3. And I'm reasonably sure Native VR in V4.0 (you may remember I was unable to install FI into 4.0) worked reasonably well in these areas that are so troublesome now. Just with the usual contrast of refinement and 'accessories' between Native and FI.
Prepar3D V5 | i7-6700k OC@4.6GHz | 32 GBs DDR4 3000 RAM | OS, P3D, Pilot's Mesh, Other Addons each installed to 4 separate Samsung EVO 850 SSDs | GTX 1080Ti | Win 10 Home 64-bit | CV1,
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Re: Fresh Install -- repeated CTDs

Postby denrainwater » Fri Nov 24, 2017 4:58 pm

Today I tried the flight that crashed my sim rather spectacularly yesterday, but this time in P3D's native VR. It worked. The FPS were rather pathetic (low-mid 20s in the area of Helena starting out), but it flew without interruption or other problems. (I did see some occasional ground-texture flickering that I'm not used to.)

When I drew near (10 miles or so) to Bozeman (ORBX Payware airport), it snagged just a couple of times for a second or two each time, but continued flying. But in proximity to the airport, the FPS were very problematic -- down in the low teens most of the time. Flyable, but barely.

I landed, and tried to open a browser window for a moment to check something while the sim was still running. I got the Windows 'you're low on memory, you should close Prepar3D' message, and my browser died immediately. Again, all of this "low memory" stuff with 16GBs of RAM installed, and the Task Manager Performance window showing RAM usage at or barely over 8GBs at any given time.

Just reporting back with the extra info, as promised.
Prepar3D V5 | i7-6700k OC@4.6GHz | 32 GBs DDR4 3000 RAM | OS, P3D, Pilot's Mesh, Other Addons each installed to 4 separate Samsung EVO 850 SSDs | GTX 1080Ti | Win 10 Home 64-bit | CV1,
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I'm sincerely losing hope!

Postby denrainwater » Mon Jan 15, 2018 3:16 pm

I have loved this experience so much. But my frustration is looming MUCH larger than my pleasure these days! (And since life-circumstances are forcing me to sell my real airplane, it is all the more urgent I find a solution to my sim problems!)

At this moment, I seriously regret moving from V3.x to V4.x. I like the new lighting and had placed GREAT hope in the promise of no more OOMs. But the lighting isn't 'enough', and the promise of no more memory issues hasn't been kept AT ALL, in my case.

In V3, I knew most flights would eventually end in an OOM crash. But with V4, most days I'm lucky if I can get P3D STARTED at all. (Through FlyInside. Running it without FlyInside hasn't presented any of these problems.) And if I do, it will usually require three or four CTDs (usually resulting in a BSOD, or at least a complete reset of my resolution to its minimum setting) before it will run. Which means the tedium of yet another computer restart... And this is all on profoundly lower settings that I had gotten used to enjoying in V3! Is FI's support for V4 THAT far behind where it had been for V3?? I know I lost the support for my SLI. But isn't everything else supposed to be up to about the same standards? And is one GTX 980Ti THAT much worse than what I had thought was rather minimal usage of my SLI configuration?

This will be a somewhat lengthy post, as I want to lay out the details of my problems, and those of my configuration -- in a desperate hope of getting this resolved. I am SO disappointed...

Okay -- My Issues:

As I've said, I'm getting FREQUENT CTDs, and other bizzare behavior. In the same places I enjoyed FPS's (native) in the 30-40s range with V3, I'm usually lucky to get just 20 or so in V4. Even in "light" areas where I would expect good performance, it's not at all unusual to have FPS's in the teens while I'm on the ground. And this is with an i7-6700K at 4.6GHz, 16GBs of 3000 RAM, two GTX 980Ti's (I know only one is used for now with V4), EVO 850 SSDs -- four separate ones for OS, P3D, PILOT's Mesh, and most other addons.

EVERY flight, I immediately get the Windows 'low memory -- you should close some programs' warning. Ignoring that might let me fly -- if I do, the flight usually runs to completion.

Most of my crashes seem to indicate an "Out Of Memory" state as their cause. Yet according to the Task Manager performance monitor, my RAM usage is virtually NEVER above 50%!

With V3, I used to be able to open a browser (Chrome is what I usually use) with P3D running, and usually not cause a problem, unless perhaps it was toward the end of my memory's ability to keep up, and an OOM crash was already imminent anyway. Now, if I have P3D running and try to open a browser (like to check for a airport map, etc) Windows will IMMEDIATELY shut down the browser -- if the event goes well. If it doesn't (about 1/3 of the time), it will crash the entire computer -- usually to a BSOD.

One of the aforementioned "bizarre behavior" issues was while using ANY reflections on water. The images that appeared on the water were weirdly out of place, and completely out of scale, as well as appearing kind of 'chopped up' Extremely distracting! Having the reflections on (ANY at all) also resulted in a severe performance hit. Never had this before.

Another strange thing is that instead of showing a reasonable representation of what I see in the Rift headset through the on-screen P3D pane (I used to enjoy letting someone else wear the HMD while I flew them around, using the monitor pane to fly by), I am instead getting an extremely small portion of that view (like perhaps 2-3% of what should be visible), sampled from the extreme upper-left-hand corner of the VR view. I've checked settings over and over again, and have no idea why this is!


Okay -- here are some sys config stats, and possible contributing factors:

I have Windows 10 Home 64-bit -- upgraded from Windows 7 (worst decision I ever made!) Back when the Anniversary update came out last year, it trashed my sim. BSODs IMMEDIATELY every time I tried to launch P3D. I managed to roll it back to just prior to the Anniversary update, and lock out future updates (using some 'mobile data' update prevention setting). So, if any of the software 'players' now rely on any post-Anniversary updates, that could be an issue. But given how badly that update behaved, and how Apple-like Windows has become with Win 10, I am VERY reluctant to allow all those updates to occur. Watching other folks' recent issues (and frequent at-least-temporary-issues with many updates) in online discussions, I am not a fan of giving Windows free range on my computer! If it's this issue that's causing me problems, I'd vastly prefer to do YET ANOTHER complete start-over, and reinstall Win 7. But I'd invite expert input on my experiences and perception...

I have my processor OC'ed to 15%. This never seemed to cause any issues with V3. It seems completely stable outside of P3D V4 usage -- including load tests, etc. Could this still be an issue now? Seems unlikely.

Oculus appears to update itself these days, with no input (or control) from me. So I'd assuming I'm using the most recent version.

My version of FI is the most recent publicly available version.

Add-ons include a large fleet of mostly GA aircraft from A2A, Carenado, Ants, Milviz, etc. With the exception of the RealAir Lancair Legacy, I have only installed V4 certified aircraft, as they have become available. I also own every ORBX product they've made, except for a few Australian airports. I also have most Turbulent airports, and their trees. I use REX Sky Force, ASV4, (REX Texture Direct is still in use for various ground textures, etc). I use the most recent version of the full FSUIPC. There are also a few FlyTampa, LatinVFR, and Drzewiecki Design items installed.

Here are some images of the crash related dialogue boxes I get, etc. I'll send several of the recent crash logs (FlyInside ones) via e-mail shortly, as those are almost always too large for this forum.

If there are other logs you'd like me to send, please reply with which ones, and where to find them.

FWIW, I am looking forward to giving Dan's new simulator a try. But as heavily invested as I am in ORBX and add-on aircraft, I really NEED P3D to work for me. PLEASE HELP!
Attachments
Low Memory Warning.jpg
Low Memory Warning.jpg (275.21 KiB) Viewed 8612 times
Crash2.jpg
Crash2.jpg (294.68 KiB) Viewed 8612 times
Crash.jpg
Crash.jpg (78.25 KiB) Viewed 8612 times
Prepar3D V5 | i7-6700k OC@4.6GHz | 32 GBs DDR4 3000 RAM | OS, P3D, Pilot's Mesh, Other Addons each installed to 4 separate Samsung EVO 850 SSDs | GTX 1080Ti | Win 10 Home 64-bit | CV1,
denrainwater
 
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Re: Fresh Install -- repeated CTDs

Postby Tony » Tue Jan 16, 2018 4:25 pm

Hi mate, I am sorry I didn't reply sooner......I think we are seeing a little trend of people having this error and think it may be caused by the latest Oculus runtime ? We looking into mate, more to follow.
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