Freezing only in campaign mode

[nominesine 0]

I have a mission that constantly freezes and causes an OFP aplication hang. The reset button is the only cure for it so far.

Funny thing is, the freezing only occurs when I play the mission as part of a campaign. When I separate the mission from the campaign folder and play it as stand alone in the editor, everything works.

The aplication hang always occurs when one of the endTriggers fires, and there is no apparent reason for it. There are one END1 trigger and 5 or 6 ENDLOSE triggers in the mission.

There is nothing wrong with the structure of the campaign (if I rename another mission and insert it into the campaign, where the erroneous mission should be, everything works).

No scripts are running at the end of the mission. Only addons included are BAS addons (DeRa-pack and Tonal OPFOR)

I know that OFP consumes a large portion of CPU resources upon loading/saving a game, and this seems to be the trouble (hence the aplication hang).

But... why does this problem only occur in campaign mode? Does OFP use more CPU power when it loads/saves a campaign mission, than it does loading/saving a mission in the editor.

[Guest The Cobra]

Everything takes not only CPU-power, but memory also. As you seem to think this is a problem with the computer, why not post your computer specs?

Does OFP use more CPU power when it loads/saves a campaign mission, than it does loading/saving a mission in the editor.

Probably

[Placebo 31]

What campaign is it?

[nominesine 0]

@The Cobra

Pentium 4, 2.1 Ghz, 512 MB RAM, GeForce4. Usually no problems to run large missions with high settings. Lots of free space on the HDD (recently defraged)

@ Placebo

My own, I´m testing it before release. And as far as I know the structure withing the campaign description.ext is ok.

I have a pretty good understanding of how a campaign is supposed to be organized and all files are in the correct folders.

Only thing that puzzles me is a file named "vssver.scc". In the CWC1985 Campaign there is several of them. (One in the root folder and additional copies spread out in mission folders and sound mission folders). In Resistance campaign there is only one (in the root folder).

I played around a little and tried the campaign with vssver.scc and without it (in different combinations). It affects the behaviour of the campaign somehow, but I don´t understand it yet.

With vssver.scc in the campaign the mission ends but then takes me back to startscreen instead of the next mission. Without vssver.scc it freezes.

When I replace the erroneous mission with another one it works both with and without vssver.scc.

What does this file do? Any inside BIS info about this?

[Guest The Cobra]

@The Cobra

Pentium 4, 2.1 Ghz, 512 MB RAM, GeForce4. Usually no problems to run large missions with high settings. Lots of free space on the HDD (recently defraged)

Reinstall Flashpoint, though keep the campaign you've made and all other things you wanna save...

Though it shouldn't cause any problems...

The rest is for placebo to figoure out

[Placebo 31]

vssver.scc are "Microsoft Visual Source Safe" files, having files in source safe means that when someone wants to work on it they must check it out and it's locked for anyone else, that way you can have numerous people working on files without changes being lost or for example something being fixed by two people at once.

I can only assume that their inclusion in the original campaign was nothing more than an oversight (the original campaign pre-dates my employment here).

It might be worth having other people that you trust try your campaign, I'd be happy to give it a try if you send me the relevant information

[nominesine 0]

It might be worth having other people that you trust try your campaign, I'd be happy to give it a try if you send me the relevant information

Thanks, playtesters are always welcome. As soon as I've finished one more mission it will be ready for playtesting. Hopefully I will also be able to override the freeze problem during this week.

Can you handle a 10-15 Mb e-mail? Otherwise I´ll have to arrange an external upload site somewhere.

[Placebo 31]

Yep it's no problem [email protected]

[nominesine 0]

Problem solved. It was an aplication for a cd-burner that came with the latest driver for my sound card (Creative Audigy), that caused the aplication hang.

A similar freezing problem was reported on Avonladys FAQ: http://www.theavonlady.org/theofpfaq

My log files shows that the cd-burner utility activates every time a mission is completed. OFP seems to be especially sensible to this in campaign mode, but it sometimes happens even if I play in single mission and very rarely in the mission editor. It doesn´t seem to affect the ending of the intro or outro part of the sqm.

Anyway, this causes a conflict with some other Windows function (forgot wich one) and the result is that OFP and the computer freezes completely.

I uninstalled this cd-burner function and voila... OFP is up and running again (but the release of the campaign will be delayed a while now).