Continuing Problems Getting Black Shark to run.

[Lionman]

Sirs,

Having succeed in purchasing on my second attempt and having finally succeeded at installation after 5 attempts, three fresh downloads of both main files and installed to the root directory not inside the default program files directory (because under VISTA many games won't run from there) now, when I start the program (as Administrator) from its desktop icon, the music begins and the launcher window opens but then nothing happens. Eventually I get a "Not Responding" error message in brackets at the top of the Game's launcher window border but the rest of the window inside the frame remains black.

 

Has anyone else experienced this and does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get BS to run?

 

My OS is VISTA Ultimate Edition (which sucks) EAC is turned off (otherwise no games run at all), my system spec is state-of-the-art and more than adequate as can be seen by my signature below, I have been simming for 25 years, this is my 8th PC and I have been trying for two days now. LOL

 

Just discovered another problem. When I try and open the DCS Black Shark Multiplayer Icon I get an error message saying

 

X Windows cannot find 'bin\stable\DCS.exe'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.

 

Of course I hadn't typed anything, just clicked the icon.

 

I took the advice in the post below and adjusted my 8800 to the lowest settings although I am none too sure what "advanced AI" is when applied ot a video card.. Still no go.

 

Any ideas chaps?

Edited February 2, 2009 by Lionman

[71st_Mastiff]

nVidia 8800GTX try turning any advanced AI settings off.

[Bonkers]

Lionman

 

I am running a similar system, quad cpu, nvidia 8800GTX driver v181.22 (nvidia control panel slider set to Quality), 4Gb ram, under Vista Ultimate 32.

 

I have moved my BS installation to the root of my d: drive.

 

Both BS single player and multi player run fine, however I do not run BS as an administrator.

 

When I tried to run MP as an administrator I got the same response as you ie "Windows cannot find 'bin\stable\DCS.exe'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again".

 

However SP still runs if I run it as an administrator.

 

I suggest you try running BS not as an administrator.

[Slayer]

Why so many attempts to download? Maybee something in one of the install files was corrupted , but not so bad as to not cause the install to fail. I had to redownload 1 of the files myself due to something similar to what you are experiencing. It would be nice if they made a MD5 checksum file for the downloads so we can verify the files. :/

 

Also I would try to install to the default directory. It should work just fine there, it does for me anyways with Vista

 

Bonkers: I'm not sure its safe to just relocate the game directory. I'm pretty sure you will have copy protection/registry/shortcut issues. On my setup if a shortcut becomes invalidated then you cant even open it and I end up having to restart Explorer..

[Bonkers]

Slayer: The reason I copied the Eagle Dynamics folder to the drive root was to facilitate the running of the acmi utility Tacman. For some reason when I run BS from the Program Files folder (NOT as an administrator) the program fails to update various files in the Ka50\temp folder thus causing Tacman not to work. These files are updated if I run BS as an administrator, however I found other issues with running as an administrator with regard to Tacman.

 

Relocating the BS installation solved all these problems for me. Both SP and MP work just fine (when run NOT as an administrator) and Tacman is great for learning where you went wrong and who downed you. However if you want to retain your logbook and campaign progress you have to copy the Players.lua from your original installation after you have run BS for the first time from the new location as the program behaves as if it is being run for the first time ie you have to adjust the settings in Options to your liking.

 

Of course, you have to alter the properties of any shortcuts to reflect the new location. I also use the excellent affinity tool by Wombat, DSCaff, to make better use of my Quad core processor and gain valuable frames.

 

The point I was trying to make to Lionpride was that as an experiment I tried running both SP and MP as an administrator. The SP still worked fine but trying to run the MP resulted in an error message. I thought it must be worth a try, I feel bad when someone can't run this superb sim, knowing what they're missing.

Edited February 6, 2009 by Bonkers