In 11.50b6 we added a command line argument to run Aftermath, a debugging utility, hoping it will give us more insight into device loss errors.
A “device loss” error is specifically the crash that accompanies the on-screen (or log.txt) error message “Encountered Vulkan device loss error!” Using Aftermath will not help us investigate VRAM issues–that is a different issue entirely.
If you are on Windows, have an NVidia GPU and you see a device loss error followed by a crash, you can help us track these bugs down by running X-Plane with Aftermath enabled. We know from 11.50b5 that many devices are not compatible with Aftermath, so if you crash and burn immediately, you can go back to using beta 6 without the extra command line option.
Aftermath Instructions
We will be using the command line via Command Prompt. (Here are instructions on getting started with this if needed.)
Launch X-Plane from the command line with the following flag:
--aftermath
You can then try to reproduce the steps that caused the initial device loss, or just fly as usual. If device loss happens again, the auto crash report form should come up again. Please fill out your email and submit the auto report to us for investigation.
If I understand correctly, aftermath will help to find out where this error came from: « You don’t have enough Vram, xplane will close. » Or am I mistaken and this will make it possible to detect another error ? Because I still unfortunately have the Vram error personally when X-plane starting
Thanks for your amazing job
Device lost means the GPU crashed. It has nothing to do with VRAM.
Aftermath will help us narrow down what part of drawing x-plane, on the GPU, crashed.
Okay thanks a lot !
Ben,
I just had my second Vulkan Device loss crash. How do I setup a shortcut to include –aftermath in the Windows shortcut or is this only available via command line?
Thanks.
I think you can do it in “properties” for the icon.
I tried adding the –aftermath right after X-plane.exe both inside and outside he ” ” marks but Windows does not accept either. I also tried it from the Command Line using Run X-plane.exe–aftermath but No Joy! Sorry, it been years since I played around in DOS CMD LINE so more specific guidance would be appreciated. Thanks.
I also have this “not enough VRAM” when I try to load an airliner, even default ones. What gpu you have? Mine is a 750ti.
Hi Ben,
When I turned down number of world objects from Max to normal the device error lost crashes disappeared. Even High settings produced some device lost crashes. Haven’t had a single crash on normal world objects settings for over a few hours.
Thought maybe this helps narrow it down if not already known.
Thanks for the amazing performance and smoothness of this new rendering method.
Per
Ben
I blue screen mid flight after a few hours flying. Loud buzz, freeze and then BSOD
driver IRQL not less or equal
Is it worth using aftermath for this kind of hard crash or will it not have time to log it.
My x plane log file shows nothing untoward I can see.
No – blue screen means the kernel side of the driver blew up – aftermath can’t run cuz the world has ended.
Pete what you describe is often a telltale sign of the audio driver conking out. You may want to use BlueScreenView (//www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html) or similar to nail down the file name and investigate that from there.
Did you hear that Valve decided to drop SteamVR support for macOS a few days ago? What does this mean for X-Plane?
Yep! It means we (LR) are not going to write SteamVR support for OSX – from our perspective, picking it up right as Valve drops it would be throwing code into /dev/null. If/when there is a supported VR API on Mac, we’ll pick it up again.
(In the past we couldn’t support it because without Meta we didn’t have a proper hardware stereo renderer. We do now! So we just need a functional headset API.)
I think you should reconsider.
As I understand it, your main problem right now is ensuring that XPlane does not crash. Since whatever code you write to /dev/null is guarantied not to crash, its a sure way of meeting your immediate goals.
Besides, you should not be afraid of going your own way.
So VR for Macs that don’t use Steam is also out?
There’s two different meanings of ‘steam’ here’.
Steam is an app store. You can get X-Plane via that app store or directly from LR.
SteamVR is an app that Valve gives away (through their app store as installer) that acts as a VR run-time that we can use (on Windows and Linux). Companies provide driver sfor SteamVR to make their HMDs work.
On Windows, where things aren’t over, you can understand the situation:
– You can use SteamVR on Windows (via the Steam app store) to run VR on the LAMINAR version of X-Plane. Valve never required that an app be from their app store to use their VR runtime.
– You can use an Oculus Rift without SteamVR (whether you bought x-plane from us or on Steam) because Oculus provides a totally separate runtime that we also support.
Whether you need the Oculus runtime or SteamVR depends on what headset you have — if you have a Rift, you need the Oculus runtime. If you have a Vive or WMR headset, you need SteamVR.
On MAC, we sell x-plane via Steam app store and directly.
On MAC, Valve is dropping their SteamVR run-time, and Oculus has no Mac runtime. So we are going from 1 to 0 VR Run-times for Mac. So we will not have VR support for Mac until someone makes an actual Mac VR runtime.
Ok, thanks for the clarification 🙂
To make it clear, they’ll stop supporting it. What’s there for SteamVR on Mac will still be available for use, there just won’t be any updates or any support for it.
Not saying that this means you (Laminar) should support an unsupported API on Mac either, just felt the need to clarify this.
For anybody out there with as old a brain as mine who once did everything from a dos command prompt but cant remember. I did follow the link but it took me 1/2 hour to get it figured out. So on my system when it finally loaded it looked like this;
C:\Users\2mtsg> F:\X-Plane11.50b6\X-Plane.exe – – aftermath – – fps_test=n – – load_smo=n
Now although X-Plane load screen is up and has been since I started typing this message the hour glass is still on it and the hard drive light is going crazy. At 72 I know I am in well over my head but I thought I could help. So far b6 has not crashed on me I have HD and Image set at max and with a 4gb GTX 960 am getting about 40 fps the trees don’t look good but the flights are smooth as silk
I have also had a lot of device loss errors, reports sent. but I have always suspected the problem was my hardware.
new Computer on the way looking forward to the build…. but how much change will this bring to my xplane with Vulkan?
the old system is
i7 2600k 3.4 Ghz, 16BG 1333mhz ram, GTX1080ti on a £70 motherbord
new
i7 9700K 3.6 but 4.9 turbo, 16GB 3600mhz ram and the same GTX1080ti GPU and a top end motherbord
been testing with the old system in VR… flying with dreamworks EMB110 around the UK at around 45 fps mid settings HDR on, the main problem has been stutters… its ok in some areas but others is just impossible to fly…. be intresting to see the comparison on weather the stutters was due to a old hardware or the game its self..
great work on your progress with vulkan, keep up the great work!.
I’ve had a couple freezes followed by CTD. No x-plane crash reporter came up, so I thought maybe it was a plugin crash (flying Hot Start TBM). The last time it happened, Log.txt ended with with VK Device Lost – unfortunately I didn’t make a copy of the log and it got overwritten. I9-9900k/32GB/RTX2080ti 11GB. Most everything else is running well.
Flashing Clouds
Can’t select METAR.RWX option
I had a long list but touched my mouse and clicked off this page before typing my contact info and lost the whole dang post. eerrgg!