aaronwhite

I support this mission, if for no other reason than to happily have some VsTerminus tutorials on the F-4!

Good news/bad news for me and Heatblur. I hopped into a mission I'd created before upgrading to my new computer just to fly the Apache, and once again, was greeted with a crash, only this time the thing just locked my computer up to the point that I had to hard reset. No idea what's causing this, but I guess I'm going to go spend some time trying to sort that out. I'll throw what came up in the log just in case it's useful to anyone. I guess my dreams of stutter-free flying with the beefier computer aren't being realized as much as I was hoping they would be. Might have to go try and dig the old one out of the dumpster for the time being. dcs.log

Alright, one more thing I thought to try to see if it would affect the issue. I made sure I was specifically running the MT launcher for DCS. Sadly, no change there. Still crashed in the training mission a few minute in (shortly after connecting external power). Tossed the log in, and from what I'm seeing, it looks like more of the same error messages. dcs.log

At this point, I think I'm going to hang out and wait and try the F-4 after the next patch. I might give a few flights a try this week, but so far, it seems none of my changes have worked, so it's possible it's a game/F-4 issue, or just something I haven't sorted out quite yet. I do need to spend some time in the Apache on the new computer still, so I might give that a try while waiting.

To continue spamming this thread myself, I went ahead and pushed out my blue camo F-14. Hopefully it's not the worst, but if anyone finds any glaring issues, let me know and I'll get it sorted. It's definitely not perfect, and doesn't represent any specific F-14 (hence why I left off the main registration numbers and everything to keep it as a nice generic skin) but I'm happy to address any of the problems people find. If you're interested, you can grab it here. Now I'm going to give the splinter camo a try, which definitely is looking to be more interesting than the blue camo, since getting these lines all straight across some of these panel lines might get challenging. This is all early WIP with only about an hour of effort on there. I'm still trying out colors to see if I can get it to look right in game, so the colors here likely aren't final, nor are the patterns. As always, I'll endlessly update until it's done.

I wonder if those would be better with supplementary videos on Youtube that you could watch beforehand, just so you get a bit of a walkthrough of the entire landing process explained and shown to you, before you jump into the cockpit and try it yourself.

Final test. Guess I'm out of ideas after this one, so I'll just have to wait and see. I dropped most everything in graphics to low, though the computer should be able to handle it (I haven't had issues in any other games so far, and the GPU stress test I ran didn't show a problem anywhere). I've got ~40GB of page file memory allocated, rolled back the drivers and fired up the taxi training mission. I was able to complete the mission, which was a first, granted it was a bit tough with the graphics turned down since I couldn't read the panels well. Anyhow, got to the end of training, took off just to see, and while rotating out i crashed on me again. I'll throw the log in here. dcs.log

That's obviously nonsense because they've already been working, quite openly, on the AI flight models and combat behavior. Saying they don't care because there's no money in it for them makes no sense, because they've already been working on it and showing their efforts.

Alright, I rolled back my drivers to some older GPU drivers, so we'll see how it works tomorrow morning. I did a quick test just opening the training mission and letting it sit while I ate dinner, and I came back about 30 minutes later without a crash. I'll try and actually get through the training tomorrow morning and see. Edit: Well, it seemed promising at first. I got about 10 minutes into the training, but then it crashed again on me. I've attached the log for this recent one as well. Still seeing the same ERROR ED_SOUND (Main) issues that seem to pop up just before the previous crashes, not sure if there's any relation. dcs.log

Hey, no worries! Rome wasn't built in a day, and the digital F-4 wasn't either. It's the first time I've really had any crashing issues with DCS, fortunately, so it's just something I'll keep plugging away at until something I do fixes it, or a patch can, assuming it's related. I rolled back my GPU drivers just to see if maybe a recent update caused any issues. I'm going to hopefully get some flight time tonight and test it out.

Ha, funny you mention the complexity. I was watching the video for the radar back when that teaser was released and told my friend "This is all incredible, and I can't imagine the work that goes into doing it, but it's got to make sorting out bugs a real headache at times". For my crashes (Here's a link, since I forgot to mention it previously) I was noticing a similar issue with the error logs, but not entirely sure how to make heads or tails out of it, not to hijack this thread. I tried a few different things in the thread without much luck so far, but I'll keep an eye out for future patches.

Reminds me of the Hornet when I was learning it. I wouldn't get the gear up quick enough when I was doing full afterburner takeoffs and would constantly rip the gear doors off on the nose.

"fix should be available in the next DCS update" That's great news. Any information on what the crash pertains to? I've been documenting all of my crashes as best as I can, with the logs, but I haven't heard much back yet in terms of any information on what might be causing it. Here's hoping my issue's included in the patch. I'm enjoying the F-4 and learning when I can, but the crashes have made it pretty tough to fly consistently, so I've had to shelve it for now.

Good question. I wonder if the F-14's wings were just already complex enough? Or maybe with the wing sweep being handled by the system, the wing would normally be in an auto mode that would pull the flaps in to sweep the wing anyhow? I'm curious to see what people say.

A skin I've been working on to give the F-4 some company.

I think I might be finally ready to push this thing out the door. I made some custom pilots and tried to modify the flight suits and helmets a bit based on references I found online. I was thinking of doing some "generic" versions without a lot of wear or grime and no numbers, then maybe making some more specific skins based on one or two combined references with numbers to look a little more realistic. The skin definitely isn't perfect, and I'm sure someone with more expertise and better reference material will spot some errors, but it will hopefully fill a gap until the official Heatblur version is out with some better made skins than mine.

While I've had a ton of crashing issues to deal with that I'm working on documenting with the hope that Heatblur can sort it out, the module still feels incredible. The crashes make learning it a bit tough, but it's still a blast to just fly around when I can. Like the F-14, I wasn't really super excited for the F-4 when it was revealed (heresy, I know) but I picked it up just wanting to support a developer in DCS that continues to create great work and really push the envelope for what's possible in DCS. It's definitely a bigger learning hurdle to clear compared to the modern "smart" planes with detailed HUDs and much simpler avionics and HOTAS controls, and the crashing makes it tough to actually progress, but damn the thing just makes you want to get in and fly.

@BIGNEWY Question for you too, since you may have seen this in the past, but do you know if the crashes that I see referenced in Windows Event Viewer pointing towards ModuleName edCore.dll with the ExceptionCode c00000fd would be an indication of anything in particular concerning DCS? From what I can tell with some light Google searching it appears to be tied to stack overflow issues, but I'm not sure if that would just be the way DCS would crash if it was anything. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing a bigger issue. It does still seem like I'm only experiencing this with the F-4 in particular, but I just didn't want to miss the forest for the trees.

Last one for today. Tried a training mission and then just threw my F-4 onto the tarmac to practice some landings. Forgot to grab the logs the first time, but here's the one from me just dropping it onto the Caucasus map at Tbilisi. dcs.log

Interesting. I'll see if Windows Defender has any logs that might point that way. I can't imagine Defender would be blocking anything, but it is pretty aggressive with removing files it sees as malicious, even if it's a false positive. Edit: Searched through my Windows Defender logs and the EventViewer just to see, no luck finding anything there for my case. Double Edit: Digging through a bit more, it looks like most all of the crashes reference in Event Viewer reference ModuleName edCore.dll. Looks like ExceptionCode c00000fd which as far as I can tell from some Google searching is potentially tied to stack overflows. Not sure if that helps, but I'll keep digging around. TRIPLE EDIT: Okay, I'm going to test something more. I would hope that the 64GB of RAM my system is already using would be enough on top of the NVMe SSD, but just to be safe, I went ahead and used my two spare SSD's that are installed in the machine to set as system assigned page files. My current total page file size is 28GB, on top of the RAM, so I'll try and run a test mission tonight and see if that turns up anything.

@HB_PainterHope you don't mind the ping, just wanted to let you know I've got a small handful of logs for you now. Let me know if there's any testing ideas you've got that I could run through to give you all some better information to work with.

You can attach your game logs. It'll make it a bit easier for Heatblur to hopefully figure out the issue. Might even be something in there that can clue you in. If you haven't yet, you might also try doing a full game repair, though that's not guaranteed to fix things (It didn't for me).

Awesome to know. I was looking through the skins yesterday and thought maybe my files got messed up.

I've been testing out crashes on my end as well. I'm noticing some of the same sound ERROR issues in mine as well. I've tried both full repairs and then just to make sure a full on clean install. Not sure if it's related, but even in a brand new install, I've got some textures missing which makes me wonder if maybe one of the DCS servers had a faulty file on it or something, and we might be missing files needed for the game? Scrolling through the model viewer, I'm missing the default textures from the L118 Light Artillery Gun. No idea if it's related at all, but I thought it was curious for a fresh install. Like some of the other comments I'm noticing, there doesn't seem to be any common time/sound element in terms of what happens in the missions. I've tried rushing through the training missions (I managed to complete the cold start Training #1 once out of about 5 or 6 attempts now, which at least is really driving home the startup procedure) and the 5 or so times it crashed, it wasn't at the same point in terms of the training mission or actual time elapsed in real life. Similarly, the Taxi training mission I've been able to get to various parts of the mission, at one point managing to get to the actual taxiing to the runway phase before the crash. I've had better luck in my own created missions, but even those have had a few crashes, though not as consistently as the training missions which at the moment seem to be crashing around 90 to 95% of the time on me. I'm going to do some more testing this afternoon to see if I can find any common thread with more specific focuses on the time elapsed in real world time. I can also add my log files to this thread if it makes it easier for the Heatblur team.

Tried a self-created mission on the PG Map with just 6 enemy aircraft and some static aircraft. Went from Cold/Dark to up and running, taxied to the runway and just around rotation crashed, so it may not be entirely tied to the training missions. dcs.log