Echo38 Posted September 19, 2012 Posted September 19, 2012 hitting "fast-forward" can corrupt a track replay when it is very complex Interesting--does it permanently corrupt the file, even if you do not save the replay after watching it with time compression? That is, if I load a replay, watch a bit, use time compression, watch a bit more, and then end the replay and decline to save it, will that permanently break that reply so that the next time I watch it, it will be messed up then also?
sobek Posted September 19, 2012 Posted September 19, 2012 Interesting--does it permanently corrupt the file, even if you do not save the replay after watching it with time compression? That is, if I load a replay, watch a bit, use time compression, watch a bit more, and then end the replay and decline to save it, will that permanently break that reply so that the next time I watch it, it will be messed up then also? No, it won't. Further, it will only be saved over the original track if you choose the same name for it when saving. Good, fast, cheap. Choose any two. Come let's eat grandpa! Use punctuation, save lives!
Echo38 Posted September 19, 2012 Author Posted September 19, 2012 Huh. Just a few hours ago, I started my server, had three fights with someone, then shut down the server. I went to my tracks directory, created a copy of the latest multiplayer track, renamed the copy to Blahblah.trk.bak, and renamed the original to Blahblah.trk. I then opened DCS World, went to Replay, and opened Blahblah.trk. I watched it with time compression, and, as PeterP indicated, it desynched. So then I ended the track, didn't save, and then re-opened it. This time I watched it without any time compression, but the same desynch was present. I examined the track file's properties in Windows, and the time stamp said that it was not written to since I created the copy, so it looks like the time compression did not screw it up. But, what did? I didn't use any external cameras while recording the track, nor did I use any time compression while recording it. What's the cause of this, and how can I prevent it from happening to my future tracks? (I presume that my already-corrupted ones are beyond saving.) Does anyone know?
sobek Posted September 19, 2012 Posted September 19, 2012 (edited) The track system is prone to non-deterministic behaviour. The tracks only contain the input from the user, everything else is rendered in the sim just as it would be if you were running it normally, flying a mission. So you see, one broken recorded input can completely alter your flight path and therefore change completely how the replay turns out. The more complex and the longer the mission, the more likely it is to not play back correctly. Edit: Thread split off due to going too far OT. Edited September 19, 2012 by sobek Good, fast, cheap. Choose any two. Come let's eat grandpa! Use punctuation, save lives!
Echo38 Posted September 25, 2012 Author Posted September 25, 2012 (edited) I just recorded 11 replays, and all but one of them were corrupted. This has to be more than mere bad luck--there must be a common cause in those 10 instances. All of the tracks were recorded with air-start duels with the same two players. I live in the U.S.A.; my opponent lives in Germany. For all of the flights, we hit "Fly" while the mission was paused, and only unpaused the mission after we were both ready. Some of the flights, I altered my avionics while the mission was paused (e.g. turning off my GCAS); others, I didn't. Active pause was never used, but only normal pause. Some of the flights were in the A-10C, and some were in the P-51D. The mission was reloaded after every fight, to create a new track file (we were duelling specifically for the recording of tracks for making a movie later). No time compression was used at any point, nor did I use any external cameras. The only common factor which jumps out to me is the location of the two users. I've never had a string of bad replays like this, but, then, I've also never duelled someone from Europe that many times in a row. Anyone have any other ideas? Really, I'm really disappointed about all of my tracks being a wash, since we worked very hard to try to get movie-usable tracks, and I'm hoping to avoid this happening again, or at least minimalize the chances. Edited September 25, 2012 by Echo38
TwoLate Posted September 25, 2012 Posted September 25, 2012 Common problem before DCS world. Just search it to find out. Things to help not to corrupt it. No compression and make short tracks. [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
Echo38 Posted September 25, 2012 Author Posted September 25, 2012 (edited) They were short tracks! About five minutes average. No compression, as I said. One of them showed the other fellow flying straight and level the entire time. In the actual flight, we were going every which way. Usually, when I see corrupt tracks, there's just a relatively small corruption, with a significant distance deviation but otherwise things happening more or less similarly. This is unusual, even for World's track corruption, for it to go so far as to portray one of the dogfighters as flying straight and level for the entire track. I never had this problem in old LO:MAC. I wonder what it is about World that makes this happen? The complexity of the flight model? But none of the other sim-games I've used had this problem, even ones with complex flight models. Edited September 25, 2012 by Echo38
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