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After seeing the FSD videos, do you think it will work well on MCU1 cars?

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viper2ko

Active Member
Aug 30, 2017
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After seeing all of the videos popup, I'm fairly confident this won't work well/reliably on MCU1/HW3 cars. For one the beta visuals clearly won't work on MCU1 and I imagine with full FSD release they will tone down the visuals or make them more appealing but MCU1 cars will remain a blank canvas to just trust the car sees/knows what it's doing.

Second, I imagine you will have to use navigation and set a destination. This is a problem since nav is just so unreliable with MCU1. Try navigating anywhere further than an hour and the system crashes if you even try to do other tasks like streaming music. I suspect MCU1/HW3 cars won't see a FSD release for a while while they design a software fork to pass as workable and "feature complete"
 
They already have two solution for MCU/1 vehicles having issues.

(1) You can get the MCU/1 eMMC replaced with a larger one which apparently fixes much of the lagginess that everyone is seeing.
(2) You can optionally pay $2500 for the Infotainment Ugrade Package which bring you current with the latest MCU tech.
 
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I paid for FSD and not paying a $ more. They promised to upgrade whatever is needed to get FSD. If someone is too ... whatever it is that makes one think throwing good $ after bad will change anything...

I plan on waiting them out. Either FSD will work with my MCU1 or they will do whatever is necessary to get me there. I don't care about the side camera view missing right now but if it's necessary to make FSD work they are going to replace them or the MCU or whatever it takes.

I stopped inquiring about when they were going to do my HW3 upgrade after hearing whispers of a HW4 change. Why settle for something now they are possibly changing. I'm just being patient and letting the process work itself out. If I see folks driving around with working FSD and they haven't gotten to me THEN I'l raise hell.
 
...If I see folks driving around with working FSD and they haven't gotten to me THEN I'l raise hell.

I think your FSD will function fine with HW3.0 but I doubt your MCU1 can catch up with all the heavy demands from HW3.0

That means, your FSD will get you from point A to point B autonomously as promised but at the cost that the MCU1 would essentially be crippled (forget about nice visual effects or even smooth browsing on the internet...)
 
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I'm ok with the lack of visual on the MCU. I don't use the browser. I'll be busy talking with the wife or surfing on my iPad. Not quite turning my back to the windshield but my attention will be elsewhere. I intend to let the car do it's thing and occupy my time sight seeing.
 
I think if you (or Tesla) disables or downgrades "Full Self Driving Preview Visualization Preview" the MCU1 can probably process the data and drive fine. The Visualization or display of all the objects in real time with labels is likely very memory and cpu intensive, and it certainly doesn't speed up the processing required to drive the car.
 
...I'm ok with the lack of visual on the MCU. I don't use the browser....

Remember that HW3.0 does not need MCU to continue to function.

You can do an experiment right now. Drive and put on your autopilot on a known reliable freeway for an experiment (in case you need to take over). Now reboot the MCU and its instrument cluster. The Autopilot will continue to work and even brakes for obstacles without the need of a blackout MCU.

MCU is a convenience and not a must for HW3.0
 
Remember that HW3.0 does not need MCU to continue to function.

You can do an experiment right now. Drive and put on your autopilot on a known reliable freeway for an experiment (in case you need to take over). Now reboot the MCU and its instrument cluster. The Autopilot will continue to work and even brakes for obstacles without the need of a blackout MCU.

When my MCU crashes i usually lose autopilot cruise control etc
 
When my MCU crashes i usually lose autopilot cruise control etc

I think the Automation system needs MCU to start its Automation (routing and starting Autosteer).

Once the automation gets started it should not need the MCU anymore.

In the case of bad old MCU, there's not enough good memory space so it can shut down Autosteer and even normal routine charging capability as well.

If the MCU crashes in such a way that the automation lost its current start, then of course it would need another start and in that case, you would lose Autopilot, cruise control...

But for the Autopilot/FSD itself, it does not need much from an MCU for the purpose of automation.
 
question: what specifically is it within MCU2 that appears to solve the impact to the MCU associated with FSD/HW3? Is it simply a MUCH more powerful CPU/processor? Or is it an entirely different board/firmware/RAM, architecture, etc?
 
question: what specifically is it within MCU2 that appears to solve the impact to the MCU associated with FSD/HW3? Is it simply a MUCH more powerful CPU/processor? Or is it an entirely different board/firmware/RAM, architecture, etc?

Mainly the processors:

MCU1: Nvidia Tegra 3
MCU2: Intel Atom E8000 series CPU (x86_64)

MCU1 is so weak that you can't even play Cuphead, Buggy Beach Racing 2, Netflix... while parking! It's so weak that it can't even handle a simple Chromium browser... its browser is a generic Linux browser.
 
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They already have two solution for MCU/1 vehicles having issues.

(1) You can get the MCU/1 eMMC replaced with a larger one which apparently fixes much of the lagginess that everyone is seeing.
(2) You can optionally pay $2500 for the Infotainment Ugrade Package which bring you current with the latest MCU tech.
Are either (or both) options available for free to those who paid for FSD which included "all the hardware needed" for all FSD functionality? Or are you saying that what's on the screen is not part of FSD functionality - it's just a free feature for those who happen to have MCU2?
 
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ABSOLUTELY NOT. Even if by the time that FSD 2020.40.....comes to the rest of the fleet, our MCU1 cars with FSD are gonna literally choke on all those visuals we see in the online beta videos.....I have a definite issue with this. I have FSD and HW 3.0, and can confirm that if you enter an address into NAV, its gonna be a long wait and there is no guarantee it will ever find the route......and sometimes if it does on the occasion I use a destination/address, the nav is gonna crash or freeze up on the MCU1 while trying to map the trip as you continue along.......which means although the FSD visualizations on the binacle display will still function and guide you as they normally do.....but the MCU will be struggling, at least not while driving visually, you would have to reboot and then the nav would obviously reset.. This isnt really performing with what FSD would actually involve. I dont know how many of us have MCU1 cars circa 2017 with FSD but you will most definitely need or have a new MCU2 when and if FSD beta is released to general public. I just cant see it happening any other way.
 
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There is lot of discussion around MCU1 and FSD, but no discussion around Software updates crippling our cars of its features; How do we make Tesla stop deploying features that our cars were not designed for?, Give me FSD, Give me the UI that I paid for in 2017. I am happy camper !.
 
Remember that HW3.0 does not need MCU to continue to function.

You can do an experiment right now. Drive and put on your autopilot on a known reliable freeway for an experiment (in case you need to take over). Now reboot the MCU and its instrument cluster. The Autopilot will continue to work and even brakes for obstacles without the need of a blackout MCU.

MCU is a convenience and not a must for HW3.0
Let's wait until someone with the new FSD Beta does this reboot experiment and let us know whether the car continued to navigate lights, roundabouts, lane, etc with the MCU rebooting. Maybe some brave soul will even do a continuous MCU rebooting to see whether FSD is affected if MCU is constantly rebooting.
 
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