LockUps on mission load, White screen

[XyZspineZyX]

WinME, AMD 1Ghz, 512M RAM, GF4 Ti4400 128M, VIA-based mobo, latest drivers for the mobo and videocard, DirectX9 (off the LOMAC CD).

If the game loads then missions would not load from any position (fast builder, mission editor, main screen).
Two outcomes: either the load bar would reach 80-100% level and the game would lock up or
it would drop to desktop and if I try starting it again gives a message "lockon caused an error in <unknown>" and that would lock up the computer.

Sometimes the game would give a white screen with the button names in green - lockon seems to choose randomly when to show that.

The game was installed onto a defragged drive - tried reinstalling several times. IL2FB runs fine, Hidden&Dangerous2 runs fine.

Oh and Lockon demo runs fine too.

[XyZspineZyX]

WinME, AMD 1Ghz, 512M RAM, GF4 Ti4400 128M, VIA-based mobo, latest drivers for the mobo and videocard, DirectX9 (off the LOMAC CD).

If the game loads then missions would not load from any position (fast builder, mission editor, main screen).
Two outcomes: either the load bar would reach 80-100% level and the game would lock up or
it would drop to desktop and if I try starting it again gives a message "lockon caused an error in <unknown>" and that would lock up the computer.

Sometimes the game would give a white screen with the button names in green - lockon seems to choose randomly when to show that.

The game was installed onto a defragged drive - tried reinstalling several times. IL2FB runs fine, Hidden&Dangerous2 runs fine.

Oh and Lockon demo runs fine too.

[XyZspineZyX]

I get a white screen with green options (words) on the left.
When I try to start a quick flight by clicking on the right where the buttons normally are. The game crashes after getting a loading screen and 90 to 100% loading.

LOCKON caused an invalid page fault in
module WORLDGENERAL.DLL at 0187:010d8bff.
Registers:
EAX=052c0ef0 CS=0187 EIP=010d8bff EFLGS=00010206
EBX=010d0000 SS=018f ESP=0337fc4c EBP=0337fc70
ECX=010d8b00 DS=018f ESI=01d7fd20 FS=2157
EDX=c0030901 ES=018f EDI=00000001 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 08 50 ff 51 08 c3 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90
Stack dump:
010e3e0f 00000000 010e3ea4 010d0000 00000000 00000001 00000000 010d0000 81aac8c0 0337fe38 bff7ddd6 010d0000 00000001 00000001 00000000 010d0000

Ive had it up to my high and tight with software companies releasing garbage like this. 39 dollars wasted. Thankyou so very much.

win98se,msi K7N2 Delta, amd xp 3200+ (barton core), 512 megs corsair xms, geoforce fx5600 128, soundblaster live, Mff2 joystick.

IL2 FB works perfectly fine with full detail. As well as my other 50 some odd games.

[XyZspineZyX]

After turning off Radio Speech and Full Screen and trying to load a mission got:

"lockon caused an error in DDRAW.DLL"

BTW, I hear now that the game was not tested in Win98 and WinME. So the phrase 'WinXP recommended" actually means "not likely you'll get it running on anything else".

[XyZspineZyX]

I also get a "White Screen" with green lettering of menus on the left during mission load up.
No way to use mouse or Keyboard, basically frozen....
I reformatted my hard drive and installed Windows 98SE, same thing happened again.
Chatter on the speakers during loadup and after freeze-up sounds good.
My system: AMD 2.0, Radeon 9600, 512 MB Ram, Creative soundblaster.

Gdotts

[XyZspineZyX]

More probs:

every time I try to exit Lockon (missions still not loading) I get:

"lockon caused an error in MOM.DLL"

[XyZspineZyX]

I am also suffering from the white screen with green letters.-


if anyone finds out more about this problem, id really like to hear about it

[XyZspineZyX]

Increasing swap file size to almost 2Gig helped to cure the White scree problem.

Turning off Full Screen helped to load a mission, but after 3-8mins in mission I get "error in DDRAW.DLL" or "error in unknown".

Also, there is no engine sounds for the planes of te player's flight - other sounds are on (missilies, radio chatter. engines of other flights).

Ran dxdiag - everything is fine (draw and direct3d tests passed)

BTW, framerate is pretty good.

[XyZspineZyX]

I have the same problem. White screen and green letters.
No buttons are available but occasionally I can stumble on one that takes me to another white and green window.
The demo didn't work for me. I had hoped the official release would work better.
I have win98se. Athlon 950. geforceFX 5200 256 FIC SD-11 MB
Latest VIA four in 1 drivers
I had been running a Matrox G400 until I tried the lo-mac demo and it wouldn't run. Also Halo required a little more power so I purchased this card and installed it last week. It runs Halo fine. I know my system is a little weak, so I expect to have to turn the settings way down, but it should at least start!
Loaded in lo-mac tonight and here we are. arrrgggg!!!
At least others are having the issue so maybe we can find a solution. Hopefully it is not upgrading to XP.

[XyZspineZyX]

Unfortunately we are screwed - I heard from someone close to the team, unofficially, that this thing will not work on Win98 or WinME - they didnt keep these in mind.

Last time I upgraded Windows I ended up losing lots of info, what a let down. Didn't hear much good about XP either.

[XyZspineZyX]

The way I see it. If it dosnt work on win98, that is false advertising. Read the Box. Chaps my hide.

[Spektre]

What is everybody's DESKTOP screen resolution?
I have a feeling that when there is a large discrepancy
between the desktop resolution and the game's resolution
the game craps out or doesn't communicate well with the
video card.
I would STRONGLY recommend place your desktop on 1024x768
and or 1280x1024 (my setup) and play the game with
1024x768.

Just something else to try...

Oh, and BTW, DO NOT play the game in 32-bit colors. It HOGS
your FPS... /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-indifferent.gif

-Spectre
-Colorado

[XyZspineZyX]

Yeah, I matched desktop/game resolutions and dropped graphics options to low as one of the first measures - still getting "error in DDRAW.DLL" about 5min into a mission.

[XyZspineZyX]

Slick4500 wrote:
- BTW, I hear now that the game was not tested in
- Win98 and WinME. So the phrase 'WinXP recommended"
- actually means "not likely you'll get it running on
- anything else".

Slick4500 wrote:
- BTW, I hear now that the game was not tested in
- Win98 and WinME. So the phrase 'WinXP recommended"
- actually means "not likely you'll get it running on
- anything else".

95% of my testing was done on Win98SE. It does run... but not very reliably.

That said, your sentiment is mostly correct. The Lock On code is only "solid" on WinXP. The main issue with XP is the copy protection, if you can get past that you'll have smooth sailing. AFAIK the box label was a misprint, should have read "WinXP only". I suspect the Win98/ME issues will be addressed in a patch, but if you don't want to wait that long and are able to do so, it's to your benefit to upgrade to Windows XP.

-SK

Windows 98SE devotee

[XyZspineZyX]

winxp and windows 2000

The two are virtually identical anyway /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif

http://xmensquadron.virtualave.net/images/exor.jpg

[XyZspineZyX]

SwingKid, what are your settings of the swap file size and Vcache min max size on Win98 ? Did you have to tweak any other parameters of Win98 ?
Hardware acceleration setting for vidcard and soundcard ?

What are the options in Lockon on Win98 ?

What videocard and drivers do you have ?

[XyZspineZyX]

Oh adn SwingKid - thank you for responding.

You are the first person remotely related to the project who responded to this common problem.

Looks like Ubisoft officials prefer to ignore them and post in other threads instead.

[DayGlow]

this is a community forum. If you want official tech support please use the link on the top of the page.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raven Shield/Lock On Forums Moderator
"It takes a big man to admit he is wrong, I'm not a big man." Chevy Chase, Fletch Lives
Raven Shield FAQ (http://forums.ubi.com/messages/message_view-topic.asp?name=us_ravenshield_ts&id=zzfuu)
LOMAC FAQ (http://www.lo-mac.com/faq.php)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[XyZspineZyX]

I let Windows manage the virtual memory settings. I have two drives (for the dual boot 98 and XP), about 2 Gb free on C and 10 Gb free on D. I have a GeForce4 Ti4600 video card with 45.23 drivers. I have tried various options settings without problems. Note however that as a beta tester I do NOT yet have the retail version of Lock On and don't have to deal with the copy protection issues.

That said, here are the Windows 98/ME-specific issues of which I'm aware, that do NOT occur on Windows XP:

(1) Trying to run Lock On immediately after install causes a crash. System reboot required.

(2) About every second time Lock On is run, the white screen appears instead of the main menu. System reboot required, problem fixes itself.

(3) Clicking "Fly!" on any of the main menu aircraft buttons causes a crash. However I can run missions that I build myself in the editor.

(4) Clicking "Fly!" in the editor for an empty mission causes a crash.

(5) Any attempt to use AWACS/Theater view (F10) during a mission causes a crash. (Probably related to (4).)


All other issues I've seen posted on these forums AFAIK affect both Windows 98 and WinXP equally. The options not being saved may be caused by the copy protection - if the options file is installed to your disk as "read-only".

Hope this helps,

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

Don't be too hard on other project members... They are probably more frustrated than we are /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif and I know some people who are scrambling to fix these issues. I probably have the most experience testing with Win98, but the forum software is giving us all SERIOUS trouble responding promptly. And of course, you have to respond first to the threads where you know the answer.

That said, don't thank me.. Thank YOU for your patronage, patience and civility. I can imagine how you feel. That goes for everyone.

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

Well, hopefuly enough people buy it before people catch on to whats going down.

617th 2nd lut.

[XyZspineZyX]

2 SwingKid:

Thanks, I hope first thing they do is ask their Win98 and WinME testers about their set-ups (OS tweaks and game options) and publish them.

I had the White screen repeatedly until I increased the swap file size to 2Gig - hasn't appeared since.

Someone suggested increasing the RAM size that WinME uses, but I have no limit on it (checked in msconfig).

My biggest problem now is that the game crashes with error in DDRAW.DLL after 5 min in a mission. Latest official nvidia drivers just like yours, dxdiag is happy.



2 DayGlow: I clicked that link, after some navigation all I found were snail mail address and the phone number. Is there an email for technical support ? Or separate forum ?

[XyZspineZyX]

Slick4500 wrote:
- My biggest problem now is that the game crashes with
- error in DDRAW.DLL after 5 min in a mission. Latest
- official nvidia drivers just like yours, dxdiag is
- happy.

Hmm... Which mission?

Did you press F10 during the mission? Sometimes the crash isn't immediate after pressing F10. You think you got away with it... And then a minute or two later, the game crashes.

If that's not it, then it may be something new that I haven't experienced yet.

Hope this helps,

-SK

[DayGlow]

click the knowladge base then the ask a question tab.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raven Shield/Lock On Forums Moderator
"It takes a big man to admit he is wrong, I'm not a big man." Chevy Chase, Fletch Lives
Raven Shield FAQ (http://forums.ubi.com/messages/message_view-topic.asp?name=us_ravenshield_ts&id=zzfuu)
LOMAC FAQ (http://www.lo-mac.com/faq.php)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[XyZspineZyX]

I created a simple 2vs2 mission over the sea (MiG-29s vs F-15). I start it from the mission editor.

I also stayed in the cockpit view all the time - still same crash, but if I switch between several external views it seems to crash earlier.

Are there any command line switches for writing a detailed log ?

[XyZspineZyX]

Having the same exact problem with the white screen and crashes to desktop. I can't hardly believe this sim was not tested in Win98 thoroughly! I really hope they can come up with a fix soon, very agravating....

Silver Spur

[XyZspineZyX]

I managed to avoid the DDRAW.DLL error by flying away from the enemy and not fighting, maybe it's a glitch in AI routines ?

After I quit the mission the GUI had white rectangles instead of button names, but the buttons were still functional. I clicked on the white rectangle where the Exit is supposed to be and the game exited without crashing.

[XyZspineZyX]

Oh the woe of WIN98 SE!! The white screne of death. I sincerely hope a PATCH is in the works. It would be a shame having to spend a couple of hundred for XP. Is the sim worth it? Hell YEA, but at a crunch time of the year! I can just hear myself telling the wife "Honey I gotta spend another 200.00 to fly LOMAC" I run for cover gripping the credit card tightly in my teeth!

All jesting aside though, when the box, manual and CD have printed it is compatable with 98SE and IT'S NOT well disappointing is a understatement. It is a wonderful sim from all the screen posts and I hope many of you are enjoying. Eventually I will........... My system specs and error log follow.

AMD, XP 2100+ Locked (O/C 1800MHz) 13 x 138
AX2100DMT3C
AGOIA0215DPIW
AX-7 H/S with 80mm Tornado (rheostat set to 3500 rpm)

MSI KT3 Ultra ARU 6380-E
Bios 5.7

O/S 98SE & DX 8.1

Samsung, 512mb PC-2700 DDR333 CAS 2.5

60gb IBM Deskstar x 2
Sony floppy 1.44
Toshiba 1612 DVD-CDROM
Lite-On 32123 32x12x40 CDRW
Antec SX-840 case (cut out fan grills, increase air flow)
430W pwr supply
VisionTec G4 Ti-4200 128mb (Det 31.40 driver)
ViewSonic PF-790 , 1080x768, refresh @ 85hz
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Promedia 4.1's

TM Digital F-22, TQS and Elite rudders

Error log:

11/22/03 17:52
LandModelManager: can't find #model 15 LightPolygon
LandModelManager: can't find #model 15 CloudShadow
ModelManager: can't find LAP-CABLES
FILE NOT FOUND: .\Bazar\Terrain\Map\map_rivers.sup
FILE NOT FOUND: .\Bazar\Terrain\Map\land_map_L2.sup
ModelManager: can't find GAZ-2410
ModelManager: can't find VAZ-2107
DXDefTexture: failed to load C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Eagle Dynamics\Lock On\FUI\Common\StartImage.bmp, D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA.
DXDefTexture: failed to load wpp-rul-1.bmp, D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA.
DXDefTexture: failed to load samara-red.bmp, D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA.
DXDefTexture: failed to load samara-blue.bmp, D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA.
DXDefTexture: failed to load samara-cherry.bmp, D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA.
DXDefTexture: failed to load TRAVA-2.TGA, D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA.

Happy Flying for those that can!!

ED

[XyZspineZyX]

Created some simple missions with only one plane - still getting "lockon caused error in unknown".

is there a way to turn on a detailed log from the command line ?

I have 96% resources free, nothing in the background. What can it be ?

[XyZspineZyX]

After reducing sound hardware acceleration (maybe something else affected this though) the game just dumps to desktop in a mission at random times without any error messages.

If I have a mission with a player (not AI only) then there is no engine sound for the player's plane and the game dumps to desktop much earlier.

If I have only AI planes and they are in the middle of the sea (away from ground textures) then I might watch up to 5 fights or so until it decides to dump me.

Error.log always contains different last lines about not finding some tgas (even though they must have been there from the start). For instance once it dumped because failed to find MiG29-FONAR-S-13 - but this plane was in a mission for 20min before that !

Also, SingKid,

Did you install Lomac into the default directory ?

If yes, could you try and install elsewhere and see if it would work ? Did you hear about any problems due to the game installed somewhere not in the default dir ?

[XyZspineZyX]

I heard rumors about needing to install in the default directory from other testers, but I never did it myself and never had problems that I could be trace to that as the cause. AFAIK none of the other external testers used Win98 or ME.

It's not you or your system if that's any comfort. I've gone back and tested again, and as much we were "recommending" XP before, the 98/ME issues are even worse than I realized. Even after getting to the main menu, building your own mission and avoiding all use of the theater view, I am also seeing the game crash after a few minutes - something that was not happening in earlier betas. And I haven't even seen the box version yet.

The AI routines were pretty much left unchanged in the last few betas. I suspect it's the sound engine. Something there was changed at the last minute that killed player flight engine noises on 98/ME and even managed to break the AVI recording function on XP.

As depressing as that must be, remember that the demo version of Lock On ran much better on Windows 98/ME. No white menus, no white rectangle buttons, engine sounds present, etc. That's at least some proof that these bugs just appeared in the last few days before release. It also suggests they are fixable, not caused by inherent flaws in 98/ME, and that despite XP being the "recommended" OS, 98/ME support wasn't intentionally dropped from the start. Now that Ubi Soft understands these issues better I can tell you there is a MUCH stronger commitment to supporting 98/ME than I had to worry about before.

At this point however, I'm not going to be able to help much further with these issues in this forum. There simply aren't any quick fixes except to upgrade to either 2000 or XP, and I'm now needed elsewhere to help make sure these bugs get fixed in a patch. In the meantime, there will be a lot of newcomers to this forum in the coming days with the same unfortunate problems. With this forum software's lack of FAQ/sticky post features, I would be grateful if those of you reading this could help spread this knowledge around.

Thanks for your support in helping to track these bugs down. This is our fault, not yours, and I won't let anyone forget it. "Recommended for Windows XP" is not an excuse. If you bought Lock On, you are supporting my hobby and my committment is to you. As I have anything to do with it, the patch will fix these bugs and be the reward for your patience and loyalty.

Thank you, best regards.

-SK




Message Edited on 11/23/0303:08PM by SwingKid

[XyZspineZyX]

I took a break from playing Morrowind and dropped by to see what the latest news is.


***Edited to what got my attention***

SwingKid wrote:
Now that Ubi Soft understands these issues better I
- can tell you there is a MUCH stronger commitment to
- supporting 98/ME than I had to worry about before.
-
-
- At this point however, I'm not going to be able to
- help much further with these issues in this forum.
- There simply aren't any quick fixes except to
- upgrade to either 2000 or XP, and I'm now needed
- elsewhere to help make sure these bugs get fixed in
- a patch.

- Thanks for your support in helping to track these
- bugs down. This is our fault, not yours, and I
- won't let anyone forget it. "Recommended for
- Windows XP" is not an excuse. If you bought Lock
- On, you are supporting my hobby and my committment
- is to you. As I have anything to do with it, the
- patch will fix these bugs and be the reward for your
- patience and loyalty.
-
- Thank you, best regards.
-
- -SK


You have again provided a candle for my darkness. If I am reading this correctly, a patch is currently being worked on so that my LO:MAC disc will play just as well as those currently playing on their XP systems. This is extremely good news indeed, so I will go ahead and keep my copy and not return it . Thanks for the good news and with our best wishes, test away, debug, and please try to keep us informed of the patches ETA. If there is anyway any of us 98'ers can help please ask and I'm sure we will do our best to help.

FWIW, the last few tips you provided about the FBP did get me in to fly alittle. But, lack of textures, sound, and trying to cofig a controller every 2-3 times the game decided to work really pushed the limit of my patience.

I am sure we all look forward to getting fixed up properly.

<center>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
You're not even trying to take this game serious are you?!?!?!?!?!?!?! /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-wink.gif </center>

[XyZspineZyX]

This is hilarious in a very sad way.

I first trying installing the game and all of it seemed to work except I got no sound in the cockpit.

I uninstalled, rebooted. Deleted left over files in game folder. Rebooted again.

I re-installed the game and now I am getting crashes and the white screen crap.

Man, UBI has outdone themselves!


Windows 98se
Athlon XP 2100
Nvidia Fx5600
256 Meg Ram


Message Edited on 11/23/0303:59PM by SlipperyJim

[XyZspineZyX]

KILSEK wrote:
- If there is anyway any
- of us 98'ers can help please ask and I'm sure we
- will do our best to help.

Yes.

Over the past day or so there was a post around here that discussed the problems Windows 98 and ME have addressing more than 256 Mb of memory. Because of the lack of a working search function on this forum I'm unable to find it again. Anyone have the link?

What I'd like to know is if this affects only physical memory, or the virtual memory swap pagefile as well. It's interesting that Slick4500 managed to change something by increasing his swap file size to 2 Gb, because Eagle Dynamics seems to agree that the memory addressing limit is part of the problem.

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

I think this is the one you're wanting.



http://forums.ubi.com/messages/message_view-topic.asp?name=LOMAC_ts&id=zzytd

<center>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
You're not even trying to take this game serious are you?!?!?!?!?!?!?! /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-wink.gif </center>

[XyZspineZyX]

OK, I'll chime in here.

I'm a long time Falcon4 user, so I'm kind of used to this tango. F4 is just now becoming truly complete, some five years after its release, and through the efforts and dedication of the user community and its nomadic developers.

I bought lo-mac, and of course it didn't run. I got past the white screen problem by upping the swap file to 2500MB (on 512MB physical 333 DDR RAM), but couldn't get into a mission in either fullscreen or windowed mode, getting a CTD of some kind or another in windowed, or a freeze or CTD in fullscreen.

I figured that this was due to my slight aenemic HW setup, which I knew was due for an upgrade. I had:

AMD Duron 1.2 ghz on a VIA mobo, 512MB RAM, Ti4200, 60GB HDD, 32x CDROM. DX 9.0a, SoundBlaster 512 PCI

So, I went out and bought some stuff. After I soldiered through the install process, which broke windows (naturally) and managed to get the detonators and directx cleaned up, I had my current configuration:

AMD Athlon XP 2500 1.8ghz on VIA K7 Triton KT600, 750MB RAM, GeForceFX 5600/256, 60GB HDD, 52x CDROM, DX 9.0b, SoundBlaster 512 PCI

I was kind of hoping this would help. Having fixed the BIOS settings to make the 5600 happy (which was tricky, its by far the pickiest NVIDIA card I've encountered yet) and giving it the beta 52.xx drivers for Win98, which it also wanted before D3D would work, all of my other D3D and OpenGL apps began to _fly_ at moderate performance settings.

However, with LOMAC, I'm back to the white screen.
Windowed mode is no longer helping, nor does setting 16/32 bit depth for the sim or UI in the graphics.cfg file.

This 98 business is frustrating, but thanks SK for your much appreciated assurances. It's sad to say, but I had to read your post twice to make sure I had got it right the first time. That kind of commitment is getting hard to find these days, so let there be no doubt that it is appreciated by equally dedicated, loyal gamers/purchasers.

The word from MS is that 98 will be a legacy product after January 20th or something like that--no more official support. The 98 tech bases will close in 2006, or some such. So, maybe its time to spring for a copy of XP after all....

[XyZspineZyX]

There was another one with instructions how to address up to 999 Mb (something about 1 Gb being over the limit).

Nice find! thanks..

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

I was able to get a much longer session in a mission (30min+). Still no engine sound, but I did get to experience flying and fighting - got my first kill in the game.
The mission is in the middle of the sea - 2vs2 duel.

Things I changed before this session:

Increased AGP aperture to 256M from 128M (so now it's half my RAM)

Turned off radio chatter and betty.

Increased res to 1600x1200 (doubt this was the reason).

With 4 planes I get about 30-40 fps with high textures, full lighting, medium effects and everything else on low (bumped up options one by one moving from low).

[XyZspineZyX]

gamecat22 wrote:
- The word from MS is that 98 will be a legacy product
- after January 20th or something like that--no more
- official support. The 98 tech bases will close in
- 2006, or some such. So, maybe its time to spring for
- a copy of XP after all....

Indeed. I should probably comment that although I'm still 100% committed to getting Lock On to work on 98 and ME and believe it can be done, I'm beginning to realize that commitment may not be enough. Even if Eagle Dynamics succeeds, it will be a temporary victory. Lock On is a memory-intensive piece of software and any future add-ons will only make it more so. Even the "working" betas were always close to the threshold of what 98 and ME could physically manage in terms of memory. So whatever solution is found will ultimately be a temporary one - the day is fast approaching when we will all have to upgrade to continue, and 98 and ME will simply disappear from the box specs.

That said, the work continues...

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

gamecat22 wrote:
- So, I went out and bought some stuff. After I
- soldiered through the install process, which broke
- windows (naturally) and managed to get the
- detonators and directx cleaned up, I had my current
- configuration:
-
- AMD Athlon XP 2500 1.8ghz on VIA K7 Triton KT600,
- 750MB RAM, GeForceFX 5600/256, 60GB HDD, 52x CDROM,
^^^^^^^^^^^^
- DX 9.0b, SoundBlaster 512 PCI

Assuming you're still running this setup on Windows 98, did you need to do anything special with your VCache setting to make it accept more than 512 Mb without crashing on boot?

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

After reading about XP at www.annoyances.org (http://www.annoyances.org) I'm not that much enthusiastic about installing it.

Looks like Win2000 might be a better option.

This article at MS KB covers what is possible to do to reduce the amount of RAM and system arena that Windows is grabbing for itself and leave some more for the apps:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q253912

[XyZspineZyX]

SK wrote:
-Did you have to enable Vcache to keep it from crahsing on -boot
(w/over 512k ram)

Well, no. I did have to tweak the BIOS to get the 5600fx running well and D3D to work, and its still very picky about its detonators. I can only get reliable performance from the most recent betas.

But when doing tweaks for the 5600 I noticed that there were automatic timing/config setting for the DRAM, so it may be doing something I'm not aware of. I have a KT600 based mobo.

On another note, I'm not that thrilled with my upgrade. I didn't do enough research, and I'm finding out that I should have stepped up to the AMD 2800+ on a nForce chipset mobo and picked up a Radeon9600 pro 256 8x instead of the 5600. So off I go back to PC Club with my card, receipt, and attitude. Hopefully the manager will realize how out of it his sales guy was.

-DF-
gamecat@comcast.net

[XyZspineZyX]

[deleted duplicate post]



Message Edited on 11/24/0304:10PM by gamecat22

[XyZspineZyX]

Heya,

Well I managed to get things working on '98SE, and things seemed much more stable than the demo. First thing I did LOMAC was installing was check here. Safe to say I was a little worried about things not going well for 98ers.

I figured I'd give it a go anyway. First try, everything was fine until I clicked the instant fly button for the A-10. CTD'd on the loading screen. Pretty much thought I was done for.

Anyway, started back up, created myself a small mission, A-10's and a couple of russian ships to bomb and presto, everything works fine. In fact from that point on, it worked so fine that It's only crashed three times in the past seven hours.

A-10 user created missions, on to SU-33 and SU-25 missions, dogfights, choppers, ships, bombing runs on airbases, even the first few A-10 campaign missions. You name it, it worked. No cyan screens either (like i had non stop in the demo)

Anyway, all is going well until I ctd about 45 minutes ago. I re-booted, started up again and now I crash every single time on the loading screen on all types of missions, the cyan screens are appearing and the white boxes and yellow writing has started.

I don't get it. I honestly have not touched a single thing since I first started playing. I haven't installed or uninstalled anything, or changed any settings since this morning.

Specs are low, didn't even expect it to work at all, but I don't see how it can randomly decide to work for ages and then not.

GeForce 4 MX440 128
AMD Duron 1.1
1 gig of Kingston PC2700 RAM
2x 40gig WD 7200 RPM HDD (98SE is on the same drive as LOCMAC)
AC'97 onboard sound
Via based M/board
SW Force Feedback Pro (which actually works properly)

Desktop Res: 1280x1024 32bit colours
Anti Aliasing Off
DX sound acelleration and graphical related acelleration: full

Options:
Textures: High
Scenes: Medium
Water: Low
Haze: Basic
Lights: All
Visib Range: Med
Terrain Pre-loading: 50km
Effects: Med
Heat Blur: Off
Shadows: All Planar
Colour: 32bit
Resolution: 1024x768 ... To be continued...

[XyZspineZyX]

..Continue from previous

Constant 40-45fps high over sea
Constant 25-30fps low over cities
Constant 18-25fps in high activity areas (cities, bombs, flares, multiple ground and air units)

And lastly here's the most recent few lines in my error log.

PFXMaterial: failed to create either pixel or vertex shader, E_FAIL.
ParticleEffectPlayer: couldn't load material 'PFXExplFire3', falling back to compatibility path ...
PFXMaterial: failed to create either pixel or vertex shader, E_FAIL.
ParticleEffectPlayer: couldn't load material 'PFXExplFire', falling back to compatibility path ...
DXDefTexture: failed to load wpp-rul-1.bmp, D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA.
DXDefTexture: failed to load samara-red.bmp, D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA.
DXDefTexture: failed to load samara-blue.bmp, D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA.
DXDefTexture: failed to load samara-cherry.bmp, D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA.

So there we have it. It can work in 98SE, but for how long is anybodies guess. There's hope somewhere. Anyways, hope some of that was slightly helpful to someone.

I'm off to try and get things working again I feel a little more relaxed. The game is absolutely brilliant though when it wants to work.

Take care all,
Mopy

[XyZspineZyX]

During the exit sequence, Lock On saves a lot of information to the options, log, swap and other files. If Lock On crashes, those files can become corrupted, giving you problems the next time you start Lock On. Fortunately the system is pretty resilient about being able to repair itself. If you restart and exit the game one or two times without it crashing, it may "spontaneously" start working again. You will probably have to manually reconfigure your options again.

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

As I mentioned above I completely uninstalled it, deleted the remaining file and re-installed because I was having a sound problem.

The game worked worse for me on the second install! Now all I get is the "white screen of death".

The "corrupt" file idea does not seem to apply in my circumstance. So much for that theory /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-wink.gif


Here is the error that is logged and I assume is why we are not seeing the main screen properly:

DXDefTexture: failed to load D:\Games\Lock_On\FUI\Common\main-screen.dds, D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA.


> way I see it. If it dosnt work on win98, that is false advertising. Read the Box

Closer to fraud I would say, lol. I refuse to upgrade my OS so they better get working on that patch pronto!

Message Edited on 11/24/0305:23PM by SlipperyJim

[XyZspineZyX]

SlipperyJim wrote:
- As I mentioned above I completely uninstalled it,
- deleted the remaining file and re-installed because
- I was having a sound problem.
-
- The game worked worse for me on the second install!
- Now all I get is the "white screen of death".

The "white" menu is affected by the contents of your computer memory and Windows swap file at the time of booting. Simply re-installing the Lock On does not ensure these will remain identical the second time around. As stated elsewhere in this thread, if you try again a few times, the sim usually alternates between the "white" menu and the correct menu on consecutive attempts.

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

Didn't know where else to post this, I have another tip. When creating our own missions in the editor, make sure that you view the "Payload" screen for EACH AIRCRAFT before clicking "Fly". Otherwise the wrong aircraft skin may load in the mission and you may get a mix of national markings on it during the game. It looks sorta interesting but after a few seconds of panning around in external view it appears this will crash the game.

The incorrect texture bug is also present on WinXP, but XP's improved stability features prevent the game from crashing.

Viewing the payload in the editor before clicking Fly apparently loads in the correct default skin for the chosen nationality.

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

game installs fine but on start up All I get is white screen and green letters that do nothing and sound running os/ME 512Mb Sdram Gforce FX 5200 128 DDR Ram AMD 1.2Gz

[XyZspineZyX]

Ha! Fixed it again after er..a few hours or so of fiddling and trying to work at the same time.

Re-boots weren't helping the white menu's and non stop ctd's and blue screens (the cyan version) after it decided to start going funny on me. I started and re-started many many times (LOMAC and my comp) and the best I could get was the normal menu, and rarely in game but with no textures at all, just plain white models.

Anyway, at the end of it all, after trying (and failing) with the lowest details again etc I started up another game of mine and had a mess about. Came back 20 minutes later without re-booting and LOMAC was magically working again.

I've had the textures problem stick three times now, and every time it's instantly fixed by launching my other game, then just quitting out again and loading up LOMAC.

No idea what that's about, but it looks like thats my fix until I can afford to upgrade and buy XP.

Not sure if that little bit of info will ever be useful to anyone else, but I thought it interesting enough to post. Just in case.

Good luck all.
Mopy



Message Edited on 11/25/0303:29AM by Mopy.

[XyZspineZyX]

Now this sucks the big one http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

Windows-Me and no joy for me. You mean to tell me they did not know about no go with 98 and Me ? All they had to say was was you needed XP and I would have known this sim is not for me until I could come up with $100 for XP. Now I can not even take the game back to the store......I'm screwedhttp://ubbxforums.ubi.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

[XyZspineZyX]

I was able to get the sound and a more or less acceptable mission length.
Mind you, these missions take place far away from the graphics intensive terrain. My set-up cannot handle even 1 plane near an airbase - too many textures are missing and there is a quick CTD.

If the user records a track (Ctrl-R) then every other time there is sound for the player's flight.

Also, if some textures are missing in the 3D world it is possible to force them loaded by Alt-Tabbing several times.

I was able to have some 2vs2 fights with two carriers around and some ground atack missions over the flat Turkish lands.

Too bad there are no simpler "on-line" maps.
Having several airbases in the flat Turkey woudn't hurt either.
As far as I see it, it's the super accurate terrain that's killing it for the lower end PCs (or those with WIn98/ME).

[XyZspineZyX]

Ok. Has there been an "official" reply to our problem yet ?

Are they working on a fix or are we just out of 40 bucks ?

The win98/Me white screen with the button names in green bug. I find it hard to believe they "ubisoft" did not know about this before shipping. Man I'm p!ssed-off
-

[XyZspineZyX]

Increase your Windows virtual memory swap pagefile size.

Slick4500 is correct. If I reduce the swapfile, the white screen becomes more frequent. If I increase it to around 2 Gb, it no longer occurs.

There are other bugs, but at least this one has a fix that should hold you over until a possible patch solution.

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

Thanks SK for your posts. I have cool off now and made up my mind to wait it out for a patch. If none is here in a few weeks. I guess I will make Billy G. Richer.

[XyZspineZyX]

Hi,

I'm running Win98, Geforce Ti4400, 512MB ram, PIII 1.2GHz, and all the lastest drivers.

Guess what? It didn't work the first 5 times I installed it and then when I set the resolution in the sim to 800x600 and deselected full screen the game started. The terrain was fine but all vehicles were white.

I exited the game, restarted the PC and now it is in full color and runs pretty darn smooth!

I don't know how long it is going to last but I will take it.

If any of you guys want to know any details about my settings post here and tell me where/how to find them I will post them.

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Hey All,

Concerning the crashing issues with 98 and ME, we have a theory here in Tech Support. So far the incidents we have seen directly have been from people using SB Live, SB PCI 512, and other sound cards that do not have Direct X 8.1 compliant drivers for 98 and ME.

We removed an SB Live from a 98 machine here and were able to play LO:MAC on it with no sound card. If you know your way around your computer pretty well and feel comfortable removing and reinstalling hardware you may want to give this a try. Not a great solution I know, but if any of you are able to give it a shot it would be a step towards figuring out if non compliant sound card drivers are causing the crash.

Also for those getting the white screen, if you can try Slick's suggestions I would be interested in seeing what types of results you get.

[XyZspineZyX]

BrentW wrote:
- Hey All,
-
- Concerning the crashing issues with 98 and ME, we
- have a theory here in Tech Support. So far the
- incidents we have seen directly have been from
- people using SB Live, SB PCI 512, and other sound
- cards that do not have Direct X 8.1 compliant
- drivers for 98 and ME.

Mine is an onboard "Creative SoundBlaster AudioPCI 128" and I have observed all of the 98/ME issues, non-removable AFAIK. I'm out of my depth here.. Is there a site to download a new driver?

- We removed an SB Live from a 98 machine here and
- were able to play LO:MAC on it with no sound card.
- If you know your way around your computer pretty
- well and feel comfortable removing and reinstalling
- hardware you may want to give this a try. Not a
- great solution I know, but if any of you are able to
- give it a shot it would be a step towards figuring
- out if non compliant sound card drivers are causing
- the crash.

There have been some other problems reported with the sound code in the release version of Lock On, a few even with XP, so I think this is the right track. It was changed in a recent build before the release IIRC, sound in the demo and most previous beta versions was ok on all Windows versions.

- Also for those getting the white screen, if you can
- try Slick's suggestions I would be interested in
- seeing what types of results you get.

I have the same result. If Windows controls the swap size in 98, I get a white screen about every second time I boot Lock On. If I set it manually to 2 Gb, no white screen. If I set it manually to 128 Gb, it gives me an almost constant white screen.

Thanks for the help!

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

Wait for Patch!
I just talked to UBI Support and explained the white screen green text and CTD problems with Win98SE. He said he was sorry but there is no fix at present and watch the forums for Patch information.......
So all you 98SE flyers have fun flying FB Thanksgiving.....

"Nothing difficult is ever easy"

[DayGlow]

Swing, go into your bios and disable onboard sound and see if that stops the crashes for you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raven Shield/Lock On Forums Moderator
"It takes a big man to admit he is wrong, I'm not a big man." Chevy Chase, Fletch Lives
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[XyZspineZyX]

yea it helps but it dosnt last long before it crashes to the desktop

[XyZspineZyX]

Swingkid or anyone else
I ran the demo fine 90% of the time
I got the final code and now I get DDraw.dll error
just trying to start any mission and if I am lucky enough to get into a game some of the textures are fried "white out" I don't know what they changed but they need to revert imho I even upgraded the soundcard which worked fine on the demo soundblaster128 nothing really changed
can we get actual tech support to give us the lo-down
i tried the ubi support "support = duhhhh" no email i work in the day and can't call /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-sad.gif

system win98se
ram 512 pc2100 ddr
sound creative 5.1 live
lite on dvd player
lite on 48X24X48 burner
asus a7a266 mother
ati 9000 128 meg ddr graphics card
joy X45
maxtor 40 gig 25 free
dx9.b
everything runs fine but this game
or can ubi put an address where we can return the game
and if I return it to EBgames i lose 15.00 off the game /i/smilies/16x16_smiley-sad.gif



Raptor

[XyZspineZyX]

I had the same problem. I went to the MS site and download DirectX from there and that error hasn't reappeared.

Update on my earlier post:
I tried to go full screen at 1024x768 and it crashed to desktop. I simply restarted the PC and got it to run but all vehicles were white in the sim. I shut it down again and it ran fine....7 carrier landings 1 bolter..I think it may be a bit too easy http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[XyZspineZyX]

BrentW wrote:
- Concerning the crashing issues with 98 and ME, we
- have a theory here in Tech Support. So far the
- incidents we have seen directly have been from
- people using SB Live, SB PCI 512, and other sound
- cards that do not have Direct X 8.1 compliant
- drivers for 98 and ME.
-
- We removed an SB Live from a 98 machine here and
- were able to play LO:MAC on it with no sound card.

Good find, but I think this may be just a symptom, not the cause. I was able to disable my SB sound card from windows and get the F-15 Quick Start mission to load and play (with neither sound nor gameport joystick), but had a CTD after a few minutes in the mission.

-SK

[XyZspineZyX]

I found another workaround.

1. Go to your Lomac installation dir and from there to Bazar\Terrain\Scenes . Back up files High.scn and Medium.scn

2. Go to your Demo instalation dir and to the demo's Bazar\Terrain\Scenes ; Copy Demo's High.scn and Medium.scn to the corresponding Lomac retail's install

3. Start Lomac and, if you want to be a purist - set Scenes in Options to low, that way you'll be getting the retail scenery at low level.

This fixed a lot of my WinME related probs - I have sound, missions over landscape load etc.

I made sure to start a retail version after rebooting - so it's not the demo's dlls.

Still much more testing is needed.

One point to the developers - folks, I had my scenery on Low before. The fact that this trick works means that the High scenery was loaded into memory ANYWAYS, just in case. What's the point in Low textures or scenery settings if the high settings are loaded into memory but not shown ??

The way to go is to create a light-weight version of the map and otimize the code at least for such obvious things.