4.11: Some Missions Locking-Up

[Freelansir]

Being an old machine code programmer from the early 60's the words that jump out for me are:

"This is why it seems like some sort of paging or memory issue."

With only 8k of memory on a IBM 1401 we experienced a lot of memory constipation.

Its worth looking in this aspect, no matter how much memory, real or virtual paging you have.

[Aviar]

It's been over 7 months since anyone has posted to this thread so I have pretty much forgotten about it. Since it has been 'revised', I'll add just a little bit more info.

Since it was released, I have been playing HSFX-6 pretty much non-stop. HSFX-6 is based on 4.11.1 and it is interesting to note that I have not had any lock-ups at all. I can also load all of the maps in the FMB with no problem.

This is unlike 4.11.1 stock, where I still get the previously mentioned problem of not being able to load some of the bigger maps into the FMB.

I sometimes wondered if possibly the problem might be with my computer...maybe the memory, or something like that. But since HSFX-6 is running flawlessly, I'm inclined to think the issue is with the stock version.

I'm curious as to why the problems arise in the stock game and not in HSFX-6. They are both running version 4.11.1 and in theory should be very similar. Is there something in HSFX-6 that has fixed the issues that I (and others) are having in stock 4.11.1?

Let's see what 4.12 brings to the table.

Aviar

[352nd Persecutor]

Aviar,

No, HSFX 6 hasn't fixed the problem; we experience it using 6. We flew on the vol_Italy_Africa_Greece map without any lockups with the same game build, but when switching to the Western Front maps (native to HSFX 6) we are experiencing the lockups. So one might be tempted to blame the map. However, flying the same mission on the same map off-line = no lockups.

So it's the server? Some folks lock up, others don't, on the same evening. Some lock up simultaneously, others apparently randomly. Were it the server, all would lock up or none would, I would think.

So it's the client machine? Five or six pilots flying in the mission each lock up at precisely the same moment. No, not the client machine.

Beats me, it really does. Like you, we'll wait for 4.12 and hope that whatever is causing this (not in 4.10) doesn't end up migrating to 4.12 also.

[Aviar]

Originally Posted by Aviar

It's been over 7 months since anyone has posted to this thread so I have pretty much forgotten about it. Since it has been 'revised', I'll add just a little bit more info.

Since it was released, I have been playing HSFX-6 pretty much non-stop. HSFX-6 is based on 4.11.1 and it is interesting to note that I have not had any lock-ups at all. I can also load all of the maps in the FMB with no problem.

This is unlike 4.11.1 stock, where I still get the previously mentioned problem of not being able to load some of the bigger maps into the FMB.

I sometimes wondered if possibly the problem might be with my computer...maybe the memory, or something like that. But since HSFX-6 is running flawlessly, I'm inclined to think the issue is with the stock version.

I'm curious as to why the problems arise in the stock game and not in HSFX-6. They are both running version 4.11.1 and in theory should be very similar. Is there something in HSFX-6 that has fixed the issues that I (and others) are having in stock 4.11.1?

Let's see what 4.12 brings to the table.

Aviar

4.12 is finally out so I can post an update. I installed the 4.12 patch and there were no major problems. However, when I tried to load one of the Solomons maps from the FMB, my game froze right there, without even loading the map (see the screenshot). This is what it was doing in 4.11 so I guess the problem is still there for me.

I can play the Solomons map in the QMB with no problems and I can play/host Solomons missions with no problem, but I can't open any Solomons maps from the FMB anymore. As I stated earlier, I have no such problems in HSFX 6, which is based right off of 4.11, so that is something unusual.

Anyway, I do have something else interesting to report. After I realized the same problem was present in 4.12, I decided to try something. I re-installed a clean version of IL-2. I even downloaded 'fresh' patches From Mission4Today, just to be sure.

Everything went smoothly and I patched it up to 4.12. I opened the FMB and tried loading a Solomons map.....and it loaded! I started converting one of my missions to 4.12 and everything looked fine.

All of a sudden, after a couple of days, I again could not load any of the Solomons maps, so I could not resume editing my mission(s). It's been a few days now and I keep trying but no luck. My game freezes up every time I try and load a Solomons map. It's just interesting that it worked fine for a couple of days after a fresh intall of IL-2.

Maybe this info can be of some help to TD, who knows.

Aviar

[JtD]

That's really odd. On the software side, what changed over these couple of days?

FWIW, I just loaded the Solomons maps into my FMB no problem.

[majorfailure]

Problem still present here, too.

Coop on Iasi Map, there are long breaks (10-30 secs), where the game seems to freeze, then most of the time the game continues, but sometimes it crashes altogether. The Il2fb.exe process in Windows Task Manger at these points decreases its memory usage by ~100meg and reduces cpu percentage. If it crashes cpu percentage stays low(0-10%).

Seems to be related to Iasi Map, had a very similar campagin on the Krim map for ~20 missions with no crash and very little breaks ever.
And the load of the Map seems a factor, too, if I add enough flights of planes (40+planes), to get the whole mission stuttering all the time I can get the game to crash almost reliably within ~60 minutes. If I do load the same mission twice, then the game does not crash at the same mission time twice.

[KG26_Alpha]

Originally Posted by JtD

FWIW, I just loaded the Solomons maps into my FMB no problem.

Same here, even on an old laptop I use solely for editing in FMB, all Solomon maps are fine.

All of my updates are through torrent so the check sums are ok.

[Aviar]

Hold your horses....I may have found the answer to my problem. I still need to do some testing before I post anything.

Stay tuned for developments!

Aviar

[Aviar]

Well, for now, I seemed to have found a workaround for my problem. This is what I did.

I took my Missions folder, which has grown quite large after 12 years of missions (254MB) and replaced it with a 'clean' Missions folder from 4.12. That one is only 142MB. As soon as I did that, I could open any Solomons map in the FMB.

I'm not sure why that was an issue, but I tried it on a hunch and it worked...for now anyway. It's an easy workaround for when when I need it. I even tried adding back my more important missions and it's still working (at 203MB now).

Possibly it's some kind of memory issue. As I stated earlier, I don't have this problem with HSFX 6 and for one thing, I know they have made some core changes to IL-2. For instance, the HSFX il2fb.exe is only 156kb, while the stock 4.12 is 4.33MB.

In any event, I think I have it under control for now so we'll see what happens.

Aviar