Help for a new prophead

[ShrikeHawk]

Hallo!

 

I am trying to install a new PTO installation with SF Gold.

 

I've installed the 06 update, Nations.ini, formations, and the midway terrain. Every time I start it up and get to the loading page I get the "this application has issues do you want to send a report..." yadda yadda.

 

What am I doing wrong?

[+Baltika]

Hi Shrike,

 

I seem to remember that when Gepard created Midway terrain, it included many groundobjects such as ships and the like.

 

Permission was subsequently withdrawn for many of those items, and Gepard re-released the terrain minus those groundobjects. You will have to get them individually from capun's website. That might be causing a CTD.

 

Have you installed Wrench's WW2 wep pack?

 

Also, what plane are you flying?

 

What WW2 planes have you installed?

 

You may also have to check the date tag (in OPTIONS.INI, I think) to allow single missions to run from, say, 1930 up to 2010 on whenever.

 

Those are just a few thoughts that occur to me to check. Let us know how you get on.

 

Cheers,

 

Baltika

[+Baltika]

I included a step-by-step guide to getting a PTO install up and running in the Readme to the Midway campaign. Grab it here, should give you a few pointers, if you haven't already

 

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=8420

 

Replace Bunyap's pack with Wrench's WW2 wep pack and you are good to go.

 

Note to self:

 

Will have to update these WW2 campaign readmes to refer to Wrench's WW2 wep pack, rather than Bunyap's. Buny's will work fine, but you will end up with a lot of modern stuff you don't need for a WW2 install. If, like me, you end up with a half-a-dozen theatre-specific WW2 installs, every little bit of space helps

[ShrikeHawk]

hehehe. Thanks Baltika. My registration with the A-Team is apparently incomplete (just found out). So no, I haven't included any of those objects.

 

I have added the weapons pak. The whole folder of "weapons" is sitting in my "objects" folder. Correct?

 

I have installed Wolf's aircraft addon and I am trying to fly the F4U-1. I have also installed the Japanese aircraft pak (this one is fairly old).

 

Let me know if i missed something.

[jet_spud]

i've been doing multi-installs for the last several days - the first a pacific one with WOV but this caused problems with WW2 planes (lock-ups), so on the advice of wrench i redid them with WOE; i used v.06 and followed all instructions to the letter, i recall it said for one pacific scenery package that you must install the add-on ships, vehicles, aa mg's etc from a-team, so i sourced everything possible from there first, and popped them in.

 

i chose not to use SFG because most add-ons now seem to be done with WOE in mind.

 

next i read that midway scenery is also important for more objects, so this went in next - checking each time to see if all ok, then the philippines scenery was next and all went according to plan. i've now got all the pacific theatre aircraft from a-team working fine, plus most of the updates and new planes here. the scenery is awesome - no probs so far. i've also done nw europe 1943-45 on another install and BoB, burma and africa are next up! its a fantastic resource here and at a-team.

 

you must be careful to update the CAT file in the scenery.ini each time - because the CAT file decides which game the scenery is compatible with; desert-SFG, Vietnam Sea-WOV and GermanyCE-WOE. apparently WOI is a big no-no full stop!

 

also make sure you don't patch up your ww2 game beyond 06 (you can update your WOE later). hope that helps from a fellow newbie!

Edited September 8, 2009 by jet_spud

[+Baltika]

Hi Shrikehawk,

 

Yes, the wep pack will create a weapons folder inside your objects folder, so that's fine. There shouldn't be a problem with Wolf's a/c pack or AD's Japanese plane pack.

 

Have you tried this fix:-

 

http://forum.combatace.com/extending-usable-years-wire-sims-t27492.html

 

Like jet_spud says, checking the CATfile pointer in each of your terrains is also well worth doing. Make sure it is pointing to desert/desert.CAT as you are running SFG.

 

Can you fly WW2 a/c on the stock desert terrain? If so, that may narrow things down to a specific terrain problem. Some of the WW2 terrains had a bit of a problem with planes that need a large or medium runway size to take off, as they had only the small Runway3 included. Shouldn't be a problem with the F4U-1, though.

 

Tally-ho!

 

Baltika

[+Baltika]

You may also need to adjust the graphics settings in your FLIGHTENGINE.INI file.

 

You will need to extract this file from the FlightData.CAT file (in the /Flight folder).

 

Scroll down and replace these entries as follows:-

 

[GraphicsSettings]

ZBufferDepth=24

MaxVertexCount=16384

MaxIndexCount=32768

MaxTextureCount=16384

MaxModelType=2048

MaxMeshPerScene=2048

MaxModelPerScene=4096

MaxLightPerScene=1024

AspectRatio=1.333333

MinPixelSize=1.0

 

Then leave the modded FLIGHTENGINE.INI file in your flight folder. Some 3d party models can cause a CTD if these settings are not high enough.

 

Good Luck!

[ShrikeHawk]

Very Cool. Thanks for all the suggestions Baltika and jet_spud. I'll give these things a try and get back to you.

 

I thought about the terrain pointer. in my Midway.ini it says "../desert/desert.CAT".

 

Should I be goin up one more directory like it says or should it read "desert/desert.CAT" ?

I also moved a copy of the desert.CAT file into the Midway terrain. No joy there.

 

Still, that might not be the issue and I just need to apply these fixes you mentioned.

 

Cheers!

[Wrench]

also moved a copy of the desert.CAT file into the Midway terrain. No joy there.

 

That's the VERY old way of doing it ... ie: pre06. You can, however, after moving the desert cat into the Midway terrain folder, simply rename it to match

 

Desert.cat become Midway.cat, and all should work.

 

In ALL my terrain mods, you'll find these statements, using the Midway.ini as an exmaple....

 

[Terrain]

TerrainFullName=Midway

DataFile=Midway_data.INI

TargetFile=Midway_targets.INI

TargetTypeFile=Midway_types.INI

MovementFile=Midway_movement.INI

NationsFile=Midway_nations.INI

BriefingText=Midway_briefing.INI

DogfightFile=Midway_dogfight.INI

DogfightOnly=FALSE

//CatFile=..\Desert\Desert.cat <--

CatFile=..\GermanyCE\GermanyCE.cat <--

//CatFile=..\VietnamSEA\VietnamSEA.cat <--

Latitude=30.0

Longitude=175.0

 

 

 

this allows for any of the Original 3 Terrains ™ to be used for the reach-around for the objects. It's also criticaly important that one (or more) of the Original 3 Terrains ™ be residing in your terrains folder as well.

 

wrench

kevin stein

[ShrikeHawk]

*sigh*

 

I've checked my midway.ini file and it's correctly pointing at the desert.cat file.

 

I edited the options.ini and singlemission.ini with the different startyear and endyear

 

I updated the flightengine.ini with the new graphics settings.

 

I can fly the corsair over the regular desert terrain in SFG with no problem.

 

Still crashing at the loading screen...

 

What now?

[Wrench]

What error message is it generating?

 

Meaning, when SFG craps out, you should get a little popup that says "SFG has experienced an error and needs to close. An error report has been generated blahblahblah" or words to that effect.... on that should be a blue hyperlink that says something like 'to see what this message contains, click here'.

 

That'll open another popup, and somewheres on the top 3 lines it may (and hopefully WILL) say something about ****.dll

 

THAT's the info we need, other wise we're more in the dark than you!! ;) If possible, take a screen shot of yourr desktop (key- print screen, then drop the clipboard image into any image progam, and attach to your next post). That'll help IMMENSLEY in trying to diagnose the problem

 

Also, as JS stated above, SF/SFG DO have some stability issues, which is why I abandoned them 4-5 years agoe for, well pretty much anything. That's why I've begun to reccomend using WoE, in part for that and it's flexablity. However, it's still reccomended to copy/paste the Desert terrain into WoE's /Terrain folder. There's stuff still in the cat that may be needed (usually just the tiles)

 

wrench

kevin stein

Edited September 9, 2009 by Wrench

[ShrikeHawk]

What error message is it generating?

 

Meaning, when SFG craps out, you should get a little popup that says "SFG has experienced an error and needs to close. An error report has been generated blahblahblah" or words to that effect.... on that should be a blue hyperlink that says something like 'to see what this message contains, click here'.

 

That'll open another popup, and somewheres on the top 3 lines it may (and hopefully WILL) say something about ****.dll

 

THAT's the info we need, other wise we're more in the dark than you!! ;) If possible, take a screen shot of yourr desktop (key- print screen, then drop the clipboard image into any image progam, and attach to your next post). That'll help IMMENSLEY in trying to diagnose the problem

 

Also, as JS stated above, SF/SFG DO have some stability issues, which is why I abandoned them 4-5 years agoe for, well pretty much anything. That's why I've begun to reccomend using WoE, in part for that and it's flexablity. However, it's still reccomended to copy/paste the Desert terrain into WoE's /Terrain folder. There's stuff still in the cat that may be needed (usually just the tiles)

 

wrench

kevin stein

 

Hey Kevin,

 

The error is the far less useful "SFG has experienced an error and needs to close..." blahblahblah.

 

So I guess this means do it over again with WoE?

[Wrench]

Oh, man! You're halfway there!!! That's the popup I was talking about. Look at it carefully. There's a blue colored hyperlink on that you click, and it'll go to the next one, and tell what's dying.

 

That's what we need to know!

 

of course, you can always move up to WoE. But lets see if we can't solve this one first before dumping SFG (actaully...thinking about it...you'll probably want to move evetually, and add the Desert AND Vietnam terrain folders to your WW2 installs.)

 

but, the technician/diagnostician in me wants to find the error first.. :)

 

wrench

kevin stein

[ShrikeHawk]

Hey Kevin,

 

Here's the display from the error.

 

 

Looks like there's a ground object problem after all.

I did install the ground objects that the readme calls for from Capun's site.

I just hope I got the right AAA gunner. The only one I found was for First Eagles, but the object call looked the same.

 

Should I have installed ALL the gunners in the package? Did I goof?

[ShrikeHawk]

Okay - I'm clearly missing something for the "FLA-MG". I didn't see anything like that in Capun's site. So where would I get it?

[Wrench]

THAT'S IT!!! That's the screen!!!

 

the "FLA_MG" is similiar -- in fact it IS the Browing MG AAA gunner. It should be in Gepard's Midway terrain, with some other ground objects.

 

If you can't find it, or it keeps crapping out, open the Midway_Targets.ini, and do a find/replace for "FLA_MG" to "AAA". Not historically correct (if you've seen John Ford's documentary of the Battle of Midway you'll see all kinds of MG pits), but it'll eliminate that object.

 

btw, the "tommyflak37" is the 3.7in gun found on some of the euro ww2 terrains, and IIRC, Geo's site

 

wrench

kevin stein

[ShrikeHawk]

I'll give this a try tonight. Thanks for the support!

[ShrikeHawk]

Got it working! Thanks for all the encouragement and help.

 

 

[+Baltika]

Glad hear it, happy flying