meach

Thank you Thromp and Jedra for taking the time to reply. I'll try all you said and report back!

DirTyDeeDs, thank you for the detailed reply, and my apologies to Admin for starting another thread. As the previous one had become mixed, I wanted to focus on this issue. Some progress: I updated the NVidia drivers, as they were the only ones out of date after a thorough check. Testing with the new drivers gave the same results, after the same time. Then I downloaded patch 1.03. Although I still had repeated CTD's after a few minutes, the FLUSH command prevents the CTD. (As you outlined above). In fact, so long as I repeat this every few minutes, I am able to run the game indefinitely! (Wow - I must admit, I love it now that I can play it - great piece of work!) (Note that I was not able to get a result from this on version 1.02, or after a CTD.) BTW, task manager does not give accurate information about multi-core functions, that is true, it does show a binary view of application load, in that an app using 90% of a CPU while other CPU's are at very low values is an indication of unevenly distributed CPU loading. CPU load distribution is not a Win7 function, in that Win 7 will not automatically load share, individual applications need to be compiled for even load distribution. Soooo, the SHift - flush command clearly is a workaround and directly addresses the issue. (Is this a garbage collection problem in VRAM?) If you have a number of users with this issue, then you can reasonably expect us to enter SH-flush every few minutes on a temporary basis. As this workaround shows what the problem is, is there a permanent fix? A suggestion might be to hard code a flush function? Thanks again for taking the time to reply! I'm going to run TOH and see how Tom is doing, I'll pop back later!

OK, I'm getting the same CTD described by drdavid in his thread. I'm going to try windowed mode too. I noticed that my GPU was at 72C and the temp dropped immediately I used task manager to kill the program. If several people are getting this on default settings, maybe someone should look at it? I'll spend a whole day testing and report back tomorrow. ---------------------------- Second day, after testing: Windowed mode crashes too. I turned down all the graphics options to minima. While it took longer, almost 9 minutes, the program still CTD'd. The crash leaves the TOH icon on the taskbar (Win 7), with the sound still running. TOH is still active, because I can press ESC and the sound stops. Pressing ESC the second time resumes the sound. Taskmanager reports the App running and using CPU resource, albeit at a much lower level than normal. So this can be classed as a Graphics Crash. CPU useage is unbalanced (I have 4 at 2.5GHz), with CPU 1 at 95% on the TOH main menu (!). CPU 4 picks up some 50% load, a small amount on 2 and 3, but it is CPU#1 that is doing all the work, along with the GPU. More effective use of mutiple CPU's might lower the load on the GPU. I'm running an NVidia GTX 285, so I installed and ran the NVidia Monitor. This reported idle GPU temp at 42C. I ran TOH in windowed mode, only to the main menu. This immediatley lifted GPU temp to 74C, close to the maximum limit for most GPU's. TOH is still running with everything turned down, and only at the main menu. To put this into perspective: X-plane 10 runs at 62C, everything turned up, no crashes. FSX runs at 67C, everything turned up, crashes sometimes. Fast framerate FPS games run at about 60C, no crashes. All other graphics apps I have run at between 48 and 60C, no crashes. Something in TOH is really thrashing the GPU. In most other sims, the framerate dictates graphics settings, so a natural process occurs with a user turning down video settings to obtain an acceptable, and playable, framerate. I seem to be hitting the graphics limits in TOH without being able to turn it all down to a level that allows gameplay. The game is worth the effort, amibtious as it is, if we can find the problem. It's also easy to say that users should simply add more grunt to their systems, but this adds significant costs that people can't afford and will restrict sales to those with high-end systems. It's obviously in BI's interests to access a wider audience and market. My current situation is that a 2.5 G Quad CPU, 4G RAM and a GTX 285 with 1G RAM is simply not enough to run TOH with settings at minimal. Besides the fact that the minimal settings mean I'm looking at pretty average, jaggedy graphics and a poor framerate. The manual states system requirements as: • OS: Windows XP or Windows Vista • CPU: Intel Dual-Core 2.4 GHz or AMD Dual-Core Athlon 2.5 GHz or faster • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT or ATI Radeon 4850 with Shader Model 3 and 512 MB VRAM or faster • RAM: 2 GB • HDD: 17 GB free space • DVD: Dual Layer This is not correct. My system exceeds all the required basics specified by the manual and I can only run the game for a max of five minutes, risking damage to my graphics card. I'm running many other sims and I've been running flight sims for over 25 years, probably since before some of the developers were born :-). It's no use adjusting graphics settings, I have everything at its lowest settings. Obviously, this problem does not occur with all users, or there would be a serious revolt... but it looks as if I am not alone. Any ideas or help please?

OK, I'm getting the same CTD described by drdavid earlier in this thread. I'm going to try windowed mode too. I noticed that my GPU was at 68C and the temp dropped immediatly I used task manager to kill the program. If several people are getting this on default settings, maybe you should look at it? I'll report back tomorrow.

Real helicopters can roll when pulling collective. If you imagine flying along at more than transition speed, the downwind rotor will have more pitch than the upwind. This is caused by the swash plate which is generally set up for a balanced trim at default cruise. At other times, it is non-horizontal. Anyway, pulling on collective will increase pitch on all blades differently, depending in where each blade is in the rotation over the swashplate. (Pitch is not linear, nor is the drag, the lift and all the consequent effects it produces) Yaw is also induced when adding collective, of course. This due the the increased counter-torque produced by a higher rotor pitch making more drag. Also Sperry's rule produces precession at 90 degrees in the direction of rotation, so any force applied to a spinning rotor (Read gyroscope) will not necessarily come out where a programmer, or pilot, might expect it :-) These effects differ with each helicopter. Some produce a pitch effect on increase of collective because the centre of the rotor mast is not exactly aligned with CG. Of course, positioning of payload also affects this, as most pilots have been surprised enough to find out at some time in their career. Thus, it is possible to have a pitch effect caused by the rotor mast/CG offset translated into roll when changing collective. Sorry to be so technical, just thought I'd try and help. Kind regards, Meach