ACS

Nice place to visit, this folder !!! Some interesting tech-files ! I found only one".cash" there who - might - be the first crash I had, but it isn't sure AT ALL. This crash was also logged in XP. I can see it into the "Applications diary" with the "XP Events Observer" administrator tool: Date: 14.09.2009 Time: 16:11:55 Application défaillante dcs.exe, version 1.0.1.0, module défaillant edobjects.dll, version 0.0.0.0, adresse de défaillance 0x000256cc. This zip: http://www.acsoft.ch/tmp/DCS-crashfile.zip contain this crash file and some other log's files, in relation with error(s), I found there. Many thanks in forward to have a look on this. ACS

YOU say that, I never said that. :huh: In fact, I NEVER thought that BlackShark had the same protection, because I new since the beginning, it is using the new StarForce protection sheme. What I thought, is what I explained. Some spurious unwanted remaining code. So, I asked that on the forum, to have opinion of other's about that and as I said, I have it now. Have a look here: http://www.acsoft.ch/AMSO/amso.html http://www.acsoft.ch/AMSO/IMAGES/images.html http://www.acsoft.ch/Flight_Simulator/flight_simulator.html So, as you can see, I should have some knowledges about C & C++ low level language programmation. :smilewink: Maybe a better place for it, would have been the "readme.txt" of the recent patch. Maybe even a chapter explaining what you said about the advantage of using Vista or even Win7 could be have been more helpful for a newbie, than to have to spend hours on various forums to sort a lot of informations, sometimes contradictory. Just my two cents. I will look for that, thanks for the info ! Funny, this exactly the subject of a conversation I had yesterday evening with one of my good friend !!! ACS

First of all, thanks guys for all your kind assistance !!! I really appreciate !!! FeuerFalke, I know how work the old StarForce protection and being a programmer myself, I also know it might be possible that a piece of code from an old protection sheme, could remain somewhere, without to affect the game run (so it stay hidden). More complex is the part of the protection code inside the user code, more efficient will be the protection. So, it may do call one of these "damned" StarForce drivers. Now, of course, I set this "StarForce hypothesis" only because the crash is right the same as those I had when dealing with the StarForce case I described in my 1st message. But, of course, maybe this kind of behavior is perhaps just standard for any "crash to reboot". Fortunately, my PC isn't crashing all the time, so, I have only very few experience with that !!! Now, you, the experienced user's, said it isn't that. OK, I have the answer I wanted and thanks for it. GGTharos, how many crashes ? Muuummm, 4-5 so far and I started to play intensively with BS about 7 days ago, when I remarked, downloaded and installed the 1.0.1 patch. Black Shark, Internet version (english) is installed on my PC since long (I buy it maybe about 1 month after publication). I didn't had much free time to play in this period, but must of all, I was discouraged to start learning, when I saw that the game was sooooo much "Hard core", without real Tutorial help (I mean, the included trainings tracks, to my taste, are just good to make you run away from this game, shouting "heeeeelp meeee !!!!" LOL !!!). When you try to start, you don't even found a single specific Tutorial missions (something like a cold & dark cockpit without ennemies) to start with !!! I had the feeling I buyed a real "diamant gem", but it was locked behind an "armoured shop window" (see me, but don't touch me !!!) LOL. After 1.0.1 installation, this is the first things I do. I created a basic mission with just the K50 on an airport to start and fly with. Now, it was very interesting for me to learn from you that DCS doesn't -really- take advantage of multiple CPU's yet and that performance boost, going from XP to Vista/Win7, can be between 70 and 120%. For your information, this is my PC configuration: Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH DELUXE Proc: INTEL CORE DUO EXTREME (CONROE XE) 2.93GHZ Memory: DDR2 2GB [1GBX2] DDR800 (PC2-6400) CORSAIR TWINX Hard-disk: 2X SATA300 320GB - 7200 HITACHI DESKSTAR T7K500 (16MB) Graphic: MSI GeForce 7900GTX 512DDR OS: Windows XP version 2002 SP3 (french) Will I have the courage to migrate to Windows 7 before I change my PC ? That is the question. Soooo much work to do !!! I prefer flying !!! Best Regards to all of you and many thanks again for the kind help ! ACS

Don't Be. That would be Incorrect. So DCS is incorrect ! This is a part of the installation "readme.txt": SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Minimum system requirements: Windows XP, Vista; CPU P4 2GHz, RAM 2 GB; Video 256MB RAM, compatible with DirectX9; 5GB of HDD space; sound card; DVD ROM; keyboard; mouse. Recommended system requirements: Windows XP; CPU Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD X2, RAM 3 GB; Video Card with 512 MB RAM (ATI Radeon HD4850+ or nVidia GF8800+), compatible with DirectX9; 5GB of HDD space; sound card; DVD ROM; keyboard; mouse, joystick. But what I remember I read (but, unfortunately can't refound), was more emphasing that Windows XP was better. This text was explaining some reasons why. Anyway, let's hope I will finally found how to cure these crashes. ACS

Don't forget that Black Shark come from LockOn and LockOn had the previous StarForce protection sheme, with drivers. Who knows ! A spurious piece of code forgotten somewhere ? This could be perfectly possible, especially in such complex codes !!! Anyway, I have a way to clarify that, it is to use "sfdrvrem.exe" tool, to fully remove StarForce and see if it still crash. But I hesitate to do that, because it will be a mess to restore the previous state (I don't want to loose the usage of both SHIII & LockOn). Feuerfalke, I don't have dangerous options. For the third time, I DO NOT RUN Black Shark in "/3GB" mode !!! And when I boot in "/3GB" mode to use FS9, I do marvellous flights in real time /real weather and simply NEVER have a single CTD. Of course, a more powerful machine will probably help to improve the running performance of Black Shark, but this will be for later on. My actual machine is not fully amortized !!! Moreover, my feeling is that my actual machine isn't obsolete to run Black Shark properly. Outside these rare crashes, BS run like a charm, with good frame rate. Speaking of memory, debug display (Ctrl-Pause twice) say about 480 MB, while flying the tutorial mission, so still some room for more complicate missions, with more objects !!! I am also surprised that you advise to prefer Vista or Windows 7. I think I remember I read somewhere (I think even from somebody of DCS) that Black Shark was running better on XP machine ?!? In any cases, believe me !!! The fact that Black Shark is the first game on my PC to finally really take advantage of my two processor cores make a greater difference !!! ACS

Thanks FeuerFalke for your advices about "/3GB". I don't know if you are a hard core user of FS and read the ton's of discussions about this matter in all specialized FS forum, like I have done myself. Suffering of OOM error since I buyed the PMDG MD-11 in the begin of this year, I even participated to several of these discussions to ask question to specialists and spend months to fully understand all the OOM problematic and the "/3GB solution". Of course, such kind of modifications can be dangerous, if you don't know what you do and the potential consequences. But I know what I do and I am pretty sure that my system memory range (userva parameter) is properly tuned, according to my system configuration. In any cases, this has nothing to do with my case. As I said, since I discover the problem with StarForce games, I boot my PC in "/3GB" mode ONLY for sessions to play with FS9. It is only that these BS crashes are totally similar to the StarForce crashes when booted in "/3GB" mode. ACS

Hi FeuerFalke, Thanks for answering. I fear your are wrong by saying /3GB is disabled since SP1, because if you would be right, this modif woudn't affect PC behaviors and obviously IT DOES. With FS9, it allow to cure those damned OOM errors, with high graphic's addon's & aircrafts and as I said, StarForce drivers crash the PC when it is booted that way and that IS SURE (I made investigations). All my PC temperature are a far before the limits. CPU 32 degrees / MB 44 degrees / Graphic processor core 46 degrees. After intensive BS play, I notice an increase of max 2-3 degrees on CPU & Graphic processor temperatures. I don't use overclocking. By saying "intense graphic moment" I didn't meant heavy graphic work for a long time, then finally it crash by overwarming, as you probably supposed. For example, when rockets hit the ground, BS must instantaneously load some textures for the explosions and probably some sounds too and create all these explosions objects, etc... This is the context sensitive for those crashes. A sudden "rush" in what the program has to do. ACS

Hello, Since now, I have had very few (thanks God !!!) "nasty Black Shark crashes". I said "Nasty" because it is not a "classical CTD", but a "Crash to Reboot" and after reboot, my Windows XP-SP3 FR (32 bits) tell me that it has recover a "serious" error and produce a log. A few time ago, I have had exactly the same "Crash to Reboot", when I discovered that my other StarForce protected older games (Silent Hunter III, LockOn 1.12b) didnt liked AT ALL, the Windows system modification called "/3GB" in the FS world (it consist to edit "boot.ini" file and add to [operating systems] section, "/3GB /userva=2560". This way, OS allocate less adressable space to the system and more to applications). These games were cashing exactly the same way, immediately on launch, with similar error log's. Of course, now, I reboot my PC in "/3GB mode" only while playing FS2004, Therefore, the Black Shark crashes I refer to occured with a standard boot. A last clue. Each of these crashes were tied with an "intense graphic moment". For example, I fired a salvo of numerous rocket and the crash occured when rockets hit the ground. Do you have any clues/tracks to try to avoid these crashes ? Thanks in forward ? ACS

Thanks ! I will do with this info ! By the way, I already tried the modif. Read again my message. Anyway, I just regret not to know what kind of glitch could occur. So I could have tested and compared, to decide which solution is the best. So, I will let this modification, until I eventually discover something else bad who would be caused by this change. OK, OK, guys !!! I don't think it is necessary to take my remark so badly. I mean, I didn't saw, in this thread, intervention of DCS dev team, explaining how hard this bug is to chase and how hard they tried to kill it. So I am founded to suppose (I said: Apparently,... don't seem...) they are maybe not very motivated to work hard on that and prefer to work on something else much more interesting. Nothing wrong with that. ACS

Many thanks for the help ! I changed 3x "middle_clip" parameter from 4 to 2, into "Graphics.cfg" and the problem disappeared ! Now, on the other thread, "Vip3R" say this cause "another xd". I don't understand what he mean. Can somebody explain this to a Swiss-French guy like me ? Some other guys seem also suspicious about this correction. So, experts guys !!! Is-it OK with this clipping modification of does it "dig a bigger hole" somewhere else ? I hope it can be maintained, because the other thread is dated of end of November 2008 and the recent patch 1.0.1 still didn't correct this old problem. Apparently, DCS don't seem very motivated to correct this !!! ACS

Hello, Does anybody know how to correct this problem in Black Shark 1.0.1 ? What is called "blicking line" on the pic is, in fact, flickering. The problem occur only from cockpit, no matter which graphic "shadow" setting is taken. Thanks in forward for any help ! ACS

Thanks guys ! Now, I feel better. My joystick isn't defect and as you say both, time now to use SST to make a nice functions mapping ! Regards, ACS

Hello, Lockon 1.12a read randomly functions "buttons #33 & #34" (used by the small wheel on the throttle) as they were activated (without touching the wheel at all) ?!? For example, if you try to change some X-52 buttons assignment in Lockon setup, it is a real nightmare, because most of the time, it will read #33 or #34 as soon as the small assigment window open and before you have the time to press on the button you want. Luckily, sometime the little window remain stable a bit more longer, so I can finally do the assignement. This occur also during simulation. I have assigned #33 & #34 on the airbrake in/out, and I can see the airbrake working crasy when flying. I suspected first that maybe my brand new X-52 was defective, but on the Windows Joystick Properties test window, this wheel (#32, #33, #34) work perfectly, without these parasital "on" states ?!? So I don't know what to think now. Does anyone has the same behavior ? Can this problem be solved ? Thanks in forward for any clues and help. Best Regards, Alain Capt ACSoft Productions