aaronwhite

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

Annnnnd the testing goes onward. I ran a test using the speakers on my desk instead of the headphones I've been playing with lately. Started up the Training 2 mission, got to the section where you are configuring the TACAN switches and crashed there. So far the crashes aren't occurring at the same time or place in the training. The only similarity seems to be the ERROR ED_SOUND (Main) issues that I'm seeing in the logs. dcs.log

I'm going to continue testing. Since I've been playing with a headset on, and the audio seems to be a point of issue from what I can gather, I'm going to try and run it without the headset through my speakers, and I'll also test it running DCS World as Admin and as a standard user just to make sure there's no issues there with accessing files or anything from what I can tell.

Alright, the testing continues. I uninstalled and re-installed DCS and all of the modules, and started up the first training mission. Looks like it's still showing the issues from before for some odd reason. dcs.log

Alright, I was optimistic for a second there, but I ran into another crash. I started up and did the first training mission to completion without a crash, then started up the second one and got a good way through it before it crashed on me. Looks like it's the same sound issues I saw previously. I'm going to do a complete re-install just to eliminate that issue, but I'll throw my log in here just in case. dcs.log

I'm going to try a full repair with "Check All Files" and if that doesn't work, I'll try a clean install. Luckily for me, since I just got the new computer up and running recently, I'm not missing out on much besides a few downloaded skins.

Yeah, scrolling through, I noticed that as well. I did run the repair DCS after the first one. I'll try a full repair and then report back.

Alright, just tested it out on the first training mission and had a crash at the Pitot heat section. I was flying the F-4 before that on a user made mission and had a crash on the Persian Gulf map shortly after a runway takeoff start, and then before that I had a full cold/dark startup on the Caucasus Map with the F-4 that I flew around for probably 30 minutes without issue. I'm not sure what all way included, but it just crashed aroudcs.lognd 9:09CST for me.

Should be good there. It's a pretty brand new install of DCS, since I just got this new computer about a month ago and with my recent move, still hadn't been able to fly anything until this past week.

Will do, @HB_Painter! I've got the day off so I was going to work on learning the F-4 and I'll throw in a few training missions to grab some logs in the event that it crashes again.

Greetings all, Not sure if this is an isolated incident, but I thought I might post about it just in case others are running into it. I'm experiencing crashes, but only during the F-4E training missions (I've only tried out the first and second ones so far trying to learn the jet properly). It's crashed to desktop maybe 5 times. I've flown the F-4 outside of the training missions without problem, and my computer is pretty new and should have the horsepower needed for DCS. So far I've tried the general startup mission, and made it to different points in that before crashing, I think I was able to complete it once. Then I've tried the taxi and takeoff training twice, with a crash both times. I tried to sanity check by flying the Taxi/Takeoff Hornet training, and was able to do that without crashing. Then I was able to fly the F-4 itself in a created mission of my own, though without much on the map and didn't run into any issues there. I was thinking about maybe dropping all of the settings down to a lower level just to eliminate the potential for a hardware issue, but I haven't noticed any framerate or performance issues so far flying the F-4. I'll toss my specs below and then hopefully this evening I can run another training mission to grab the logs when/if it crashes again. PC Specs: Processor: Intel® Core™ i9-14900KS Processor (8X 3.20GHz + 16X 2.40GHz/36MB L3 Cache) Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z790-V WiFi - WiFi 5, ARGB Header (3), USB 3.2 Ports (1 Type-C, 3 Type-A), M.2 Slot (3) Memory: 64 GB [32 GB X2] DDR5-6000MHz Memory Module - Certified Major Brand Gaming Memory Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER - 16GB GDDR6X (DLSS 3.5 – AI-Powered Performance) PNY VERTO OC Power Supply: 1000 Watt - CORSAIR RM1000e - 80 PLUS Gold PCIe GEN 5, Fully Modular Primary Storage: 1TB WD Blue SN580 M.2 PCIe GEN 4 NVMe SSD

I've always liked the way BMS did it, where I can move my throttles into the detent spot and then click "Afterburner Detent" or whatever the setting is. That way I can easily configure it to be exactly where without the guess work, which is especially useful if your throttle changes aren't something you can easily tune in-game to find the sweet spot.

In fairness, you don't need to read 1,000 pages. It's a digital manual and you can search through it for the things you need. They also made it so you can click on cockpit components and bring the manual up to the page for that item, which is really nice.

There's more detail provided in the manual on the subject, under the DCS Special Options section

Only got about 45 minutes of flying over lunch, after mapping everything, but I've got to say, I love it so far. The new and improved Jester is really nice, and it was still a blast to fly around even having no idea what I was supposed to actually be doing with most anything. Ran off the side of the runway on the first attempt, got airborne and shot down by a MiG-21 I had flying around the 2nd time, and then spent the 3rd time just flying around the airfield with a mostly empty jet and trying to just land without knowing airspeeds or anything else, and it was still a blast. Looking forward to learning this thing properly so I can run off the runway slightly less. Great work, Heatblur, and the skinners who worked on this thing. They all look great, and the cockpit is incredible.

That would be awesome! And now, just what I needed, the F-4 to tempt me with some weathered skins on top of the JF-17, F-14 and Ka-50's I haven't finished...

I started looking through all of the skins for the F-4 and great work, everyone! They look incredible.

You may have just become my hero. I've been using the Photoshop plugin, which isn't awful, but being able to just convert a whole batch at once would be real nice. I took the F-14 out to test it out in game and see how things looked, and it's looking better. Still need to finish some spots up, but I'm hoping to wrap it up today or tomorrow and then start working on a more weathered version and some of the other camo variants. The splinter camo looks like it could be fun...and maddening. null

Oddly in searching, I stumbled on a Reddit thread in a GIMP subreddit that referenced these very forums. They have a section on exporting that might be helpful.

The template is definitely sorted out a little differently from some of the others I have worked on, where everything was crammed into as much space as possible. I'm going off of memory from yesterday, but I believe f14-EXT_01 is the right side of the plane, mirrored, EXT_02 is the left side of the plane, and shows up as is. EXT_03 is the right side of the engine intake, top-right/lower side of the fuselage from the engines to the back of the wings, and some of the rear engine duct, and it is also mirrored. EXT_04 is the same as that, only unmirrored and on the left side of the fuselage. Outside of that, the rest are pretty easy to sort out from the name. The layers have pretty accurate description names, though they don't always match between various template files from what I've found. Fortunately, they appear to have left all of the in-game liveries they created in the template file, so you can always turn those on to see how things are arranged on the skin and get a better idea of what is wear. Alternatively, you can delete them all to save some space. All in all, it shouldn't take too long to sort out what goes where. They have the base layers all marked in red with "Do Not Touch" to let you know to avoid them, which I go ahead and just lock in Photoshop when I start to make sure an errant click doesn't accidentally drag a base weathering layer off center without my noticing. Another easy way to help figure out what is where on the model that I usually do is just work a template at a time and color the large areas in with a solid color, export it, and then open the model in the DCS Model Viewer to see where things line up. You can always add different lines or markings at one end if you need to figure out which direction something is pointing. I've been saving my DDS files with the format: BC7 RGBA 8bpp | explicit alpha and it appears to be working as intended. I'm happy to get a correction on that one. Good luck!

Some light progress this morning during a meeting. I'm trying to nail down the markings a bit. The originals were way too lime green and bright red, so I've tried to get something a bit closer to the photo references I've managed to find. Finding the top camo has been a bit tough, so there's some "educated" guessing going on there. Hopefully I can finish it up sometime this week, time permitting, and then try my hand at the splinter camo for fun. null

They look too good to not use them. I'll happily fly the JASDF over Georgia and tell myself "They've thrown their entire history of self-defense away to assist the US in operations in Georgia" just as an excuse to fly those liveries.