Rain in VR shuts down all displays (full black)

[Brother_Leb]

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SOLVED:
I hope this helps someone else. I was really pulling my hair out.

THIS IS NOT A DCS ISSUE. IT IS A GPU (and probably NVidia) ISSUE. The solution for me was to use MSIAfterburner to undervolt the GPU to 90% power usage (or more, your mileage may vary, but I started really low and stress-tested my way up). See my final post below.
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I fly in VR with a Reverb G2 headset (full specs in dxDiag attached). I recently purchased an ASUS TUF RTX 4080 and have been trying to find the sweet spot for VR performance. Because it's nearly top end kit, the card has handled almost everything I've thrown at it...except rain. Apparently, it hates rain. Any mission with rain coming down on the client aircraft causes all displays to go completely black, not just the headset but the mirrored 2D display as well. I would say it's a CTD, but I can't tell if we're back at the desktop or not because the display is off. The PC is still running, but I can't manipulate the GUI without a display, so I am forced to reboot.

What's weird is that the card has handled low level flying through dense urban areas on a relatively poor-performing terrain (Marianas over Guam) while maintaining around 40fps (see settings photos attached below). But in a fairly empty mission when it's rainy, I get almost immediate black screen upon loading into a jet (track file attached). On another test, I cold-started a warbird on Marianas in bad weather, but the field was clear. I started and took off just fine, but flew through a rain cloud just off the runway. Immediately black screen on all displays. (I don't have a trackfile, but can easily reproduce on request).

These symptoms lead me to believe that the PSU might be shutting off power to my GPU and so this may not be directly DCS-related (only indirectly because the sim is asking for more power than the PSU is willing to give...at least on my current theory).

Either way, I thought this might be something ED devs would be interested in and I hoped that maybe some intelligent forum-goer might be able to confirm my theory or set me straight. Is it my PSU or some rain-related setting in DCS?

Thanks!

Attachments:
-DxDiag
-4x logs from black screen events logged 9-2-2024
-trackfile for most recent crash event 9-2-2024 15:59:56 EDT
-screenshots of NVidia Control Panel settings
-screenshots of usual settings from launcher (DCS_1.png, DCS_2.png, DCS_3.png)
-screenshots of lower settings attempting to find threshold of black screen events (Progress_stillcrashes1 and Progress_stillcrashes2.png)

dcs_9-2-2024_183552crash.log dcs_9-2-2024_153230crash.log dcs_9-2-2024_155956crash.log LastMissionTrack.trk DxDiag.txt dcs_9-2-2024_151900crash.log

Edited September 6, 2024 by Brother_Leb

[The_Nephilim]

well I have only 2 questions for you what is your PSU and what Hz rate do you use for the G2.. oh and your trk file there is no mission or whatnot it just goes straight back out to mission brief??? Your TRK file is not working?

 

also this:

 

2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 16 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 17 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 18 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 19 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 20 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 21 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 22 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 23 is not available for this process

 

so did you omit those 8 cores from DCS in Process lasso or similar? are they ecores?

Edited September 4, 2024 by The_Nephilim

[Brother_Leb]

4 hours ago, The_Nephilim said:

well I have only 2 questions for you what is your PSU and what Hz rate do you use for the G2.. oh and your trk file there is no mission or whatnot it just goes straight back out to mission brief??? Your TRK file is not working?

 

also this:

 

2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 16 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 17 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 18 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 19 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 20 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 21 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 22 is not available for this process
2024-09-02 18:32:28.836 WARNING EDCORE (Main): logical core 23 is not available for this process

 

so did you omit those 8 cores from DCS in Process lasso or similar? are they ecores?

 

1.) Corsair 850x PSU
2.) 90Hz
3.) Yeah, sorry about the Trackfile, guess that's not helpful. The mission only lasted about 4 seconds after getting in a jet in the rain and I made no inputs beyond looking to my left. I took a video on my phone, but was watching my hardware monitor numbers.
4.) Yes, those are eCores that I have parked (DCS only) using Process Lasso (CPU= i7-13700K 3.4Ghz)

Thanks for the help!

Edited September 5, 2024 by Brother_Leb

[The_Nephilim]

How old is the PSU??? it  should have enough power how many 12v rails does it have?? is the GPU New?

 

Maybe a Possible TDR issue with the GPU but you did have lots of Graphics errors. Did you use DDU to uninstall the nVidia drivers when you installed the GPU?

 

Does this Black screen happen only when rain hits you?? If so have you tried a Clean Slow repair. also do you use any other mods official or unoffical?

Edited September 5, 2024 by The_Nephilim

[Brother_Leb]

@The_Nephilim

1.) PSU is 6 months old, I'm not sure how many 12v rails it has. Do you know how I would find out? (It has 5 8-pin PCIe output sockets)

2.) Sort of, GPU is new to me (I bought it aftermarket from Jawa.gg, their official account). It was listed as new and came with original packaging. It did not come with it's 12pin cable. I ordered an OM nVidia cable from Ebay.

3.) Yes, I used DDU to uninstall and reinstall the nVidia driers when I installed the GPU. I also removed all previous drivers using DDU and then after that installed the fresh graphics driver.

4.) I think the black screen happens when the rain hits me, yes, but I'm not completely sure (see additional info below for non-rain-related event). As I said in the OP, during a flight with rain showers around me it was fine, but it was when I flew through the rain shower that it black screened. I have tried turning rain droplets off in setting but that has not solved it. I'll try a slow repair soon when I have the time.

5.) I do use a variety of mods and use a mod manager. I will also try turning them all off (uninstalling) and see if that affects anything.

Additional Info: (Blackscreen without any rain) I was curious how everything would perform in 2D at 4k so I tried it about 2 weeks ago. I pushed all settings to max just to see what that would do to performance. I was on a discord call with a friend at the time and uploaded a replay of a recent flight. I set the camera on the ramp and padlocked to my jet. Performance was fairly good until takeoff when my aircraft went behind another aircraft momentarily. It blackscreened. This is the only other instance besides rain that has caused this behavior. Of note, I was still able to talk to my friend via discord until I chose to force a restart of my PC because I could not see to do anything. I didn't save the log or the trackfile, sadly, because this was the first time this happened and I thought I'd just pushed the graphics settings too far.

Again, thanks!

[The_Nephilim]

The PSU specs should be on the website of the company that made it. Yes the blackscreen could be either a TDR or just Crashed. Have you tried looking at the logs in Windows?

[Brother_Leb]

SOLVED (will update OP):
I hope this helps someone else. I was really pulling my hair out.

The solution for me was to use MSIAfterburner to undervolt the GPU to 90% power usage (or more, your mileage may vary, but I started really low and stress-tested my way up). I found this solution by scouring this Reddit thread from 2 yrs ago, right around when the 40series launched: 

TLDR: It turns out this is a semi-common problem with NVidia 40series GPUs (regardless of manufacturer, but tends to be 4090, 4080, and in one instance on this thread a 4070) and has something to do with them trying to draw too much power causing a failsafe low power mode to engage that shuts off the displays. Some people were able to address this by replacing a faulty 12v cable, but I did that (even bought a newer beefier PSU) and still got blackscreens in bad weather. So far, the only thing that has affected it has been undervolting the GPU.

I can fly in the rain now! Yay!

(And thanks for all those suggestions @The_Nephilim. They actually led me to this Reddit thread, where I found the solution...after trying basically everything else under the sun.)

Edited September 6, 2024 by Brother_Leb

[The_Nephilim]

Well I was thinking TDR at the last post. Glad you found a fix either way.. your Welcome..

[Ahdidaas]

Thanks for posting all your settings -- I'm always looking to try different settings for the performance and the immersion.  

VR DCS is everything I dreamed about as a kid.