Crash to Desktop: I might have found something

[Guest dickcu]

The same thing just started happening to me only at one location.Flying from KBOI to KGEG, about 40 miles south of the airport FS9 crashes to the desktop. Not like other crashes, no error messages, just suddenly there's the desktop like I haven't been flying. I've never experienced it anyplace else. After this happening three times in nearly the same location I replaced the entire scenery folder for a new one that had never been used. Except I did transfer over my traffic bgl files. The same thing happened. Has to be a FS2004 bug.

[Guest dickcu]

I posted this in another discussion about CTD issues in this newsgroup. I ran across this posting in the PMDG Newsgroup. It has an explaination and the website address where the file can be downloaded that will immediately end the crash to desktop. It is texture and season related. It worked for me and I'll take the liberty of reposting it.DickHi all,just as a heads up, Jobia has released a new version of his global patch that fixes the CTDs during late fall and early spring. The likely hypothesis for the crashes is that the CTDs are triggered by incomplete or incorrect look-up tables for texture blending at airfields. The patch works by deactivating the new feature in FS9 that blends the underlying landclass textures with the airport background (grassy) polygon. In other words, the airport grounds will look more like the FS2002 versions again, with singular textures. Currently, all the documentation is in German only, so here's a quick guide for installation:1. Download crashto.zip at http://jobia.bei.t-online.de/crashdes.htm and unzip into temporary folder, with "Use folder names" enabled.2. make a backup copy of your FS9terrain.cfg file3. copy the .bmp files from the PatchTexture folder into your FS9Texture folder4. copy one of the two replacement terrain.cfg files into your root FS9 folder. The version in the "terrain_cfg mit ..." folder retains the default blending of landclass textures along the utility lines, the version in "terrain_cfg ohne ..." replaces the blending with simple textures. Both versions fix the seasonal CTD crashes, the additional changes to the utility corridors are just a pet peeve of Jobia and have no influence on the crashes (in Europe, most utility corridors don't have clearings cut, unless they run through forested areas). The patch is easily reversible by deleting the new terrain.cfg and replacing it with the original. You don't have to delete the .bmp files that came with this patch because they get called only by the altered terrain.cfg.Cheers, HolgerP.S.: For the technically inclined, Grahame has kindly (and freely) translated some of Jobia's information, copied from this post http://portal.fsgenesis.net/index.php?name...viewtopic&t=374 :"In my opinion,the main reason why this is happening is due to the new Landclass funtion MaskClassMap2 in the terrain.cfg, and the way the airport ground polygons are displayed. The files in themselves work OK, but MS has changed the parameters of some of the associated data that influence the way these files work."They saved programming time by building in a sort of "chameleon" effect into the data, so that the airport grass is displayed over the surrounding landclass scenery, in that the texture display switches automatically to a partner landclass file. This has the advantage that MS doesn't have to worry about the ground texture polygons at airports.The advantage for MS is that the airport and surrounding scenery blend together more easily."It was well thought out, but unfortunately, it only works with default landclass scenery."However, with addon landclass, the original landclass textures are displayed at the airports, due to the fact that the partner landclass file doesn't work with the addon landclass data, and so you have effects like cornfields between the runways etc."One of the specific problems at Sion (and possibly why it causes a CTD) is caused by the fact that the borderline for the texture change to display the seasons runs right through the middle of the airport,and due to the new BGL coding in FS9, it's not possible to use landclass data for the airport ground polygons, then you get unpleasant effects like autogen trees etc all over the airport. So,you have to use textures instead, to get round the problem with the "masking effect" that MS uses to make the programming easier."The only disadvantage from using textures instead of landclass data is the fact that polygons only use one texture, independant from the size, whereas landclass has seven different polygon sizes available. But with grass at the airports it doesn't pose a big problem, as grass always looks about the same everywhere."

[Guest tezbedz]

Hi,I've just downloaded the crashto.zip and installed that, however I noted on the download site there was a further Terrain.cfg file underneath the heading "Achtung".I translated this in "Babel Fish", but, it did not seem to come out right:Note! Important additional change. Since it turned out that it with the MaskClassMap specified down function generally problems in the FS2004 gives, I have here still one terrain.cfg variant linked which I testweise in January in FXP software forum upgeloaded had. Only with this ensured that is the nose in purchase to the problems specified down more never arises. Therefore please terrain.zip also downloaden. In terrain.zip the contained terrain.cfg as the latter install. can somone translate the original:Achtung!Wichtige zus