Nellis AFB CTD's support thread

[djnocturnal]

1. Version of OS=Vista
2. Version of FS=FS9.1
3. Nellis and Easter Egg installed
4. Time of day that CTD occurs.-Dawn/Dusk
5. UT USA installed or not.-YES
6. Third party mesh installed and if so which one.-FSGENESIS
7. Was the package installed manually or using the installer.-installer

No Alphasim scenery at all, no KLAS scenery either.

[MIKE JG]

No luck for you either Mark? Dang it. Is your mesh the freeware version or payware?

[djnocturnal]

freeware from avsim I double checked and have both the posted texture files too. maybe its a UT thing? I had problems with crashes in desert areas when I had the dry wash textures installed, once I removed them everything was ok again.

[Johnny Test]

1. Version of OS: XP/SP3
2. Version of FS: v9.1
3. Nellis and Easter Egg: Installed
4. Time of Day That CTD Occurs: Dawn/Dusk
5. UT USA Installed or Not: Yes
6. Third Party Mesh Installed And If So, Which One: FSGlobal 2010
7. Was The Package Installed Manually or Using The Installer: Installer

[MIKE JG]

There are a couple more bits of info that for thoroughness, we need to know. There are optional files that can be installed to further enhance the scenery. These are a pair of alternate desert dirt textures for users who have ground textures courtesy of Ground Environment Pro and an optional ground polygon that will cover up the grassy area produced by the local land class courtesy of Ultimate Terrain USA. This polygon shaped grassy area is supposed to be the Las Vegas Motor Speedway just to the north of the base. If you use UTUSA you will get big green patch in the middle of a desert environment. If you want to get rid of this and restore the area to its natural desert environment, you can add this additional VTPP file to the scenery.

These three files, two textures and one scenery file, are contained inside a folder called "Alternate Ground Files" which is located in the main MAIW Nellis AFB (KLSV) folder. The two textures are named, "MAIW_Desert_4.bmp" and "Dirt Mound.bmp". The ground texture polygon scenery file is named, "MAIW_Nellis_AFB_Remove_LVMS_VTPP.BGL".

So to be a bit more thorough, please answer these nine questions:

1. Version of OS
2. Version of FS
3. Nellis and Easter Egg installed or Nellis only.
4. Time of day that CTD occurs.
5. UT USA installed or not.
6. Third party mesh installed and if so which one.
7. Was the package installed manually or using the installer.
8. Are you using Ground Environment Pro and using the alternate texture files:
9. Have you installed the additional ground polygon file:

Please remember that if you are using the alternate texture files, the file "Dirt Mound.bmp" goes into the local texture folder (FS9/Addon Scenery/MAIW Nellis AFB (KLSV)/Texture) and the file "MAIW_Desert_4.bmp" goes into the global texture folder (FS9/Scenery/World/Texture). Failure to locate the "MAIW_Desert_4.bmp" texture file in the proper folder will result in a hard CTD during all times of the day.

[MIKE JG]

There are two more types of tests that you can do for us to help diagnose the issue.

The first is to take an overhead screenshot of Nellis AFB when it is loaded up during the day. This will show me if the ground polygon textures are being called correctly and which one you are using.

Also another thing you can try is to load up a flight at KINS (Indian Springs AFB) which is just to the west of Nellis AFB. If that loads up successfully then you know that the problem is local to Nellis AFB.

[MIKE JG]

And yet another thing to check for is the following 25 texture files to make sure they are included inside your FS9/Scenery/World/Texture folder:

Click on the image to enlarge it:

[djnocturnal]

Just checked, I am getting a crash at about 50% at KINS as well, here is a screenshot.

[MIKE JG]

Mark thanks for the image, here are a couple more things to check:

Check your FS9/Scenery/World/Texture folder against the image I posted to see if you have all 25 of those textures.

De-activate the two new MAIW Nellis and Easter Eggs sceneries, then try loading Nellis and KINS again to see if they load. This will tell us if in your case it is related to the Nellis package or Ultimate Terrain/Ground Environment Pro in your case.

You seem to have the same setup as I do on my main machine which is stable so I'm curious to why it crashes for you.

[djnocturnal]

I can confirm I have all the textures in the picture. I deactivated both scenery folders and now I do not get a crash at dawn or dusk

[MIKE JG]

OK, the next step for you is to use Procmon to see which file is causing the crash.

[tjwhite56]

Hi guys.

1. Version of OS XP
2. Version of FS 9.1
3. Nellis and Easter Egg installed or Nellis only. Both
4. Time of day that CTD occurs. Dawn/Dusk
5. UT USA installed or not. NO
6. Third party mesh installed and if so which one. NO
7. Was the package installed manually or using the installer. Auto
8. Are you using Ground Environment Pro and using the alternate texture files: NO
9. Have you installed the additional ground polygon file: NO

I have all 25 texture files, although they are not in the same order.

I decided to start from scratch with a fresh install of FS9. So in light of all the problems we are all having, I Installed the Nellis Scenery first. So there are no other sceneries installed as yet. I loaded the Egg at Dusk/ Dawn, no problems. I loaded Nellis at Dusk/ Dawn, it crashes at about 52% of the progress bar. I can load day/ or night and its fine. I can even switch to dawn or dusk after initally loading day, with no problems. I tried deactivating each scenery, and with egg deactivated, it still crashed. With nellis deactivated it loads Dusk/Dawn. I started removing files from the Nellis scenery folder one at a time, and reloaded each time,
When I removed the file MAIW_Nellis_AFB_Base_Poly_VTPP.BGL I got no CTD. I put it back and got the crash, removed it again, no crash. Could this file be the problem?

I tried the procmon thing and It freezes my system can't do anything.
also I forgot to mention that I did not get a crash at KINS with or without the file.

[MIKE JG]

LOL! Thanks for trying Procmon.

That's some great data to go off of. Yes it could very well be something in the base poly. That's something I'll have to check when I get back home which won't be for another 10 days or so. It's interesting that you can switch to dusk/dawn after the initial load but can't load it straight to dusk/dawn from the menu.

I will update my clean setup to the 9.1 version to see if that has any effect. Maybe it's partly a 9.0 vs. 9.1 issue? We'll see.

[Firebird]

Thanks TJ, really useful diags there.

Can I trouble the rest of you guys that have reported the issue to try removeing the MAIW_Nellis_AFB_Base_Poly_VTPP.BGL and see whether that solves the issue for you or not.
It would be nice if it caused everybody the issue but we are assuming nothing at this stage.

[tjwhite56]

Hi Guys

Discovered something today, I put that file ( MAIW_Nellis_AFB_Base_Poly_VTPP.BGL) back and was going to try loading it in different seasons because I was only trying winter, but before I did I fiddled with my display settings and found out if Dusk/dawn texture blending is checked it crashes, unchecked it does not crash. With the file removed it does not crash whether that box is checked or not. Other than that every slider is all the way and every box is checked in the display settings. Hope that helps.

[Firebird]

I have checked my settings and found that I have Dawn/Dusk smoothing set on, so in theory I should have the CTDs as well if that is the problem.
I will try something a bit radical to see if I can narrow it down any further. It probably won't work, but we have to try.
TJ, can you rename your Nellis folder to something safe and recreate a new one with the name that you have activated. Then only put in the scenery folder the MAIW_Nellis_AFB_Base_Poly_VTPP.BGL and use procmon to see what it calls, and indeed if it crashes which it should do.

[Firebird]

Guys,
Another thought crosses my mind. The only way that the CTD could happen to TJ and not to me with the dawn/dusk settings on is if it is a graphics card issue. Its weird enough to fit, so what graphics card do you use. Radeon or Nvidia based ones?

[tjwhite56]

I have checked my settings and found that I have Dawn/Dusk smoothing set on, so in theory I should have the CTDs as well if that is the problem.
I will try something a bit radical to see if I can narrow it down any further. It probably won't work, but we have to try.
TJ, can you rename your Nellis folder to something safe and recreate a new one with the name that you have activated. Then only put in the scenery folder the MAIW_Nellis_AFB_Base_Poly_VTPP.BGL and use procmon to see what it calls, and indeed if it crashes which it should do.

I have absolutly no luck using procmon, It completly freezes my system, I cant even use task manager to close it I have to shut the system down and restart.

[tjwhite56]

Guys,
Another thought crosses my mind. The only way that the CTD could happen to TJ and not to me with the dawn/dusk settings on is if it is a graphics card issue. Its weird enough to fit, so what graphics card do you use. Radeon or Nvidia based ones?

I have dual nvidia 7900 GS, and I do have the latest Nvidia drivers. I normaly run them with SLI disabled because I have XP media Center that I sometimes hook up to a projector, and it wont work with SLI enabled. I did just try enableing SLI and running FS, and still got the CTD with MAIW_Nellis_AFB_Base_Poly_VTPP.BGL in the Nellis folder, and no CTD with it removed. For what its worth, I have had past issues with these cards, but it is when the machine boots, and has never really affected FS that I know of.

[VulcanDriver]

Well guess what. I had the Dawn/Dusk smoothing set to on. My card is a GeForce / nForce 610i using driver version 191.07 (which I think are the latest ones) and DX 10.1. Turned Dawn/Dusk smoothing off an now I get no CTD with all textures and BGLs installed.