RAAF Campaign - Lae - CTD during ground attack - Grrrrrrrrr

[DvlHownd]

I'm flying Rami's RAAF Campaign (Good Stuff Rami - You did your homework!) and am on the A-24 escort to Lae. Mission loads fine, no missing library objects messages or anything. I get to the waypoint for the A-24's to start their run. Zero's make their appearance and then clear them out. Now time to beat up the airfield with a 500 pounder and strafing runs. All goes well for a while, taking out the 75mm and 25mm AA and other ground infrastructure then *POOF* CTD! GRRRRRRR!

I can change planes and it doesn't make a difference. I have MaskRider's, Lindsay Watts' trees, AF Scenery, and all the other sundry scenery items installed according to Rami's Readme RTF file (Download this first, but to make it work, you need to go here and download that and overwrite these files. But then after you get it, you need to open this readme file to see that you need to download this, this and this. and then after you do that, you have to these files installed to make it work. But if you really want it to look neat, install this, and then... - Just teasing you Rami :icon_lol: . It's a pain, but it makes it worthwhile and somewhat educational.)

I don't think I've missed anything obvious but it seems the the mission file is looking for something that should be there but is not. Scenery.cfg, mdlname.txt seem to look ok (for what my limited sphere of knowledge knows), filelist.dat gets cleared but still get CTD. If I just escort, clear the Zero's and bug out, it won't crash. Only when I engage in ground attack and after multiple ground targets are destroyed does the game crash. The same issue happens on an earlier escorting bombers to Lae-Nadzab-Seeadler. I can strafe/bomb the heck out of Nadzab but if I go back to Lae and bomb/strafe..... *POOF!* CTD. GSL error? DP error? Mysterious gremlins? I don't know. Once again, I yield to the experts.

DvlHownd

[Captain Kurt]

Jake,

I've discovered this effect before on some of the mud mover missions I've developed. I am not 100% sure what causes it, but I think it is an information overload on the games ability to process everything at one point in time - specifically when the bombs go off. Experiments have shown me several things that may contribute to it happening.

One - is that if the ground target is a GSL GOB with a lot of infrastructure models in it, it may cause the CTD when it is bombed or strafed. The more infrastructure models, the more likely it is to occur. However - If you are bombing this target from high altitude where the game does not have to process all the visual effects of the bombs going off and buildings blowing up, it may run just fime. Go down to ground level and bomb and it will CTD.

Two - I have found that if I drop a bomb on a target - whether it is GSL or not - from below 2000 feet AGL and look back to see if I hit, I occasionally get a CTD. If I bomb the same target above 2000 feet and look back it works fine.

Three - In the case of the same example in number two above, I can drop a bomb below 2000 feet AGL on that target, and if I DON'T look back to see the result, it does not CTD. If I have an AI flight following me, I can't look at their work either unless I am a long way away or it will CTD too. But what fun is that?

So - Is this because some of the infrastructure models are multiLOD and beyond a certain distance less detail has to be loaded, or is the explosion effect less detailed at a distance (or both)? In the GSL target example, are there too many models being destroyed at once? I don't know, but it does seem to be some kind of processing overload.

Whenever I run into this with mission building I reduce the number of infrastructure models or switch from a GSL target to fewer objects placed with the Mission Builder or change out one infrastructure model for a different model, and test until it seems to cure the problem. Lost a lot of nice ground layouts to this.

Anyone else seeing this happen to them?

[DvlHownd]

Ah Ha! So it IS mysterious gremlins after all! :icon_lol: I guess that's as good as any excuse to get a bigger/better/faster computer down the road.

[bearcat241]

Yep...its a memory leak. I used to get this effect occasionally with my old rig. Since my upgraded build, it hasn't occurred anymore. I concluded that it was as you said Kurt - a case of information overload on the old hardware. I formerly ran an Athlon XP rig with a GeForce FX 5200 (512 MB memory) - a modest midranger. Now i'm into an Intel Core i7 w/ GeForce GTS 250 PCIe card (1 GB memory), Gigabyte mobo, loads of physical memory and much better performance. Not exactly a top tier configuration but it gets the job done and some.

But as far as the source of the hardware overload being associated with the infrastructure models, i'm not fully convinced. I sensed that it might be the complexity of the modified FX files linked to the tricked DP's of the add-on infrastructure models, combined with the damage FX in the DP's of the bombs used. All of those FX files being called up and processed together instantaneously, on top of moving scenery and multiple aircraft models may be too much for some rigs. Might be a good time for a hardware overhaul DvlHownd, beginning with your graphics card and physical memory.

Short of installing new hardware, one thing that helped to mitigated the number of CTD's to a tolerable degree for me in the old rig was tweaking the PCI latency of the graphics card, sound components and the main PCI host bus. By default, the card hogs latency and does not give the bus enough time to transfer data from the processor. I would balance this equation by first giving the bus priority in latency, then equalizing the settings of the sound and graphics devices, which share the same IRQ in many system configurations. This helped regulate the data flow and reduce the memory leaks. It takes a little time to bone up on the topic, but once you get it, it can pay off by delaying the urgent need for all-out hardware upgrades.

[DvlHownd]

The system's surely not top of the line but it's not a slug either. XP AMD X3 710 2.6GHz/4GB Ram (but only reads 3.25 because of XP)/GeForce GT 520 PCIe with GB mem. But when there's a lot going on down below with lots of aircraft and flak (can you say Rabaul?), it will start to chug. For now I guess I'll have to take Kurt's advice and stay a little higher rather than down in the weeds with the gremlins.

DvlHownd

[MaskRider]

There is also a "small factory" object of wolfis that was causing a ctd- something to do with glitch in its dp file. Whenever it was hit with a weapon- CTD. During the course of hashing out the ctd problem in this forum the issue was identified and resolved. Don't know if wolfi ever re-released a tweaked version of the offending scenery object library- mine works. The thread was back in October 2009 or so- whenever my Marianas pack was released. Here is a pic of the object- under yellow arrow.

Found the thread- actually October 2010. Here is the link (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?43841-Need-help!-wf_smal_factory_1-object-giving-me-fits!&highlight=small+factory)

[Rami]

DvlHownd,

My apologies for not responding sooner. I am currently on holiday in Europe and have limited times I can connect to the internet. Currently, I am in Salzburg, Austria. However, it appears that others have taken the time to answer this thread, and not having anything more constructive to add, I will defer to their judgment. It does sound like some sort of flaw in the .dp file which is causing your problems, so hopefully others will help you find a solution.

[DvlHownd]

DvlHownd,

My apologies for not responding sooner. I am currently on holiday in Europe and have limited times I can connect to the internet. Currently, I am in Salzburg, Austria. However, it appears that others have taken the time to answer this thread, and not having anything more constructive to add, I will defer to their judgment. It does sound like some sort of flaw in the .dp file which is causing your problems, so hopefully others will help you find a solution.

No worries Rami. That's the beauty of this forum is that there are so many wonderful smart folks out there that are willing to help and share their wealth of knowledge. Sometimes I know I'm out of my depth and when I do, I can come here and get solutions.

Enjoy your vacation, you needn't take on the burden of having all the solutions. Rest assured you have people helping out. Thanks to all.

DvlHownd.