Awesome simulator.. that does not work!

[fjoesne]

I have spent more time trying to make this simulator to work than actually using it. There are to many bugs and problems. And before you start moaning about reading the checklist. believe me I have read it and gone through with it several times to no avail. Reinstalling windows should not be needed to make a program to work.. And if i ever have it working, you can bet that every time you do a system update, DCS gets in trouble, missing dlls etc etc.

The simulator is awesome, but until they got all the "alfa"-bugs stuff out of the way I suggest waiting before buying this thing :/

Another thing i am struggling with is to apply black shark 2 upgrade bought from digitalcombatsimulator.com to my steam-bought black shark.. apparently that isnt possible.

[[GCA] King Apo]

Please clarify your problem, otherwise we won't be able to help you. Also did you check the system specs, 9/10 post's that ask for help DIDN'T read the system specs.

I know you said you read the "checklist" but as stated above... I need to ask... Do you have a 64bit Windows Vista / 7 or 8? DCS:World will NOT run on a 32 bit OS.

Now assuming you have a 64 bit OS, please post:
1. Your system specs.
2. A detailed discription of your problem/crash. When does it crash? How far do you get?
3. What did you do to try to fix the problem. e.g did you work through the "check list" stickied in this forum.
4. If we can't resolve this, and this is some kind of unknown bug: Crash log's for the devs.

I agree, reinstalling Windows would only fix problems with your existing Windows - but probably not something that is wrong with DCS:W.

[fjoesne]

Maybe I was unclear. The problem is that I have it working one second, but updating the OS or irrelevant applications messes it up.

for example: #6 in the checklist is no longer possible because there are newer versions out there. Does this mean that you cannot have any other applications that require a newer version of Visual C++ installed to have this thing working? I cannot install the 2010 edition of C++ because I have a newer version of it installed, error:
"
Please resolve the following:
A newer version of Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable has been detected on the machine.
"
I have and will need Visual C++ 2012 redist.

After running various files in Dependency Walker and googling what little I could find in my logfiles, I found a couple of discussions on eagle.ru that resembles my problem. The thing is that I do not want to start putting unknown files into my systems folder. The point is, this should not be necessary. Also, when running Dependency Walker it tells me that it cannot find the following files:
API-MS-WIN-APPMODEL-RUNTIME-L1-1-0.DLL
API-MS-WIN-CORE-WINRT-ERROR-L1-1-0.DLL
API-MS-WIN-CORE-WINRT-L1-1-0.DLL
API-MS-WIN-CORE-WINRT-ROBUFFER-L1-1-0.DLL
API-MS-WIN-CORE-WINRT-STRING-L1-1-0.DLL
API-MS-WIN-SHCORE-SCALING-L1-1-1.DLL
DCOMP.DLL
IESHIMS.DLL

Again, googling this eventually tells me that the library is wrong/missing. Most likely this is infact the problem; DCS requires 2010 c++ libraries that cannot be installed as long as you have 2012 c++ libraries. is there a workaround that does not require me to use outdated libraries? (and/or download from dll-files.com etc etc)

[Chameleon_Silk]

well i would say that it sounds like its a visual C++ problem or the associated installer cause from what I can tell you most certainly can have 2010 c++ libraries installed

source: my unistall list.

It just sounds like you have one way or another run into some other kinda problem and its effected DCS, not DCS has messed up your visual c++ libraries, I think your a bit off in thinking its a DCS problem.

Now if you said your mission was crashing every hour or two I'd have believed it was a DCS problem :P

anyways hope you can solve your windows issues.

[Tatsue]

The newer version of Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable means specifically a newer version of Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable. Yes, Microsoft is friendly enough to not just have one... (Same thing with DirectX, btw, which is why Steam runs that "first time setup" thing every time you install a game - different games will want different version of what looks to the user as being exactly the same thing, but it isn't.)

Visual C++ 2012 is 100% irrelevant to this.

The workaround for you is this:
Step One: uninstall Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable through the normal manner (Control Panel/software/uninstall etc).
Step two: install the indicated Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable package.

Again: this will NOT affect your VC 2012 package. Same way updating DirectX9 does nothing to your DirectX11.

[Tatsue]

As an example, here are the VC++ Redist packages I have installed at this time:

VC++ 2005 Redist 8.0.61001
VC++ 2005 Redist 8.0.56336
VC++ 2005 Redist 8.0.59193
VC++ 2005 Redist 8.0.51011
VC++ 2008 Redist 9.0.30729
VC++ 2008 Redist 9.0.30729.6161
VC++ 2008 Redist 9.0.21022
VC++ 2008 Redist 9.0.30729
VC++ 2008 Redist 9.0.30729.4148
VC++ 2008 Redist 9.0.30729.6161
VC++ 2010 Redist 10.0.40219 (x64)
VC++ 2010 Redist 10.0.40219 (x86)
VC++ 2012 Redist 11.0.60610.1 (x64)
VC++ 2012 Redist 11.0.60610.1 (x86)
VC++ 2013 Redist 12.0.21005.1 (x64)
VC++ 2012 Redist 12.0.21005.1 (x86)

[Tatsue]

Should add another note perhaps:

There is no problem at all with, after doing the uninstall/install thing here, installing whatever version of 2010 you removed afterwards. The problem is that microsoft installer, which refuses to install if the "newer" one is there, which isn't exactly helpful when they're all made in such a way that a given codebase is liable to find itself needing a specific one.

[kazereal]

Tatsue is correct here.

The runtime "release" version (2005/2008 etc.) are for the API/ABI compatibility and the build number (such as seen after 9.0) is the version of the DLL with fixes in the code itself.

Program built with VC++ 2005 will need newest version of 2005 runtime, same way with 2008 etc. due to API/ABI of the mentioned runtime the program is built against.

You _never_ need to uninstall any of the runtime versions.
You _should_ update runtime to newest version when there is one available.

Problem is most likely somewhere else, often drivers or DirectX related.

Side note: Dependency Walker always shows some libraries missing, that's just the way it is due to way Microsoft has built libraries and distributes them. That is not the problem either.

[Chameleon_Silk]

Originally posted by GCAApo:

I agree, reinstalling Windows would only fix problems with your existing Windows - but probably not something that is wrong with DCS:W.

which would then in turn fix the problem hes having with DCS world because its not actually DCS world that is causing the problem to begin with.

sidenote: reinstalling windows to make problems dissapear with bad windows installs or corrupted this or that (be it from drivers or other mishaps) has been occuring since windows came out, and most definetly should be the ultimate way to fix a problem when nothing else works, otherwise I'd have never touched windows again in my life.

I definetly suspect its the installer for the libraries, possibly even uninstalling the libraries to try and reinstall them is probably leaving something behind still confusing the installer, and maybe thats how this mess even began... but i'm beginning to grasp for straws at this point.

[kazereal]

Btw, try running "dxdiag" - that can detect some common problems with drivers etc.
Note that it has 64-bit version as well.

Also, make sure you have both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) versions of the runtime libraries installed: 32-bit for other programs, 64-bit for DCS.

[Raptor]

Originally posted by fjoesne:

Another thing i am struggling with is to apply black shark 2 upgrade bought from digitalcombatsimulator.com to my steam-bought black shark.. apparently that isnt possible.

Nope, you can't apply that upgrade. ED does not allow anyone to do that, so you need to buy the full version of BS2 on steam or on DCS store.

Now, if you're talking about upgrading the standalone version of DCS, then that is possible. I've done that before.

[fjoesne]

I have wasted too much time on this, so damn frutstrating! I have enough with trying to fly this plane.

Why on earth won't they allow me to upgrade my DCS Black Shark with the upgrade from ED. That just doesnt make any sense, do they want to alienate their customers? If i buy a game dvd in a store and the upgrade at another why should that make any difference? its completely stupid and I think that in most countries, doing business like this, is illegal. But, then again, we are in steamland where anything is possible.. In any case this is a waste of my time and money. BLAH!

[kazereal]

Originally posted by fjoesne:

I have wasted too much time on this, so damn frutstrating! I have enough with trying to fly this plane.

Why on earth won't they allow me to upgrade my DCS Black Shark with the upgrade from ED. That just doesnt make any sense, do they want to alienate their customers? If i buy a game dvd in a store and the upgrade at another why should that make any difference? its completely stupid and I think that in most countries, doing business like this, is illegal. But, then again, we are in steamland where anything is possible.. In any case this is a waste of my time and money. BLAH!

This has been discussed many many times, most recently here (see Tatsue's response):
http://steamcommunity.com/app/223750/discussions/0/558747287708065811/#p2

[Raptor]

I bought BS1 on Steam, and the upgrade from Eagle Dynamics. Sorry, I realized my last post was extremely vague.

Its a really messy installation for people with the upgrade, I agree. I think people who didn't follow the forum posts on Eagle Dynamics' forums would probably be lost. Well, if you're willing to try this again sometime in the future, here's exactly what you need to do:

1. Install BS1 on Steam
2. Download standalone DCS World from www.digitalcombatsimulator.com (do not download from Steam)
3. Download the upgrade module http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/downloads/modules/dcs_black_shark_2_upgrade/
3. Insert Upgrade CD Key when it asks for it

If you do this, it should most likely work.

Because you have the upgrade, you are pretty much forced to play on the standalone version. They won't ever make it possible for you to activate the product through Steam, it was confirmed in ED forums.

[fjoesne]

did this, worked.
I removed everything from steam except BS1 and reinstalled standalone DCS.
Got it working once, test flight with the SU25, once i ended it it crashed/froze and I am now back to the problem i had before. DCS world is unable to start, no error just a console window flashing followed by nothing and the sound of my voice screaming a bad word.

[fjoesne]

i think i have found the reason for this. It has all to do with a config file. The error handling on this isnt great so its hard to figure out what actually went wrong.

3 display config file works with the following:
{
Left =
{
x = 0;
y = 0;
width = screen.width / 3;
height = screen.height;
viewDx = -1;
viewDy = 0;
aspect = screen.aspect / 3;
},

Center =
{
x = screen.width / 3;
y = 0;
width = screen.width / 3;
height = screen.height;
viewDx = 0;
viewDy = 0;
aspect = screen.aspect / 3;
},

Right =
{
x = screen.width * 2 / 3;
y = 0;
width = screen.width / 3;
height = screen.height;
viewDx = 1;
viewDy = 0;
aspect = screen.aspect / 3;
}
}

when I change this section to the following it won't start:


Viewports =
{
Left =
{
x = 0;
y = 0;
width = 1050;
height = 1680;
viewDx = -1;
viewDy = 0;
aspect = aspect.ratio / 3;
},

Center =
{
x = 1050;
y = 0;
width = 2560;
height = 1680;
viewDx = 0;
viewDy = 0;
aspect = aspect.ratio / 3;
},

Right =
{
x = 1050 + 2560;
y = 0;
width = 1050;
height = 1680;
viewDx = 1;
viewDy = 0;
aspect = aspect.ratio / 3;
}
}

Keep in mind that I can actually use the latter settings, however I have to start it, then edit the file, and then start a mission. The default 3screen will not work with my setup because i have 2 displays in portrait mode on each side of the main display.
I guess i should start a new discussion on this on eagle.ru or something.. but so you know.

Suggestion: improve error handling. atleast some window/popup telling me that things did not work and where I can find more information.. e.g logfile..