Cliffs of Dover Technical FAQ

[Lucas_From_Hell]

Posting it here just in case, since the thread itself sank:

I've browsed here and through other forums for solutions to this really annoying issue but I've found none at all.

The plot is: rusty mug-flier buys the Russian version (physical copy), installs Steam and Cliffs of Dover, ran the additional installers (only decided to do so after reinstalling it once; all told me everything was up to date, but reinstalled/repaired them anyway, no change in behaviour by our lovely stray exe), glances in amusement at the rather cool artwork in the box cover, stares deeply into RAF roundels eyes and, after a second's hesitation, clicks on it. Steam window shows up claiming it's preparing to launch Il-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover (tear stars forming upon reading the name), little spinning blue ring appears next to cursor (Vista 32-bit, all up-to-date)... *dramatic pause, eyes wide open with anxiety* Little blue ring disappears... *"coming at any time now"* ... *longer pause* ...*popping noise, racing heartbeat, flashing icon on toolbar, cursor rushes to check it out* ...Skype: "Hey"

...and that's it. No sign of the Launcher under the Processes tab, no error message, and I had a nice chat over Skype and went to bed laughing at some joke.

...but I'm still sort of annoyed by the Launcher.

So, just to clear some things up for anyone interested (rrrrrright.) in helping or at least reading this to kill time until Top Gear or whatever's on, I'm not an AVG user (not that it'd've mattered now anyway, since the patch covered it), I'm running Avira AntiVir. Launcher.exe does open, as checked with Task Manager open, at the very time the mystical blue ring's there (taking only around 16K in memory or so), but it only lasts for a few seconds, before vanishing without any notice. So basically, it opens, and it closes, and well, that's quite it, really.

Rig meets the specs.

Any guesses?

[Erkki]

I'm posting here because I think the answer is obvious and has so far just escaped me.

The game seems to run in some sort "pseudo-fullscreen" mode... I have no problem with it, I just need to click on the opening Ubisoft logo and all OK.

However, everything that happens in the background from update notifications, IM messages, every action, activates the windows in the background and they pop up on the game. With no mouse I will have to alt-tab to windows and back to get rid of these...

Only working solution I have found is to use the windowed mode, but it does not allow the native resolution of my screen, 1680 x 1050. Can this be edited in the conf, or is there another fix?

[klem]

Originally Posted by Erkki

I'm posting here because I think the answer is obvious and has so far just escaped me.

The game seems to run in some sort "pseudo-fullscreen" mode... I have no problem with it, I just need to click on the opening Ubisoft logo and all OK.

However, everything that happens in the background from update notifications, IM messages, every action, activates the windows in the background and they pop up on the game. With no mouse I will have to alt-tab to windows and back to get rid of these...

Only working solution I have found is to use the windowed mode, but it does not allow the native resolution of my screen, 1680 x 1050. Can this be edited in the conf, or is there another fix?

Yes, turn off updates, IM etc. You don't really want anything else running except things like Teamspeak/Ventrilo, Joystick profiles etc, i.e. anything you use while playing. It will also free up CPU resources if your CPU is having problems running CoD.

If you want an easy way to do this get FSAutostart or Alacrity. These allow you to see whats running and make these selections (turn off this, that, etc) and save it as a profile which you just run from the desktop before running CoD.

Just reboot to get them all back.

Also if you run the free Commodo antivirus it has a Gaming Mode which stops Updates etc from interfering with the game.

[Erkki]

Originally Posted by klem

Yes, turn off updates, IM etc. You don't really want anything else running except things like Teamspeak/Ventrilo, Joystick profiles etc, i.e. anything you use while playing. It will also free up CPU resources if your CPU is having problems running CoD.

If you want an easy way to do this get FSAutostart or Alacrity. These allow you to see whats running and make these selections (turn off this, that, etc) and save it as a profile which you just run from the desktop before running CoD.

Just reboot to get them all back.

Also if you run the free Commodo antivirus it has a Gaming Mode which stops Updates etc from interfering with the game.

I know I can shut down everything. I dont want to. I do not need to... And CPU/GPU performance or RAM usage is no issue to me. Actually at the moment the greatest issue in il2:clod, to me, is everything happening in the background popping up on the game.

[Lucas_From_Hell]

As far as I recall, the part of the conf.ini that relates to such settings is (roughly) similar to the 1946's, maybe if you try tweaking it accordingly the results will be the same too.

[klem]

Originally Posted by Erkki

I know I can shut down everything. I dont want to. I do not need to... And CPU/GPU performance or RAM usage is no issue to me. Actually at the moment the greatest issue in il2:clod, to me, is everything happening in the background popping up on the game.

Well they will unless you stop them which usually means shutting them down. You can set Windows updates to advise you when they are available and only d/load and install when you say so. Why would you want Messenger on when you are focussing on surviving in CoD?

Anyway its the only way I know, these are Windows functions not CoD.

[Lucas_From_Hell]

You can set the game to windowed and still set the res so that it'll fill all of your screen - or at least Il-2 could do so.

Sometimes you're playing CoD but waiting for someone to show up on your IM, not everyone has CoD as their number one worry in life, sometimes you just have to be accessible whenever you can, period.

[klem]

Originally Posted by Lucas_From_Hell

You can set the game to windowed and still set the res so that it'll fill all of your screen - or at least Il-2 could do so.

Sometimes you're playing CoD but waiting for someone to show up on your IM, not everyone has CoD as their number one worry in life, sometimes you just have to be accessible whenever you can, period.

I understand that, I just didn't understand why, if Erkki doesn't want them popping up and interrupting him, he doesn't just shut them down.

If he wants to leave them on of course he can Alt+Tab around from time to time, but I don't know how he'll set IM etc to stay quiet in between.

The guys I fly with are full-switch, the last thing we want is an interruption

[Erkki]

Originally Posted by klem

I understand that, I just didn't understand why, if Erkki doesn't want them popping up and interrupting him, he doesn't just shut them down.

If he wants to leave them on of course he can Alt+Tab around from time to time, but I don't know how he'll set IM etc to stay quiet in between.

The guys I fly with are full-switch, the last thing we want is an interruption

100% full switch here as well, last 8 years.


No luck so far with the conf... Guess its windowed mode then.

[klem]

Originally Posted by Erkki

100% full switch here as well, last 8 years.


No luck so far with the conf... Guess its windowed mode then.

I assume you used the conf.ini in your /User/ CoD folder?

[window]
DepthBits =24
StencilBits=8
DrawIfNotFocused=0
SaveAspect=0
Render=D3D10_0
width=1680
height=1050
ColourBits=32
FullScreen=1
ChangeScreenRes=1
Frequency=60
posLeft=0
posTop=0