I am using windows xp with a nvida 250 1 GB video card with 4 GB of main memory. I am using the latest video drivers and everything is up to date. I am using the latest update from TSH. I have tried various desktop and game ressolutions.

I have tried every suggestion on this board and the TSH board and no joy. When I attempt to start a mission, I get a warning that the game has crashed.

The TSH board is full of porno emails and no longer seems to be functional.

Can anyone offer any other suggestions.

Yes,

1. Xp can have lots of pain with 4GB(ram), sometimes, with "special" apps that just don't like this in combo with OS itself.
Try to reduce usable ram to 3GB, and check "boot.ini" (in root \) for "funny" switches like /3GB <- that crashes VMR9 out of the box, reason???

I am using (flying) original F/A-18 1.01F, no TSH 1/2/3/4 or any upgrades, on Win7 AND on Touchscreen, and it runs beautifully, and perversely in a way, think pressing buttons in the pit :)))))P, oh and, I have ATI....

Little frame drop - AA radar problem, but sustainable, with some OC to graphic card.

Next step, will try to enable TIR via FreeTrack, found (old) Ultimate_patch (Frenchy) for TIR only.

I've also had crashing with Xp sp3, but when exiting, and graphic anomalies (sea), cursor flashing....

Funny, I wouldn't expect to work at all on Win7, OS with Dx 11, Fa18 was made for Dx6/7, but it runs, even without compatibility/administrator option... lol, ...and kicking:)

When I finish this campaign, I'll move to TSH4 and Iraq, and I think that TSH will run even better because of optimizations and bugs fixed, CMDS_MODE, fire_ext..., well, only that TDC PB's 7,8,... that works only when CNI is not displayed on UFC, phew... strange, but hey that's the beauty in old bugs

Go Win7, that is my best solution I can offer to You, but it can depend on hardware, so hold your horses...fig. ;),
don't be disappointed, it is old software, needs some tweak, like running old car after years spent in the garage.

Best luck
whf

TSHv3.06 is stable and works fine in WinXP.

TSHv3.06 is used as the standard install by VFA-41 and is available HERE in the "One Click Updater."

ok will try that. I forgot to mention that I have also tried the Inspector program and set its settings for F18 but no joy.

For what its worth, I have TSH 4 running on an XP system with 4 GB RAM (system specs below). Didn't do anything special, it just worked. I know this isn't much help, but I wanted to point out that there is no inherent incompatibility with TSHV4 and XP systems of your type, so there might be other issues going on.

Recluse
Very interesting. We have somewhat similar systems. Can you tell me how you have your video card set up?

OK,

I did install TSH3 on my XP install, have dual xp/win7.
And it works with DXTweaker, just cursor flashing and fps is not quite high, as would expect it, but has always been the case with f18.

There is/was always that "incompatibility" problem, someone has ATI and things goes one way, otoh, NVIDIA, completely different story, and for both, even driver editions, older somehow works better, and that's because as DirectX evolves, GFX cards evolves, so drivers must too.

Then in newer drivers they remove support for older DirectX, even for 7. I know from Falcon AF case, after ATI catalyst 7.12, picture become distorted.. something with Z-buff. tex. I think!?,..., but it is just they have dropped support for some older DirectX and point.
Could be a bug f@ckup too, who knows for real..., but don't think so.


In general, FA-18 on my XP works alright now,(but I still vote for Win7, much better), didn't test for hours tho.
No crashing on mission/training/campaign start, just that crash when exiting, only when ran with DxTweaker.

Memory could not be read at 0x03f62634 , instruction 0x03cd3a96.

Movies have distorted colors and are scaled wrong, even intro one tho, (which is encoded differently, divx, in TSH!), but ingame sea is beautiful, no grids.

Using X8R8G8B8 texture format,....
I know, for Nvidia is A8R8G8B8 , but hey, I've said already that ATI is completely different story

SOBE
So whenever You ask for help of this type and alike, be sure to give a bit more detailed sys-specs at least, not just GFX type and ram amount?!, as always have been the case, the same setup for someone will rarely work "just copy" on other system, some small but important detail could f@ckup things. OS setting, hardware/driver type... You name it

You probably don't force FA-18 to just one CPU core, do You?.. You should, as then wasn't multicore cpu's.
I guess that You have multicore cpu, even P4HT, which isn't quite "multi/dual" core, but it runs SMP, and that is more then one core.

I guess your GFX driver is ok, as Nvidia put back support for older DirectX sometime ago, well, well...
Can't say that for ATI, tho

Then We/You're just missing something, are You using 64bit winxp?

TSH works confirmed, DirectX twaker is a must, force only one cpu-core loading/running, and that should be all, try that, should work.

Regards
whf

I will have to check the settings later. Nothing special.. Some AA and AF enabled, but I have resolution set to 1280x1024 and set the scaling set to run in that resolution with black bars because I couldn't stand the stretching when using the native 1680x1050 of my monitor. I updated drivers recently, so I think I am up to the latest one.

Note: I have not restricted to a single core either as White Fang suggested.

I found that I sometimes didnt get sound voiceovers unless in Win 98 compatibility mode, but then I found I could turn it OFF and use NO compatibility and things were fine for awhile. If i noticed voiceovers going away, I rechecked compatibility.

Generally I do not use DXTweaker, but I have tried it and things run OK with the same oddities that others report (crabbing, etc..) as a tradeoff for non-Gradient skies

Oh, I didn't mean that force one core is a must, but You will notice that intro music don't stop playing after 10 secs.
That is somehow related to multicore, how?, I really don't know, not a coder.
So forcing to one core fixes intro music, noted that few years ago to Joe, and then I thought a little, well, could be that intro music isn't only thing that is related to one-core setup.
So far haven't notice anything else related to that, intro-music isn't such a great dealt after all, but if You're in a hunt for compatibility that was the first thing on my mind, that is, one core setup.
You have lot of software which will do that commandline, so no need to alt-tab and setting every time manually.

Search for imagecfg.exe , run it once on F-18.exe , with -a 0x1 switch, et voila :), solved forever.

And Yes, what I have noticed, I don't have carrier crabbing with DXTweaker,... strange?... should be there.
But hey, even better

It's maybe just my lol system, who knows ...

For Win7, Dxtweaker is nogo, tried exactly as for Vista, maybe something wrong, but then again, no need as the sea is normal, no grids, even on vanilla.
Non-gradient sky is present with vanilla (on win7), but as You said, who cares, if stability is in question.
With TSH3 and Dxtweaker sea and sky are fixed on XP, and that, no crabbing at my, maybe ATI/One-core setup?....

Cheers

Much to my amazement, I took Hedgehogs suggestion and tried TSH 3.06 and it worked. I don't know why new TSH 4.02 didn't work but it didn't.

Now I have to figure out the controller issues and I will be all set.

Like Recluse, I have had no trouble running TSH4 on my XP system. I disable music.and do not do anything fancy with forcing a single core.

Interestingly, I found that on this machine I had never configured F/A-18 specific settings. I was using the GLOBAL settings:




I then configured some custom settings:





They all worked, but it looked much better with the custom settings. I also tried with and without DXTweaker and with and without limiting to a single core with the Tom's Hardware TASKASSIGN utility.

Not much difference, but DXTweaker did make things look a bit better and I didn't notice any crabbing on carrier landing. The Custom Graphics settings with some AA and AF cranked in actually did away with a lot (but not all) of the sky banding even without DXTweaker.

I guess it just depends on the system. Sometimes it works fine, other times not.

EDIT: With the custom settings (probably a function of AA) I do get more blurry HUD fonts.

Janes F/A 18 runs perfectly on my legacy system, a Pentium 4, single-core, Win XP system with only 2GB of memory. I have TSH 4.02 installed as well. No problems running at max resolution available which is 1600 x 1200.

Sweet, but can You read something out to ~1m from hud/monitor?
I suspect it is ~21".
No offense, just kidding.

I have to change hud colors at 1280x1024 on 19"crt, at 1m., depends on background, sometimes can't see ... mfds's are ok tho. (..on black)

Yesterday I have tested that FaceTrackNOIR, head tracking, literally... Tracking your head with webcam.
What can I say, it works fine even with FA18,... no more "antennas" on the head
But it will take time to make this past aplha-beta state which is in now.
And it requires good quality webcam, more MP's, better, but ... sweet.
But I have faith in this, cause it will replace all TIR's, someday.

Off to NCAPE
Out

Holy poop! Last night I installed onto my new Win7 (in my system specs below) machine with the one click installer to update to TSH v3.06 and TA DA! Not a hickup! For once! I'll be flying this ol' bird once more!

I love it!

If I had a nickel for each time someone said, "I finally tried the One Click Updater and it works like a charm! It's so easy! Why didn't someone tell me about this earlier?!?"

Well, I'd have a lot of nickels.

Oh yes, it's all coming back...



building (again) my .map MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

GHOST
I have just got back into this game and am using the one click update with TSH 3.06 on an XP system. I am using your old Ch map on the CH forum with some changes to get everything to work including my MFD which I programed in 3 modes for each of the 3 MFDs.

With the help of the CH forum, I programed 4 buttons on the joystick to direct the TDC cursor and to change the modes on the MFDs so both are done with one key press. Neat.

I could never get 4.02 to work on my system.

When I finish my CH map I will send it to you.

Oh, I've been watching sobe I've got two MFPs and an XKeys Pro I'll be using in my new and improved .map tho...