[REL] FOTRS Ultimate Project

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

The basics are the same throughout the SH4 base game for re-fits and boat upgrades.

As for the "crash" I experienced above, if I do not load the MSI AfterBurner app and then try to record the video, I do not crash. I'm trying some other options here, because I usually do not run into issues when using the app to record the game. For some reason, I am running out of memory for the game when using AfterBurner, going by the crash report. AfterBurner does not show in the report, but SH4 does, with a memory error. I will run my RAM through some tests later today, to make certain that I don't have a bad stick. One thought is that both apps are 32-bit, and might be occupying the same Windows memory space.

Right now, I'm trying some different Windows configurations and seeing if I can avoid a crash after that Task Force shows up. Being off Kii Suido at that time, there is a single DD that patrols the mouth of the Suido, another that is sometimes further out. I have also encountered several single and double merchant groups coming in from the north, and a convoy sometimes coming in from the south, along with this inbound Task Force, and the occasional outbound Task Force. The game however, does not crash unless I'm running the AfterBurner app and I have tried to record. More later, since I still haven't gotten through all of the possible groups spawning in the area...

So far, after a few more encounters, no further crashing... - this is perplexing. What I have done the last few go-rounds is start the Task Manager and Resource Monitor on the 2nd monitor, while playing the game on the first:



This is a pic with the game running. Notice that the game takes about 1.25 meg of RAM, while everything else has a 5 to 6 times smaller footprint. Almost all of the cpu use is the game. Of course, SH4 is the "active" app, and it is an old "legacy" app that "demands" exclusivity of the system. But still, it is a huge footprint. Even after closing the game (as below), it is slow to release all of its resources:




Complicating things, is that the Task Force from Singapore has several routes it can follow, and I have only seen it two other times in all of the starts I've done. This is the only "consistent" contact found:



Amazingly, he passes within 3200 yards each time, whether inbound or outbound... I do not see that in the patrol's "normal" routing. A couple of wonderings:

1. As has been wondered before, are we close to the limit of what SH4's engine can handle? But I don't think that FotRSU is as big as some of the SH3 mods, especially when you consider the dynamic loading of Campaign files.
2. The crash I encountered yesterday was after the computer had been on for several days. Do other programs and their memory management (or lack thereof) affect SH4 being able to run?
3. When the game did crash on me, I had gotten several Event Camera pop-ups that appeared to be "dark" screens. Was the game trying to show me close depth-charging? Or was something else spawning?
4. My sub has not received any damage in the last few runs. Is there something with that looping damage "hiss" sound that is causing the issue?

This brings me to ask you fellows and gals using the mod that if you have a 2nd monitor, can you try and watch what happens on the Task Manager and/or Resource Monitor screen(s) as you play the game? Also, when you guys have gotten the CTDs, had your submarine received damage, and had you encountered the seemingly never-ending "hiss" sound? That might help find the problem. I am going off now to try and investigate that sound...

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

The basics are the same throughout the SH4 base game for re-fits and boat upgrades.

As for the "crash" I experienced above, if I do not load the MSI AfterBurner app and then try to record the video, I do not crash. I'm trying some other options here, because I usually do not run into issues when using the app to record the game. For some reason, I am running out of memory for the game when using AfterBurner, going by the crash report. AfterBurner does not show in the report, but SH4 does, with a memory error. I will run my RAM through some tests later today, to make certain that I don't have a bad stick. One thought is that both apps are 32-bit, and might be occupying the same Windows memory space.

Right now, I'm trying some different Windows configurations and seeing if I can avoid a crash after that Task Force shows up. Being off Kii Suido at that time, there is a single DD that patrols the mouth of the Suido, another that is sometimes further out. I have also encountered several single and double merchant groups coming in from the north, and a convoy sometimes coming in from the south, along with this inbound Task Force, and the occasional outbound Task Force. The game however, does not crash unless I'm running the AfterBurner app and I have tried to record. More later, since I still haven't gotten through all of the possible groups spawning in the area...

On the Task Force in my most recent post I moved farther south to engage them further away from other traffic and land.

This time I was able to get close enough to fire on the two CV but for some reason by firing at the one furtherest away the fish actually went for the lead Fubuki. Then I hit the lead CV in the bow. I can clearly see the two Kuma, Myoko, Tanker, two CV but nothing else ... about ten seconds after I hit the CV in the bow the CTD happened again.

Could this be one of the ships from the rear causing it?

A weapon fired mounted on a ship that is out of date? I'm sure they fired Starburst but the shell wouldn't be the issue the weapon mount might be?

I noticed that Fubuki had that bottom hull plate texture I reported a few weeks ago near where the anchor is located.

Might it be one of the merchants causing the issue?

[propbeanie]

Was the line-up coming at you, configured with 3 or four of the Fubuki in the lead, with the Shokaku in the port side column (to your sub), followed by the Hiyo, followed by the tanker (Fleet Support vessel), and the other column had the Kuma, followed by two Myoko? I could not tell what DD were abeam of the Task Force, but I'm guessing it was two Mutsuki, one either side, and two others bringing up the rear. The Mutsuki were the ones with the throwers, while the Fubuki only did rack drops on me.

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Was the line-up coming at you, configured with 3 or four of the Fubuki in the lead, with the Shokaku in the port side column (to your sub), followed by the Hiyo, followed by the tanker (Fleet Support vessel), and the other column had the Kuma, followed by two Myoko? I could not tell what DD were abeam of the Task Force, but I'm guessing it was two Mutsuki, one either side, and two others bringing up the rear. The Mutsuki were the ones with the throwers, while the Fubuki only did rack drops on me.

Only one Fubuki was leading the column with the CV and tanker as you describe. The Kuma were the lead on their column.

Fubuki-Shokaku-Hiyo-Tanker

Kuma-Kuma-Myoko

I did not have a visual on any others as yet. I believe the Tanker and Myoko were around the 9000-10000 yard range. There was roughly a 2000 yard gap between each ship.

My course as 180 to their 340-350 ish.

Lead Kuma was closest to me at about 3000 yards.

[propbeanie]

OK, we are on the right track then, so I'll keep trying on my machine. When I encounter them, the Fubuki are out front of each column, and two others further out, and back about even with the lead capital ship in each column. The Mutsuki are back between the #2 and #3 ships. I'll check the load-outs on the escorts, and make certain we aren't trying something too early there. Next time I encounter a Task Force, I'll "Save" the encounter ~IF~ I remember... I was going to do that the first time (when the game crashed), but I gorfot...

I am out in the deep water with my boat, as seen in that first picture above, headed south-southwest. The TaskFoce comes right along the track I'm following, but in the opposite direction, so I'm doing about a 192° course, while they're doing a 12° course. Go below the thermal, Silent Running at 1knot, and you're in the middle of them before you know it, because they're doing at least 16 knots... If you want, I can package up this Single Mission and the 42b_TaskForce.mis file in a JSGME mini-mod... ??

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

OK, we are on the right track then, so I'll keep trying on my machine. When I encounter them, the Fubuki are out front of each column, and two others further out, and back about even with the lead capital ship in each column. The Mutsuki are back between the #2 and #3 ships. I'll check the load-outs on the escorts, and make certain we aren't trying something too early there. Next time I encounter a Task Force, I'll "Save" the encounter ~IF~ I remember... I was going to do that the first time (when the game crashed), but I gorfot...

I am out in the deep water with my boat, as seen in that first picture above, headed south-southwest. The TaskFoce comes right along the track I'm following, but in the opposite direction, so I'm doing about a 192° course, while they're doing a 12° course. Go below the thermal, Silent Running at 1knot, and you're in the middle of them before you know it, because they're doing at least 16 knots... If you want, I can package up this Single Mission and the 42b_TaskForce.mis file in a JSGME mini-mod... ??

I ran it again and this time was about 60 nm from Kii Suido when I found them. Yes they are doing 16 knots. I'm surfaced until the lead Fubuki, which this time is much farther away from the group, is 6000 yards then I go to periscope depth. There is another Fubuki leading the port column. All ships seem to be as your earlier comment about group class. Last ships seems to be an escort with two rear turrets and no side launchers.

I cammed out to take a look. One rear turret faces aft the lead rear turret face forward. I am not sure about this class.

The escort in front of that one has two rear turrets but both face aft and it has side launchers. This time just as I took a photo of the this escort it CTD.

I have never been able to get close enough to b in the middle of them before the crash.

At what point are you crashing?

I have zero damage, no hiss.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by merc4ulfate

I ran it again and this time was about 60 nm from Kii Suido when I found them. Yes they are doing 16 knots. I'm surfaced until the lead Fubuki, which this time is much farther away from the group, is 6000 yards then I go to periscope depth. There is another Fubuki leading the port column. All ships seem to be as your earlier comment about group class. Last ships seems to be an escort with two rear turrets and no side launchers.

I cammed out to take a look. One rear turret faces aft the lead rear turret face forward. I am not sure about this class.

The escort in front of that one has two rear turrets but both face aft and it has side launchers. This time just as I took a photo of the this escort it CTD.

I have never been able to get close enough to b in the middle of them before the crash.

At what point are you crashing?

I have zero damage, no hiss.

Did it take the screen grab for you? Was the DD all rusty, with a flush deck, or was it like the Fubuki?

I have been able to get in and make an attack three times now. All three times, I've been attacked afterwards and damaged, but only the once with the seemingly never-ending pipe leak above the chief, and that is the one time I had a CTD. It is also the only time I had run AfterBurner for recording while encountering the Task Force. I have run the scenario probably 18 times now, and only the three encounters with the Task Force, one CTD... I also looked in the "messages.txt" file in the campaign folder, and nothing is trying to begin or end a message on the 18th... My CTD happened at 1009 hours game time. What time is it when you crash?

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Did it take the screen grab for you? Was the DD all rusty, with a flush deck, or was it like the Fubuki?

I have been able to get in and make an attack three times now. All three times, I've been attacked afterwards and damaged, but only the once with the seemingly never-ending pipe leak above the chief, and that is the one time I had a CTD. It is also the only time I had run AfterBurner for recording while encountering the Task Force. I have run the scenario probably 18 times now, and only the three encounters with the Task Force, one CTD... I also looked in the "messages.txt" file in the campaign folder, and nothing is trying to begin or end a message on the 18th... My CTD happened at 1009 hours game time. What time is it when you crash?

I'm normally spotting the TF around 0500-0800 depending on how far south I am.

It did not save my screen shot. The DD was super clean and had Japanese script on the side. Zero rust.

I once again started the run on the Task Force. I had however tabed out to start the resource monitor. You keep mentioning After Burner. I did have it before my latest install but in feeling it was causing trouble uninstalled it.

On the latest run I sank both CV, both Myoko and damaged the tanker. Only Fubuki DD class II DD were visually spotted. No other merchant was seen. The DD did drop charges but never anywhere near me. I escaped to the south and once clear of all contacts surfaced and headed for home.

HOWEVER: because I had alt'd out of the game to check the resource monitor I got the CO2 bug and every one died. I had saved it after surfacing in hopes that the bug would be clear after a reload but that save only CTD every time now.

[propbeanie]

OK merc4ulfate, first of all, here is a link to a "Destroyers of FotRSU mod" pdf file. I still can't hardly tell one from another most times...

Also, I may have found an answer - maybe... when I was attempting to "solidify" when the Task Force would show up for consistency, and I was trying to make the group either go through all of the shortcuts, or none of them, I ran into some WayPoint nodes set to a higher speed than what the slowest vessel of the group can do. I'm guessing it's the Replenishment Oiler, since its top speed is 15 knots. When I made all of the Waypoints 15 knots, no issue. This would also explain why, a couple of times, all there were for escorts were the four front Fubuki, and I could not see the trailing 100% spawn rate DD... they were trying to keep the Tanker company... Now, I only crashed the one time, and that was with the Jingei, which has a top speed of 18 knots, which is what some of those intermediate Waypoints had. If you want to experiment with this, download

PB_TafeeTest.7z

and unzip it in your MODS folder. Activate it with JSGME, and then run the Single Mission "0A_WaitingOnABus". You will be just south of Kii Suido at 1845, just after sunset. The Task Force should be on your sonar no later than 2130. If you go by the Waypoint on the NavMap at Ahead One Knot, and go to about 250, about 40-50 foot below the thermal, where ever it is. Don't go all the way to that Star, because that is the "objective". Stop if you have to. We're just experimenting... Once you have contact with the group, head close to due south, and you should be able to sneek into the middle of the group, then come up to PD and turn after the lead Fubuki passes and start shooting. Just be sure you have all 10 tubes ready, 'cause you'll need 'em all...

Here's a few pix of my last encounter:


I was certain this was an escort, and tried to run away from it. Cut right across my path, just before the Task Force showed. Shneeky devils...



I had to shoot the rear tubes first, at a Fubuki that had a bead on me, and thankfully, two of those four torpedoes detonated. I could then take
my time with the Shokaku, which I shot tubes 1-4 at. This is the first impact, in the boilers. The next three were "The torpedo was a dud, sir."...

Two shot at the Hiyo, and both of them were duds... I was headed deep, and this is what I had to show for 10 torpedoes shot, 10 impacts:

If you look close, the Shokaku is just to the left of the clipboard, and the Hiyo is just above and right of my U-Mark, about 1600 & 900 away from me, going deep to reload - maybe, if I don't have to dodge too many cans... Drive all the way into the middle of a group, and three of ten detonate. wow...

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

OK merc4ulfate, first of all, here is a link to a "Destroyers of FotRSU mod" pdf file. I still can't hardly tell one from another most times...

Also, I may have found an answer - maybe... when I was attempting to "solidify" when the Task Force would show up for consistency, and I was trying to make the group either go through all of the shortcuts, or none of them, I ran into some WayPoint nodes set to a higher speed than what the slowest vessel of the group can do. I'm guessing it's the Replenishment Oiler, since its top speed is 15 knots. When I made all of the Waypoints 15 knots, no issue. This would also explain why, a couple of times, all there were for escorts were the four front Fubuki, and I could not see the trailing 100% spawn rate DD... they were trying to keep the Tanker company... Now, I only crashed the one time, and that was with the Jingei, which has a top speed of 18 knots, which is what some of those intermediate Waypoints had. If you want to experiment with this, download

PB_TafeeTest.7z

and unzip it in your MODS folder. Activate it with JSGME, and then run the Single Mission "0A_WaitingOnABus". You will be just south of Kii Suido at 1845, just after sunset. The Task Force should be on your sonar no later than 2130. If you go by the Waypoint on the NavMap at Ahead One Knot, and go to about 250, about 40-50 foot below the thermal, where ever it is. Don't go all the way to that Star, because that is the "objective". Stop if you have to. We're just experimenting... Once you have contact with the group, head close to due south, and you should be able to sneek into the middle of the group, then come up to PD and turn after the lead Fubuki passes and start shooting. Just be sure you have all 10 tubes ready, 'cause you'll need 'em all...

Here's a few pix of my last encounter:


I was certain this was an escort, and tried to run away from it. Cut right across my path, just before the Task Force showed. Shneeky devils...



I had to shoot the rear tubes first, at a Fubuki that had a bead on me, and thankfully, two of those four torpedoes detonated. I could then take
my time with the Shokaku, which I shot tubes 1-4 at. This is the first impact, in the boilers. The next three were "The torpedo was a dud, sir."...

Two shot at the Hiyo, and both of them were duds... I was headed deep, and this is what I had to show for 10 torpedoes shot, 10 impacts:

If you look close, the Shokaku is just to the left of the clipboard, and the Hiyo is just above and right of my U-Mark, about 1600 & 900 away from me, going deep to reload - maybe, if I don't have to dodge too many cans... Drive all the way into the middle of a group, and three of ten detonate. wow...

What I do not get is how you are getting the TASK Force at 2100 and I am getting it around 0700 on the 18th

[merc4ulfate]

OK on the second go I saw an Fubuki Class II and Hatsuharu

I couldn't miss that Hatsuharu because that is the one with the rear turret facing forward.

[propbeanie]

Looking at your last post (#7673)... You had the tanker, and it did not crash... was the tanker hanging back several mile, or was he right there with the group? The Fubuki II would have been one of the "GENERIC" spawns... I'll look some more, and ponder some more, cuss some more... scratch body parts, etc...

When you uninstalled AfterBurner, did you also uninstall the Riva Tuner? I had issues with the apps in XP - they do eat a lot of RAM - and I could not get them out without some twisting in circles... Had to use TaskManager to stop one of th processes, and then uninstall. Unfortunately, I do not recall the particulars. If you have Windows 10, and the game bar installed, there is a DV-R function in it that can record games. I have not tried to use that, since my Win 10 hard drive on the laptop crashed, and thus far, MS has not seen fit to allow me to re-install it. There is also OBS Studio, which I have not tried. Certain nVidia cards can use GeForce Experience's ShadowPlay, while some ATI cards can use AMD ReLive. VLC can also record, but it is a bother - as most of these type apps are...

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by merc4ulfate

What I do not get is how you are getting the TASK Force at 2100 and I am getting it around 0700 on the 18th

Oh, I was getting it at 0730 roughly, before. It was just to erratic, and had like five different locations where it could take an alternate route, so even it it spawned at 100% rate, it only showed at that 0730 hour when it went a certain route, so I eliminated all the "long" routes, and made the group take all of the shortcuts, so it now shows up consistently at about the 2130 mark, depending where you are. I could alter its "Start" time to 12 hours before if desired. I didn't really care if it was night or day, so long as it shows up at the same time every time...

[merc4ulfate]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Looking at your last post (#7673)... You had the tanker, and it did not crash... was the tanker hanging back several mile, or was he right there with the group? The Fubuki II would have been one of the "GENERIC" spawns... I'll look some more, and ponder some more, cuss some more... scratch body parts, etc...

When you uninstalled AfterBurner, did you also uninstall the Riva Tuner? I had issues with the apps in XP - they do eat a lot of RAM - and I could not get them out without some twisting in circles... Had to use TaskManager to stop one of th processes, and then uninstall. Unfortunately, I do not recall the particulars. If you have Windows 10, and the game bar installed, there is a DV-R function in it that can record games. I have not tried to use that, since my Win 10 hard drive on the laptop crashed, and thus far, MS has not seen fit to allow me to re-install it. There is also OBS Studio, which I have not tried. Certain nVidia cards can use GeForce Experience's ShadowPlay, while some ATI cards can use AMD ReLive. VLC can also record, but it is a bother - as most of these type apps are...

I am using Windows 7. Yes I also uninstalled the Riva Tuner. I had no issue uninstalling both.

[Immelmann]

August 16th, 1943 03:30 hrs. Encountered American flagged Submarine Tender Fulton Class at anchor in the deeper portion of the lagoon approximately 1 nm due west of the docks at Piti, Guam. This despite having just sighted a Japanese flagged merchant vessel docked at Agana 5 miles north up the west coast of the island. I think the Fulton Class is about a year early. Is he not?