Textures cause CFS2 crash?

[RabbitHawk]

Hey all. I've been having a peculiar problem with a couple
of planes, namely the Hawk III and Ishak_I16_Tip10.

Both show up fine in the QC preview. I start the QC and
for a few seconds the mission runs, then the screen goes
black and cfs2 crashes to the desktop. At first, this was
only happening with the Hawk III. I set it aside to work on
other concerns while I figured out what to do. This is
after checking panel and sounds to be sure that was not
the problem.

Later, after flying (and flying against) the I16, I realized I
wanted the Chinese texture to show up by default. So I
edited the aircraft.cfg and put the Chinese texture data in
the [fltsim.0] location. I had already done this before to
put the USSR texture in the same spot with no problems.
This time, however cfs2 would crash in the same manner
as the Hawk III. To confirm, I put the USSR texture back
into the [fltsim.0] spot and, no problems again. It seems
the problem is related to textures.

So...this might explain what is happening with the Hawk
III. But what is it? A corrupt file maybe? I am hoping to
cure this problem with DXTBmp. Maybe running the
textures through it again will clean up a flipped bit or
two. Suggestions anyone?

RabbitHawk

[Hagar]

I don't know where you got the Chinese textures or if they were originally intended for FS2002/4. It could be the texture format that CFS2 doesn't like. Open the textures in DXTBmp to check. The original textures in the CFS2 Hawk I downloaded are in DXT1 format so that should be OK. I've had problems with 3rd party aircraft in QC before & some don't display at all when selected as AI. I always put this down to the MDL not being fully compatible with CFS2.

[RabbitHawk]

Thanks Hagar. In both cases the textures came with the
original aircraft. However, both originated as FS2004 a/c.
So they might not have been fully tested, who knows?
These files are pretty old though, I still suspect file
corruption. I'll let you know what I find out.

[Hagar]

Please let me know what you find out. I've converted several FS2004 aircraft to work in CFS2 with Ivan Hsu's MDLC utility. They work fine in Free Flight but I've had problems with some when used as AI aircraft in QC & missions. If the textures are in the correct format this might explain it. I wouldn't expect textures to cause CFS2 to crash but you never know.

[RabbitHawk]

Hey Hagar,

I think I figured this one out, and the solution is so
unexpected it's makes me laugh.

In the aircraft.cfg file I noticed that the title=values were
reeeaaally long. In some cases the title even wrapped
to the next line. Well, sometimes programs can be very
touchy about word wrapping in text files. I was also
trying to imagine the aircraft labels trying to show that
huge title. hehehe. So I shortened the title for the
Chinese I-16 and, bodda-bing! It works!

I went to the Hawk III, and it had a long title. I
shortened it and now the Hawk works just fine too!
Isn't that crazy? Brevity, brevity, hehehe.

RabbitHawk

[Hagar]

Hi RabbitHawk. That would explain it. Thanks for reminding me. I'm in the habit of using short file & folder names as when I first started many utilities were DOS based. These can only handle up to 8 digits. I never saw the point of these complex & lengthy file names anyway. Just because it's possible doesn't mean you have to do it. My motto us KISS - Keep it simple stupid.