How to patch the sim and update your .ini files (if you have the old ones).

[Blackdog_kt]

I spend most of my time testing stuff instead of actually flying the sim and i occasionally come up with some worthwhile stuff that might be beneficial to others.

I got a lot of positive reaction about this subject when posting it on another thread, along with fears that it will get buried among other posts, so i took the liberty of re-posting it here on its own thread.

You can also find it hosted on airwarfare.com and i thank Gamekeeper for copying whatever posts of mine he finds useful over there, as the more visible some fixes are the more typing time it saves me (i don't have to retype every solution as much if more people know about it) to actually fly instead of just test things out

First of all, a small note on the issue of the .ini files: If you have download your copy from Steam after the previous official patch was applied (around the end of May i think it was), then most probably you have the new configuration files. If you have installed the sim earlier than May or had Steam apply at least one official patch before the June 21st beta patch, then it's possible that your installation has the old config files.

You can just uninstall and download the whole thing again from Steam if you find the instructions confusing, but they are pretty simple and they will save you time (and bandwidth, if you are not on a unlimited bandwidth ISP package).

So, let's get to it then!

This is the Install, Patching, Repair & Backup section of Airwarfare.com where you can also find other useful guides: http://airwarfare.com/sow/index.php?...=66&Itemid=156


And this is my original post:

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

Just had a very small test and will keep flying during the night to see if there's any gameplay-issue improvements (Ju88 gyrocompass, bomb release joystick buttons working from bombardier's seat, etc).

I got my first launcher.exe crash today but i fixed it simply by restarting the sim, it plays the same as before (smooth on mostly medium settings on my 2 year old PC:i7 920, Ati 4890 1GB and 3GB of RAM, win7 64 bit) and everything looks good in regards to FPS, i even bumped one of my low settings to medium.



I also had to get the new .ini files (i didn't do it in the previous patch) that do away with a lot of redundant fields. I prefer to get everything in a working order first so i can actually test stuff, instead of having preventable errors give me "false alarms". There is by now a standard routine i do and every patch has been an improvement for me.

First, how to get the new .ini files (the configuration files). If you have only recently downloaded your copy from Steam you probably don't need to do this, i had mine installed early though so i had to change them:

1) Launch the sim, go to controls and select "save as", then tell it to save an .ini file somewhere you can easily find it. I had actually done this a long time ago, saving a "mycontrols.ini" file in my documents folder.

2) Go to documents\1c softclub folder and move the files conf.ini, confs.ini, confuser.ini to a backup folder.

3) Do the same for the files of the same name in steam\steamapps\common\IL-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover, moving them to their own backup folder.

4) Run the steam file verification tool . This will spot you are missing the .ini files (since you moved them to another location) and download the new ones. I have opened and compared the old and new files and their structure is different, so i can confirm this will give you the new files without having to mess with steam cloud settings, just keep the cloud thing off altogether.

5) Probably all your settings have now been reset. Go to controls and load the .ini file containing your previously saved control bindings, then click on the apply button. In my case it happened to keep them stored anyway. My realism settings and graphics options had also been reset so i had to reselect them and i think my transparent on-screen windows also changed so i'll have to customize them again. All in all it's less than 5 minutes of work for a cleaner, leaner config file structure so it's worth it.

I don't know if all this affects single-player career progress but i think it doesn't: i accidentally skipped a mission once and i manually edited another file to revert back to the previous "step" in the campaign but it was a completely different file, so i don't think campaign progress has been affected.

6) EXIT THE SIM. This is probably why i got a launcher crash the first time around (i had just applied the beta patch too, further complicating things) i didn't exit after changing graphics options and tried to fly a mission right away. Next time i just changed settings, restarted the sim and all was fine. It's generally a good habit to restart the sim when changing graphics options.


To get the beta patch up and running:

1) Assuming you have up to date .ini files keep reading, otherwise follow the above routine first.

2) Even if you have current .ini files, make sure you are as close to a stock installation as possible. I run with no mods (i am waiting for the SDK first) so it's relatively easy. I just backup anything i might want to keep or fear i might lose (mainly my controls settings), then run the Steam file verification tool.

3) Extract the beta patch file into the main game folder (steam\steamapps\common\IL-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover) and let it over-write anything it asks you to.

4) Go to documents\1c softclub\cache, select everything under that folder and delete it. This forces the sim to rebuild the shader cache and will prevent problems with graphic glitches and/or FPS that may be caused by running a newer version with cached shaders of a previous version.

Please do this before claiming visual bugs, reduced performance, etc, as it helps A LOT: i've never had degraded performance ever, every new patch is smoother than the last and i'm running a two year old PC.

This cache clean-up happens automatically when you install a live, official patch from Steam but i'm not sure if it happens with beta patches, so i do it manually just to be sure.

5) Start flying


When the patch goes live on Steam:
1) Either revert to the previous version by using the file verification tool, or just patch on top of the beta one.

2) Clear your cache

3) Go flying


I hope it helps some of the people having problems, it's been immensely helpful for me so i thought i'd pass it on.

Important Edit: Whatever you can test OFFLINE, do so. It's perfectly possible to join a server running a previous version when you are running a newer version beta patch and this will give you all sorts of glitches. You might be able to join but that doesn't mean the two versions are always compatible with each other. Luthier himself said so in one of the previous updates. So, test the aircraft behavior offline and when you go online to test multiplayer specific issues, make sure the server is also running the same version as you are.

Bug reports from multiplayer are pretty much worthless if the server and client are not running the same version. It's also why i don't go online yet, i spend most of my time not flying/playing the sim but testing, bug-hunting and compiling a FAQ for when the US release happens to help get people up to speed fast, so i don't want to have all kinds of "false alarms" caused by incompatible versions and/or mods when trying to see what works, what doesn't and how i can work around any remaining issues.

I would urge everyone who is having problems to try this out. I'm not claiming it will work for everyone, but a couple users already reported better results and so i guess it's no harm to try it.

It is also useful for another reason that TUSA/TX-Gunslinger pointed out: if we follow a more or less standardized way of updating our sim, it's much more probable that our individual installations will be on the same page.

This makes for a greater commonality among the user base and eliminating problems that might simply be setup/installation issues and not directly problems of the underlying code. For example, a lot of bugs (especially display/graphics bugs) and even launcher.exe crashes can be prevented by forcing a rebuild of the shader cache when updating to a new version.

If we can prevent these bugs we can not only enjoy a better simming experience, but we can also spot the true bugs in an easier manner and report them to the developer team for fixing.

Feel free to try this out, copy it on your fansite, sticky it, etc: the more visibility it has the less likely it is i'll have to retype it sometime down the road when another user is having troubles with updating or getting preventable bugs

Hope it gets at least some people who are facing problems up and running

[ECV56_LeChuck]

Good post!

[LcSummers]

Hi Blackdog_kt,


thank you very much for these very important notes. I have done as you suggested.
My fault is/was that i never updated the ini files in the steam application.

I have done it every time in 1C folder.

Thank you again

Cheers

LC

[meplay]

Hi Blackdog_kt

Im going to give this a whirl, i am getting some stutters after installing this patch so hopefully if i do it this way, it will help. Do i need to have my steam cloud on to get the patch from steam or do's it still work without?

Thanks S!

[Tiger27]

This is a peice of great advice, I have been through the files and they are quite different from previous ones, only problem I am having with this and the last patch is I cant save or load my controller settings, so I have to keep redoing them

[Blackrat]

Nice post, reposted on syndicate forum too, hopefully it has sorted out my crossfire issues, so far so good. Also it seems processaffinity has gone from the conf.ini file and is incorporated in the main core as I still get all four cores being used.

In game when you set up your controls there is an option to save them, this then creates a control file in your documents section for COD which you can backup elsewhere and just copy back when you upgrade.

[planespotter]

thax this what i was just looking for!

[335th_GRAthos]

Thanks for the post!


Does anybody know what may have changed between the old and the new conf.ini files?


~S~

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by meplay

Hi Blackdog_kt

Im going to give this a whirl, i am getting some stutters after installing this patch so hopefully if i do it this way, it will help. Do i need to have my steam cloud on to get the patch from steam or do's it still work without?

Thanks S!

You don't need to keep Steam cloud enabled. As soon as the patch is beyond the beta stage it will get incremented with a new version number and will be out on steam for automatic download.

If you have automatic updates enabled you will get a notification in the steam interface and it will begin downloading. If you prefer to keep the updates off, once the patch is released you can right-click on your CoD icon in steam and go to properties, there you can set auto-updates to on and let it update and then set it to off again.

What the clouds does is transfer settings between your currently used pC and steam, it doesn't have anything to do with patching. The initial .ini files are in your game folder, then they get copied over to the documents\1c softclub folder upon installation/first run of the sim and whatever you edit gets saved there (or in both, not really sure).

What the cloud does is upload a copy of them to steam and if you fire up the sim from a different PC with the same account and cloud enabled, it's supposed to download your .ini files so you are up and running fast.

The confusion comes from the fact that i don't really know which set of .ini files it uploads to steam and which set takes precedence (eg, people have enabled the cloud only to have steam overwrite their configs with new, blank files). So i just keep it off and do it the old fashioned way: copy anything i might need to a separate backup folder.

In any case though patching is not tied to the cloud, so if you find the description of what it does confusing you can keep it turned off and not care about it

Originally Posted by Tiger27

This is a peice of great advice, I have been through the files and they are quite different from previous ones, only problem I am having with this and the last patch is I cant save or load my controller settings, so I have to keep redoing them

This is an issue with the latest beta patch and already brought to the developers' attention. People report that going to the "plane" menu from the main loading screen and setting loadouts there works: they can be properly saved and selected for the flight during the mission pre-flight screens.

However, something got broken in the "player plane" menu which alters your personal loadouts, this is found on the map pre-flight screen right before you spawn. People report it works in multiplayer though.

The temporary workaround is to save loadouts in the plane menu and assign them to your entire flight for offline flying.

Originally Posted by Blackrat

Nice post, reposted on syndicate forum too, hopefully it has sorted out my crossfire issues, so far so good. Also it seems processaffinity has gone from the conf.ini file and is incorporated in the main core as I still get all four cores being used.

In game when you set up your controls there is an option to save them, this then creates a control file in your documents section for COD which you can backup elsewhere and just copy back when you upgrade.

Yep, the affinity mask setting was withdrawn.

Also, the ability to save just the keybindings and controls is very useful. My one main worry was that my personalized mycontrols.ini file would be incompatible with the new conf.ini, but thankfully it worked just fine and i didn't have to remap everything from scratch.

Originally Posted by 335th_GRAthos

Thanks for the post!


Does anybody know what may have changed between the old and the new conf.ini files?


~S~

There were a lot of legacy parameters in the initial config files that were not really used by the sim, leftovers from previous builds during development and so on. At least that's what Luthier said when the sim was initially released and that's why he told us it's possible to horribly break the sim if we just went around and started changing values
The new conf.ini has a lot less parameters, so i guess they simply cleaned up all the unnecessary leftover values.

[meplay]

ah thanks Blackdog_kt, yeah i saved my ini files in separate folders on desktop and on my memory stick so im just going to leave my steam cloud turned off

Thanks

S!