Trouble getting a DCS 1.5 server running on Windows Server 2012 R2

[codefox]

I'm currently trying to get a DCS 1.5 server running for private testing purposes.

However, I'm running into a few issues.

I purchased a dedicated server a few days ago and proceeded to install Windows Server 2012 R2 on it - DX11 compatible graphics provided.

 

00101.243 ERROR   DX11BACKEND: Shader "enlight/sun.fx:DIRECTX11=true;" failed to create.
00101.244 INFO    DCS: try to write dump information
00101.258 INFO    EDCORE: # -------------- 20160304-193207 --------------
00101.274 INFO    EDCORE:  
00101.291 INFO    EDCORE: # C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION at DAAD19C3 00:00000000
00101.307 INFO    EDCORE: 00000000 00000000 0000:00000000 
00101.349 INFO    EDCORE: DAAD19C3 0059ED40 0000:00000000  ??1DX11Renderer@RenderAPI@@QEAA@XZ()+34E03
00101.366 INFO    EDCORE: DAADB06B 0059EDA0 0000:00000000  ?createFrameBuffer@DX11Renderer@RenderAPI@@UEAA?AV?$Ptr@UIFrameBuffer@RenderAPI@@UDeleter@12@@ed@@AEBV?$vector@V?$Ptr@UITexture@RenderAPI@@UDeleter@12@@ed@@V?$allocator@V?$Ptr@UITexture@RenderAPI@@UDeleter@12@@ed@@@2@@4@V?$Ptr@UITexture@RenderAPI@@UDeleter@12@@4@@Z()+5B
00101.367 INFO    EDCORE: DE861C3C 0059EE60 0000:00000000  ??0MaterialParams@enlight@@QEAA@XZ()+A6C
00101.367 INFO    EDCORE: DE86365C 0059EFE0 0000:00000000  ??0MaterialParams@enlight@@QEAA@XZ()+248C
00101.369 INFO    EDCORE: DE865777 0059F020 0000:00000000  ??0MaterialParams@enlight@@QEAA@XZ()+45A7
00101.369 INFO    EDCORE: DDCD4B6C 0059F110 0000:00000000  ??0SceneManager_Implement@@QEAA@XZ()+A2C
00101.370 INFO    EDCORE: DDCDFBCA 0059F150 0000:00000000  ?CreateSceneManager@smSceneManager@@SAXXZ()+2A
00101.370 INFO    EDCORE: 46238E36 0059F220 0000:00000000 
00101.371 INFO    EDCORE: 46237B79 0059F2A0 0000:00000000 
00101.371 INFO    EDCORE: 462FA921 0059F950 0000:00000000 
00101.374 INFO    EDCORE: 462FDF95 0059F990 0000:00000000 
00101.377 INFO    EDCORE: F93C168D 0059F9C0 0000:00000000  BaseThreadInitThunk()+D
00101.377 INFO    EDCORE: F9684629 0059FA10 0000:00000000  RtlUserThreadStart()+1D
00101.586 INFO    EDCORE: Minidump created.

This error appears as soon as I fire up DCS. It starts taking about 95% load, keeps on doing so for like half a minute and then crashes with the above error.

 

I made some investigations and found out this is caused by the new default main menu skin (the clouds), so I used the advice to disable them within MissionEditor\settings.lua.

The file looks as follows:

local settings = {
   ["controlsTab"] = {
   },
   ["fileDialog"] = {
   },
   ["hiddenMapLayers"] = {
   },
   ["lastCampaign"] = {
   },
   ["lastTraining"] = {
   },
   ["mainMenu"] = {
       ["skinName"] = "Su-25T by Eagle Dynamics1",
   },
   ["openFileDialogParams"] = {
   },
   ["quickStart"] = {
   },
   ["recordAviParams"] = {
   },
}
return settings

I also set render3D to false within the autoexec.cfg.

 

There was one time DCS started up and I got to the login screen but no further. Interestingly, the cloud background was there.

I never got it running again, tried starting it up multiple times and messing with the configuration multiple times.

 

Does anyone know how I could get out of this issue? Thanks for any ideas you guys might have!

Edited March 4, 2016 by codefox

[codefox]

I got it to run once again now.. seems to be some kind of Russian Roulette though. Something weird appears to be going on here. On a second take, it didn't start up.

[sslechta]

CodeFox/Stone,

 

Here's a registry tweak to graphics we did on the VA server that may help you.

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2555162&postcount=21

 

Also, is the tweak you did above for the settings.lua in the Program Files or Saved Games folder? That may make a difference.

[codefox]

Thanks Steve/Slick!

I somehow missed the posts about this registry entry and it finally solved my issues. Set it to 10 and DCS runs smoothly, albeit a bit slow on startup now.

[sslechta]

Glad you got it working. I think for the most part that this setting just helps you get by the start screens. Once the game loads, there's usually not an issue.

[codefox]

Since the issue is related, I don't wanna open a new thread. For some reason the CPU load is massive. Not sure whether this was much of an issue before but since I switched my host OS to Linux (hosting a Windows Server VM using KVM), this is causing me big trouble.

 

When DCS is running, it's taking almost 100% CPU load on all the cores. I tried running with 2 and with 4, same result. With 1 core, DCS didn't want to start. At this moment I set it to two since four maxed out CPU cores (on my host) don't really appeal to me.

 

 

Does anyone have any idea regarding this one? The mission is a really simple one, it only got 8 player units (unoccupied), no AI, no scripts, no further objects. The mission was even paused, though this doesn't make any difference at all.