Archer allergic to rain?

[Hans_Petter 1]

As much as I enjoy the new Archer by Steve I stumbled across a peculiar problem:I've been flying it a lot in default sunny weather and I think that I've tried some clouds and wind shear as well. An hour ago I fired up FU3 and loaded it at Coupeville Nolf with one of Naji's rainy weather files. As the flight loaded the screen just froze and I couldn't start the engine, pan around or even exit. I had to go "cntl - alt - del" a couple of times. After rebooting I tried again, with another Naji rain file. Same result. After another hard reboot I tried the Archer in sunny weather and a Cessna with the rain files. Both worked.Now, these rain files really tax my CPU and it might be that a heavy panel + heavy weather is too much. However, I suspect a conflict here since "CPU overload" would tend to manifest as nothing but sluggish performance. Please try the Archer on a rainy day and check what you get.best regards,Hans Petter

[JimmiG 244]

I started at Livermoore in heavy rain and almost the same thing happened. For me, the screen froze and all, but after about 5 seconds, FU3 quite back to the desktop. The reason it didn't hard-lock for me is probably because I'm running XP, which is based on NT and handles crashes much better.The Archer clearly has a problem with rain.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Steve and the rest of you, any clues? Let me quick to add at this point that the Archer looks stunning and it flies nicely -- I really appreciate this addition to my hangar :-)Thinking as I type, the previous Beaver that has now been fixed -- Jon Point mentioning that his "no dome option" might crash if one changes the time -- these issues might yield some clues. Somehow FU3 must relate time, weather to panel gauges / polygons. What could weather (rain code) and time (dark hours?) possibly do that will affect the performance? Could it have something to do with errors in the night (dark) versions of the corresponding day images of gauge faces, panels and textures? best regards,Hans Petter

[Guest juvat2]

Hi Folks,I don't have Najis weather files, but tried it out on the rain&fog weather file and nasty tstorms, so far all is working well. Flew out of Tacoma and Seatac.This is a real nice aircraft. Very stable, even with the weather. The cockpit outstanding, the text for the switches are very legible, as well as the gauges. I like the exterior paint job as well. Thank you Steve, Daniel and Jon for another great aircraft. Thank you also to Dreamfleet.Well, back to the flt. Headed to Sanderson, pod Tacoma. Autopilot is so nice, isn't it? The passengers haven't even noticed I slipped away to web land temporarily.You all take care,JimB.

[Guest Ansgar]

Hi Hans,If I understand you right the crash only happens during night? During night the cockpit has normally different textures and so I only had the idea, that therewith may be a problem?Otherwise I didn

[JimmiG 244]

The crash occoured for me when the time was set to 12:00 (day. I did not use any special weather files, I just pulled the weather slider to about 80% and clicked generate until I got some warm fronts and rain over Livermoore, then I started the flight, and it crashed right away.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Mindboggling! I just tried again, first with the default "foggy and rainy", then with the default "thunderstorms", then a custom snow file and finally Naji's rain again. This time they all worked! My only thought is that, since the weather files are dynamic, there must be some situations that won't work at start up. Maybe initial horrents of rain is what does it? best regards,Hans Petter

[Guest R_Driscoll]

Two possible causes:when you change time of day while flying, plane goes up & down a bit - maybe air pressure changes with time of day - on teh ground, a change in air pressure could put you under ground - that might cause graphics problem. But I think FU3 handles that OK - you just bounce a bit.more likely, different lighting on panel - FU3 simulates by blending day & night panels, extra memory, so lockup. If true, this would happen with time of day changes and with changes in weather.

[Guest jonpoint]

Folks,For my two bob's worth, I haven't had any problems with the Archer (except the 'blue line' which I fixed on mine). This little guy just gives you so much confidence - could be all that DC3 flyin' :-). Thanks again, Steve.Regarding the DC3 crash-when-you-hit-'d' problem, I had somehow damaged the model. After reloading it from an original DC3 file it was OK. There were other problems as well - heiroglyphics on the radio display, and no sounds! When you opened the file in Resviewer, the sound files came up as hex files etc. The Archer doesn't exhibit either of these problems. Maybe it was just tooooo much for the ol' CPU? :-(Jon Point*************************(effyouthree@hotmail.com)*************************

[Guest Ansgar]

Hi Jon,huuuuuu, that looks like a strange file problem! May it be that your download of the DC3 was not free of errors, or some of your FU3-files are damaged?I would recommend to download the file from the avsim-server again. You definitely can play and see the soundfiles without problems in ResViewer V1.32!And also there are sure no problems in Steves cockpit displays for it.So there seems a problem during your first download, or you see the first hints of an beginning HDD problem in your PC.Best regardsAnsgar A.

[Guest jonpoint]

Ansgar,Hi and welcome back from your holidays!Yes, the resfile was damaged. I recently bought a new MB and processor (Athlon XP1700+) and 'zeroed' both drives and did a fresh install of everything. Unfortunately (and let this be a lesson to be aware of), when I copied all my project files to CD for backup, I neglected the ISO9660 rules regarding filenames and directory depth (apparently limited... ?) and ended up with truncated filenames (all in uppercase). This had somehow damaged the resfiles. My originals (still zipped-up from downloading) were OK, so were all my packages (also zipped). When I realised what was wrong, I deleted every 'saved' resfile and replaced them with new copies. So far, no problems.I think that sometimes resfiles get damaged when you rename them. I was working on a Kingair variant and 'all' I did was rename it to "king_air.res" and the resfile was trashed - all the files just came up as hex files. I realised this after FU3 crashed every time I went to select an aircraft - I deleted it and FU3 worked OK again. Oh, and don't edit resfiles from your desktop (as a folder) if you are using 'active desktop'! Resviewer has some problem with the temp file and you'll trash your resfile :-(Suffice to say, everything's fine now (and muuuuuch faster - I no longer get the framerate problems with the 747s - it's like a new aircraft :-) ). Oh, and thanks again for the DC3 - all I need is a couple of AI DC3s circling my 'new' 1940's airport!Jon Point*************************(effyouthree@hotmail.com)*************************

[Guest Ansgar]

Yep Jon,very good everything is fine so far! I also found out, that only renaming and/or moving the resfiles to an other fold can cause unusual effects. So it

[Guest jonpoint]

Ansgar,(This is getting off-track now so I'll stop after this message!)I have seen the same problem you mention (in Win2K) on our NT servers here. If you drag a file into another directory, NT doesn't always seem to actually move the file (physically). It leaves it in the same physical spot on the HD and just moves the 'link' or icon that allows you access to the file. Now, if another program comes along that looks for the file, NT will redirect it to the location so just moving it doesn't work. Seems to be something to do with NTFS. We had some damaged system files (from a hacker who tried to gain control of our Internet server). I dragged these into the Temp directory but when I went to 'paste' the new files in, I got a message saying that the files already existed! I had to delete them totally... I guess XP does the same thing? :-(Jon Point*************************(effyouthree@hotmail.com)*************************