MikeyPI

Truth is there are many programs out there which can let you create models.. most have pros/cons lists with them; for this game the list which can import are rather short unfort.  It's basically Zmod2 or Blender which can import/export v3o.  That being said, most any application which can dump to "primary" formats can with a little work be used for modeling.  The only one I would suggest not even considering is sketchup, it does not convert well at all resulting in bloated un-optimized junk models.  Aside from that most of the common mainstream apps, zmod1, zmod2, 3dsmax, blender all can be used with different processing to get the final product into the game.  Sadly when people designed CAD software it apparently did not occur to them to standardize the things so that they are all using the same formatting for filetypes, axial alignment, automatic double-siding polygons etc... So those issues do come into play going from one program to another and must be corrected for should they present.

For now you probably do best to worry about finding a program and getting comfortable with it, I would not focus too much about figuring out how to get the end-result into the game (yet) till you've gotten it down on how to model the things, and are 100% sure you're into doing modeling before worrying about how to cross the bridge into importing them.  Kind of makes no sense to build the bridge before you have traffic to travel over it in my opinion. 

Goodluck.

Most lighting systems have turned into UFO light rigs with as many lights as humanly possible crammed into as small a platform as possible.  Why I cannot say as most new systems don't really increase "warning power" for the units anymore given that most light platforms for at least a decade have done a decent job of lighting 360Deg.  I guess people just want more variety to play with in lighting patterns to differentiate themselves from other agencies.. For LEO vehicles it does in theory make it more difficult to "spoof" your configurations, but at a much higher cost per vehicle.  Scaling the size down the bars I get, as they do affect aerodynamics of the vehicle, when you can hear the wind buffeting the things at hwy speeds it does make you recognize it's affecting fuel economy.  The insane count of lights though I myself find it to just increase the cost with limited positives to it from a practical standpoint.

Yeah we'll have to contact IPB regarding this if nobody else can vote because this isnt something we can fix unfort.  Remember only those who voted in the first polling are who should try again.  All others don't have to do it.

changed a flag setting on the poll, try to vote for this again, only people who've voted for the first one need try again.  New votes won't really matter since they were not involved in the original.  I think this is a pretty serious bug from the looks of it.

vote for question 2, voided the first one...  Tomorrow; will change question again, those who voted previously I would appreciate voting again.

Updated poll, please try to vote again and let me know if you can do so or not.

prototypes cannot go over to em4... you have to re-build the prototype files using the raw model files and image files from em3..... The proto setup from em3 to em4 wasnt preserved so that aspect you must re-create yourself.  Clone a default vehicle's prototypes and replace the parts with your model parts, modify as required.

Either way I had to make sure people could vote for something.. If I put something disgusting people wouldnt vote both ways =/  I voided your question in your topic so hopefully people won't vote for that first one (for now anyway)..... Once this question runs it's course we'll see if the bug exists in the software or what.   If it does hopefully IPB has some type of update they can do to fix it. Sometime tomorrow I'll edit the thing and we'll see then.

Please vote for this topic regardless; In about 1 day I will change the poll, then I ask the people who voted before to vote again once it changes.  Will repost when the poll changes.

I'm going to look into it, I think the reason the first question is bugged is because those who voted for the poll I put into there can't re-vote for the edited question.. Which would be a really stupid bug but I'm going to make a test topic to verify... If that is in fact the case that's a serious bug IPB should have caught.

I'm not a particular fan of how this update broke so many things (believe me this is one of many)... I would expect the author of said poll would be unlikely to be able to vote, however everyone else *should* be able to do so, people were voting for my bs poll on whether or not it was a setting I could not find or the polling being broken thanks to the update... As to emc, you'd have to PM me which topic (since you have a few if I recall) needs a topic and I'll do the same thing that I had to  do here as a workaround.  Sorry about  some of these bugs but there is very little we can do about them, it just has to do with how the database converted when it upgraded across the board... I checked the settings and polls are permitted so it's a DB issue from the upgrade I think.

This is pretty normal depending on your machine when a mod loads it will appear frozen, just wait a bit and it will un-freeze once the mod is loaded.  Loadtimes vary by machine, it can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes.

On 3/1/2016 at 2:36 PM, locktok said:

Adults talk? where i live opinions are free regardless of age, i am however an adult, i take it the same goes for this post? drama? not trying to start any of it. I was simply stating my disappointment for the extended wait as many others have done. yes i care enough about this to post about it, It's a fantastic mod! i understand my statement helped nothing but at this point there isn't much to say that would help anything along would there be? as a previous modder I understand the amount of time it takes to accomplish something with a full time life elsewhere I was simply putting my two cents in. If that isn't allowed here then i'm sorry to say but you are running a really bad forum. C.F.D. I along with the vast amount of other people following this mod would love an update on lights. Sorry for upsetting anyone on here who's going through "that time of the month" with my previous post.

The Adults talk comment IMO was pretty cheap, but I digress on that point.  I would not have approved your post if you were not allowed to express your opinion... That being said, things are not permitted to degrade into ** contests.. When you express your opinion, do not be surprised if others with opposing opinions state theirs as well.  Part of the right of being able to express your opinion is that you have to deal with others expressing theirs as well.  The key thing for my part of it is that everyone manages to do it in a civil manner.  Should that not happen is when we have to step in, frankly I have far better things to do so when I have to step in I tend to get cranky.

As to my two cents on the thing, if people were less inclined to complain about things not moving at a pace which they wish it to and instead offer assistance at least there would be a ground to stand on.  To my view, to complain that I am not moving at a satisfactory pace to someone else's desires, thus making them disappointed weighs very little on me, given that I can think of many other things I can do with my time.  Compare that to someone coming in and saying "you guys have been going at this for a while, perhaps I can offer some help, here's the things I can do and here's some examples, perhaps I can lend a hand and help it along?"  The latter would tend to make me more inspired, the former, well that's kind of a given.

Play nice everyone and please keep it civil.  Belittling and berating one another just makes me cranky.

On 3/3/2016 at 5:47 PM, gunswat said:

I'm afraid I might have no choice this month unless I figure out how to start a poll on here. 

Yeah I'm sorry about that I will roam the CP and see if there isnt a function or feature that is making the polls not show up in the edit menu... It's a new forum and frankly annoying how it changed some things.  I will re-post (or edit if I'm the last post) if I am able to hunt down where that feature is hiding (if it is anyway).

EDIT:

I had to create a new topic with a poll and add this topic into it in order to give it back the ability to have a poll, you should be able to edit that poll now and make it display what you want it to display... Probably a bug from when the server moved one of it's many times made it lose that feature on existing topics... Either way there is a poll now and it is now there and able to be altered from my tampering with it.

You really should include your Directx Diagnosis from your machine, and the logfile from the game (found in the game's root directory) if you want people to help you.  Also it is strongly recommended to try to play the game without any mods at all and see if it crashes with the original game or just mod(s), if it's just mods verify the problem is not isolated to that particular mod and that all mods have issues.

Yeah it helps if I have the actual DX to the machine in question, otherwise its purely guessing.... 

First, I'd still ensure that your power management settings are set correctly and it is permitting all your devices to use the maximum performance options since it is a desktop.
Go under control panel; System & Security; Power Options.  I would ensure it is permitted to run maximum performance since it's a desktop you don't really have to worry about draining a battery, so it's kind of pointless to manage it's energy consumption.

Now, onto the actual log you provided, there was an issue within that log that is problematic:

Quote

DxDiag Previously: Crashed in DirectInput (stage 1). Re-running DxDiag with "dontskip" command line parameter or choosing not to bypass information gathering when prompted might result in DxDiag successfully obtaining this information

I had to search for this one, but it is quite often a symptom in people complaining of performance issues in games and the games flat out not running with CTD's....
Through my searching (google is a friend there) some people found resolution by removing gaming controllers such as joysticks, console style controllers, flight yokes, etc.... Though it was spotty at best as to resolution in this regards; still, it is worth knowing if you have a controller installed to the machine, such as a USB wireless controller which if you're like me you'd be likely to leave the wireless chip plugged in even when you're not using it.  If you have a controller it's possible it's the reason for this fault occurring in your report.

Now, if you don't have a controller and/or removing it does not improve the situation, then you're left with one other option as far as I can tell.  The second option is that something that loads up in your system is causing a conflict, and that conflicting program/app is what is causing DX to have errors, which could be translating into the game.
Now to figure out which program it is that is causing the issues? That's going to be a bit harder, since I have no clue what is installed on your system, nor could I sort through it anyway and call out which one it is since every system is different.

If you want to try to self-diagnose which of the programs/apps starting on your machine is possibly at fault for your issues, it will take a bit of trial and error along with your time to go through the motions on trying to fix this.
I will now explain what you have to do, once I am done with the instruction on how to do it/how to undo it, I will summarize how I'd go about it.

To limit the booting of software:

Start>Run>msconfig

On the general tab, select the tickbox for "selective startup"; Uncheck load startup items.... It is possible that services could also be to blame, but honestly I doubt that to be the case, it's more likely it's a program running in the background.  Doing this will require a restart of the system.

When it completes restarting, attempt to play the game with the LA mod (original by hoppah, not a modified version of it) and see how the performance goes for you.  If the performance issues are no longer present while having the system starting without the startup procedures, you now know for sure it's one of those apps that is causing the logjam causing your lag.

To Return the system to a normal bootup:

Start>Run>msconfig

On the general tab, select the tickbox for "normal startup"; it will require restarting but will reset the system back to its normal boot cycle.

Ultimately, if you find that running the machine limited, with only essential things starting and not the rest of the software helps your performance problems, you know for sure that one of those things which is booting at start is to blame for your performance problems.  Once you know this fact, you would then have to go through and systematically restart the items while still staying in selective startup mode until you found the program which was the culprit of your performance problems.  Really a pain to have to go through that, but if you find that the performance improves under selective start, you'll have to take this step to try to find the offending program. Ensure you do NOT turn off any app/program associated with your video card (amd items).

Depending on if you're able to find the offending program, depending on what it is that it does as far as purposes go, and options within the program available to you dictates what you'll have to do to resolve the problem. If it is an un-required program then you could simply use the programs/features to uninstall it.  If, more likely than not you do need the application that offends, you would do best to try to check within its settings to make it not load on start-up, so that it only is loaded on-demand (by user execution).  That would be the ideal solution to your problem.

Now, if you don't find performance has improved when you run selective startup, unfortunately it doesnt leave much room on how to proceed from there.  If that is the case and running selective makes no impact it would mean that it is very likely that a service is at fault for the conflict your machine is experiencing... In that case it would be extremely difficult to find the offending service given that so many are vital to the system it's self, but within the same place where you found the selective startup functions (msconfig)  but under the services tab. How I would approach this task is to turn off everything but the MS services and try to load the game without the other services running and see what if anything happens to performance. Ensure you do NOT turn off any app/program associated with your video card (amd items).

Hopefully this helps you in finding and diagnosing the problem, if you're able to find the offending program the ideal solution is to remove it.  If that is not possible because you do need it, you are left with changing it's settings to prevent it from automatically doing things and/or setting it's services to only run when manually engaged instead of other settings.  Goodluck to you, sorry I can't be more definitive in a solution to you, but this problem (the error you have) is quite ambiguous as are possible solutions to it.

I looked up the model nr that the DX put out, which is SVS151190X and upon googling that particular model number it states it is a vaio laptop.... If it is really one of those "all-in-one" desktops, where it's basically just a monitor with the computer built into that monitor, kind of like the HP touchsmart series is, then even though it is marketed as a desktop computer it is in reality a laptop without the battery support in it.  The Machine it's self behaves just like the equivalent laptops do, it just doesnt have the mobility of the laptop; but the hardware inside and the software is that of the laptops just the same.. Kind of why I've never seen the point in those particular machines, but that's more of an opinion thing that I can't fathom buying a laptop that isnt mobile.

I've never done business with "CyberPowerPC" nor do I know anyone who has myself.  I don't know their practices or where they procure their hardware from, so all I can do is go by the report that directx is dumping out.  But if the DX is to be trusted, then the machine in question has the guts of a Vaio within it, not actually the guts of a desktop if it isnt one of those all-in-one type of deals like i described above then that would be seriously concerning.

Also take note of the following found within the DX that you posted:

Processor: i7-3612QM 

Memory: 12288MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 12188MB RAM

These specifications do not match what you stated in the original post either.

Original Specs you posted:

Processor: i7 4820k

Ram: 16 GB

Your machine from what your DX says is a laptop with 2 video cards installed... So the advice above was valid.  According to your logfile the game is indeed using the amd r9 card, but your direct x does not show the amd R9 within it's log anywhere.  This is likely why you're experiencing problems.

When I run a DX of my system (which is similar enough to yours) it displays both the intel chipset that I have and my R series 3D card.  The fact that yours isnt showing the R9 in the DX means that anything that is using the DX rendering capabilities could encounter problems when it comes to the AMD card.  I'd bet quite often that it is just using the intel chipset and you're unaware of it using that one.

What I suggest you do is to search your computer's manuf website, your system appears to be a sony vaio... Check to see if they have released updated drivers for the intel chipset and AMD chipset that you have; also check for updates to catalyst for your machine, since that is what controls graphics switching capability.  From there if you can find new drivers for the amd r9 from the manuf I would remove the currently installed drivers and restart the machine.  Perhaps removing the driver and forcing a reinstall of the drivers will make DX recognize it.  Right now as it stands your system as far as DX is concerned isnt recognizing the R9, only the intel chipset... For DX games you'll have to try to find a way to get both recognized.  

The above is the only ideas I can think of, I have a feeling that you probably used windows to check for updates on the video drivers, which would not likely find them since your drivers are likely customized by sony for their laptops (most laptop makers do that, which sucks for laptop users as we all get diff versions of the drivers because of it).  You have to check through sony's support site directly and try to find if they have drivers for the intel and amd chips, along with the catalyst control center for the particular laptop you have, and if they do download them and install them.  Then once  you restart run a DX diag and see if the amd chipset is added into the dx diag under display devices..

If it still doesnt resolve, I would manually under devices remove the R9 device (including removing the drivers for it) and restart, then let the machine try to find drivers for the device and hope that it finds ones that are actually good and work.. That's kind of a last resort but sometimes works.

Well, I can think of a few things that can have to do with it. Unfortunately, your DX diag is no longer valid in the first post. When we moved some attachments were lost.  Without the DX diag and logfile from the game I have to take shots in the dark.

1). Antivirus software: AV software sometimes real-time scans, and will scan the game files while it's running sometimes, particularly if it involves scripts, which em4 does.. Some overzealous setup av's will try to sweep them as they execute causing some lag.

2). As I said your dx isnt valid anymore so I can't see that, but if you have multiple video cards (switchable graphics) it is also possible that the game is using your weaker video card (intel for example) instead of the dedicated card.  You can configure it to use which one you want it to, but that's assuming you have switchable graphics. I can't say that is the case without the DX.

3). Performance settings on the computer (again can't tell what kind of computer it is without the DX diag). Any mobile/all-in-one computer tend to make use of the power setting options, for most people it is set to "balanced" by default, but you can change the settings, and if you set it to reduced options to increase battery life it will degrade the performance settings of the hardware. Particularly video cards can be forced to run in reduced settings thanks to power options available.  If you run a reduced option the vid card can't use it's full power and will create lag.

As I said these are shots in the dark since I don't have the logfile or DX diag I can't tell you much in specific..

The advice I gave you in the other topic still holds valid, your best bet is to try to find a different video card driver than the one you're currently using.  I'm not sure how many versions are out there for win10 for your card, if you can't find different ones for your card for win10, search for win 8.1 drivers for your card and try installing them.

I'm not surprised that rolling back resolved your issues. Should in the future you wish to do windows 10 you'll likely have to hunt around the web and find drivers from windows 8/8.1 for your video card in order to play older games (particularly budget titles).  10 is a new OS and as such doesnt have perfect drivers for it out there yet, though in reality win10 and 8 are very similar, so chances are the drivers for 8 would work just the same on win10. If your video card is particularly old, or cheap, they'll be less inclined to specifically support it when it comes time to develop drivers for win 10.  As is always the way, if something is outdated it gets less support in lieu of those which are more current and thereby more popular.  

I strongly suggest people with old/outdated tech give serious pause when upgrading OS, particularly if they have software/games they enjoy playing that may no longer function on the new OS, be it from driver issues or just the new operating system in general.  Remember, EM4 was a budget-title, and as such is already fairly fickle as games go in the first place, it is very sensitive to drivers; Games like EM4 unfortunately tend to have problems with updates to a machine, be it a whole new OS or even something as simple as a new driver version.  If you value older software, especially in the budget class, you have to make choices about updates very carefully if you wish to avoid conflicts/problems. Likewise, if your hardware is pushing it in age, it might not be the best idea to upgrade the OS because of the lack of proper driver support in the new OS since it is not beneficial to a company to continue to support what they deem "outdated" technology.

If you rolled back your system (I probably would've at least tried finding the 8.1 drivers before I took that step unless the upgrade effected more than one item I used);  It is possible that certain things were not backed up properly/damaged in the upgrade process and return downgrade. From what I've seen online in tech forums it is rather common when downgrading to encounter issues with software/apps getting messed up trying to rollback.  Chances are you'll have to uninstall the game (manually delete the mods installed) and reinstall the vanilla game.  Once the original game is installed, try to play that as-is (no mods), from there add back in your mods.

Quote

 

?BLFileSystem::Open("C:\Program Files (x86)\sixteen tons entertainment\Emergency 4\EM4.cfg",BLFM_READ): Could not open
Init UpdateChain...

?BLFileSystem::Open("base:/Scripts/startup.script",BLFM_READ): Could not open

 

Did you delete files?  Hopefully you have em backed up somewhere, if not reinstall the game.

Quote

|Setting screen mode to x:800 / y:600 / bpp:32 / refresh:0
|Screen Mode is fullscreen, return value: -402

|Stencil buffer: 8 bit / ZBuffer: 24 bit
?VulpineWrapper::ChangeScreenMode(): VERR_NOSCREENMODE - Screen mode could not be set

Chances are you're seeing this because of the driver version you're using.  According to your DX you're on win10, might serve you to try a different driver than the one you're currently using, quite possibly an older one from win 8.1 might suffice to fix your problem.  800x600 is a good "safe" setting for the resolution, but most likely thanks to your driver your game isnt able to set the screen to fullscreen.  My suggestion is try an older driver, if one isnt available for 10, try 8.1 since it's older it will probably have more versions of drivers out there for it than the win10 versions will have.  Since the operating systems are roughly the same, an 8.1 driver should still work with win10. Not the ideal solution, but what I believe to be the best bet.

On 2/14/2016 at 9:10 PM, Unit501 said:

It has yet to occur on LA mod or NYC mod (as i have tested) 

It occurs on Harbor city mod

I have yet to be able to load Montana Mod 2.0.1

La and NYC are both very minimal in demanding resources, they should run on most machines.  When you get into other mods though, if the authors did not optimize the mods and let them be a bit more hogging on resources people will encounter more problems with those types of mods.  From my understanding the released version of montana can be quite demanding, so it's pretty likely you're seeing performance related from the mod issues, win10 probably isnt helping matters for you.

Quote

?ERROR: The Vision engine requires support for the ARB_multitexture extension!
Please make sure you have the latest video drivers installed for your 3D card.
|Extension GL_ARB_shader_objects not available
|Vertex Buffer Object extension not found - disabling fast geometry memory!

^Means your current version of video card drivers don't have compatibility that the game needs.  Either try to find different drivers for the video card (older or newer) and see if they work.  Alotta older devices will not/do not have appropriate driver support in win10.  No different than any other OS when it's released.  You can try to find drivers for older versions of windows and they might work.  If I were in your shoes I'd shop for win8/8.1 drivers for the video card and try them on it. See if that helps to fix it.