Simviation Forum - Splash Screen>Blank Screen>Desktop

Sep 12^th, 2004 at 11:45am

Texoma Offline
Lieutenant Colonel
Prosper, TX

Gender:
Posts: 6

After spending 2 hours on the phone with Microsoft support, I thought I'd throw my problem into this crowd.

Just bought CFS3, installed it, the splash screen comes up, then it goes blank, I see the larger hour glass for half a second, and then it goes back to my desktop.

The next time I try to run it, Splash screen, then a message stating that CFS3 did not shut down properly, which gives me the option to read the trouble shooting file or bow out.

MS checked over my computer requirements with a fine tooth comb. I have the latest DirectX 9.0c, and my video card is a Radeon 9800 Pro AGP.

I have an AMD Athlon 2200 and 512 MB of Ram.
I'm running XP Home edition and have the new Service Pac 2 installed with no problems.

MS thinks there is something wrong with my CFG3 because it is not as new as FS2004 and that loads and runs just fine.

They had me go into the cfs3configdatabase.txt and add the line for "Radeon 9800 Pro".
They had me try it with every resolution and every monitor speed and in safe mode and not. With or without my Panda Anti-virus.

Oh, and I do have the 3.1 update.

MS is having to turn this over to "Extended Research" which simply means they have no clue.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Viagra Racing Team

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Reply #1 - Sep 12^th, 2004 at 12:58pm

Mathias Offline
Colonel
Toy Maker
Germany

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Posts: 558

When in doubt, always start by deleting the user copy of the uisel.xml Cheesy

.
It should be located under C:\\documents and settings\yourusername\application data\microsoft\Combat Flight Simulator 3.0\uisel.xml
Or just delete the complete folder. You'll just lose your custom settings like last selected aircraft, custom keyboard settings, graphics tweaks etc.
Next search for and delete all files with extension bdp in your CFS3 installation root.
do the same with "zx" extensions.
All of the deleted files will be re-created when you next boot up CFS3.
Next run the CFS3 config tool from the start menu.
When done with all the above start CFS3, mind you, will take a while as it'll recreate all the deleted files.
Good luck!

Mathias&&

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Reply #2 - Sep 12^th, 2004 at 5:43pm

Texoma Offline
Lieutenant Colonel
Prosper, TX

Gender:
Posts: 6

Well, too late for that, I uninstalled it....But

I think it may very well be a bad disk.

I tried installing it on my sons computer which is also an AMD with a Radeon 9600 and it was having a hard time with Disk 2. It even said that some of the files could not be copied. Then when we tried to run it, it did the exact same thing as it did on mine.

Viagra-
Fly Props Air Racing

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Reply #3 - Sep 19^th, 2004 at 6:05am

jonah Offline
1st Lieutenant
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Posts: 2

I had same problem and still have Microsoft on the job, running 2.8GHZ p, G Force 5200 128MB Graphics card, downloaded latest NVidia drivers, all patches ver 3.1 and Direct x 9c and still same issue.

Any help appreciated it still dont run

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Reply #4 - Sep 19^th, 2004 at 5:59pm

Texoma Offline
Lieutenant Colonel
Prosper, TX

Gender:
Posts: 6

Well, another 52 minutes on the phone with Microsoft, via India. I spoke to a very nice man who is as stubburn not to give up as I am. He will call me back on Monday evening for a 3rd try. Meanwhile, I exchanged my copy of CFS3 for another, thinking that the disk might be defective. Not. Exact same problem. I have an ATI Radeon 9800 and upgraded the driver to the new 4.9 with no change.

Any other ideas?

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Reply #5 - Sep 20^th, 2004 at 2:33am

GhostFlyer Offline
Colonel
Melbourne, Australia

Gender:
Posts: 22

Maybe this might help ....

On my PC I've found that the "crash to desktop" upon startup of CFS3 seems to be closely related to the screen resolution / display settings (ie. how the settings in CFS3 relate to my normal resolution settings in Windows).

For some reason, CFS3 seems to keep losing the screen / display settings that I've entered - and when this happens I always get the "crash to desktop".

What's more, I'm only using fairly "standard" settings of 1024 x 768 and 32-bit colour for both Windows & CFS3, so it surprises me that CFS3 doesn't seem to like remembering them!

Whenever I get the "crash to desktop", I find that if I run the CFS3 Config program & check the display settings, they've magically changed - usually reverting back to the "default" CFS3 setting of 800 x 600.

To get up & running again all I have to do is run CFS3 Config, set the display settings back to 1024 x 768, 32-bit colour to match my PC, and CFS3 will be okay again (until the next time it "forgets")!

Good luck!

(PS. I am also running the "No-CD" patch and have the Windows XP service pack 2 installed).

Intel P4 2.6 GHz, 1GB Ram, nVidia GeForce 6600GT, Windows XP home&&

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Reply #6 - Sep 20^th, 2004 at 4:48am

Whitey Offline
Colonel
Scotland

Gender:
Posts: 2697

You could also try installing the CFS3.1 update from here: http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs3/downloads.asp

There's also a no-CD patch that solves a lot of problems: http://www.simviation.com/cfs3utilities1.htm

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Reply #7 - Sep 20^th, 2004 at 9:13am

Texoma Offline
Lieutenant Colonel
Prosper, TX

Gender:
Posts: 6

Getting closer....

I changed the config file to match my system settings of 1024x768x32 and installed the No CD patch...

Now it goes to the blank/black screeen for about 5 seconds before showing a window that states CFS3 encountered a problem and is shutting down.

At least that's different!

Any more ideas before the guy from India calls me back tonight?

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Reply #8 - Sep 27^th, 2004 at 2:32am

Shooter Offline
2nd Lieutenant
Belgium (Ghent)

Gender:
Posts: 1

~s~
Some antivirus could also cause problems (like i had) even disabled or a clean boot wouldn't help with Panda Antivirus 2004 installed, it has to be uninstalled to get cfs3 to work normal.
http://www.missionoperationsgroup.net/installing_cfs3_page.htm

~S~ MOG_Shooter

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Reply #9 - Oct 1^st, 2004 at 8:43pm

Texoma Offline
Lieutenant Colonel
Prosper, TX

Gender:
Posts: 6

Shooter....

That's exactly what I have, Panda Anti-virus.

So are you saying that you too have Panda and you had to remove it in order to get CFS3 to work on your computer?

The Microsoft guy from India never called me back. I think he gave up.

~Viagra Racing Team~

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Reply #10 - Oct 5^th, 2004 at 9:33pm

Boomtown Rat Offline
Colonel
Ushuaia
Wellington, FL

Gender:
Posts: 529

well i actually had something like that, funny thing was, i got the NoCD patch, and it just started working.

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