Cannot get past the golden crosshairs....game locks up on start up

[darkside3/4]

Buddy received COD as gift on steam. We downloaded and updated it as steamed required that to happen before we could play it. On the first launch and ever since then, no matter what Mod packs we have installed, or whether its a vanilla install, we cannot get the game to get past the gold plane and cross hair.

The splash screen will show up and then flicker with a screen that is half sky on the top and black on the bottom. Then either only the mouse is on the screen, OR we start the game and the gold cross hairs will show up and the screen will flicker and the mouse will give us the blue circle and the cross hairs will stay on the screen forever. Whats the deal?

We have tried updated Direct X, rebuilding the shader cache file and all the other tricks that other forum users have posted.

[Mysticpuma]

Hi. Can you tell is what type of hardware and what OS your friend is using?

Cheers, MP

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Buddy received COD as gift on steam. We downloaded and updated it as steamed required that to happen before we could play it. On the first launch and ever since then, no matter what Mod packs we have installed, or whether its a vanilla install, we cannot get the game to get past the gold plane and cross hair.

The splash screen will show up and then flicker with a screen that is half sky on the top and black on the bottom. Then either only the mouse is on the screen, OR we start the game and the gold cross hairs will show up and the screen will flicker and the mouse will give us the blue circle and the cross hairs will stay on the screen forever. Whats the deal?

We have tried updated Direct X, rebuilding the shader cache file and all the other tricks that other forum users have posted.

This sounds like an anti-virus problem.

Have you checked to make sure the game is cleared by the anti-virus? Sometimes you need to go in and add it to a list of allowed programs. Sometimes this requires several exceptions to be noted.

In a worst case, you need to uninstall the anti-virus, then install it again with the game already there... that way the AV program sees your files to start.

[darkside3/4]

His anti virus was uninstalled before we tried the install. His specs are i7 2700k, Asus z77 moboard, GTX 670 2 GB, 8 GB RAM, Windows 7 64 Bit, Norton Anti- Virus uninstalled. All drivers updated, and deleted Windows KB update that was bothering plenty in the forums.

Sequence of events leading to the crash:

1.) Click on Il2 COD (via steam or from windows explorer)
2.) steam box installing microsoft c++ microsoft redistributle then gdf install
3.) Screen goes black and yellow crosshairs with plane logo(vanilla) or same with mod logo (TF mods 3.0,3.1,4.0) pop up.
4.) Screen flickers after about 5-10 seconds , during the quick flicker you can see in game blue sky(with clouds) on top half of screen and black screen on bottom half, yellow logo disappears
5.) After flicker the black screen with the yellow plane logo pops back up and then the computer hangs, with the windows small blue ciricle loading symbol.
6.) Have to force quit to exit.

Verified the steam integrity as well, uninstalled and reinstalled three times from cd and steam. Tried deleting all folders in 1c Soft Club folders, including deleting shader cache folders. Tried installing TF mod 3.0 and 3.1 to see if they made a difference, but no joy(we did get the mod logo with the same startup crash.)

.Net Frameowrk and runtimes where all up to date including direct x. His pc was setup next to mine, mine starts up fine so we thought it might be a graphics driver issue. After updating to the newest Nvidia drivers and the game crashing, we reverted back to the drivers from Nvidia that work on my rig, which didn't work either.

Luckily he sees the game works on my rig or he'd given up long ago.

[darkside3/4]

Any chance the moderators can edit the title to correct annot to Cannot?

[ATAG_Lolsav]

Question: most users disregard a very important step while installing mods.

- Did you launch the game at least 1 time after Steam patch? Did you do the same at evry step of mod install?, meaning, patch 3.0, launch, patch 3.01, launch the game once.

The reason for this is simple: There are files and folders who are created during those first launches.

Finally. Did you disable "Steam cloud" once you had it patched up to MOD? Why? Because steam will try to overwrite the new mod files, reverting to what steam considers "normal" files.

[darkside3/4]

Yes, we launched the game post vanilla install, post 3.0 install,etc. The the mod folder was created. Then we followed the whole config file copy directions and cache deletion. We have never gotten past the yellow airplane logo period though in any version. It does still build the cod mod folder even when hanging. I'll have him check the steam cloud settings, we looked at them but I'll verify on or off. If it was on is recommended to uninstall everything and reinstall from scratch with cloud disabled?

[ATAG_Lolsav]

Any overlay program beeing used? ie, any windows gadget showing CPU cycles/ network meter indicator, using transparency?

Right click the CLOD launcher and to disable "desktop composition" and try to launch after it.

[darkside3/4]

no overlay programs

[darkside3/4]

Another update Lolsav, we did try the desktop composition fix to no avail. I won't be able to verify steam cloud until this evening tho.

[vranac]

Can you copy [window] part from conf.ini file in Documents and paste it here?

[ATAG_Colander]

Normally I would say is a problem creating the directx window but you are describing seeing it (the blue sky window).

Lets try this:
1. - Enable logging in the my documents\...\conf.ini (LOG=1)
2.- Delete all the files from the my documents\...\cppdump folder
3.- run the game.

Zip and attach here all the files on the cppdump folder + the log.txt file created. Hopefully the answer lies there somewhere.

Colander.

[ATAG_Lolsav]

If it was on is recommended to uninstall everything and reinstall from scratch with cloud disabled?

First do what Colander requested there. Its the best way to find on whats going on wrong.

Then, if you left CLOUD STEAM ON, most likely the files got corrupted/overwritten (It really depends on how STEAM acted upon your instalation, so lets wait on Colander findings first), and the only solution is to do it all over again.

[Mysticpuma]

Although you mention the Anti Virus being off...is it still off? I had to in previous instances actually create an exception in my AV (avast) so that any program running from the Steam Folder, 1C, Clod, pretty much any folder associated with CloD was included in my exception list. Since then not an single issue. Before I would get the crosshairs and then it would quit, sometimes about 5-seconds into the loading?

Cheers, MP

[darkside3/4]

We completely uninstalled Norton via start/control panel/ uninstall programs, could the exceptions still be there?

[ATAG_Bliss]

Was your game working fine and now it doesn't? If the launcher never actually launches to the GUI window, I wonder if the DX version in your config.ini is correct?

Could you attach your config as a .zip or .rar file? The one I want to see is in your documents/1cSoftClub folder. The other thing is to make sure you have steam cloud disabled as well. I've had your exact problem before and if I remember right I was trying to use a DX version that was not supported. If I remember correctly, in the config, DX10.0 is for ATI and DX10.1 is nvidia.

[ahsmatt7]

Hello everyone, I am the friend who was gifted with CoD by Jarhead2b.

I just looked at my config.ini file and there isn't a line that references the DX version I am using. I will post my .ini file here ASAP.

[ATAG_Bliss]

Hello everyone, I am the friend who was gifted with CoD by Jarhead2b.

I just looked at my config.ini file and there isn't a line that references the DX version I am using. I will post my .ini file here ASAP.

Hi ashmatt,

Your important bits of your [window] (render sections) are indeed missing!!

Your config reads:



[window]
DepthBits =24
StencilBits=8
DrawIfNotFocused=0
SaveAspect=0

Mine reads:



[window]
DepthBits=24
StencilBits=8
DrawIfNotFocused=1
SaveAspect=0
Render=D3D10_0
width=1680
height=1050
posLeft=0
posTop=0
ColourBits=32
FullScreen=1
ChangeScreenRes=1
Frequency=60
StereoMode=0

So I would copy mine into yours. But you'll need to adjust the height, width, and frequency sections of your config to mask your monitor. For example, height and width would be your native monitor resolution, and frequency is your monitors refresh rate (usually measured in Hz).

The other thing to do is to make sure you disable steam cloud for Cliffs of Dover so the game never tries to revert your config back to the bad (default one) you have now. But yeah, if the game doesn't know what render/DirectX settings to use, you aren't going to be playing much :D
Hopefully this gets you sorted. Let me know how it works out! :salute:

[ahsmatt7]

Hi ashmatt,

Your important bits of your [window] (render sections) are indeed missing!!

Your config reads:



Mine reads:



So I would copy mine into yours. But you'll need to adjust the height, width, and frequency sections of your config to mask your monitor. For example, height and width would be your native monitor resolution, and frequency is your monitors refresh rate (usually measured in Hz).

The other thing to do is to make sure you disable steam cloud for Cliffs of Dover so the game never tries to revert your config back to the bad (default one) you have now. But yeah, if the game doesn't know what render/DirectX settings to use, you aren't going to be playing much :D
Hopefully this gets you sorted. Let me know how it works out! :salute:

that surprisingly doesnt work.... thought we were getting somewhere. Oh well...

[ATAG_Bliss]

that surprisingly doesnt work.... thought we were getting somewhere. Oh well...

Well we are getting somewhere, in a way. That's most definitely the problem - the game and/or your GPU doesn't seen to recognize each other.

The only thing I can think about is if somehow the necessary bits in the steam/IL2/redis folder didn't install correctly. You may have already done this, but it's worth another shot. Open up the redis folder and click on any application in there and agree to it installing w/e it wants. I believe there is a directx app and a netframework installer in there.

Do both of those 1st. If that doesn't work, we'll have to meet up on TS and get it sorted. The problem, from what I'm seeing, has got to be really simple. You have a common GPU used by many. So either the GFX drivers aren't liking it for some reason, or the game really didn't fully install for some other reason.

One other thing to try is to go into the steam/IL2 folder and make a direct shortcut for "launcher.exe" (that's what runs the game) instead of starting it through the steam icon. (steam still must be running though). But make sure your shortcut and the launcher.exe are both set to run as an admin.

For w/e reason, windows7/Vista still hate programs installed in the Program files location and still places restrictions on them sometimes. All of my game installs for IL2COD are actually in a folder called Games in my C: drive (completely out of the program files folders). I moved them over after I had installed it through steam. The documents folder stuff stays in the same place.

Let me know if that helps.

[darkside3/4]

Bob Silva resolved this issue by putting the UI automation file in the game file.

[ATAG_Lolsav]

Bob Silva resolved this issue by putting the UI automation file in the game file.

:party:

[varrattu]

@Jarhead2b

If your desktop has a (custom) resolution which is not listed in iL2Cod, the game crashes to desktop on start.

Regards ~V~

[gudis]

I have the same problem...

BUT what is the config file to look in ??

I have 3 folders with configfiles in..

[darkside3/4]

I was just the messenger with this thread....gonna have to differ to someone with more tech expertise.

[Mysticpuma]

I have the same problem...

BUT what is the config file to look in ??

I have 3 folders with configfiles in..

The config files are here:

C:\Users\(your username here)\Documents\1C SoftClub\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover - MOD

Cheers, MP