Do it!

[ATAG_Bliss]

If you have installed a beta patch EVER, you seriously need to reinstall the game from scratch. My typical experience online was a 45 minute session then crash to desktop. It was almost like clock-work.

This is what I did based on the convo JTDawg had with me on TS.

1st thing I did was completely delete the Documents/1cSoft folder completely. Go to your steam/IL2 folder and save a copy of your defuser.ini. This file contains all your joystick/keymapping assignments. Then uninstall the game through your control panel's add/remove programs. (Make sure all remaining folders for IL2COD are gone)

Download/install the game through steam. And whatever you do, don't touch a single setting in any config files. Place your keymapping file back in the game. Start it up and adjust your audio/video/network settings (IN-GAME) and go fly.

In my 1st online session I flew with every single setting maxed @ 2650x1600. This was the 1st time in a long time I've ever been able to fly at my native resolution let alone with EVERYTHING cranked up. But that's just the beginning though.

My 1st sortie I took off in a Ju88 and completed a bomber sortie in England. I somehow limped it back home and was able to land at France. There's one hour already! 2nd sortie I do another Ju88 sortie bomb the snot out of stuff and, again, am able to make it back to successfully land. 2 hours no crashing at this point. My 3rd sortie I took off in an E4 and hung around England for a bit - around 30 minutes into that sortie I finally crashed. I have never had a sortie last much more than an hour without crashing, let alone almost 3.

Not only was it smooth, using higher gfx settings/resolution, omg @ the sounds. I swear I must have been missing 1/2 of them before. There was no more static noise on engine idle (I used to get that 50% of the time at the right RPM's) I could actually hear the wheels changing sound with different surfaces, the landing gear, the hydraulics, well, everything sounded soo much better. There was thunder coming through my headphones as the flak bursts were going off. I played 2 hours straight before I even had my 1st stutter. This was when there was 40 players online.

I know there's many supposed fixes/helpers out there, and trust me I've tried most of them, but this truly was a night and day difference for me and not a placebo effect.

I can't harp enough. If you've changed your files, loaded beta patches, or in any way shape or form have an inkling that you've corrupted your game in the slightest bit, trust me in saying the steam integrity check doesn't catch everything.

All I can say is reinstall and don't touch any configs at all!

Hope this helps.

[JG52Uther]

Might work for some people. I have CoD installed on a new HD with the new patch, and still get launcher .exe's. Not as many as some others though.

[Tvrdi]

Bliss, I have only confUser file there....

[_79_dev]

Hey Bliss, I did reinstall my game after getting crashes too often, and yes it was nice on the beginning, few sorties, and then a few on the next day, but then eventually my game crashed to the desktop again. After all same problem came back but... game crashes rare and is much more playable and smooth after reinstall. Conclusion is that all those patch files must counteract with rest of the game and may cause problems, I would risk to say that is because of corrupted downloading theme patches...

[bw_wolverine]

I recently did the reinstall as well (just after the campaign mission on Sunday) and when I jumped online to try it out I definitely heard sounds that I hadn't been hearing before.

Example: I had been always hearing the loud POP POP backfiring sounds from other planes warming up but I never seemed to hear them from my own plane. I wondered if I was just warming up my plane differently. Well, I can safely say that I simply wasn't hearing them before I reinstalled. Now I hear those sounds very clearly and it's definitely different to what I was hearing before.

So, +1 on the reinstall.

[Sokol1]

I confirm this. When the last (final) patch come out I made a new install, and never have problem online minus eventual timed out (due my bad connection).
Almost accidentally I set graphics in HIGH (my system is old) and game run better than medium/low previously set used.

Sokol1

[Sven]

I never reinstalled Cliffs of Dover and used all the patches so far.

And I'm not crashing, well I did had 1 launcher.exe crash on ATAG some 2 weeks ago, but that's it.

[335th_GRAthos]

Very interesting Bliss, thanks for sharing!

I never had any problems with my sound so I can not comment on the usefulness of a clean installation for those with sound problems. Probably, the fact that I never experienced sound problems is a confirmation that some files on other peoples' computers had gone bad thus a re-install is a good solution.

Regarding your flying time online, I would say that you need to fly intercept against bombers. This is the moment where you see your RAM utilisation growing to unbearable levels.
I have also tested staying on the ground. While on the ground for one hour, absolutely no memory increase.
Therefore, you can well fly for hours as long as you meet certain conditions and the situation you described fits to that category (very little enemy contact and (presume) high alt flying).

~S~

[Insuber]

I did a complete wipe out and reinstall, original DVD then Steam update, an I have CTDs.

[ATAG_Bliss]

@GRAthos - I agree and don't agree just for the simple fact that I could only fly a little over an hour in an 88 before a CTD, before a complete reinstall. I literally make the same path everytime I fly it. So something has definitely changed. I do agree that the more planes, action, etc., does seem to speed up the process. But I was covered in action most of the 1st night I tested it. Time will tell I guess, but the sounds and smoothness alone made it much better.

@Insuber - Maybe my wording was bad, but I still do have CTD's.. It's just now I can go almost 3 hours before I get one. Which is almost 2 hours longer.

[Insuber]

@Insuber - Maybe my wording was bad, but I still do have CTD's.. It's just now I can go almost 3 hours before I get one. Which is almost 2 hours longer.

It was crystal clear mate, I just wanted to report my experience.

BTW I had a ball earlier in the ATAG server, I was flying over Ramsgate when I spotted a 109 chased by two Hurris. I dove, aligned on the first and opened fire from 50 m, cut his wing leaving him crashing in flames; continued, aligned on the second who was opening up on the 109 and damaged him heavily. I spotted then a contact arriving higher from Dover and left the field. The second hurri crash landed later because I got the second credited kill ... Sorry couldn't resist ... :)

[SEE]

From what Luthier says, the devs are aware of the glitch in the coding that is causing these problems. I used to suffer constant LE crashes shortly after joining a MP session after the official update. I have had only one in the last week (and I am on ATAG for several hours most nights).

I made a lot of changes but not to my game settings or screen res, etc. It seems something I did improved the stabilty and I wonder if that explains why others don't get the dreaded LE crash (or less frequently) - its almost as if this coding 'bug' is made worse or conflicting with something outside of the game itself. Note sure, but all the changes I made were not to the game.

When the next official patch is released its going to be laid over a fresh install for sure.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Doing it now. I remember JTDawg discussing this on TS yesterday, but I was having some remapping difficulties at the time and couldn't give this the attention it deserved.

Can't hurt to do a fresh install, anyway.

[Tvrdi]

Bliss, I have only confUser file there....

bump

[KG26_Alpha]

bump

He means to backup the confUser file for your control settings.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover\confUser

[ATAG_MajorBorris]

Nice!

[pupo162]

JUST TRIED IT.

well it gave me a smal performance update ( add to lower the seetings fro mdefault tough), but the gmae is sitll unplayable. too much stutters, and low fps. maybe good for some offline sorties, but i wont go online with this.

cheers

[ReconNZ]

JUST TRIED IT.

well it gave me a smal performance update ( add to lower the seetings fro mdefault tough), but the gmae is sitll unplayable. too much stutters, and low fps. maybe good for some offline sorties, but i wont go online with this.

cheers

Mate your ram is killing u on this game. Spend $70 and get 8gb of ddr3 ram, along with windows vista or 7 so u can use it all and u will notice a huge difference. Cliffs is very ram dependent, because of this it hates win xp also.

[SEE]

I spoke to soon and had three LE crashes and a BSOD on the last one. Windows diagnostics reported 'video memory thrashing'.

So what was different tonight to all the previous sessions this week with no LE crashes? I think it was the particle rendering, tonight I watched a Spit with dust trailing behind it as it took off, shortly after Flak appeared - lots of it and LE crashed.

The other occured over water at low altitude, bullets hitting the water, eventually after several occurences of the splashes LE crashed. I repeated this in SP and LE crashed with me firing my guns into the water.

Maybe someone can test this and monitor the effect on memory use.

All week I avoided locations where flack is heavy, tonight I couldn't.

[Tree_UK]

Im going to give it a go, Ive got nothing to lose, i will report back later.

[pupo162]

Mate your ram is killing u on this game. Spend $70 and get 8gb of ddr3 ram, along with windows vista or 7 so u can use it all and u will notice a huge difference. Cliffs is very ram dependent, because of this it hates win xp also.

i have win7.

my MB is ddr2, to upgrade my ram i need new MB, who needs new CPU. so i will end up spending 400 euros. Ill consider doing that if il2 starts showing signs of being good ( more servers, more people playing, videos of people playing no stutters, no building popping, trees colidable, proper DCG campaign etc) for now, my pc is enough to play BF2: PR and BF3, so cod is not worth 400 euro

[ReconNZ]

i have win7.

my MB is ddr2, to upgrade my ram i need new MB, who needs new CPU. so i will end up spending 400 euros. Ill consider doing that if il2 starts showing signs of being good ( more servers, more people playing, videos of people playing no stutters, no building popping, trees colidable, proper DCG campaign etc) for now, my pc is enough to play BF2: PR and BF3, so cod is not worth 400 euro


Fair call mate but they are plenty of smooth vids with nostutters out there!! Easy then mate just get yourself some more ddr2 ram, it'll make a huge difference to your whole system and will cost almost nothing. 8gb of ddr2 will be like $30 and will more than double your performance on win 7. :-)

[Ze-Jamz]

Good info Bliss, whatever the difference be it big or small..

I'd like to think a complete reinstall would or should make things a bit better even if it is very minor

[Ploughman]

I did it and it does improved things for me. I forgot about turning off the e-filter for a while and was confronted by some graphical errors that went away once I ditched the filter. Thanks for the info. I've a q6600@2.4mhz, a GT9800, 4gb RAM on Vista32. Thanks for the info.

[reflected]

Thanks for the info, Bliss! I'll do it when the next patch comes out. HEll, I might ive it a try before that! :)

Mind you, I don't have any CTD-s, but the sounds are very tempting.

[JG52Uther]

Ref, if you don't have any CTD's I wouldn't risk it.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Did the delete - reinstall thing. Flew two missions last night, both involving combat. The last mission was a high altitude bomber pursuit taking me well inland over Occupied France. Engaged bombers (AI), defending 109 (human), made it home after mad dash on the deck. Total time elapsed for both missions approx 1.5 hours - no CTD, no stutters, no slide shows when engaging enemy. Voluntarily logged off. In fairness only about 10 players total (vs 40 plus at busier times), so need more stick time to more properly evaluate. (At least, that's the story I told my wife and she realises you guys are anxiously awaiting further word...... LOL)

Initial results are encouraging.

[Tvrdi]

Reinstalled the game and now i dont have server list...its empty....no servers at all...

[JG52Uther]

Reinstalled the game and now i dont have server list...its empty....no servers at all...

That might be a steam problem mate, see here:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=27899

[ATAG_Bliss]

Reinstalled the game and now i dont have server list...its empty....no servers at all...

If you don't have any servers it is indeed a steam handshake problem. The easy way around it is to start the game and instead of going to MP/client, go to MP/dedicated server and click through the process of starting a server (choose a default map etc.etc.) and then start the server for about 5 seconds.. Stop the server and your client list should show back up again :)

[Tvrdi]

did all of that and servers are back....the list appeared after 2 mins...lol....fckin steam

[macro]

im going to give this a go, getting horrible slowdowns during dogfights no matter what the settings i use, will report back later

[macro]

worked for me nice and smooth now thanks alot bliss

edit, it seemed to work first game then bak to how it was, random slowdowns with slide shows when near any action, regardless of settings

[Pitti]

I just reinstalled it today. Never did that before, I had it installed since release.
Much smoother playing now and better/more sounds, great!! :)

But I am still getting a crash after 45 minutes in multiplayer. :( I hoped to get some extra time, like you Bliss.

Nevertheless, the reinstallation has been worthwhile and I can recommand it! :)

[ATAG_Bliss]

Hi Pitti,

My extra time was short lived. I get around the same time as you. The biggest suggestion I can make is to re-start the game after every sortie. That has, at the very least, allowed me to not have a lock-up 19 out of 20 times - aka enjoy the sortie :)

I know it's a pain, but it's much more frustrating to always be crashing the 2nd you get on someone's six!

[335th_GRAthos]

Hmmm....

the difference between the "first time" after new install and the "next time" is probably the cache.

Perhaps cleaning up the cache (I do not know where that nice explanation on how to do it is...) may solve some problems???? (except the memory leak one, of course).

I can not say about it myself because I always do so (I have CoD on a RAMDRIVE file (with clean cache), every time I start my PC I load the RAMDRIVE file into the RAM so practicaly my cache is clean every time I start).

~S~

[Pitti]

The biggest suggestion I can make is to re-start the game after every sortie.

Yes, that is the only thing we can do until it is fixed, I think.

Hmmm....

the difference between the "first time" after new install and the "next time" is probably the cache.

I cleaned the cache many times before but it didn't helped a lot.