fixed AI F-14 Game freezing/not responding

[rmk80]

Hi all,

I started playing again after a while, and I can't seem to finish a missions before the game freezes and is no longer responding.

This never happened to me before, with the same PC and hardware.

I already repaired the game files, excluded the folder from AV software, but that didn't help.

Note that I only play in VR (Rift S), I play latest Liberation through a dedicated server.

Attached is the latest log file. Is there anything I could try?

 

 

 

dcs.log

[rmk80]

Ok nevermind, I finally found the culprit.

It was the Rift S causing the freezes. I switched the USB port and all is fine again

[rmk80]

Ok, I was too optimistic. It just crashed/freezed again. Every time it happens I am on my way back from my mission and approaching the supercarrier.

There is another topic describing the same behaviour. 

[rmk80]

I have been testing the last couple of days, what is causing this freezing issue.

At first I thought it to be related to the Oculus Rift, so i tried:

- switching between normal and beta drivers

- swiching usb and displayports

- buying a powered usb hub

This did not effect the freezing.

Next I tried changing things things on my PC:

- updating/changing display drivers

- disabling led lighting mobo etc

- removed all underclocks

- removing and disabling software (AV, process lasso, MSI afterburner)

Still no effect. I get consistent freezing about 50 nm form the carrier when returning from a mission. 
 

So i repaired DCS, renamed/rebuild saved games, changed supercarrier to Stennis and still no effect.

The only things that seems to effect it, is when I don’t switch between external views during missions.  As long as I don’t switch from aircraft to aircraft through F2, I can make It till the carrier without the game locking up. I have a habit of switching through all active aircraft to see what my side is doing.

What does this mean? Is this a memory issue or leak? I run fairely high settings on my 3090, should I tune things down to not overload my PC? Any help is appreciated

[silverdevil]

perhaps try to add a static pagefile. 

2022-04-30 20:09:32.458 INFO    APP: CPU cores: 8, threads: 16, System RAM: 32596 MB, Pagefile: 7168 MB 

 

On 4/9/2022 at 3:57 PM, Flappie said:

Your game seems to be given a small 4GB of pagefile. You might want to increase that manually. I don't usually advise this as long as I don't see the "E_OUTOFMEMORY" error in logs, but since there is apparently no other symptom in your log, that's worth a shot.

Before donig this, ensure you have enough free space in your pagefile drive (whch should be your fastest drive by default). Around 50 GB of free space will do.

Set your pagefile this way:

• min size: 32768 (32 GB)
• max size: 32768 (32 GB)

https://mcci.com/support/guides/how-to-change-the-windows-pagefile-size/

 

 

[rmk80]

Ok, I finally found the solution! Thanks to this thread: 

 

Apparently when you like switching views a lot in VR (F2, F6), you need to set terrain textures to low (instead of high)!

Just did 2 test flights and is no longer freezing despite me switching views a lot.

 

 

[Clunk1001]

+1

Mine tends to freeze between 30-60 mins (usually when returning to carrier).

I now have a mission file (Generated from Liberation) where I can consistently replicate this (with the F-14, both A and B).

Its a runway Launch from Super Carrier, I sit on the carrier till 32 mins into mission (speed up time to 32 mins), then launch, then gear up, then press F3 (fly past view).  Instantly freezes requiring End Task.

But it works fine when flying the F18 !!

 i7-10700, GTX3070, 64GB RAM

Tried Reinstall. and all the tips and tricks I could find on here.  

Anyone any suggestions?

dcs.log liberation_nextturn.miz

Edited May 20, 2022 by Clunk1001

[rmk80]

Well lowering the terrain and/or plane textures to low certainly does help in reducing the crashes/freezes.

But I still get freezes on low texture settings, both in F-14 and FA-18, while I have a 3090 with 24Gb so memory really should not be an issue.

The crashes happen consistently after carrying out the mission while returning to the carrier. At a certain moment at around 40-50 miles it appears a lot of data needs to be loaded and it is either a hicup or a complete freeze of the application. 
 

I see lots of posts on different forums describing the same behaviour. Would really appreciate it if DCS could look into this.

[Toad McFrog]

A friend and I are having the exact same issue.  Oddly enough, it only appears to happen for us while playing Liberation missions.  It's almost always while on approach to landing whether it's carrier or land, and it's happened while playing a mission single player and while playing multiplayer on a dedicated server.  The end of the log seems to be different every time and doesn't seem to point to a cause that I can find.  It has also happened to me outside of the aircraft - last night, after dying, my client froze after the view switched to the carrier. 

Very strange, and very frustrating.

I'll start collecting the logs after the freezes and post them here to see if anyone can see something I'm not seeing.

[rmk80]

Thanks for your reply.

I too play Liberation missions, Since it is all I play, I can't really comment if this is happening in other missions as well.

I too have crashes when hosting in single player, as well as dedicated server.

Also when dying and watching the missions as an observer through F2 I too get freezes.

Especially when switch to a unit that is close to the carrier.

[Toad McFrog]

1 hour ago, rmk80 said:

Thanks for your reply.

I too play Liberation missions, Since it is all I play, I can't really comment if this is happening in other missions as well.

I too have crashes when hosting in single player, as well as dedicated server.

Also when dying and watching the missions as an observer through F2 I too get freezes.

Especially when switch to a unit that is close to the carrier.

Oddly enough, I just had it happen while playing in single player.  I was about 100mi from the carrier at 25,000ft (so not about to land), but I was F2ing around looking what was going on.  When it locked up, I just so happened to be looking at an F14 that was getting ready to land. 

All of the talk of the carrier made me realize that this didn't happen to me while I was running a campaign that didn't have a carrier.  Very strange.  I've attached the logs just in case anyone might see something there.  

dcs.log

[HeavyGun1450]

Yea I am getting the same thing since the last major update, the game will randomly lock up and require you to force end the game and as a result it wont generate a crash file. Log file shows nothing obvious other then radioclickafter/before.wave cant be loaded. Specifically happening in the F14

[rmk80]

Ok, just a small update. i'm starting to suspect the F-14 is causing this, considering the different posts mentioning this.

So I started a new Liberation campaign, on the same map, including the supercarrier, but without any F-14's on either side.

Well, I just finished a 1+ hour flight without any freezes

During the missions I have been cycling through all units external views like crazy, but it still didn't crash.

Of course this is just 1 mission, so I have to test this further, but my guess is that the feezes are somehow caused by the F-14, specifically by any communication/sound related issue related to the carrier

Edited May 24, 2022 by rmk80

[rmk80]

Ok, I haven't got any freezes anymore ever since I took the F-14 out of the equation.

Reading through other topics it seems the F-14 has an issue with late activation since 2.70.

Is this something ED is looking into? This kind of renders the module useless

[Kovacs]

Yes same thing for me with the F14. 

[Kovacs]

I tried again, long flight with the F18, more than an hour, no problem. With the F14 (obviously always after the success of the mission...) the game freezes without warning.

Config: i9 9900, 64 GB ram, Nvidia RTX 3080.

Edited May 30, 2022 by Kovacs

[ebabil]

F-14, Syria, 4YA servers. 

Crashes very often. I can't even use mouse cursor for about 10 mins. 

[XCNuse]

Popping in to wonder if this was also my situation was in relation to the F14;

This mission I ran had 2x groups of F14B's (AI), and all 4 of us on that server locked up multiple times; no crashes, just total freezes

oddly at separate times.
I will have to attempt to replace the F14s with something else and run the mission again and see if it locks up....

 

[Toad McFrog]

I can confirm that not having F-14s in our Liberation missions seems to prevent the freezes.  When they are present, limiting the amount of F2'ing around we do also seems to help.  That said, the number of data points I have to confirm this is small, so I'm not wholly willing to call it the F-14s fault yet.

[rmk80]

2 hours ago, Toad McFrog said:

I can confirm that not having F-14s in our Liberation missions seems to prevent the freezes.  When they are present, limiting the amount of F2'ing around we do also seems to help.  That said, the number of data points I have to confirm this is small, so I'm not wholly willing to call it the F-14s fault yet.

Oh I'm definately there already. So far it has been the only way to really prevent the freezes. I can F2 with all settings on high like a mad man and it won't freeze if there is no F-14 present in the mission.

If only we could find out wat is actually triggering this? At first I suspected late activation but this does not seem the case. I do notice that most freezes happen after 30+ minutes.

Are you all playing Liberation or do some of you also experience this in other missions?

[Toad McFrog]

13 minutes ago, rmk80 said:

I do notice that most freezes happen after 30+ minutes.

Yes, same here.  In our case it seems to mostly happen as we are descending to land. 

[HeavyGun1450]

Got it to happen in the FA-18C as well. Was flying for about 2 hours, switched to F11 view and the game freezes and locks up. No errors or anything abnormal in my .log file which tells me this must be something in the games code.

dcs.log

[rmk80]

2 hours ago, HeavyGun1450 said:

Got it to happen in the FA-18C as well. Was flying for about 2 hours, switched to F11 view and the game freezes and locks up. No errors or anything abnormal in my .log file which tells me this must be something in the games code.

dcs.log 193.05 kB · 2 downloads

Can you confirm there are also F-14s present in the mission (AI) or not?

Can you confirm if this is a Liberation mission or not?

[HeavyGun1450]

8 minutes ago, rmk80 said:

Can you confirm there are also F-14s present in the mission (AI) or not?

Can you confirm if this is a Liberation mission or not?

Yes there are both Player and AI F14's on this MP server (Flashpoint Levant)

[IronMike]

We're aware of this issue now and will look into it. Whether this is on our side and/or really related to the F-14 specifically - I cannot really say, but if it is ofc we hope that we can fix it asap.

Thank you.