AFD Problem

[Guest]

Aloha, everyone . . . recently my hard drive crashed and I had toinstall a new one. Reinstalled FS2002 and since my scenery fileswere all on my second hard disk, just copied a backup copy of mysecenery.cfg into the FS2002 directory. Everything works like adream except when I add a new scenery that has any kind of AFD.bglfile. When I start FS2002, it says it is generating new scenerydatabase and as soon as it reaches 100%, it kicks me back to myFS98 desktop. If I rename the XXXAFD.bgl file, everything is OKand the scenery works fine. However, I would like the AFD filesactive so they show up on GPS. I even deleted the old .dat fileand had it create a new one, but get the same result. Sorry thisis so long, but I wanted to give as much info as possible to seeif anyone has an answer.Thank you,An old pilot from Maui

[Guest CapHavoc]

Howdy,Glad to see I'm not the only one experiencing this. Have you downloaded and executed any self-install programmes which have installed any Win System .dll files by chance? I'm trying to track the problem down too.

[Guest gorchi]

Hi!When I got new HDD I made this:1. renamed FS2002 directory to something else, i.e. form F:FS2002 to F:FS2002_old2. installed FS2002 in the old directory, F:FS20023. started up FS2002 and exit4. overwrited all files in "new" FS2002 with old ones from F:FS2002_oldAnd it works okay, no problems so far. And I must admit, that I have a lot less problems now when I have upgraded to Windows XP Professional than I had before. It crashed a lot under Win98 and Win2k, under win2k I could start it max 8 times then Windows jost frooze... The computer is just the same, same HDD, same specs, only WinXP Pro. Oh and btw... If You have nVidia cards, it is better to use WHQL drivers (currently I use 29.42 I think..) as they are really stable and wotrking as it is expected!Best regardsGoran

[wsieffert 0]

You seem to mixing and matching flight sims, FS2002 then FS98!! FS2000 and FS2002 have their ADF files separate from their scenery files. The ADF files reside in ..fs2002scenedbAFDFILESScenery. If your new scenery is just a makeover of an existing airport, then you need to use AFCAD to modify the existing COM/NAV/ILS *.bgl for that airport using AFCAD.The only time you would need to add a new AFD *.bgl would be if you were designing a new airport that wasn't in the default FS2002 files. You need to put the new AFD file in ..fs2002scenedbAFDFILESScenery vice you new scenery folder. You will also have to use AFCAD to define the AI tracks, runway start points, etc.

[Guest CapHavoc]

Howdy,Not with bush sceneries, they don't. Bush scenery afd's are simply remote locations/dirt runways to fly to in the bush. No tower, no terminal, and if you're real lucky, maybe a nearby cabin and a wild moose, deer, or wolf. These afd's are simply installed in the scenery file of the particular scenery and are complied and accessed purely for GPS/Nav location purposes. Has worked okay this way ... so far.

[wsieffert 0]

Therefore, the fs2002 scenery engine doesn't have these in the database. Yes, the scenery engine will pick these up. I was thinking more along the lines of a full blown airport. I don't know if the ATC, taxiing, gates, etc., would work correctly if they were not placed in the AFDFILES folder. The AFD files you are using probably don't have the taxiways and gates interface, just the COMM/NAV frequencies/locations.

[Guest]

Aloha once again . . .After much experimentation, I have come across something that may havea bearing on this problem. I notice a file in the root of FS2002 namedINDEX_FILE. It showed that it was 581,800,000 bytes! Since I have512MB memory, there was no way this file could load, thus kicking meback to my desktop whenever I started FS2002. I deleted this file andhad it create a new one which was now about 4MB in size.Now for the bad news . . . I then tried adding one bush scenery AFDfile, and as soon as it made the new index file, it kicked me out. Ithen found it was the same 581MB size. I remove the one AFD file andit is OK once again. It doesn't matter what AFD file I try to add,I have tried about ten different ones and they all do the same thing.CapHavoc, did you figure out your problem? I'm beginning to think weboth might have the same problem.Thanks for any ideas or help!The old Maui pilot

[Guest CapHavoc]

Howdy,Well, I suspected it might have been a corrupted scenery.cfg file (manually deleteing several scenery entries after dis-enabling them, but not deleting them in the Scenery Index, may have caused the sequencing of entries to be thrown out, thus forcing a rebuild of the Indices/database).Re-edited the scenery.cfg file and made sure this time to install the latest downloaded scenery first (the one that was causing the rebuild). Worked like a charm, no database rebuild creating 1.16Mb files in the FS root directory. So, reinstalled the entire (indiscriminate) collection of bush sceneries until ... one scenery falls over and creates a new database/index and associated 1.16Mb file. As does the next ... and the next. Strangely, had had no problems with these particular files before.So, my thinking was ... was there a limit to what can be added to the .afd database before all hell begins freezing over?On my machine I have 72 sceneries installed in the regional bush.cfg file alone (I swap .cfg files with their own independent scenery collections depending upon where I want to fly today: Oceania, Bush, Caribbean, or Default), of which 18 are default entries (eg: Default Scenery, AirPort Objects, and default locations: Anchorage, NW USA, NW Canada, et cetera).All 72 were (originally) "enabled"; however, by disabling 9 of these, the database/index rebuild does not occur (and of these 9 none are the last 3 I mentioned above). Go figure.Should also note that the "sceneries" can be either single ones (eg.: JDs Lodge, or Floattown), or compilations of an authors (all of Naji's Bush Scenery, all of Don's ABC sceneries, et cetera) which adds up to a grand total of 158 entries in the Add-On Scenery list.Since enabling a lesser number of sceneries (about 45 all up in the Scenery Index table), the .afd rebuild problem has disappeared. This is, I am sure, only a temporary fix ... have heard that one should be able to have upwards of 350 enabled without any problem.I am beginning to suspect this problem may be related to a certain programme I downloaded late september which installed a number of (incompatable and woefully out of date) .dll's into WinSystem. Unfortunately, cannot change these back (rig came fully loaded with ME and no disks were supplied ... means a trip to the techies to re-install these .dll's, especially oleaut32.dll, olepro32.dll, and stdole2.dll).Further research into this problem is continuing.