CFS2 on Win7 Home Premium 64 problems

[SW]

Hi all,

the issues I'm having with CFS2 and Windows7 may have already been sorted out on the forum here, my apologies if I've started this in error. Any instant fixes extremely gratefully received ;-) any general advice welcomed as well!

The problem I see is this: certain aircraft models cause the sim to hang and I have to switch away from the window and kill the program with task manager. Examples of models which cause this are the Greg Law gladiator (gladiatorm1) and the Alphasim Tiger Moth (DH Tiger Moth).

If I try to choose either of these aircraft (among many others) for Free Flight or Quick Combat it causes the program to hang (and I don't actually see the aircraft displayed), but if I encounter them as AI aircraft in Quick Combat there is no problem at all.

I'm pretty sure it is the models and not the textures that is causing the problems. It doesn't seem to be anything to do with .air files etc - I've tried using the built-in A6M2 files for everything except the model and textures and the problematic model will still cause the program to hang.

I've also tried putting the same aircraft onto another Win7 Home Premium 64 laptop with different graphics and get almost exactly the same problem, so it doesn't seem to be a graphics card or driver problem. Nor is it a permissions problem as far as I can tell.

Has anyone seen this and has got a fix? Any suggestions? IS there a program that I can download that allows me to "inspect" the model files? It would be useful to be able to compare a model that works with one that doesn't.

Thanks for any help, Steve.

PS: I've had quite a few aircraft give trouble with 2d panels, almost all of them fixed by changing render_3d_window=1 to render_3d_window=0 in the panel.cfg as suggested by "Allen" on the forums here - so thanks very much Allen!

[misson]

The model planes that u have used are converted? I had the same troubles with heavy models that requires too many traslations , rotations and calls in the conversion.

[SW]

The model planes that u have used are converted? I had the same troubles with heavy models that requires too many traslations , rotations and calls in the conversion.

Hi Misson,

I haven't checked that on all the planes but the ones I have are all native CFS2. I definitely have some converted from FS2004 that are ok and don't show the problem, so that doesn't seem to be the cause.

Anyone else got any ideas??

cheers,

Steve

[kwb737]

HI SW! Just to let you know I have windows 7 Ultimate 64. I downloaded and installed the Tiger Moth few minutes ago and flew it around the stock Midway and no problems at all so it is puzzling on what might be causing your hang ups.:salute:

[SW]

HI SW! Just to let you know I have windows 7 Ultimate 64. I downloaded and installed the Tiger Moth few minutes ago and flew it around the stock Midway and no problems at all so it is puzzling on what might be causing your hang ups.:salute:

Thanks kwb737,

that gives more to think about!

cheers,

Steve

[hurricane3]

I too have Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and the same Gladiator(Gladiatorm1) that you have and it causes no problems at all.(knock on wood).I just finished a reinstall of CFS2 and according to ACMan (haven't transferred any planes to hangers yet but I will) I have 331 planes installed and I test fly each one as I put them in,and only minor problems have crept up.
One is that all my downloads go to my pictures instead of the downloads folder ,I have to use the little pulldown arrow next to save and highlight downloads to put any thing in my downloads folder,they used to go to downloads automaticly, but that's not a problem with planes and CFS2 so I'am getting OT.
The other is with Aerocrates Albatross CVII's bomb sight not showing up.
Otherwise even with all 331 planes(I have the overload patch installed) everything flys fine including QC and Missions.
I will transfer enough planes to AcMan to bring the number down to about 100,I don't want to take any chances with CFS2 becoming unstable.

[SW]

I too have Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and the same Gladiator(Gladiatorm1) that you have and it causes no problems at all.

Hi hurricane3 and kwb737,

as you both don't have the problem I see, I was wondering if you'd mind telling me a) your windows graphics settings and b) your in-game CFS2 graphics settings? If you don't want to put them in this thread would you mind sending me a PM with them please?

Thanks for your help, I have a feeling there is something very simple I'm missing. The fact that neither of you has a problem suggests I can fix this, I just need to find the magic bullet!

cheers,

Steve

[hurricane3]

Since I have a new computer ,which I had built for me,I can run everything maxed out. I have Triliner filtering and all the sliders are full right.Mip Mapping ,anti-alis and T@L boxes all checked.Screen resolution is 1600x1200x16.
Hope this helps

[SW]

Since I have a new computer ,which I had built for me,I can run everything maxed out. I have Triliner filtering and all the sliders are full right.Mip Mapping ,anti-alis and T@L boxes all checked.Screen resolution is 1600x1200x16.
Hope this helps

Thanks hurricane3,

your info prompted me to try the PC in safe mode and hey presto, I can fly those aircraft in cfs2 while win7 is in safe mode.

So I'm now fiddling about with the video settings in cfs2 while windows is in normal mode. I'm making progress but not 100% yet. Turning OFF the hardware graphics acceleration in CFS2, resetting defaults, then turning back on h/w acceleration seems to have got me 99% of the way back to what I had on my old XP box. I have no idea why this is making any difference!

I'm away for a couple of days, hopefully next week I'll get a definitive answer and post it here.

I said on a previous post that I didn't think if was a graphics card/driver issue, it seems it is.

Thanks everyone at SOH for your help,

cheers,

Steve

[SW]

Hi all,

I have a better description of the problem - after some trial and error the problem is to do with the "Player aircraft" screen:

dlg_playeraircraft.jpg

and/or

dlg_playeraircraft.bmp

If I try to select one of the problem aircraft from that screen it causes the crash.

If I edit the name of the aircraft into the Aircraft= field of the Quick Combat or Free Flight section of the cfs2.cfg file and go and fly (without selecting it from the "Player aircraft" screen) it all works fine.

Why does cfs2 have both a .jpg and .bmp version of this screen? Which one does it use ... or which one does it use in different circumstances? Has anyone else had similar problems?

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions,

Steve

[SW]

OK it is definitely when it tries to display the problem aircraft in the:

dlg_playeraircraft.jpg

window that the problem occurs.

Any ideas anyone? I'd be surprised if I'm the only person that has seen this problem in windows7 - especially as it happens on 2 different PCs for me?

I'll keep looking at it as I get time and posting updates here,

cheers,

Steve

[misson]

Steve , seems u have corrupted that files in the UIres folder, or perhaps are missing? Time ago i had some similar touble when accidentaly I had changed the size of these .jpg .
But if CFS2 refers to both files (.jpg and .bmp) could be the call library name incorrect to these files, but i do not know which .cfg does the call to tell what files to be displayed.
wish this can help u.
Mario

[SW]

Steve , seems u have corrupted that files in the UIres folder, or perhaps are missing? Time ago i had some similar touble when accidentaly I had changed the size of these .jpg .
But if CFS2 refers to both files (.jpg and .bmp) could be the call library name incorrect to these files, but i do not know which .cfg does the call to tell what files to be displayed.
wish this can help u.
Mario

Thanks for the suggestions Mario. The dlg_playeraircraft.jpg file is fine, not corrupted. It is definitely when CFS2 tries to display certain models only via that screen (i.e. when selecting the aircraft for QC or Free Flight) that the problem occurs - CFS2 can otherwise display the model no problem.

It seems there is something specifically in certain models that clashes with the video hardware/drivers - on both my PC and work laptop, which have completely different hardware and drivers!

I'll post any further progress I make here - in the meantime if someone knows the fix please put me out of my misery!

cheers,

Steve

[SW]

Hi all,

I had a think about the fact that I have this problem on two machines (one PC, one laptop) with completely different graphics, while no-one else seems to have the problem. I reasoned that it must be something to do with the way I installed CFS2.

So I de-installed CFS2, then installed from scratch into a new directory (C:/Flightsims). I made sure I ran the install as administrator. All to no avail, the problem is exactly the same. I can't think of anything else to try now ... so folks if you've had graphics problems with running CFS2 on Windows7 please let everyone know how you overcame it. In the meantime if I come up with anything else I'll post it here,

cheers,

Steve

[Rami]

Hey SW,

i still have occasional issues with CFS2 locking up on both my laptop (Vista) and my desktop. (Windows 7 Ultimate) It often occurs during strafing passes where the bullets come into contact with the ground or the water.

[UncleTgt]

SW,

You should look at this thread in the FS9 forum

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...Here-s-a-poser

Seems like it could be AA settings of the graphics card/driver?

Hope this helps

[SW]

i still have occasional issues with CFS2 locking up on both my laptop (Vista) and my desktop. (Windows 7 Ultimate) It often occurs during strafing passes where the bullets come into contact with the ground or the water.

Hi Rami, I haven't seen anything like that myself and can't suggest anything sensible - could that be some sort of FPS issue with the level-of-detail that you've got set?

cheers,

SW

[SW]

SW,

You should look at this thread in the FS9 forum

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...Here-s-a-poser

Seems like it could be AA settings of the graphics card/driver?

Hope this helps

Thanks UncleTgt, that looke like something I should definitely follow up on. As always anything I find either way I'll post here.

Thanks again,

SW

[SW]

Well I though I'd have time to investigate this further, but I haven't. It looked like I was going to get 3 weeks around Christmas to look into it ... but I won't.

In the meantime I've been replacing where possible those aircraft that show the problem (which tend to be very old models) with newer models that don't show the problem.

If ever I do get to the bottom of this I'll post the answer, in the meantime if you have this problem then I recommend using aircraft that were created by designers as recently as possible,

cheers,

SW

[UncleTgt]

SW,

I've experienced something recently that was very similar to your problem, however I have a 7 year old WIN XP system.

In the end I had to ditch Mortens CFS2 version of AF Scrubs Fairey Firefly - all of a sudden I couldn't get this model to load in the sim after the first flight. I even made a mission to cut out the a/c preview & that hangs the sim, just like you describe.

(AF Scrub took Baldy's FSDS model & reworked in GMax - I can happily load Baldy older a/c without any issues)
Its very frustrating, had previously made skins for this a/c, but nothing I tried would get it back, fresh download of the zipfile, nothing. I even downloaded the FSX/FS2003 AF Scrub model & converted to CFS2 using MDLC190, but the final FS2002 to CFS2 stage results in a no show (I checked each stage in modelconverter130).

Re-reading your post you seem to have a similar, but more widespread, issue. It seems that something has changed on our PCs recently & some a/c models just don't play nice with the hardware/software combo we might have.

My guess is MS has stopped/changed some service that's causing trouble with my ancient Nvidia graphics card - your system may be affected in a similar way.

[Sarg Willy]

Just a shot in the dark , You say only the 2 models won,t display , but come in on Ai mode , That tell,s me it,s not a model issue , a graphic,s display , nor a driver issue ,, nor a start .jpg or bmp ,, the rest of your aircraft load ok ,,

I would go back and ck 2 things , Alis to sound and alis to panel files ,, Ai model uses sounds from the (root) sound folder , and not aircraft sound folder !! , hence will display as an Ai , A missing gauge from a panel file , may also cause a problem ,,

Copy panel and sound from a working plane to test ,,
or alis to working plane ,,

[SW]

SW,

My guess is MS has stopped/changed some service that's causing trouble with my ancient Nvidia graphics card - your system may be affected in a similar way.

Sorry guys not to have responded to the last two posts sooner. I've been busy and hadn't noticed your responses - sorry!

In any event I happened to try one of the problematic aircraft (gladiatorm1) on my PC last night and it worked! So today I tried the same aircraft on my laptop and it also worked. All the others that gave problems are now suddenly working also.

I haven't changed any in-game graphics settings at all. There have been driver updates for the graphics card on my PC (NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450) but not for the graphics card on the laptop since I last tried the galdiatorm1. So the only thing that has changed on both computers is the regular windows updates. I don't know which one fixed the problem but that is the only explanation I can see at the moment.

UncleTGT- all I can suggest is making sure you have all the windows updates applied.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped with this, it now seems to be solved!

Cheers,

Steve

[kwb737]

Sorry guys not to have responded to the last two posts sooner. I've been busy and hadn't noticed your responses - sorry!

In any event I happened to try one of the problematic aircraft (gladiatorm1) on my PC last night and it worked! So today I tried the same aircraft on my laptop and it also worked. All the others that gave problems are now suddenly working also.

I haven't changed any in-game graphics settings at all. There have been driver updates for the graphics card on my PC (NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450) but not for the graphics card on the laptop since I last tried the galdiatorm1. So the only thing that has changed on both computers is the regular windows updates. I don't know which one fixed the problem but that is the only explanation I can see at the moment.

UncleTGT- all I can suggest is making sure you have all the windows updates applied.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped with this, it now seems to be solved!

Cheers,

Steve