Please Help ABRIS viewing crashes

[aairon]

I have had this issue since a month ago when I reinstalled Black shark after a year of no use.

I have also tried a clean reinstall last week.

The problem seems to only occur when I try to focus on the ABRIS close up in cockpit view of course.

It seems like the more I look at it the more likely it is to crash, the crash manifests itself by losing the video input to the monitor with the screen then going to sleep but sound remaining.

Even though I can still hear the rotors, I can tell that the sim is frozen, in that the controls don't change the sound can't crash the chopper etc.., just the constant rotor sound repeating.

I am using the latest Nvidia driver for this card.

 

CPU Intel DUO Core E7400 clocked to 3.7 GHZ(yes I tried to run it with the clock set back to stock 2.8 with the same results).

Graphics card is a Nvidia GTS-250.

I thought at first it was caused by using Modman and running a couple of mods because it crashed every time, so I uninstalled blackshark and reinstalled it without anything other then the 1.02 update and I thought the issue had gone away as I was able to complete a couple of missions while repeatedly viewing the ABRIS, but it just happened again.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

[Flagrum]

I have had this issue since a month ago when I reinstalled Black shark after a year of no use.

I have also tried a clean reinstall last week.

The problem seems to only occur when I try to focus on the ABRIS close up in cockpit view of course.

It seems like the more I look at it the more likely it is to crash, the crash manifests itself by losing the video input to the monitor with the screen then going to sleep but sound remaining.

Even though I can still hear the rotors, I can tell that the sim is frozen, in that the controls don't change the sound can't crash the chopper etc.., just the constant rotor sound repeating.

I am using the latest Nvidia driver for this card.

 

CPU Intel DUO Core E7400 clocked to 3.7 GHZ(yes I tried to run it with the clock set back to stock 2.8 with the same results).

Graphics card is a Nvidia GTS-250.

I thought at first it was caused by using Modman and running a couple of mods because it crashed every time, so I uninstalled blackshark and reinstalled it without anything other then the 1.02 update and I thought the issue had gone away as I was able to complete a couple of missions while repeatedly viewing the ABRIS, but it just happened again.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

You are using the old stand alone install, did I understand that correctly? If so, you are aware that it is really old and not supported anymore?

[aairon]

You are using the old stand alone install, did I understand that correctly? If so, you are aware that it is really old and not supported anymore?

I have no idea what you mean by "stand alone install" I have my original DCS BlackShark along with the saved 1.0.2 Update Are you saying that the original BlackShark is no longer supported?

And what do you mean by "not supported"?

Are you saying that the forum members here will no longer help a fellow BlackShark pilot because he doesn't have BlackShark 2 the latest version?

Is there some patch I need to install to upgrade to the latest for regular original blackshark to get help from fellow forum users?

To be honest I have a hard time believing that the forum members are officially refusing to help members with issues with the original BlackShark, and of course any two year old understands that the official DCS Company may no longer support the original BlackShark.

That's kinda why I posted here and not to DCS company support, I wouldn't want them to die from laughter

[Flagrum]

I have no idea what you mean by "stand alone install" I have my original DCS BlackShark along with the saved 1.0.2 Update Are you saying that the original BlackShark is no longer supported?

And what do you mean by "not supported"?

Are you saying that the forum members here will no longer help a fellow BlackShark pilot because he doesn't have BlackShark 2 the latest version?

Is there some patch I need to install to upgrade to the latest for regular original blackshark to get help from fellow forum users?

To be honest I have a hard time believing that the forum members are officially refusing to help members with issues with the original BlackShark, and of course any two year old understands that the official DCS Company may no longer support the original BlackShark.

That's kinda why I posted here and not to DCS company support, I wouldn't want them to die from laughter

With "stand alone install" I meant the original Blackshark game that only has the Ka-50 - as oppsed to "DCS World" + "DCS: Blackshark"-Module (+ many other modules). Only the module for DCS World is being maintained and supported by ED and thus the original game does not receive any updates, patches, bug fixes or even new features anymore.

 

I am not suggesting that nobody will want to help you, but chances are that not too many fellow forum users are using the original game anymore. That makes helping probably a bit difficult.

 

Anyhow, what Windows version are you running and is it 32Bit or 64bit? How much RAM do you have installed? Maybe these information helps someone to help you.

 

edit:

Oh, and fwiw, the latest version of the original game is version 1.1.1.1 - which is still available here: http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/downloads/previous_versions

If I am not totally confusing the version numbering scheme, that should be a tad bit newer that what you are using.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Flagrum

[Irregular programming]

The original blackshark had nothing to do with dcs a10 or dcs world.

 

1.02 is the latest version.

 

As for your problem it sounds to me like your video card is overheating, and that looking at the abris is just enough to make it do so, check your gpu temperature when it crashes.

 

Maybe you have dust in the fan, try removing it if so.

[aairon]

The original blackshark had nothing to do with dcs a10 or dcs world.

 

1.02 is the latest version.

 

As for your problem it sounds to me like your video card is overheating, and that looking at the abris is just enough to make it do so, check your gpu temperature when it crashes.

 

Maybe you have dust in the fan, try removing it if so.

Hello Thanks for the suggestion, I had Blackshark and Warthog installed on this comp before and when DCS world came out I installed it and it automatically recognized the Blackshark and warthog installs.

But as I very rarely fly online I decided to dump World(I don't learn to fly better by flying with a bunch of kids online):smilewink:.

I also suspected something along the lines of GPU over-temp and ran a logging program to follow the temps while running Blackshark and there were no issues, GPU never exceeded 57 C which is well within the parameters as I have run it up to 65C with no issues. I of course checked for dust etc..

I thought it might be the cockpit resolution setting so I reduced it to 512 and still crashes on occasion. I find it odd that using Modman to install any mod will crash it almost instantly when I view the abris more then a couple of times. Since this sim is very CPU dependent I also logged CPU temps and both cores running cool at 52C when Maxed out.

It's very frustrating to run 90% of the scenario and then have it lock up while trying to navigate back to the FARP.

Well I guess I'll just keep messing with it, as I said I that the first response to my post was a bit odd, I couldn't see that "not too many fellow forum users are using the original game anymore" blackshark or Warthog without also using DCS world.

I'm starting to wonder if it's an issue with the on-board GPU RAM or CPU ram so I'm running prime to stress the CPU memory and also running the Nvidia utility to stress and test GPU RAM.

This is absolutely the only software that exhibits this behavior on this machine (this doesn't automatically mean it's a software issue but rather the way my setup is dealing with it), I can run things that are fairly GPU intensive like Farcry 3 and the old crysis on High and some ultra high settings all day long, the GPU gets hotter with those then it does with Blackshark.By the way I'm running Vista ultimate svc pk 2 X86 6GB DDR2 ram at 1333 MHZ FSB (for compatibility issues) Since Svc pk 2 Vista is a very fine OS IMHO. (that is based on having been involved with software and computers LONG before there was any windows)

Well thanks again for stepping in here Irregular programming I appreciate that you took the time.

If I do eventually nail this down I'll post a solution here so that others can find it with the search function.

Edited November 22, 2013 by aairon

[BitMaster]

Why are you running Vista X86 with 6GB of RAM ?

 

32 bit can only use 4GB in theory, usually ( depending on BIOS and add-on cards present ) it makes use of 3.2GB, the other 800MB are reserved to avoid conflicts with ROMs from present chips loading into RAM when booted.

 

Also, ANY 32bit system can only give 2GB RAM to a process. At least the DCS series is very very RAM hungry and having 4+GB in use ( on a X64 system ) for DCS is standard. It may not be much different for your version of the game.

Having more than 3GB installed in NON-Server-Boards MAY OR MAY NOT give LOTS of headache. As an old Computerfreak you should know this since the problem is around ! usually ONLY server mainborads allow to install 4GB and make use of like 3.5-3.6GB of RAM when the whole system ( ROMs mainly ) have been certified to NOT cause memory overlapping beyond 3.6 to 4GB. I do not recommend to run 4GB in any 32bit system. 99% of all good Mobo-Manuals also state this.

 

I highly recommend moving to a x64 System to make use of your 6GB instead of 3.2GB !

While doing that, kick Vista and move to 7 or 8 since they provide faster gaming experience on almost every title around.

 

 

Once u got x64 up&running, give DCS World and the Su25T a go and check if that runs without your GPU problems. If it does, you may wanna upgrade to BS2.

The KA-50 BS2 is a very very nice Heli to fly, it is my favorite in DCS so far.

 

Bit

Network Admin

Edited November 23, 2013 by BitMaster

[aairon]

Why are you running Vista X86 with 6GB of RAM ?

 

32 bit can only use 4GB in theory, usually ( depending on BIOS and add-on cards present ) it makes use of 3.2GB, the other 800MB are reserved to avoid conflicts with ROMs from present chips loading into RAM when booted.

 

Also, ANY 32bit system can only give 2GB RAM to a process. At least the DCS series is very very RAM hungry and having 4+GB in use ( on a X64 system ) for DCS is standard. It may not be much different for your version of the game.

Having more than 3GB installed in NON-Server-Boards MAY OR MAY NOT give LOTS of headache. As an old Computerfreak you should know this since the problem is around ! usually ONLY server mainborads allow to install 4GB and make use of like 3.5-3.6GB of RAM when the whole system ( ROMs mainly ) have been certified to NOT cause memory overlapping beyond 3.6 to 4GB. I do not recommend to run 4GB in any 32bit system. 99% of all good Mobo-Manuals also state this.

 

I highly recommend moving to a x64 System to make use of your 6GB instead of 3.2GB !

While doing that, kick Vista and move to 7 or 8 since they provide faster gaming experience on almost every title around.

 

 

Once u got x64 up&running, give DCS World and the Su25T a go and check if that runs without your GPU problems. If it does, you may wanna upgrade to BS2.

The KA-50 BS2 is a very very nice Heli to fly, it is my favorite in DCS so far.

 

Bit

Network Admin

First of all I use a dual boot system and can boot into any other operating system I would like but I chose Vista 32 bit for many reasons.

As you may have read I have been messing in this computer business for ~40 years and work as a marine electrical engineer. You are mistaken about KA50 only being able to use 2 GB ram in a 32 bit system, you can even read about it in these very forums there is a dos command to enable a full 3 GB ram to be utilized in my case that's ~ 3.4 GB. NO! WIN 7 ABSOLUTELY won't run games or SIMS (given all other things are equal) any smoother or "faster" then Vista, that is pure fantasy and I would love to see some empirical proof of that.

In my opinion win 7 was the final answer to the issue with vista allowing the end user too much easy access to functions that 90% of user have no business touching. Since vista svc pk 2 vista runs perfect and gives me very easy access to features that most will never use and I won't even discuss the Ultra dummed down win 8 made for chimpanzees. Anyway in monitoring this program it has NEVER used more then 3 GB ram ever! I have logged it for hours and it's never run out of ram to the point that it had to start using Virtual Hard drive ram. I guess I need to find someone who's been around for awhile that remembers running Blackshark when it first updated to 1.0.2.

Thanks for your time and effort though, No I won't be running win 8 EVER! I'm just glad I should be dead before Microsoft releases the next windoze which will involve using some sort of wii type controller and won't let you do anything that could ever possibly hurt your windows install all the buttons will be color coded and it will have to be usable by any creature that can walk on two legs however briefly. I am simply looking for a REAL suggestion as to what may be happening to cause the crash while viewing the ABRIS screen only. I have covered as much relevant info as I can think of, earlier in this post. So I'm sorry if you misunderstood what my issue is but I can assure you the SIM is not running short on Memory at least not CPU memory and to assure that the GPU memory was not the issue I reduced the cockpit rez to 512 which seems to make absolutely no difference in the pattern of crashing.

Well I did run KA50 in win 7 64 bit and showing 6 GB ram and still getting the same random crash while viewing the ABRIS so unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the issue. I will eventually be changing to Vista 64 and then after will have to go to win 7 to retain compatibility, And I have figured out how to simply use the win 7 "GOD" mode to remove the MS straight jacket and retain some of the usefulness of vista. As I said before thank you very much for your time and suggestions.:smilewink:

 

P.S. "BIT Network Admin" Doesn't impress anyone, why put it in your post? you're no Admin here, Oh and the bit about 32 bit not being able to use the full 4 GB ram in any version of windows should be common knowledge of any two year old, so please try to consider who you're addressing when you go back to those very child like first toddler steps with an old timer, I may be old but I'm not a total moron, and it seems that you have a bit to learn as you didn't even know about the 3/4 GB "switch" for CMD mode, for future reference the command is bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVa 3072, The 3072 is a base line, you can up the number to just under the actual value your particular system can actually use.

There ya go you learned something new.:thumbup:

OOp's I forgot to mention the PAE (Physical Address Extension) patch (you can google) which will let me use the entire 6GB on Vista 32 bit(x86) MS wanted to force the migration to 64 bit so they built limitations into the kernel.

I use hardware for research and logging, that will never have 64 bit drivers.

Edited November 24, 2013 by aairon

[ShuRugal]

jesus mate, take a chill pill, The guy didn't make a third of the accusations you're defending against. He didn't say anything about using 7 or 8, just switching your install to a 64-bit version.

 

It -is- a fact that 32-bit versions of windows are hard-limited to 4-GB of address space, and only use ~3.25 GB of that 4 (unless you flip the switch you mentioned, in which case it will use a maximum of 4).

 

It is also a fact that DCS BlackShark 2 and DCS World engines both make use of 64-bit architecture to improve performance.

 

Further, the standalone installs of A-10C and Blackshark 2 are no longer supported, and the World engine officially no longer supports 32-bit OS installs. There's another another reason to switch from Vista32 to Vista64.

 

DCS World, in my experience, runs faster and smoother than the standalone versions of Blackshark 2 and A-10C.

 

Now, if you're still running BlackShark 1, that's a whole new story, and I am heartily impressed that you got it to function at all under Vista. One of the reasons i bit the bullet and upgraded (first to BS2 then to World) was a lack of stability under newer operating systems.

[aairon]

jesus mate, take a chill pill, The guy didn't make a third of the accusations you're defending against. He didn't say anything about using 7 or 8, just switching your install to a 64-bit version.

 

It -is- a fact that 32-bit versions of windows are hard-limited to 4-GB of address space, and only use ~3.25 GB of that 4 (unless you flip the switch you mentioned, in which case it will use a maximum of 4).

 

It is also a fact that DCS BlackShark 2 and DCS World engines both make use of 64-bit architecture to improve performance.

 

Further, the standalone installs of A-10C and Blackshark 2 are no longer supported, and the World engine officially no longer supports 32-bit OS installs. There's another another reason to switch from Vista32 to Vista64.

 

DCS World, in my experience, runs faster and smoother than the standalone versions of Blackshark 2 and A-10C.

 

Now, if you're still running BlackShark 1, that's a whole new story, and I am heartily impressed that you got it to function at all under Vista. One of the reasons i bit the bullet and upgraded (first to BS2 then to World) was a lack of stability under newer operating systems.

I think perhaps you've been taking to many pills lol.

Yes he did mention switching to win 7 or win 8 here

kick Vista and move to 7 or 8 since they provide faster gaming experience on almost every title around

Don't you even read the thread you're commenting on?

Also get it into your head that we are talking about BlackShark here NOT BS 2.

I have no idea why you're impressed that BlackShark will run properly on win 7 and vista Thousands of users have had no problems with it.

So since he did indeed mention changing to win 7 or win 8 I consider that you haven't read this entire thread therefore the rest of your post will be ignored by myself.

Unless you're willing to read the thread and then comment, you're not contributing to this in any way and I think you may be trolling.

You guy's are pretty new (with the exception of Irregular programming) to computers (less then 15 years) and are simply quoting things you have read on the web and not really commenting from personal experience, I can also read things on the web and that MUST mean it's the truth if it's repeated many times on the web lol.:lol:

If I sound bitter it's because I lose patience with folks who simply repeat what they read rather then confirm for themselves, the new generation of lemmings, I'll not follow you guy's off the cliff.:smilewink:

Edited November 24, 2013 by aairon

[ShuRugal]

You guy's are pretty new (with the exception of Irregular programming) to computers (less then 15 years) and are simply quoting things you have read on the web and not really commenting from personal experience, I can also read things on the web and that MUST mean it's the truth if it's repeated many times on the web lol.:lol:

 

you're basing your knowledge of this on what, exactly? I can't speak for anyone else here, but I built my first computer when i was eight and have used every version of windows (save only Windows Server) since 3.1. I still remember having to -manually- trace down and resolve hardware conflicts by first correctly diagnosing the problem from obscure error logs, and then taking cards out and moving jumper pins.

 

anyway, horse, meet water, drink it or not, your choice. you obviously know better than anyone else who has responded to this thread. Makes me wonder why you bothered asking for anyone's input in the first place.

Edited November 24, 2013 by ShuRugal

[Flagrum]

Perhaps the OP should post the required skill and experience levels to be allowed to help him along with the original question/request. So the applying fellow forum users know beforehand what is expected from them and nobodies time, the OP's included, would be wasted.

 

(I hope that my extensive and deep experience of 20 years in the field of professional software development certiefies me of being worthy to make such a suggestion!)

 

tl;dr: unbelievable, how this thread turned out.

[BitMaster]

P.S. "BIT Network Admin" Doesn't impress anyone, why put it in your post? you're no Admin here, Oh and the bit about 32 bit not being able to use the full 4 GB ram in any version of windows should be common knowledge of any two year old, so please try to consider who you're addressing when you go back to those very child like first toddler steps with an old timer, I may be old but I'm not a total moron, and it seems that you have a bit to learn as you didn't even know about the 3/4 GB "switch" for CMD mode, for future reference the command is bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVa 3072, The 3072 is a base line, you can up the number to just under the actual value your particular system can actually use.

There ya go you learned something new.:thumbup:

OOp's I forgot to mention the PAE (Physical Address Extension) patch (you can google) which will let me use the entire 6GB on Vista 32 bit(x86) MS wanted to force the migration to 64 bit so they built limitations into the kernel.

I use hardware for research and logging, that will never have 64 bit drivers.

 

 

Hoho Hold your horses,

 

everybody knows about the 3GB switch, yes, me too, ever since, but it is no good idea for novice users to make use of it cause it does cause instability among many consumer boards. In a well defined HW-scenario with people knowing what they do, this is ok and worth a try. I just didn't wanna encourage novice users to push 32bit OS to unstable corners when nowadays 64bit is a no problem move for consumers, defacto standard.

 

DCS does use more RAM, my Notebooks both have 16GB RAM and it definitely takes up to 4.5GB in one process. Maybe more, that is what I have seen when I monitored it. It may well be that your 3GB limit was A: cause you ran the 32bit switch, heck, HOW could it then take more? or B: you just had 6GB in that Rig which will force the process to settle with about what you have. You can clearly see this too with a browser, 15 tabs and 4-6-8-16GB on same system. Firefox takes more the more you can spare. SQL servers too..etc... I bet you know that.

And yes, I like Vista too, I never understood why most didn't like it, it just needed some tweaks and 4+GB to somehow work as fast as win7 does with 2GB and Ubuntu does with 1GB.

But it makes a difference if yo know how to deal with an OS or if you don't and many never like any windows cuz they aren't into PCs and never will be. After 20 years first hand Service I can clearly say, some people also clearly don't want to.

 

I personally max out RAM to at least 16GB in all machines since I heavily use VMware, so 32bit

or 6GB RAM is not an option.

 

BTW, I play on an Apple MacBook Pro Retina in a dedicated BootCamp win7_64 just for DCS and Falcon 4 BMS. It doesn't perform as well as my dedicated Asus gaming RiG, but it does give me enough FPS in full HD and for Fly-Highs I can even go 2880x1800 res.

 

And I just mentioned "admin", to counter your 40 year old PC experience. See it as a Navy vs. Economy comparison LoL, nothing bad meant in any way.

 

 

But on all machines, I never saw DCS in game mode with less than 3.3GB, mostly 4-5GB.

Win-7_64bit Ultimate, SP1 all patches due till date of this post

MacBook Pro Retina Core i7-2.6GHz_16GB_256GBSSD_Nvidia 650GT-M 1GB

 

2.01kg for 30-40fps at 1920x1200 medium settings, not bad for a Fruit ;)

 

 

my 2 cents

 

Bit

[BitMaster]

It may well also be that you won't even read that post above as it intended to be read. My 2 fellow comrades that posted before me put it in the right words. I just wanted to stay on the technical matter and proof the 3GB nonsense you said.

 

Nuff Said

 

Tbolt_214th over & out

 

Radio-Silence