Game Locking Up

[Bez34 0]

I have recently installed a copy of Phase 2, and the game runs perfectly at the highest resolution modes using an Invidia Geforce 9500 video card. The problem that occurs is after landing when I click on "Return To Officers Mess", when the screen goes black and the game hangs up. I go to Task Manager to end the game, which of course erases all data from the mission. I often get an error message like "twisting scenery manager not responding." Before launching the game I always remember to shut down all anti-virus software. What might be causing this problem?

[Wels 2]

Need the system specs, and which OS

HGreetings,

Catfish

[Bez34 0]

My computer is an Intel Core 2 Duo with CPU @3.33 GHZ and with 3 GB of RAM. I have 2 harddrives, one at 500 GB and the other I think at one terrabite. I have the sliders for all graphics pushed to the max, yet there is no hesitation in the planes movement. The OS is Windows XP Service Pack 2. I hope this helps, but I can look up more info if needed. Thanks!

Edited March 9, 2009 by Bez34

[messaround 0]

Hi Bez, your CPU is great but your vidcard is below par IMO. I doubt it can cope with the load you throwing at it. Moving sliders back might help. Also when playing try touching your vidcard to see if it gets

too hot. I used to have 9600gt - it wasn't enough for OFF I can tell you

[Bez34 0]

I moved the realism sliders from 5 down to 4, and did not have problems with locking up when returning to Officers Mess after a flight. However, I had the engine cut out when I switched from Target view to Cockpit view, during a combat. I'm wondering if this problem might also be connected to the Invidia 9500 not being able to cope. I may have to go lower. Thanks Messaround.

[rhythalion 0]

Strange, I have that problem normally only on the first flight of the day when I play (I mean when I load the game, not an ingame day). It runs fine every time after that. My sliders are all pretty low anyway as I run an older system with a Nvidia GeForce FX5200XT card.... old and slow. However as I mentioned, it happens only on the first flight when I load up the game. Otherwise graphics run ok (poor, but ok, as you can see in the screenshots I posted).

 

I get around the issue by just ending the flight once I get in, then restarting the game and it's good as gold after that.

[Bez34 0]

The engine cutting out when switching views only happened on the first flight of the day, and by pressing "E" the engine started again. It didn't occur in any other flights that day, so it's probably not serious. I did fly one long (60 minutes) campaign mission and clicked on the debriefing feeling very nervous; but the game did not lock up. My mission results were displayed and recorded! It seems as though the problem has been solved by moving the sliders back, and many thanks for your replies. By the way, is it possible in this game to warp? Or only in CFS3? Whenever I have tried to warp to the next waypoint by pressing "X" I get the message "You cannot leave as you haven't reached the required speed."

[rhythalion 0]

you need to install Warpzap, if you have Phase 2. it should be on the disk :)

 

Or you need to dive your plane faster than 120 before engaging Warp ;) Warpzap allows you to warp from 60.

Edited March 13, 2009 by rhythalion

[Bez34 0]

I have Phase 2 but have been unable to locate Warpzap. I dive from high altitude until I reach the right speed and then hit "X". Something else I found is that sometimes it doesn't stop in time so I press Ctrl X to exit warping. Thanks!

[Bratushka 0]

I have lock ups if I accidentally hit a key like "Print Screen" which linked to a program called Gadwin Print Screen. I can't kill the window or restore OFF to the screen. If I Alt Tab to bring up the TrackIR program to do some tweaking, the same thing happens- I can't get the OFF back and i can't minimize the TrackIR window. Recently, I hit one of the F keys, F1 i think, and brought up one of the guides. I activated the print button and it printed out OK. After the printing was done I couldn't get the print window to close or bring back OFF. I did a Ctrl Alt Del to bring up Task Manager and got the print window to close. It showed OFF as "not responding". Then I couldn't get the Task Manager window to close. I walked away for a couple hours to see if it would sort itself out and when I came back I found everything still locked up. Cycling power is the only way to restore operation with any of these lock ups. What's odd is that after my PC comes back up my screen resolution has changed -native resolution is 1920 X 1200- and the icons huge reminding me of going from 1024 X 768 to 600 X 400. After I change it back I have to run an Icon Restore as they are all scrambled up. It does this when I exit from OFF normally as well. Sometimes the resolution has changed and sometimes not. The Desktop icon layout is always scrambled up though.

[Bratushka 0]

Simple Solution: Don't have any more accidental key presses . .

 

 

sausage fingers! can't help it!

[sitting_duck 3]

Hi

 

the problem of not being able to get out of the game window to your desktop and back into the game has been there forever. Been told its a carryover from cfs3.

 

Rather than explain everything i do to get around the problem, i am going to suggest you take a look at "playexpert"

 

There is a banner at the top of the page for it here.

 

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?act=idx

 

I took a quick look at it, and from what i can tell its a utility that lets you get in and out of game windows. Evidently the "problem" exists in a lot of other games too.

 

lol..not even going to hide the fact im looking for people to try this before i do....

 

so if you happen to give it a shot,,,,let us know what you think of it.

 

and if your still looking for warpzap let me know

[Bratushka 0]

Hi

 

the problem of not being able to get out of the game window to your desktop and back into the game has been there forever. Been told its a carryover from cfs3.

 

Rather than explain everything i do to get around the problem, i am going to suggest you take a look at "playexpert"

 

There is a banner at the top of the page for it here.

 

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?act=idx

 

I took a quick look at it, and from what i can tell its a utility that lets you get in and out of game windows. Evidently the "problem" exists in a lot of other games too.

 

lol..not even going to hide the fact im looking for people to try this before i do....

 

so if you happen to give it a shot,,,,let us know what you think of it.

 

and if your still looking for warpzap let me know

 

 

Will do! I haven't encountered this problem before that I can remember with any game I have played. I had some similar issues with STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, but it was a total lock up within the game that required cycling power to clear. I remember something with the Full Canvas Jacket upgrade for Red Baron that also caused an in-game freeze up. I loved that sim but I could never get it to even load after I went to Windows XP from Windows 98. I missed it sorely because it was my favorite flight sim period and I was becoming quite the scourge of the skies in it. I was ecstatic when I came across OFF years ago to fill the WWI flight sim gap RB left. The few others that I came across since have all been sorely lacking.

[Bratushka 0]

I downloaded and installed Playexpert. After installation I rebooted my computer as required. When it came back up, as it reloaded the programs, etc. the window appeared where Playexpert wanted me to log in and another one that showed it was updating. About 30 seconds into the update with the progress bar about half way done I got a Blue Screen of Death that flashed very briefly and the PC rebooted. This happened over and over again probably a dozen or more times while I tried to stop it. I tried going into Safe Mode, but even booting up in Safe Mode, it wouldn't complete and the same BSOD thing happened. Finally, while it was booting up to the desktop and loading everything again I was able to open Windows Explorer, open the C drive, and find and open the folder for Playexpert. I quickly deleted the updater file before the BSOD cycle repeated. Once this file was gone the BSOD cycle stopped and I was able to uninstall the program in the normal way. After my computer came up again, I had a dozen and a half "Your computer has recovered from a serious error" windows pop up. There was no cure suggestion when I submitted the first few to Microsoft. Since removing Playexpert, I have had no more problems with continuous rebooting and no more BSODs. The only deviation between my PC and their suggested requirements is my PC has a 2 GHz P4 processor and not a dual core. Everything else met or exceeded their suggestions. I also have an ATI video card, but not the model they state they had trouble with on their web page. Mine is a Radeon X1950 Pro with 750 GB of memory. When the Playexpert program was setting up it showed a screen displayed as an analog gauge with a needle that displayed the compatibility with my system. It was midway into the green safe area. I'm not exactly a computer novice, so I don't think it was anything I did. Regardless, I won't be installing it again!

Edited May 4, 2009 by Bratushka

[sitting_duck 3]

hmm,,,sorry i put you thru all that...

 

wont even give you the "better you than me routine" :)

 

too bad,,,we need a utility like that,,,,,,

 

but anyways,,,here are some go arounds.....

 

if you are doing campaingn,,,not sure if this is going to work too much, only cause the offmanager plays a more important part in campain than in qc, stand alone missions, or mp

 

for missions, start from the offmanger, click on multiplayer (seems to be a problem getting to the missions medal from off mangaer directly), and after selecting any of the custom missions from the drop down, you end up at the mission and multiplayer screen. from here you can easily get into taskmanager. find your offmanager in the processes tab, and kill it. now you will be able to tab out of your mission or mp game without any problem.

 

you can also make shortcuts on your desktop to cfs3.exe (for quick combat), and cfs3mp.exe (for missions and multiplayer). and start them from there rather than go thru the manager.

 

If you do this, you will get the occaisionl situation where you dont have the medals you expected to get. (ie,,,cfs3mp.exe is giving you just a qc medal, and not the mision/mp medal). when this happens you have to go back to offmanger, and select the type of game you want, and then let it get to the point where you have the medal you want. then you can kill the manager again. Not sure the best way of describing what is happening here, other than to say the game remebers what you played last, and gives you the same medal for it...or something like that.

 

some time soon i have to reload my os. before i take that plunge, i may give playexpert a shot.

[Bratushka 0]

hmm,,,sorry i put you thru all that...

 

wont even give you the "better you than me routine" :)

 

too bad,,,we need a utility like that,,,,,,

 

but anyways,,,here are some go arounds.....

 

if you are doing campaingn,,,not sure if this is going to work too much, only cause the offmanager plays a more important part in campain than in qc, stand alone missions, or mp

 

for missions, start from the offmanger, click on multiplayer (seems to be a problem getting to the missions medal from off mangaer directly), and after selecting any of the custom missions from the drop down, you end up at the mission and multiplayer screen. from here you can easily get into taskmanager. find your offmanager in the processes tab, and kill it. now you will be able to tab out of your mission or mp game without any problem.

 

you can also make shortcuts on your desktop to cfs3.exe (for quick combat), and cfs3mp.exe (for missions and multiplayer). and start them from there rather than go thru the manager.

 

 

 

If you do this, you will get the occaisionl situation where you dont have the medals you expected to get. (ie,,,cfs3mp.exe is giving you just a qc medal, and not the mision/mp medal). when this happens you have to go back to offmanger, and select the type of game you want, and then let it get to the point where you have the medal you want. then you can kill the manager again. Not sure the best way of describing what is happening here, other than to say the game remebers what you played last, and gives you the same medal for it...or something like that.

 

some time soon i have to reload my os. before i take that plunge, i may give playexpert a shot.

 

 

No problem with the joyous PC experience. I'm always up for an adventure and know enough where I can usually find my way back home again. I bookmarked this to keep a record of it. Right now I'm doing a lot of quick flight, solo stuff to get familiar with the controls and get some flight practice in. I'm not quite ready to make an online appearance or do any squad flying yet. These beasties are much more temperamental than anything I have ever flown. I have been using a Saitek X-45 controller set, but am trying to find the power pack for my Logitech Wingman Strikeforce 3D since some things I read said force feedback helps feel out what is happening with the aircraft. I used to use a Logitech Wingman something or the other with Red Baron before it died. I really liked it, especially gunfire induced shake. The damn thing was big as a coffee table tho...

 

Be sure to post back about your experience with Playexpert. I'm sure it was likely a compatibility issue with my video card. I think all the ATI cards use the same basic software. I'm actually an nVIDIA fan, but ATI made one of the last "big" AGP video boards. I will build a new PC eventually with the power to crunch through some of the newer games. I just can't quite afford it right now.

Edited May 5, 2009 by Bratushka