Crash to reboot: StarForce guilty ?

[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

[Feuerfalke]

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

 

The /3GB mode is disabled since ServicePack1, so I doubt this is the cause for the crash, because it simply is ignored by your SP3 XP.

 

As you said, there were "intense graphic moment"s, so I strongly doubt it's starforce either.

 

What are your temperatures of CPU in idle (just desktop after reboot) and full load (e.g. when playing DCS)? Also your graphics cards temperature would be interesting to know. Did you overclock anything?

[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

[GGTharos]

It could also be the sound. Try tuning the sound off in the game and see if you get the same problem.

[blaster454]

I have had similar crashes to reboot (a "serious" error in Windows :smilewink:) both in Black Shark and in some other 3d games where the error diagnostics pointed to a "driver" problem causing the crash. So far it has been due to graphics drivers and updating (or in some cases, down-dating) usually solved the problem.

[Feuerfalke]

The original design of the 3GB-switch was to increase usable memory for those applications that benefit from using more than 3GB of RAM, because their program-setting allows it. There are only a few that do.

 

This comes at a high price, though, as the switch secures a single block of 3GB for program usage and thereby in effect halfens the Kernel-memory.

 

While this is no problem for serverside OS, it is quite dangerous for most private users, who have additional hardware installed, with drivers that easily surpass this halfened ammount of kernel-memory. It was therefore disabled as an option in XP.

 

However, if your FORCE this option back in, you may suffer from the failures described at support.microsoft.com: Drivers will only be loaded until the memory is full - additional drivers or components are not available. In the worst case your XP won't boot at all, because vital parts of windows have no storage room.

 

So, if you really managed to force the 3GB switch active, Starforce may indeed crash, as the driver probably has no room to be loaded to. Same is most likely for other drives, which in return are the most likely cause for the crash.

 

I'd recommend you start BlackShark and press CTRL-ROLL twice to check the total memory used. I'm pretty sure it won't use more than 2GB.

 

On second note, you should also be aware, that your total ammount of usable RAM decreases with more graphics memory. In best case, you have 3.5GB accessable for windows, most likely it's closer to 3.1GB. If you substract 3GB your windows got to be rather slim to still work without problems.

 

If you still insist using it, try to use the userva-value by 64 or 128.

Edited September 21, 2009 by Feuerfalke

[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

[159th_Viper]

Regarding Black Shark particularly, Starforce is in all probability not at fault in your instance due to the fact that no SF drivers are installed on your PC, unlike previous SF reiterations (LockOn 1.12a/b).

 

As an aside, thought of Upgrading your O/S to Vista/Win7? Substantial performance gains in BS to be expected :)

[GGTharos]

Specifically, get 64-bit Win7, and you can forget the 2GB limit.

[Feuerfalke]

I know there are a lot of discussions about that /3GB-switch on the FS-forums. You can read many different statements about it on this forum, too. Infact some people go even one step further and add a RamDrive to this modification, so all available memory can be used. But it simply doesn't work that way.

But be that as it may, as I posted before, I doubt that is the cause for your posted problem.

 

But I also doubt that Starforce is your problem, as the Starforce games you named are based on different protection systems. DCS does no longer install a complete memory resistant driver like it was the case with SHIII and FC. So it would be a stunning coincidence that two independent systems cause a crash, just because they have the same name.

 

 

And on a final note on memory limitations:

Specifically, get 64-bit Win7, and you can forget the 2GB limit.

 

That's right on the mark.

Got 6GB of RAM + 2GB GFX-memory on Vista64bit and DCS has 3.5GB at it's hand, no switch, no dangerous options, no crashes and no reloading in flight ;)

[ACS]

... But I also doubt that Starforce is your problem, as the Starforce games you named are based on different protection systems. DCS does no longer install a complete memory resistant driver like it was the case with SHIII and FC. So it would be a stunning coincidence that two independent systems cause a crash, just because they have the same name.

 

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).

 

 

... Got 6GB of RAM + 2GB GFX-memory on Vista64bit and DCS has 3.5GB at it's hand, no switch, no dangerous options, no crashes and no reloading in flight ;)

 

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

[159th_Viper]

......I am also surprised that you advise to prefer Vista or Windows 7.....QUOTE]

 

Don't Be.

 

.......that Black Shark was running better on XP machine ?!?......

 

That would be Incorrect.

[ACS]

......I am also surprised that you advise to prefer Vista or Windows 7.....

 

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

[Feuerfalke]

Don't forget that Black Shark come from LockOn and LockOn had the previous StarForce protection sheme, with drivers.

I'm sorry, but it's not that easy. Copy protections usually are made and sold by separate companies and bought to protect a game. In normal development the software is applied to the game just before it is going gold/being published.

As ED/TFC probably doesn't even have full access to the copy-protection code, there is no way this protection is the same.

 

Feuerfalke, I don't have dangerous options. For the third time, I DO NOT RUN Black Shark in "/3GB" mode !!!

Yes and no.

1. These settings are dangerous, but if you have programs which benefit from it, that's your own business.

2. I never said that your /3GB-switch is the cause of your crashes in BS. Infact I stated that from the very beginning. I just posted what it does and what risks come with it. Not more, not less.

 

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.

The opposite is the fact. Apparently during testing it was found that one campaign that came with the game ran slower on Vista, hence the recommendation.

Once the game was released, though, it was pretty clear that there was a mistake in the games settings that made DCS run on one core only. Of course XP had the advantage as it is the lighter OS.

After setting it manually to use 2 or more cores, though, Vista is tremendously faster since XP does not natively support multicore/multiprocessor-systems and barely benefits from running a program on more than one core.

With the Patch 1.0.1 the limitation to one core has been corrected.

You'll find dozens of threads here that performance boost going from XP to Vista/Win7 is between 70 and 120% (no matter wether it is 32bit Vista or 64bit, btw)

Edited September 22, 2009 by Feuerfalke

[159th_Viper]

^^^^^^^^^

 

ACS - Do You Believe Me Now..........? :music_whistling:

 

:P

[GGTharos]

Don't forget that Black Shark come from LockOn and LockOn had the previous StarForce protection sheme, with drivers.

 

Doesn't matter.

 

Who knows !

 

I know.

 

A spurious piece of code forgotten somewhere ? This could be perfectly possible, especially in such complex codes !!!

 

Yeah, like perhaps your geaphics or sound drivers? ;)

 

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).

 

DCS doesn't use the driver at all as of 1.01 (The only version that did so was the Russian DVD version in 1.00).

 

 

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.

 

Which means very little; FS9 might not be taxing your graphics or sound drivers, as an example.

 

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 !!!

 

When you say rare, how rare? No, I don't think your machine is obsolete either.

 

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

 

That was already explained - and DCS doesn't -really- take advantage of multiple CPU's yet. There's some part of DX that will offload to another core, but it's not -real- multi-processor capability.

 

Win7 will be your friend.

[Feuerfalke]

On a sidenote, if you included settings in your Boot.ini, you probably noticed the maximum-memory setting for booting.

 

When you don't use your modified boot.ini for BS anyway, you might want to try to set that to 4096 or whatever highest value is available for you. That is not hacking into possible hazardous options, but some programs also benefit from this simple setting (maybe including FS9).

 

BTW did you disable your swap-file? With 4GB of RAM installed, you may give this a try also. On rather graphics dependend games like FS9 and ArmA2, this might decrease stutters, too. I don't recommend this for inexperienced users, but I guess you know your way around windows-options.

[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

Edited September 22, 2009 by ACS

[Feuerfalke]

Just to make sure I understand your argument:

 

You posted before that LOMAC and FC are using the old version of StarForce and concluded the same old protection is in use for BlackShark, because it shares the same graphics-engine.

 

Now, after GGTharos confirmed it is not, you concluded that based on your prefession as a programmer it is most likely that parts of the old code still remain in the new release?

 

:huh:

 

 

What sort of programming do you work on?

 

What would you say if somebody who bought your software, then produces another software and includes parts of your code into it? Isn't that considered a crime?

 

@Win7 topic:

No, I wouldn't switch to another OS before getting new hardware unless you intend to not activate Win7 unless you have that new hardware installed. Otherwise your activation will most likely have to be renewed.

 

 

BTW: Updated requirements and recommendations are available on the DCS-site:

Windows XP, Vista; CPU Intel Core 2 Duo 3GHz or AMD equivalent, RAM 2 GB; Video Card with 512 MB RAM (ATI Radeon HD4850+ or nVidia GF8800+), compatible with DirectX9; 5GB of HDD space; sound card; DVD ROM; TrackIR®; keyboard, mouse, joystick.

Edited September 22, 2009 by Feuerfalke

[GGTharos]

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.

 

Yeah, in BS, as far as I know SF only checks if your activation is valid when you start it, and then it functions normally - there is no disk check and therefore no drivers.

 

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.

 

I would say this is a lot - if you have BS crash logs, please upload them to the forum. They should be in the temp folder in the DCS folder.

 

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%.

 

Yeah. I heard is has something to do with DX actually being sufficiently multi-threaded to deal with this - so the DX might split some threads off to the other core - I could be wrong, I don't remember well. But DCS was not specifically made multi-threaded. This will come in the (probably distant) future.

 

For your information, this is my PC configuration:

 

My PC is very similar.

 

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

 

Buy another hard drive and install win7 on it. :) You'll slowly migrate :)

[ACS]

... concluded the same old protection is in use for BlackShark, because it shares the same graphics-engine. ...

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.

 

... What sort of programming do you work on?.

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:

 

BTW: Updated requirements and recommendations are available on the DCS-site: ...

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 would say this is a lot - if you have BS crash logs, please upload them to the forum. They should be in the temp folder in the DCS folder.

I will look for that, thanks for the info !

 

Buy another hard drive and install win7 on it. :) You'll slowly migrate :)

Funny, this exactly the subject of a conversation I had yesterday evening with one of my good friend !!!

 

ACS

[ACS]

... if you have BS crash logs, please upload them to the forum. They should be in the temp folder in the DCS folder.

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