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Just for fun, I decided to create a '4.11 Stress Test' mission. I thought it might be a good idea if we were going to do some more testing on this issue.

So of course I used the Solomoms 1944 map. Then I placed a lot more planes than I had in the mission I posted here earlier...the one that was locking up.

In this mission, I currently have:

64 B-29

32 B-25

16 P-38

48 Ki-61

16 H8k1

Now that's a lot of planes. Also, all the gunners in the bombers have their own AI and so that puts a lot of additional stress in terms of calculations into the mission.

So I tried one of the more simple tests. I loaded the mission into the FMB and chose Play. I then set the Autopilot on the Player aircraft. Then I accelerated the game to 4x and just watched.

Nothing happened. The mission did not lock up. So what might we learn from this? Some thoughts:

1. The first thing that came to mind was....the first mission was created in 4.10 and this stress mission was created in 4.11. Now, on the surface, that should not make a difference. One reason being is that I made the stress mission very 'generic', meaning that I could easily install it in 4.10 and it would play. (This is because I did not use any of the new 4.11 features or planes.)

So, could this be a possible answer? (Certain missions created BEFORE 4.11 may cause the game to lock up during the mission, if played in 4.11.)

That's an interesting thought. The first thing that then comes to mind is....why not go into 4.10.1 and rebuild the stress mission from scratch. Then take THAT mission and test it in 4.11. If the 4.10.1 stress test mission were to lock up in 4.11, that certainly would be interesting information.

What do you think?


2.Ok, the second thought was that although the stress mission was 'bigger' than the coop mision (we'll call it the Torikina mission from now on), it was different in that in many ways it was 'simplier'.

What I mean is this. The stress mission was made as a test, so I just had all the planes start in mid-air. They all had just 2 waypoints. So basically they all just flew from point A to point B. This will still stress a computer, but remember, we are trying to find some differences. (I later added 16 Ki-61's which attacked certain bomber flights, so there WAS a good amount of combat action...which increases the stress factor.)

The Torikina coop was a 'real' mission. It had takeoffs, landings, more waypoints, attack waypoints, flights with delayed spawning, etc.

Could some of these differences be the answer to why the 4.11 stress mission did not lock up? I don't know.

The obvious answer is to try and build a brand new big 'real' mission on the Solomons map and see what happens. I mean, if that mission would still lock up then that question would be answered.

Does that make sense?

So there are 2 points of thought right there. Does anyone have more?

**I have also attached the 4.11 Stress Test mission in case somebody wants to mess around with it.

EDIT: One interesting fact I forgot to mention. I tested the Stress Mission in both 4.11 and 4.10.1. Although the mission played fine in both versions, there was a difference between the two.

After I played the mission from the 4.11 FMB at 4x speed, after about 30 minutes (in-game time) I decided to end the mission. After I hit Escape, clicked Quit Mission and then clicked on Done, the game locked up. It would not reload the mission back into the FMB. So again, does this seem to indicate some sort of memory-type issue in 4.11?

When I did the same test in 4.10.1, there was no lock-up at all. I tested the mission, quit the mission and then the mission reloaded right back into the FMB. So again, there seems to be a reproducable difference between 4.11 and 4.10.1.


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