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FDG B-25J Problem

K

kdriver

Library Staff
Staff member
G'day all,

Has anyone been able to use the FDG FS2004 to CFS2 conversion of the B-25J Mitchell in Quick Combat or in Missions without a crash to desktop? The aircraft works beautifully in Free Flight only. I'm not sure whether it's a problem of having multiple B-25Js. Morton has made some lovely skins for the aircraft.
 
kdriver said:
G'day all,

Has anyone been able to use the FDG FS2004 to CFS2 conversion of the B-25J Mitchell in Quick Combat or in Missions without a crash to desktop? The aircraft works beautifully in Free Flight only. I'm not sure whether it's a problem of having multiple B-25Js. Morton has made some lovely skins for the aircraft.
Click to expand...

I don't have the aircraft your talking about but I am having the same problem your talking about with the new Alpha PBY-5A that was converted.
 
Lightstates Strike Again ?

Sometimes the "Lightstates" challenge causes this.

Break out your Hex Editors, Lads !:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Crashing to Desktop (CTD) - Some converted FS9 planes will result in a CTD.

Reason is a discovery by DBolt: You need to remove the "g_lightStates" variable from the DICT section of the mdl.

It just can be done with a hexeditor, but it's not so hard:

- First, locate the DICT section, close of the CFS2 tag.
- Then, you need to locate the following sequence of bites inside it:

9d e9 f0 57 23 05 9c 4e bc b6 12 bb 2f e7 3f 06

That is the "g_lightStates" ID number. Just replace the bites with zeros.

Don't be tempted to remove the data, as it will mess up the mdl.

It should work with many aircrafts with the same problem.
 
sc7500 said:
Sometimes the "Lightstates" challenge causes this.

Break out your Hex Editors, Lads !:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Crashing to Desktop (CTD) - Some converted FS9 planes will result in a CTD.

Reason is a discovery by DBolt: You need to remove the "g_lightStates" variable from the DICT section of the mdl.

It just can be done with a hexeditor, but it's not so hard:

- First, locate the DICT section, close of the CFS2 tag.
- Then, you need to locate the following sequence of bites inside it:

9d e9 f0 57 23 05 9c 4e bc b6 12 bb 2f e7 3f 06

That is the "g_lightStates" ID number. Just replace the bites with zeros.

Don't be tempted to remove the data, as it will mess up the mdl.

It should work with many aircrafts with the same problem.
Click to expand...

Could you or anyone recommend a good site to download the hexeditor from?
 
sc7500 said:

Try Googling HexEdit 1.7..... Any of them will do fine.
Click to expand...

Thank you SC! OK I've downloaded and installed HEXEDIT 1.7 and everything looks fine but I don't understand the " First, locate the DICT section, close of the CFS2 tag.
- Then, you need to locate the following sequence of bites inside it:" part. I've used other utilities before but never hexedit. Could you go into a little more detail to help me locate the sequence of bites I need to replace with zeros? I'm opening the MDL file inside the Model folder of the Alpha PBY using the HEXEDIT and of course I see row after row of all these numbers. Do I also need to have the settings on HEXEDIT set a certain way? Thank you and I will greatly appreciate any help you can give me.
 
Peeks and Pokes...

I use the Search function located in the HexEdit tool bar.... Type in DICT and hit search - it should take you to the APPROXIMATE location of the entry - you'll see it in the RIGHT HAND Column near the CFS2 'tag'.

[Knowing most MDL files, nothing is ever exactly where we want it to be.... Be persistent]

Once you find the line "9d e9 f0 57 23 05 9c 4e bc b6 12 bb 2f e7 3f 06" in the LEFT HAND column of numbers....
Highlight the 9D and type 00... continue until you've changed all 16 noted number / letter pairs to 00.

Save, and try your modified MDL file.

Sometimes these helper tools require "Leaps of Faith".... Their instructions are not as intuitive as we'd prefer.

In a few days you'll be teaching ME HexEdit tricks !!!

Enjoy
SC
:kilroy:
 
sc7500 said:
I use the Search function located in the HexEdit tool bar.... Type in DICT and hit search - it should take you to the APPROXIMATE location of the entry - you'll see it in the RIGHT HAND Column near the CFS2 'tag'.

[Knowing most MDL files, nothing is ever exactly where we want it to be.... Be persistent]

Once you find the line "9d e9 f0 57 23 05 9c 4e bc b6 12 bb 2f e7 3f 06" in the LEFT HAND column of numbers....
Highlight the 9D and type 00... continue until you've changed all 16 noted number / letter pairs to 00.

Save, and try your modified MDL file.

Sometimes these helper tools require "Leaps of Faith".... Their instructions are not as intuitive as we'd prefer.

In a few days you'll be teaching ME HexEdit tricks !!!

Enjoy
SC
:kilroy:
Click to expand...
Well I did like you said and I found the string of numbers you were talking about! :) And I changed each pair to 00 like you said and saved it. The bad news is I started up the game and wanted to test the plane in "Free Flight" before I try "Quick Combat", when I go to load the plane I get this "VISUAL MODEL COULD NOT BE DISPLAYED ALPHA PBY-5A"
 
kwb737 said:
Well I did like you said and I found the string of numbers you were talking about! :) And I changed each pair to 00 like you said and saved it. The bad news is I started up the game and wanted to test the plane in "Free Flight" before I try "Quick Combat", when I go to load the plane I get this "VISUAL MODEL COULD NOT BE DISPLAYED ALPHA PBY-5A"
Click to expand...

You messed up some how. Leaving a leter hitting space bar and any thing like that will mess the whole thing up.

Anyway I did a hex edit of the ALPHA PBY-5A just fine and I'm attaching the updated model below. Plese update the ALPHA PBY-5A download as well with the new model.


View attachment 76755
 
Allen said:
You messed up some how. Leaving a leter hitting space bar and any thing like that will mess the whole thing up.

Anyway I did a hex edit of the ALPHA PBY-5A just fine and I'm attaching the updated model below. Plese update the ALPHA PBY-5A download as well with the new model.


View attachment 76755
Click to expand...

Hey thanks so much Allen for the corrected MDL file. I don't know what happened or why it happened when I edited the MDL file. I was thinking the same thing you were and I double checked my work and all the letters and numbers were gone and it looked like this 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 after I was done however I noticed as I was changing each combination to read 00 the data to the right of all the bytes I was changing was slowly going away and changing to this ............... No matter thanks to you the PBY flys beautifully in Quick Combat now with no more CTD. Thanks again for getting involved and helping me out.
 
If you want to crash-proof the model during the conversion process, use mdlc 1.90. Its programmed to kill lightstates in conversion. Back in the day that i uploaded the air, dp and textures package, version 1.90 didn't exist yet. So there were no instructions for this problem at the time.
 
Thanks very much SC - that did the trick! :applause: :icon29: This information is certainly worth adding to the CFS2 knowledge database.

Thanks also Bearcat - if only MDLC would work with Windows 7.

Here's an updated model file for the FDG B-25J and a shot of a successful attack on Simpson Harbour, Rabaul.

Kevin
 
kdriver said:
if only MDLC would work with Windows 7
Click to expand...

DOSBox should run MDLC on a 64-bit OS I think. I have run my old programs on Win7 64-bit using DOSBox. I still have WinXP 32-bit for my older programs...some I have transfered to Win7 64-bit OS running them using the DOSBox program.

http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1

http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Basic_Setup_and_Installation_of_DosBox

Alternate to that I think a dual boot system to boot either a 32-bit or 64-bit OS.

Just some thoughts...maybe they be helpful.

Cheers, O
 
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