MoleUK

Nice, may have to give that a try. Ideally ED would address it rather than require third party workarounds, but ill take what I can get.

Shadows off can help reproduce this as it makes the problem worse. I haven't hopped in the F-5 for quite some time, but to trigger it in the Mi-8 you usually need to face away from the sun so it's shining from behind to get this effect: I'll try and remember to disable the clear canopy mod that fixes this later to see if I can get a track for you.

Yea unfortunately it requires constant gamma tweaking depending on the time of day and which map it is. And even then it's never quite right. The lighting situation remains my main complaint re: DCS visuals.

20 in a row with the 23mm no ctd, 20 in a row with the grenade pods no ctd, 1st death CTD'd with the guv gunpods. Gonna get back to flying instead of obsessively testing for now lol.

23mm and grenade pods are both safe, it's only the GUV gunpods that trigger it. Uploading vid now.

Yep, this got so bad that I resorted to using a shader mod to disable cloud shadows. Breaks IC but lets me keep shadows on without having huge areas of the map go dark, and/or flicker. It can get REALLY excessive: As this is a longstanding bug, having the official in-game option to disable cloud shadows while retaining all other shadows would be much appreciated. I do have the track for this, but it was on the 21st of June and no longer replays since the streagle update. This first occured to me in VR with a totally different set of settings, and appeared in exactly the same way on the track replay in 2d with a completely different set of settings. So I don't think it's necessarily in-game settings dependant. I thought at one point there was a chance that it was trying to project mountain shadows and bugging out, but since disabling cloud shadows via the shader mod I no longer have any issues. Cold-War-Syria-v109_DME1-20230621-135601.trk

I have a 5800X3D, the server list still overloads it and causes stutters/freezes as it lists them. It's the way it's always been, using the favorites tickbox is the workaround.

Tick the "favorites" box to limit the search results, just be sure to favorite all the servers you want to play on. It limits the CPU overload problem that the server list can experience.

I'll try and get round to testing the 23mm gunpods as well at some point.

No worries. I did actually consider if it was perhaps related to the * I was using in the custom loadouts name but hadn't gotten around to testing it lol. In MP now but let me know if you still want the unit payloads folder.

40 deaths in a row here with no CTD, then switched to a loadout with gunpods and CTD's on third death. Like I said at least I've gotten more efficient at running this test lol. Still processing to 1080p but should be legible in the meantime.

Yes, but it was however a hard CTD with no log or error report created that resulted from ejecting gunpods. Those sort of CTD's are somewhat rare, so not too far fetched to guess it may be related somehow, but it's just a guess. Regardless I cannot replicate a single CTD in the mission editor without loading gunpods, it's been about 50 deaths when slick without a single CTD, about 25-30 with just rockets and no CTD. Also the CTD's did start in march, but for me they stopped entirely at some point until the last patch reintroduced them.

Uploading video now. 20 deaths when slick, no ctd. 20 deaths when loading 6 rocket pods and gunners, no ctd. CTD on third death with the gunpods loaded. I may not managed to recreate a CTD without gunpods. At least I've gotten more efficient at testing this lol.

Yeah I was about to run 20 tests while slick vs with pylons and various loadouts. Pylons may be part of it, or specific loadouts with the pylons. Or the actual overall weight. There was also a recent Mi8 bug that was fixed that caused hard CTD's when jettisoning gunpods of two different types. So that may or may not be related if the loss of pylon loadouts/pylons counts as a jettison maybe?

Thanks for trying. Just had two flights on ECW, both ending in CTD on death. One with the loadout I usually run and one with just gunpods, so idk at this point. Don't understand why I can crash it into the ground 5x over when slick with no CTD but start getting crashes within a few deaths when loaded up. So maybe it does have something to do with weight/inertia. I am a glutton for punishment so I will try doing 20 deaths in a row when slick tomorrow to see if I can produce a single CTD that way. If not then it's got to be loadout/weight/explosion/inertia related.

I'm done butting my head against this problem for now lol. No idea if it's just coincidence that the CTD's refuse to happen unless loading that specific loadout, and whether it's the mix of loadout or the weight/speed when crashing.

Uploading last 2 vids, slow connection. I cannot get it to CTD when slick. It hasn't CTD'd when just loading rockets or just loading gunpods. When loading gunpods, rockets (HEAT in this instance, inner pylons) and sidegunners, it seems to CTD around half the time. Might just need a larger number of tests but it's somewhat consistent. Please try that specific loadout if you haven't yet and just run it into the ground a few times. No need to coldstart or do it in MP. Again I might have just gotten lucky with no CTD in all the other loadout testing, but seems like it might be related.

Just tested armed vs completley slick, that miiiiight be related to the problem. Or I just got lucky on those first few crashes, hard to say for certain. At the end of the video, listen to the engine failure sound at the moment of CTD. Might be coincidence but I think I've heard that sound play during every CTD so far, will keep an ear out going forward. Will do one more sequence of tests and see if it's definitely slick vs unarmed,. Uploading new vid. Couldn't get it to CTD when slick. Didn't CTD with just rockets. It MIGHT be the gunpods, doing one last test run just for gunpods.

Oof. This only re-appeared in the last patch for me personally. Might try it in flatscreen later, but I think most of the people I've seen also having it were playing in 2d. At the very end of this video you can see an instance of a death with no CTD. Might be because it broke apart rather than exploded? Yesterday I had a mid-air CTD when blasted by a missile, so it's not limited to ground deaths. But I'd say for me it's about 80% of deaths result in CTD atm.

I will try that in a bit. But thought I'd try it in the mission editor first. First try, instant CTD. Including the mission incase it's relevant, perhaps it's the weapon loadout that might be playing a part? At a guess it's something that happens when the hip dies a certain way. I have been pilot sniped mid air and not CTD'd, whereas most if not all crashes into the ground trigger it. Might be a certain explosion that's doing it. I did notice on one instance in MP the CTD happened before the server could even register my death. Here's the vid, mission and log: dcs.log hip ctd test.miz

Fingers crosses the next patch catches the bug, it's somewhat infuriating. I'm assuming it's the same bug that cropped up last time, seems to behave the same way. No relevant track, log or error report is usually created with this sort of crash, so not much I can send in. But here it is on video with the log for the flight if it helps, just skip to the end of the vid, was seeing if suiciding into the ground created the CTD reliably. It does. dcs.log

Yea it's been way too dim ever since I first bought it. Same in the Hind as well. M-8 seems much better, but could still do with being a bit brighter imo.

The only search light that seems semi-sufficiently bright is the Mi-8. The Huey and Hind spotlights are very very dim and always have been for me. Fine when you're literally on the ground, but get above 20 feet and they quickly start to dissappear completely.

Yeah this problem is now back for sure. 6 CTD's so far, it's occuring in about 80% of deaths for me. Once when killed midair, all rest on death with impact into the ground. No other CTD's for me, only on deaths in the hip.

Yep that's about right, same experience here as listed in the thread. Being that it arrived in the same patch i'm guessing that it's at least tangentially related but could be wrong.