Operation Flashpoint: FAQ: Troubleshooting

Something's wrong! Where should I look for help?

First, see if your problem is discussed in detail either on this FAQ, on Codemasters' official OFP FAQ or on BIS's troubleshooting FAQ.

Next, send an email to Problem Codemasters' customer service. Unlike many other PC game companies, Codemasters will usually respond within 24 to 48 hours. Make sure you provide a detailed explanation of the problem and an accurate description of your system's hardware and software specifications. Be clear and don't mince words.

At the same time, it doesn't hurt to search the [file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/user/Desktop/theofpfaq/theofpfaq/general/forum.htm forums] for existing threads from someone who may have already experienced the same or a similar problem.

If you cannot find anything on this FAQ, on Codemasters' official OFP FAQ or by searching the [file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/user/Desktop/theofpfaq/theofpfaq/general/forum.htm forums], and Codemasters' customer service hasn't resolved the problem, then post a new thread on the forum of your choice and explain that you've been through all the loops but still have come up empty-handed. This ought to generate the minimal amount of pity required for a reply from someone with a reasonable response.

Danger! OFP can delete your entire disk partition.

Several OFP players have reported having entire directories or even complete disk partitions deleted at some point while playing OFP. At first, this was generally dismissed as a general PC error affecting a random handful of players for some unknown reason.

However, On June 12, 2003, BIS admitted that there is a bug in OFP versions 1.75 through 1.91 that can cause this problem under the following circumstances:

• If the user creates a multiplayer server in DirectPlay mode and the TCP/IP protocol is not fully supported or is not working properly (e.g., it's disabled under Windows Network settings or there's a firewall disabling TCP/IP).

The problem can never happen when running an OFP multiplayer server in Sockets mode, when playing single player missions or campaigns and when playing under OFP 1.46 and below under any circumstances.

Therefore, in order to avoid the risk of data loss on your PC, BIS strongly recommends that you do not create any multiplayer servers in DirectPlay mode when running OFP versions 1.75 through 1.91.

More information will be presented as details become available.

Faulty US editions of the OFP Gold CD

At the start of March 2002, numerous posts began hitting the OFP forums and newsgroup about people unable to play OFP or unable to upgrade past OFP version 1.30.

Codemasters issued the following announcement on March 7,2002:

The master disk for the North American version of Operation Flashpoint Gold Edition contains a flaw that prevents it from loading.

This problem does not affect the Gold Upgrade or any other version of Operation Flashpoint in any territory.

When Codemasters discovered the problem they immediately withdrew the product from sale throughout North America. A new, correct, master has been created and perfect product will go on sale across North America next week.

For those that have already bought the flawed disk Codemasters have implemented a replacement system. Any legitimate owner should contact Codemasters customer service in the USA, who will make quick security checks before sending out a replacement disk.

USA:

Any queries regarding games, release dates, technical support etc. can be sent to our Customer Services Department at:

support@codemastersusa.com

US Technical Support Queries relating to Codemasters' games can be made to the following numbers. Lines open Monday through Friday, excepting recognized holidays, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Pacific Time.

Tel: +1 559 683-4468

On March 8, I was made aware of this OFP Gold Edition Flaw site that Codemasters set up in order to deal will CD replacements: http://www.ofp-goldedition.com. As of mid-March 2002, people began receiving their replacement CD copies in the mail.

Codemasters support informed some customers that they can verify whether they have a flawed CD by turning the CD over to the shiny silver side and checking the CD's "hub" code. The "hub" is the hole in the center of a CD and there is some information imprinted around the hub. If there's a hub code that starts with "B", you've got a faulty CD. A good OFP CD has a hub code that starts with "M".

The newly produced CD's are identifiable by their universal product code (UPC), printed on OFP's outer packaging:

• OFP Gold Edition large re-work stock, UPC: 767649400454
• OFP Gold Edition mini-box re-work stock, UPC 767649400461

So before you start searching through The FAQ to resolve some major problem, check to see if you may have purchased a copy of the faulty US edition of OFP Gold.

To summarize:

• The faulty CD is the game CD in the US (North American) OFP Gold full edition. All prior OFP editions, as well as the European version of the OFP Gold full edition and all editions of the OFP Gold Upgrade do not have this defect.
• There are 2 CDs in the OFP Gold edition. The defective CD is the OFP game CD and not the OFP Gold Upgrade CD.

• CDs having a "hub code" that begins with "B" are bad.
• The defective OFP game CD will let you install OFP but not play or upgrade OFP.
• You should contact Codemasters by phone or by email, or through their flawed CD web site, as above, to obtain a replacement CD.

A very important DirectX 8 tweak.

OFP player RALPH has confirmed that the following tweak applies to DirectX versions 8.0 and 8.1. However, if you previously performed the tweak for DirectX version 8.0 and have since upgraded to version 8.1, the tweak settings should be retained. If you're not sure or you want to check to be sure, go right ahead.

As supplied by Microsoft, DirectX versions 8.0 and 8.1 run a sound debugging program in the background under Windows. This debugging program may cause performance degradation and possibly execution errors in Windows applications using DirectX (such as OFP).

The DirectX sound debugging program can be safely disabled by downloading this DirectX applet and following these instructions:

   * Extract the DIRECTX.CPL applet file to your Windows 98 SYSTEM subdirectory or your Windows 2000 or Windows XP SYSTEM32 subdirectory.
   * Go to Windows Control Panel and open the DirectX properties utility.
   * Click on the DirectSound tab. You should see a Debug Output Level slide control on the upper left. Slide it all the way to the left, where it says "Less".
   * Click APPLY and then OK to save the settings and exit the utility.

This tweak has noticeably helped some while it appears useless to others. However, it's absolutely harmless, So it's worth giving it a try.

(With thanks to Brother Desloc and to Uncle Ahl, who notified the OFP player community about this).

I have an AMD processor. Any problems with that?

Possibly, if you're using an AGP based graphics adapter (and who isn't?!). See this Microsoft technical support article and this FAQ item as well.

I have a computer based on the VIA chipset. Any problems with that?

(This FAQ item is periodically updated, due to the ever-new revelations of what havoc VIA chipsets can wreak on their owners).

If your computer's mother board is based on the VIA chipset, you may need to download and install the VIA 4-in-1 drivers. This has resolved a lot of reported cases of computer crashes, locks and freezes, sound card trouble, as well as significantly improved many computer's performance.

Before you download the VIA 4-in-1 drivers, however, Spitfire says that there's a BIOS setting that, if needs to be changed, might resolve your problem without going any further. Make sure that the BIOS "DRAM Clock" value is set to "HCLK" and not to "HCLK + PCICLK". Essentially what this does is to lower you RAM's clock speed to 100mhz. Just remember to set it back to what it should be once you're done installing or updating OFP.

If that doesn't help, before you go on, be aware that installing the VIA 4-in-1 drivers may cause conflicts with your computer's BIOS version, potentially resulting in unpredictable errors.

Sounds confusing? It is. Read on.

Motherboards using VIA133 chipsets and its variants have been known to cause errors when transferring data between two IDE devices (such as between a CD and a hard disk, e.g., when installing software). The transfer error can often lead to corrupted data when transferring large files. OFP's installation involves some large files. What a coincidence!

Though this problem is not specific to OFP, it is easily discernable during the installation of OFP's upgrade patches, since OFP's patch installation procedures check the integrity of the files already on your hard disk before they are updated to a newer version.

If you have a VIA chipset based motherboard and OFP has displayed CRC/checksum error messages for large OFP files (such as DATA.PBO, 1985.PBO, MUSIC.PBO and more) while installing an upgrade or an addon patch, this may very well be the source of your problem.

Here are some BIS and VIA FAQ links discussing this problem:

BIS Troubleshooting FAQ - AGP 4x problem on VIA

Alive! - VIA 686B Southbridge Data Corruption article and links

Elsewhere, the FAQ previously stated that disabling DMA mode for both your CD drive and hard drive may fix this problem. However, this leads to slower performance on your PC and may leads to several other problems on certain ABIT motherboards, such as sounds crackling and popping. If you've disabled DMA before installing or upgrading OFP, try enabling DMA again when you're ready to play.

Some VIA FAQs state that installing both the VIA 4-in-1 drivers and the latest BIOS version resolves this problem. However, some motherboard manufacturers have fixed the problem on their own by releasing an updated BIOS. If such a corrected BIOS version is used in conjunction with the corrected VIA 4-in-1 drivers, the data corruption problem may persist and, worse, may cause additional problems.

To summarize the above, you should install either a BIOS version that corrects the problem or install the fixed VIA 4-in-1 drivers but usually not both.

As an example, Spitfire, the OFP player who first publicized this information, decided to install the new VIA 4-in-1 drivers and to downgrade his ABIT KT7A motherboard's BIOS to an older version (because his CPU runs 10 degrees cooler with the older BIOS version). Since then, he has installed OFP several times and no longer encounters corrupted file errors.

ADDED October 14, 2002:

VIA chipset owners who have through all of the above and still have CTDs and freezes, might want to look into the PCI latency patch for VIA chipsets (this link will display Google search results for the patch). This helped OFP reg Amarak resolve his problems.

ADDED November 5, 2002

A lot of the issues mentioned above and some additional information are documented in this BIS troubleshooting FAQ item.

ADDED June 11, 2002

OFP player Piotr says that, from his experience, Windows 98 users may have better success installing version 4.35 of Via's 4-in-1 drivers. Later driver versions may not be optimized for Windows 98.

When I run OFP, I get a message window saying "Cannot create 3D device".

If this is happening just after you've upgraded your computer to Windows XP, read here.

Make sure you have installed the latest versions of DirectX and your graphics card's drivers. After installing DirectX or new graphics drivers, I recommend rebooting your PC and running the DirectX DXDiag diagnostic program to make certain everything tests out alright.

One OFP player who had this problem, resolved it by simply running DXDiag, clicking on the DISPLAY tab, disabling the "Direct3D Acceleration" setting and then enabling the setting again and clicking OK to save the settings. After that, OFP ran like a charm. Go figure!

Sometimes, uninstalling DirectX (using DirectX Buster) and/or your graphics drivers, rebooting, reinstalling them and rebooting again can clear things up. Life is full of surprises!

Actually, sometimes installing the latest drivers for your graphics adapter card may actually cause this problem or others. For example, this OFP Network forum thread relates experiences of users receiving the "Cannot create 3D device" message. They resolved the problem by reverting to earlier versions of NVIDIA's detonator drivers. Similarly, this FAQ item discusses a different problem encountered with newer driver versions for a KYRO 2 based graphics adapter card.

Here's another last minute check to perform. Go into Windows CONTROL PANEL and open DISPLAY. Click on the SETTINGS tab and click there on the ADVANCED button. Under ADVANCED, click on the PERFORMANCE tab. Make sure that HARDWARE ACCELERATION is set to FULL and apply any changes made.

After installing or updating any Windows components or device drivers, reboot and run the OFP preferences program, OPFLASHPREFERENCES.EXE. If your video card supports hardware T&L, make sure you select this in the program's DISPLAY DEVICE list.

Also see this item on the BIS troubleshooting FAQ.

If these fail, run the OFP preferences program again and click on AUTODETECT and then on START to see if that resolves the problem.

When I run OFP, I get thrown back to the desktop just after the OFP logo is displayed.

Make sure you have installed the latest versions of DirectX and your video card's drivers. Run the OFP preferences program, OPFLASHPREFERENCES.EXE, and, if your video card supports hardware T&L, make sure you select this in the DISPLAY DEVICE list. Also, click on the ADVANCED button and make sure that TEXTURE HEAP is set to at least 6MB and FILE HEAP is set to at least 4MB.

If this fails, run the OFP preferences program again and click on AUTODETECT and then on START to see if that resolves the problem.

Overclocking anything on your PC? Then read this.

Here's another possibility, based on Codemaster's FAQ. If you are running any Virtual CD device software or other CD-ROM tools, such as Daemon Tools or Nero's ImageDrv or NeroCheck, you must completely uninstall them. Codemasters has also suggested that people try uninstalling PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) to resolve this problem.

However, as Swedish OFP player Tobias Franzén has found out, that wasn't enough. He had to manually remove ImageDrv's entries in his Windows 2000 registry as well as remove a dead entry for the virtual drive in Windows 2000's MountedDevices tree. Ugh!

Here's something else you can try. Open up Windows Control Panel and click on SYSTEM. Under device manager, open up the CDROM entry and then display the properties for your CD drive. In the properties window, click on the SETTINGS tab. There should be an option there for AUTO-INSERT NOTIFICATION. Make sure it's set on and enabled.

You might also want to test out disabling your CD drive's DMA option but this will result in poorer performance. Some people have succeeded only after disabling DMA for both their CD drive and their hard disk. If you've disabled DMA before installing or upgrading OFP, try enabling DMA again when you're ready to play. If that still doesn't help, go back and disable DMA before attempting to play OFP again.

Finally, take a look at this FAQ item and also follow the link there regarding your CD drive's ASPI layer.

If none of the above has resolved your problem and you're up the creek without a paddle, Read BIS's instructions to report CTD errors like this.

When I run OFP, the OFP logo displays, my hard disk's access light stays on but OFP does not start.

I bet you displayed the Windows task list and canceled OFP, thinking it was stuck. Well, here's another idea. When this happens, leave your computer alone for 2, 5, 10 minutes or more to see if OFP eventually succeeds to complete starting up. This happened to me on my children's home computer. Patience is a virtue.

One suggestion to resolving this specific problem that's worked for several people is to press your CD drive's eject button twice to eject and immediately reinsert the CD.

Another suggestion is to ALT+TAB out of OFP and then back in again.

If you don't like the long wait, take a look at this FAQ item and also follow the link there regarding your CD drive's ASPI layer. Just a hunch.

All the shadows are flashing or everything's blacker than black at night or there are black boxes everywhere!

Make sure you have installed the latest versions of DirectX and your video card's drivers. Run the OFP preferences program, OPFLASHPREFERENCES.EXE, and, if your video card supports hardware T&L, make sure you select this in the DISPLAY DEVICE list. Also select a 32-bit resolution size in the RESOLUTION list. If DISPLAY DEVICE was already set to a T&L setting, try switching to Direct3D instead.

If you've got an ATI Radeon graphics card, try enabling the 8-bit stencil option in the direct 3d settings of the card's display properties. Also, consider using the RadeonTweaker utility.

Similarly, if you've got an Nvidia based graphics card, you must select a 32-bit resolution mode, as Nvidia cards don't support the required stencil bufferring in 16-bit mode.

Owners of Kyro chipset based Hercules 3D Prophet graphics adapters had reported this problem when using version 8.162 drivers. Reverting back to version 7.114 drivers resolved the problem. Newer version 9.031 drivers also appear to resolve this problem.

If that still doesn't help, then from the OFP preferences program's main menu, click on ADVANCED. On the advanced options menu, click on the TEXTURES tab and set all list entries there to the maximum values possible. Save the preference changes and try running OFP again.

If this too fails, run the OFP preferences program again and click on AUTODETECT and then on START to see if that resolves the problem.

I have a legitimate OFP CD in my CD drive, yet I get the message "Insert correct CD".

If you are having this problem with the OFP: Resistance CD (not the original OFP version's CD nor the OFP GOTY Edition's CD), then be aware that there were some faulty OFP: Resistance CDs produced that exhibit this problem. If you have such a CD, there should have been a printed notice inside the box informing you of this problem. If you have one of these CDs ,the solution is not to run OFP from the OFP Autorun menu that pops up after inserting the CD in your CD drive. Instead you should start OFP from the Windows START Applications menu or from a Windows desktop shortcut.

If you do not have one of these faulty CDs or if the above solutions do not work for you, read on.

Before attempting to resolve the problem, if you've purchased the complete US edition of OFP Gold (not the upgrade edition), look here first.

This problem has been reported quite often. See this FAQ item about your CD drive's ASPI layer. This has resolved many reported cases of this problem.

If you're running Windows XP, you might be in luck. See if this Microsoft fix resolves the problem.

One OFP player has emailed me that what worked for him was to modify a BIOS setting in his MSI motherboard based computer. He changed the CD IDE CHANNEL option setting from AUTODETECT to NONE and the problem disappeared.

Here's another possibility. If you are running any Virtual CD device software or other CD-ROM tools, such as Daemon Tools or Nero's ImageDrv, try completely uninstalling them. Codemasters has also suggested that people try uninstalling PGP (Pretty Good Privacy).

Be advised that some users are discovering that CD burner utilities, including but not limited top EZ-CD Creator, NeroBurn and CloneCD, have caused checksum errors and messed up their system's ASPI layer. This may cause problems when installing or upgrading OFP. What a bummer!

If none of the above helps, see this BIS FAQ item.

The game freezes up my PC and I can only reboot.

Needless to say, the first thing you should do is to make sure that your BIOS program, motherboard chipset (VIA chipset owners, take note!), video and sound cards drivers are up to date.

Some people are reporting that they have resolved this problem by changing a BIOS setting or two, resulting in no noticeable decrease in performance in OFP or any other software.

In the BIOS program, under 'Advanced Chipset Features' (or something similar) try reducing the AGP aperture setting or similar to 64Mb. If that alone doesn't work, there is a setting called 'AGP-4x Mode' or something similar. Try disabling this BIOS option and see if that resolves the problem.

(Thanks to Roland Gerschwarzenge and others for this entry).

Another thing to check out is if your computer's motherboard is based on the VIA chipset, read this FAQ item.

Overclocking anything on your PC? Then read this.

If none of the above has resolved your problem and you're up the creek without a paddle, follow these instructions for contacting BIS support directly.

I'm getting a message "Original games do not fade". What's going on here?

FADE is a copy protection software feature incorporated into OFP. If you're getting this message, OFP is under the assumption that you are not running a legitimate copy of OFP. FADE can make playing OFP extremely annoying or absolutely not worthwhile.

Some owners of legitimate original OFP CDs are afraid that the FADE copy protection scheme might be affecting their copy because they think that some instability issue they have with OFP might be caused by FADE. While BIS is unable to provide exact technical specifications on what FADE is and how it works, they have stated some facts about FADE that might be helpful:

• When FADE is activated, it does not affect major technical parameters of the game. It does not produce any visual distortions. It also does not make OFP run slower. When encountering any problems of this nature, it is very likely you are experiencing some compatibility problems between various parts of the operating system, computer hardware and OFP. Checking out The FAQ's Troubleshooting section is recommended, as it may help you fixing the problems you have.
• When FADE is activated, it affects gameplay aspects of the game. This may include (but is not limited to) the following: reduced accuracy of some weapons, reduced weapon performance, increased enemy hit endurance and increased player injuries.
• If someone tries using an illegal version in which an attempt was made to remove or disable FADE copy protection, OFP might easily exhibit signs of instability. Removing copy protection includes changing program code in many various areas, which leads to increased application instability. Many illegal versions are known to contain such instabilities, causing the game to crash during various gameplay events.

BIS and CM have stated that these are the major aspects of FADE technology and they are triggered by using counterfeit versions of the game, no-CD cracks, trainers or cheats. The solution is to only use the original retail version of OFP as installed from the CD, as well as applying only original upgrades and patches from official OFP web sites.

However, there have been recent complaints by OFP customers with legitimate copies of OFP who are nevertheless getting this message or other symptoms that appear to be FADE related and are unable to play OFP. If you're one of these legitimate customers, contact CM's customer service by have a legal copy of OFP but I'm getting the FADE message email.

When installing or upgrading OFP, I get CRC/ checksum errors on PBO or other OFP files!

Many people have had this problem. OFP player Robbel recently reported this problem to Codemasters support. They suggested, for starters, that he

1. Clean out the WINDOWS TEMP subdirectory. 2. Run the SCANDISK utility. 3. Do a hard drive defragmentation before going anything further, including updating bios or driver versions.

OFP veteran Hardrock recently experienced this error on his system. Turns out that on his PC's RAM memory modules was faulty. He used Microsoft's Windows Memory Diagnostic utility to confirm the RAM problem. Purchasing a new RAM module indeed resolved the problem for Hardrock.

OFP player SirWili says make sure that your system is completely clean of viruses. After discovering his system was infected, he removed the viruses and OFP no longer reported checksum errors.

After you perform the above preliminary steps, make sure that your system's BIOS program, chipset (especially the VIA chipset), graphics, sound and mouse drivers are up-to-date.

Been there? Done that? Some players found that the solution was to copy the original file (e.g., 1985.PBO, SOUND.PBO and others) from their OFP installation CD into the appropriate OFP subdirectory and retry installing the patch. Some people succeeded this way on the first try, others succeed only after retrying this 5 and even 15 times over. Go figure!

Other players have done even stranger things to succeed in installing or upgrading OFP. For example, some CD burner utilities, such as EZ-CD Creator, NeroBurn and especially CloneCD, have been known to cause problems when installing, upgrading and playing OFP. They may even incorrectly overlay your system's ASPI layer, according to some reports. If true, this could explain the CRC/checksum errors you are getting.

After going through all of the above and still not having any luck, OFP player Chris finally got things to work by changing his BIOS program's RAM speed setting from 133 to 100, rebooting and only then installing and upgrading OFP. Worked like a charm, says Chris. Just remember to reset the RAM speed back to 133 after you're done.

Whenever I try running OFP I get an error message that says "no entry config.bin.CfgWorlds" or something similar.

This was reported by several players after upgrading to OFP version 1.10. There's a possibility that the config.bin file in OFP's BIN directory has been corrupted. You could download a new copy of the config.bin file but you should opt to upgrade to the latest version of OFP instead.

If you have upgraded and still have this problem, there are some users out there who claim that they resolved this by simply running the OFP preferences program and clicking on the AUTODETECT button. Doesn't hurt to try, does it?

If you've got a PC motherboard based on the VIA chipset, this could be caused by data corruption errors caused by these chipsets. Read and weep.

Of course, it could be something much simpler than all that. Read this FAQ item.

Why is there a delay between my mouse and keyboard input and OFP's reacting to them?

There seem to be a number of caused to such input delays. The symptoms range from input lag or stuttering to long freezes.

One of the first things you should check out is the FAQ's item on tweaking DirectX 8, if you're still running DirectX 8. That's solved this problem for many players.

If you are using NVIDIA Detonator drivers, Tobias Franzén of Sweden says that this may be input lag. This is not caused by a poor framerate. It is caused by frame pre-rendering, which caused all input to get delayed, sometimes resulting in a stuttered effect. This cannot be disabled in the driver settings, even though there may be such a setting there.

BIS says if you're using a GeForce graphics adapter, try unchecking the adapter's ENABLE ALTERNATE DEPTH BUFFERING TECHNIQUE setting. This setting can usually be modified through the adapter's PROPERTIES window, under ADVANCED and then wherever the adapter's Direct3D settings are displayed.

This problem is not specific to OFP. The problem can be resolved by using the RivaTuner utility program (available from Guru3D), for Nvidia and Radeon graphics adapters, to minimize pre-rendering. Set the pre-render limit to "1" (default is 3). Setting the pre-render limit to "0" may result in lockups in DirectX games and in errors when running DXDiag. Also try turning off the D3D vsync option.

Some people have resolved this problem by switch off anti-aliasing. Other people said the problem disappeared when they shut down all other Windows applications (other than SysTray and Explorer - leave those two alone).

If you've got a joystick or game pad device defined to Windows, take a look at this FAQ item. Similar symptoms have also been reported as being caused by scanners and other peripherals.

OFP player Kendal McGuire adds that if you've got Windows XP, playing OFP in compatibility mode for earlier Windows versions can also slow your gameplay down.

Another suggestion I received was to open up your mouse drivers from Windows Control Panel, click on the Pointers tab and make sure that ENABLE POINTER SHADOW is unchecked.

OFP player Arne resolved his lag problem by decreasing his screen resolution size in the OFP Preferences program. Of course, for those of you with notebook PCs that have fixed resolution screens, this is not a recommended solution.

One other thing that personally helped me was tinkering with the mouse SPEED and ACCELERATION setting. Once again, this can be accessed through the mouse driver's Properties interface. For myself, I set SPEED midway and ACCELERATION to HIGH. I found that maximizing the SPEED setting caused my in-game gun site cursor to jump whenever I tried aiming accurately at a target with my weapons. Of course, your experience may vary.

Why is OFP crashing every time I save a mission or when OFP auto-saves a mission or when a mission is completed?

Sometimes the crash to desktop (CTD) is accompanied by Windows informing you that OFP has caused an invalid page fault or fatal exception error.

OFP may require a lot of memory when saving or completing a mission. Increase your Windows swap file size to at least 400MB. If the problem continues, try increasing the maximum swap file size to 1000MB.

If you're running original version 1.75 of OFP: Resistance, you should upgrade to the latest version available, as significant memory utilization reduction was introduced as of version 1.85.

If that doesn't help and you're specifically getting the CTDs when a campaign mission completes, check out this FAQ item.

I just installed OFP on my Windows 2000 PC. When I start OFP, I get bounced back to the desktop right away.

If pressing your keyboard's ALT+TAB keys twice in succession gets you back into OFP, then this is a known bug, distributed on the initial international version of the OFP CD, released in June 2001. To eliminate this annoyance, install the latest OFP upgrade patch.

If you installed OFP version 1.20 or higher, then the correction for this error is pre-applied. In this case, if you're crashing to desktop when starting OFP, you might be experiencing another problem, such as this one.

Why is my Logitech mouse not functioning properly in OFP?

In OFP versions 1.00 and 1.10, some Logitech mice will not function properly with the Mouseman drivers installed. If you experience this problem, using the default Windows mouse drivers should resolve the problem.

As of OFP version 1.20, this problem should be resolved. However, users of Logitech IFeel mice are reporting problems with IFeel's force feedback functionality not working in OFP V1.20, even though OFP documentation says it should work. BIS have admitted that IFeel support is not functioning in OFP V1.20. This is corrected as of version 1.30.

(Source: Ondrej Spanel, Lead OFP Programmer, in this BIS FAQ item).

Some users report sluggish or laggy movement when playing OFP with some of the latest Logitech mice. Try downloading and installing the latest Logitech MousWare drivers to see if that resolves the problem. If that still doesn't help, some people have resolved the problem by opening up the Windows Task Manager (by pressing the CTRL+ALT+DEL keys) and closing the process named EM_EXEC.EXE. This is the Logitech MouseWare driver program. Don't worry, your mouse will work without it too. It just adds some extra functionality support to your mouse, such as redefining button actions and the like.

Why is the sky green?

Run the OFP preferences program. Click on ADVANCED. Under the PERFORMANCE tab, make sure that TOTAL MEMORY is set to the maximum available and under the TEXTURES tab, ensure that OBJECTS are set to 256 x 256.

If that doesn't work, some players resolved the problem by disabling OFP's WBUFFER setting.

Why is everything green?

If this is occurring to you when viewing OFP's main menu, look here.

Otherwise, this is a bug that was corrected as of OFP version 1.30. In the meantime, try hitting your ALT+TAB keys to leave and then return back to OFP. This sometimes helps.

Can't ALT+TAB in and out of OFP? Look here.

Sometimes I hear footsteps of soldiers far away but they sound like they're very nearby.

There appear to be inaccuracies in OFP's directional sound techniques. Whether these are caused by OFP itself, by sound cards or by DirectX remains debatable. Some people have these problems with EAX sound support enabled, others with EAX disabled.

A workaround for this issue was implemented in the OFP: Resistance version 1.85 upgrade. Users of this or a later upgrade should not experience this problem with any sound card or driver version. See this BIS FAQ entry.

I'm getting a message "Data File Read error (obloha.p3d)" after applying an upgrade patch.

Try downloading the upgrade patch again and reinstall. If you are upgrading to version 1.10, download the 1.10 ultimate upgrade from here. If that fails, contact Codemasters customer service for assistance.

I'm getting a file error message when installing an upgrade patch.

See this FAQ item on CRC/checksum error messages. If that doesn't help, have a look at this BIS FAQ item and following the links therein for additional information.

Why is all the island terrain white? Nothing is green!

If you're running OFP version 1.30 or above, click on OPTIONS from OFP's main menu. Then click on VIDEO OPTIONS and disable MULTI-TEXTURING. See if that resolves your problem. If it does, be aware that this may cause a minor side effect in some cases.

If you're running an earlier version of OFP or if the above suggestion didn't help, this has often been reported as being caused by using old graphics adapter drivers. Installing the latest driver version for your graphics card may resolve this problem.

Why do both the Windows mouse cursor and OFP's graphic one appear together when I play?

This double cursor problem has been reported by Windows 98, 2000 and XP users. One solution is to use the ALT+TAB keys on your keyboard to get out of OFP to the Windows Desktop and click on OFP from the active task bar to go back into OFP. The Windows cursor should now be gone.

At least one OFP version 1.30 player has reported that he resolved this problem by clicking on OPTIONS on OFP's main menu, then clicking on VIDEO OPTIONS and enabling MULTI-TEXTURING.

Another person says running the OFP preferences program and clicking on AUTODETECT solved this for him.

Many players say that the problem disappears if you change OFP's display resolution setting to one that's different than your Windows display resolution setting.

OFP player [SiR] Tigg@lot says lowering OFP's display resolution from 32 bit to 16 bit got rid of the double cursor for him.

OFP player Nathan Smith resolved this problem by enabling his NVIDIA-based graphic adapter's D3D vsync option. However, if you start experiencing keyboard or mouse lag after this, you're better off keeping the vsync option disabled.

OFP player Murmur2k recently wrote in that he resolved the problem by placing the cursor to the top left of the screen and moving it around a little while screen goes black while OFP launches. This works every time for me as well. For you southpaws out there, this method should also work when placing the cursor in the top right screen corner.

Help! The longer I play, the more performance degrades and the game becomes sluggish.

There could be a number of causes of this problem. Try terminating all tasks running in Windows, except for the Explorer and SysTray tasks. This has resolved the problem for some players. For details on the programs appearing in your Windows task list, you can look them up here.

There are two ways to terminate tasks, running in Windows, on the fly. The simple method is to hold down your keyboard's CTRL+ALT+DEL keys. Windows will present you with a CLOSE PROGRAMS dialog or a menu from which you can click a button to open up a TASK MANAGER window. From there, end all running tasks, other than Explorer and Systray.

Another way to accomplish this is to use a utility, such as PC Magazine's free EndItAll 2 program.

Another possible cause of this problem: if your PC has 128 MBs of RAM or less, read this FAQ item.

In a related matter, the more addons you have, the more memory OFP utilizes to retain information on all those addons. If you're a big addon freak, try moving all unofficial addons out of OFP's ADDONS subdirectory to see if this improves your gameplay performance.

The pitfalls of upgrading to OFP V1.30. Learn from my suffering!

Here was my situation, plain and simple. Before I installed the Ultimate Upgrade 3 patch, I was running OFP version 1.29 beta. I had previously also been running OFP beta versions 1.27 and 1.26 before that. In addition, I had two major user addons installed in OFP: Kegety's Winter Kolgujev Island and Gunslinger's Editor Update version 1.2.

When I ran the Ultimate Upgrade 3 patch, I got some warning messages that the update didn't recognize OFP version 1.29 but I assumed that was OK since version 1.29 was a beta version. I noticed that the patch's execution to very little time.

I rebooted my computer (I always do that as a habit after updating Windows software) and decided to check things out. Some problems became apparent very soon:

• I created a quick test mission with me piloting the A10 with the new laser guided bombs (LGBs). When the above mission started, I got an error message "Cannot open object DATA3D\SNAKE.P3D". I pressed OK and was able to begin the mission.
• In the same mission above, when I went into 3rd person view, I noticed the new bomb racks under the plane's wings but I could not see any LGBs. However, my heads-up-display (HUD) showed that the planes was indeed armed with LGBs. I clicked my left mouse button till the LGB counter went down to zero. While I did not see the bombs, there were plenty of explosions on the ground behind me. I have since seen reports that the same thing occurs with the Apache helicopter, i.e., there are invisible hellfire missiles on the Apache's pylons.
• To test out the new laser target designator (LTD) I created another mission, with myself equipped with it. Here, too, at the start of the mission I got a "Cannot open object" error message for the LTD. Clicking OK, I immediately switched from my MP5 gun to the LTD. However, it didn't show up. Indeed, in 3rd person view, it was totally invisible, though I could target objects with it. Some people report that they spin around uncontrollably when switching to the LTD.
• Some folks who've upgraded from a 1.2x beta version to 1.30 have seen flying BMPs!

So, I thought I would be smart and simply rerun the Ultimate Upgrade 3 patch again, in the hope that, now that OFP is at version 1.30 and not at a beta level, the patch would reinstall everything properly.

Nope. I got dozens of checksum errors when the patch verified my installation files. I had to hit IGNORE, when prompted to RETRY, ABORT or IGNORE each error.

Looking on the forums, I noticed several posts that hinted to similar problem or circumstances and, indeed, the only solution that seemed to be working was to fully reinstall OFP.

That's what I did and I was sure that my troubles were over. OFP wouldn't let me rest, though. When I started it, I got the ever-famous "Cannot create 3D device" message. I was about to faint but I remembered my own words of advice to run the OFP preferences program under these circumstances and click on the program's AUTODETECT button. I did and everything is just fine now, thank you. I've even restored the Winter Kolgujev Island and Gunslinger's Editor Update addons with no side effects.

If you're in a similar situation, I suggest that you follow my recipe for reinstalling. Better safe than sorry.

Some people have colored night scenes while others see only black and white.

As of OFP 1.20, BIS redesigned OFP's night coloring, switching it to black and white. However, this does not affect all installations of OFP. The switch to black and white night scenes is apparent for users with GeForce3 cards. It has also been reported by users of Radeon 8500 cards.

OFP reg Mister Frag says that any graphics adapters that support DirectX Pixel Shader (1.0) and above, will display black and white night scenes in OFP.

OFP reg Kegetys adds that some mobile video chipsets, such as the GeForce 4 440 Go, will still present colored night scenes. This is because such chipsets are still based on earlier GeForce2 technology, which does not support pixel shaders.

I upgraded to Windows XP and now OFP doesn't run anymore!

Several users have reported that OFP does not run or crashes to desktop (CTDs) when upgrading to Windows XP and using the System Restore program to restore OFP and other programs and files.

If this is the case, you'll have to reinstall OFP. If this is not the case, here is another possibility.

When OFP starts up, I get error messages about file ~DF394B.TMP or EF7194.TMP. What's going on?!

These files are created by the SafeDisc2 protection mechanism incorporated into OFP's CD.

Before attempting to resolve the problem, if you've purchased the complete US edition of OFP Gold (not the upgrade edition), look here first.

Codemasters has sent out the following instructions to some players who have reported these error messages when using a valid OFP CD. It's helped some of them but it has not resolved the problem for others:

1. If your PC's motherboard is based on the VIA chipset, read this FAQ item first. 2. If you are running any Virtual CD device software (or other CD-ROM tools), such as Daemon Tools, you should uninstall it. 3. The game will not run from a mapped network CD-ROM drive. 4. If you have PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) you may also have to uninstall this. 5. Try unchecking the DMA box found under your CD/DVD-ROM properties settings, under Windows' CONTROL PANELS>SYSTEM>DEVICE MANAGER. 6. The ASPI drivers for your CD Drive may be corrupt. (Read all about this in this FAQ item). 7. If you have a Sound Blaster sound card, disable the CD Detector program. 8. Try changing your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM from a slave device to a master device. 9. Ensure that you have the latest patch from our website.

Why does my video monitor shut off and go into standby mode when I play OFP?

This might have to do with an incorrect setting of your monitor's refresh rate. Check your Windows monitor refresh rate setting and confirm that it's appropriate for your monitor's make and model.

If the monitor refresh rate is correct, run the OFP preferences program and try setting your resolution to a lower setting.

OFP player ScreamingWithNoSound has helped out another player with the following detailed suggestions:

First, check the specifications of your monitor. If you have a 17" monitor, your maximum resolution will be 1600x1200 (quality monitor) or 1280x1024 (cheap monitor). If you set the Windows display resolution of your monitor above the maximum resolution of your monitor, you will get a "Signal out of Range" or a "Signal Not Valid" message or a blank screen with your monitor's power on indicator flashing on and off.

As well as checking your monitor's maximum resolution, you'll need to check the maximum refresh rate for your monitor at the resolution you plan to use. For example. I have a 17" monitor which is capable of 1600x1200 at a refresh rate of 60hz and 1024*768 at 100hz.

I find that a resolution of 1024x768x32 at a refresh rate of 85hz is the most comfortable for me. At 75hz, the screen flickers for me too much.

There are several ways of adjusting these settings. The simplest, is to open Windows Control Panel> From there open Display. From there, click on the SETTINGS tab and then on ADVANCED button. From the current display select ADAPTOR or MONITOR, depending on your Windows version.

You should now have a drop down box that allows you to change your monitor's refresh rate. If you have a Plug And Play monitor, it should automatically hide settings that won't work. If in doubt, always click on the APPLY button after changing settings, as this make it easier to undo your setting changes should that be necessary.

If all of the above doesn't resolve your problem, the next step is to run DirectX's DXDiag utility program. DXDiag can be run by clicking the Windows START button, select PROGRAMS, select ACCESSORIES, select SYSTEM TOOLS and then select SYSTEM INFORMATION. From the SYSTEM INFORMATION window, click on the TOOLS menu bar item and select DirectX Diagnostic Tool. This will run DXDiag.

When in DXDiag, click on the MORE HELP tab. Here, you will see a button called OVERRIDE. There you can set an overriding refresh rate. Set the override value to a refresh rate that you know works for you. If in doubt, set it to 60hz.

Hey! My soldier's legs appear halfway under the ground terrain! Quicksand?

No, a graphics glitch. To see if you can resolve this, run the OFP preferences program and make sure that DISPLAY DEVICE is not set to a HW T&L setting. If you're running OFP 1.30 or above, start OFP and select OPTIONS from the main menu. Under VIDEO OPTIONS, make sure that W-BUFFER is disabled. Save and test.

If that worked, try enabling either W-BUFFER or HW T&L (but not both) to determine which one caused the distorted graphics. If both settings individually cause the problem to reoccur, you have to keep both disabled.

In any case, maybe now is a good time to check if your graphics adapter's manufacturer has released a new version of your adapter's drivers.

Are you happy with your ATI Radeon 8500, 9500, 9700 or 9800?

Some people are. Some people aren't.

One Radeon 8500 user told me that when he ALT+TABs out and back into OFP, the screen colors are darker than before. OFP Player Evingar say that it's more than likely that what is happening is that Windows is dropping OFP's overriding gamma setting. The Radeon 8500 adapter's drivers seem to restore the Windows gamma setting to its own default when tabbing out of OFP. Therefore, when tabbing back to OFP, OFP's own gamma setting is lost.

The first driver editions for the newer Radeon 9700 gave their owners headaches, too, when it comes to OFP. New drivers are already available and they seem to resolve some (but not all) of the problems experienced by pioneer Radeon 9700 users.

Some Radeon 9X00 series users are experiencing flashing shadows and textures. Apparently, the latest ATI Catalyst driver versions finally correct this. If you don't want to update your ATI drivers, start the OFP preferences program and try changing your DISPLAY DEVICE setting from HWT&L to Direct3D. Note that this method will degrade performance.

Other Radeon users report having to regress to earlier Radeon driver versions and sometimes to earlier DirectX versions as well, in order to get OFP up and running smoothly with their graphics adapter.

BIS has recently found a connect between ATI Radeon cards and OFP's CAN'T MEMORY MAP error message. In these cases, BIS suggests you try the following:

• Install the latest or a different driver version for your Radeon card.
• Change the AGP aperture size setting in your PC's BIOS setup to a lower value, such as 32 or 64.
• Try running OFP in a lower resolution.
• Install OFP patch 1.95 beta or later.
• Consider using the new -nomap command line switch, mentioned in The FAQ's item on CAN'T MEMORY MAP error messages.

The crackling or static sound bug.

When you play OFP, do you hear an extremely annoying crackling or static-like sound? So do many players. Some folks get it in other games, too. Is it an OFP bug? A Creative Labs Sound Blaster glitch? A DirectX sound API snaffu? It's been talked about quite a lot on the OFP forums.

In the summer of 2002, one major motherboard manufacturer, Abit, admitted that this error is occurring on its motherboards that use the Via chipset (wouldn't you know it!). So far, Abit's recommended solutions include altering BIOS settings as well as installing 3rd party corrective patches. I can't keep up with such details. So please check with your motherboard's manufacturer or scan the WEB for discussion on how to modify your VIA chipset based system to resolve this problem.

What if you don't have a PC with a VIA chipset based motherboard? Can anything else be done? So far, the only suggestions that seem to work are:

• Disable your sound card's hardware acceleration and EAX support. Read your sound card's documentation for instruction how to go about doing this.
• Check for a newer version of your sound card's drivers.
• Try ALT+TAB'ing out of and back into OFP.
• Consider replacing your sound card with one from another (reliable) manufacturer.

There's a sound card and speakers tweak guide at 3D Spotlight that contains up-to-date information that may help you with any sound problems you're having with OFP or with other games.

Updated February 17, 2003:

VIA chipset owners who have through all of the above and still have sound problems with their Soundblaster cards, might want to look into the PCI latency patch for VIA chipsets (scroll down the page there just a little to get to it).

There's also a similar page about resolving sound problems on Via chipset based computers here.

ADDED February 4, 2003:

OFP player Macka has found the following solution, which has helped many, but not all, resolve their Sound Blaster crackling noise problems:

Run the REGEDIT program that comes with Windows and browse to or find the following register key:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Creative Tech\Emu10kx\DriverSettings\Wave

Under this key is a subkey with a name similar to Pin#00000002 (it can have other names, such as Pin#00000004, etc.). Open this key and, if you find therein the value Turbo set to 1, change it to 0, save and restart Windows.

Upgrade patches fail with message ""ERROR: patch cannot continue. The disk 1.30 is almost full".

First of all, make sure that your disk has plenty of room to install OFP. This is obvious. What not so obvious is that even if you've got 20 gigabytes of free disk space, you can still get this error if your Windows virtual swap file size is not large enough. Increase your Windows swap file's maximum size to at least 400MB. If the problem continues, try increasing it to 1000MB.

Why are Russian BMPs flying like helicopters?

If you upgraded to OFP version 1.30 from one of the 1.2X beta versions, do it again, soldier! If that's not the problem, try removing any unofficial addon files from OFP's ADDONS subdirectory, restart OFP and check to see if the problem's resolved.

So far I've seen one player confirmation that this problem was caused by Devil's Parachute addon, another one saying it was caused by Devil's Civillan Vehicles addon and yet another one blaming Devil's Special Weapons addon. Hmmm........ I think I see a pattern here.

OFP preferences program not finding entry point DdEntry18 in DDRAW.dll.

The OFP preferences program fails with message "Entry point not found. The procedure entry point DdEntry18 could not be located in the dynamic link library DDRAW.dll".

Either your PC has DirectX version 7 or below installed or your DirectX installation is corrupted. Reinstalling the latest available version of DirectX should resolve this problem.

I'm getting an error message box that says "Out of reserved memory" and "Code change required".

Set your Windows virtual swap file's maximum size to 1000. Reboot and see if that resolves the problem.

If you've tried the above and continue to have this problem with OFP: Resistance, and you've increased the VISIBILITY setting in the VIDEO OPTIONS menu, try resetting VISIBILITY back to the default of 900 meters.

If you've installed Kegetys' Editor Addon, make sure you have the latest version, as older versions may result in these error messages.

OFP player madmedic encountered this error message when he inadvertently defined too many magazines for a unit in a mission he was editing.

If none of the above has resolved your problem and you're up the creek without a paddle, follow these instructions for contacting BIS support directly.

Campaign missions crash to desktop upon completion!

This has been reported for both the 1985 Cold War Crisis and the Red Hammer campaigns. Before you read on, have you check your system's available memory and Windows virtual swap file size? Read about that over here.

OFP player MonkeyGoat tried every previous solution mentioned for CTDs (crash-to-desktop) here in The FAQ and elsewhere but nothing seemed to work. Then he mysteriously tried uninstalling the CloneCD utility from his system and - presto - the problem disappeared. Since making this discovery, other players have had similar success.

On the other hand, player MaxDamage had the same problem but he had NeroBurn installed on his computer - not CloneCD. He completely uninstalled NeroBurn but that didn't help. Then he installed (yes - installed!) CloneCD and the problem disappeared. Go figure!

OFP's main menu is all olive green, with black bars on the top and bottom of the screen!

In more recent versions of OFP, especially version 1.91 and above, this may be caused by memory management problems. Take a look at this FAQ item to see if any of the steps there might help you resolve this problem, even if you're not seeing any of the error messages mentioned there.

even if you're using the latest and/or most stable drivers for your graphics card, this has been know to occur. Several players solved this problem by going into their PC's BIOS program and lowering their AGP aperture size from 256MB to 64MB, for example. For some players, that wasn't enough. They had to also disable their BIOS program's AGP fast write option to finally resolve this problem.

If you're using an ATI Radeon 8500 graphics adapter, this might be caused by OFP version 1.30's and later version's W-BUFFER setting being enabled.

Now normal folks could click on OPTIONS on OFP's main menu to get to the W-BUFFER setting and disable it but you can't (ha-ha-ha).

Have no fear! OFP player pAth0s solved this problem manually by editing file USERINFO.CFG in the following path from within OFP's base directory: \users\player_name\ . Change player_name to the actual player name you use in OFP. In file USERINFO.CFG, change the following line:

   useWBuffer=1;

to:

   useWBuffer=0;

Save and restart OFP.

After installing OFP Gold I cannot host multiplayer games!

Well, you can host but only clients who have installed OFP Gold or the OFP Gold Upgrade can connect to your server. OFP Gold's MP server code will not allow standard version 1.30 upgrade clients to connect.

The most common symptom of this problem is clients receiving the message "Missing entry config:Oleg".

This is a bug, admitted to by BIS in this BIS Troubleshooting FAQ item. Upgrading to OFP version 1.40 or later will resolve this problem.

To bypass this problem in OFP version 1.30, server hosts running the OFP Gold version should move file VOICERH.PBO from OFP's ADDONS subdirectory to an external temporary directory. This file was added in the OFP Gold version as part of the Red Hammer campaign. Once the file has been moved by the server host, all OFP version 1.30 clients should then be able to connect.

Of course, if the server host wants to play the Red Hammer campaign, file VOICERH.PBO must be copied back into the ADDONS subdirectory.

I've upgraded OK but I'm missing official addons!

OFP upgrades have come in two flavors so far: Ultimate Upgrade patch files, that include a version's addons and standard upgrade patch files, that only contain program code updates.

Not sure if that's your problem? A simple way to check might be to compare your patch file's size with those listed on the BIS download page. For example, the Ultimate Upgrade 3 patch file is 32MB, whereas the standard version 1.30 upgrade patch file is 20MB.

As you see on the BIS download page, if you didn't install an Ultimate Upgrade patch, you can download the addons, as they are available in separate files just for these occasions.

The moral of the story is from now on, only install Ultimate Upgrade patches.

Are you overclocking your processor or memory speed?

Can't install OFP or one of the upgrades? OFP freezes? Is OFP crashing to desktop? Or, maybe, other oddball things are happening to you with OFP that aren't occurring with other games and apps on your PC?

Are you overclocking anything? If you are, try resetting your overclocked system components to the manufacturer's specifications, reboot and see if your problems with OFP disappear.

Dedicated standalone server terminates with message "No entry resource.bin::RscInGameUI::RscHint::Background.size".

This was first reported when customers installed the OFP Ultimate Upgrade 4 patch. Initially BIS attributed this to be caused by players not downloading and installing the same version's separate standalone server file.

So first make sure the the standalone server program is the same version as the OFP version you've upgraded to. If you're not sure, you can verify the server EXE file's version number using Windows Explorer.

Next, make sure that the server EXE file is located in OFP's base directory and nowhere else.

If you still receive this error after verifying the sever EXE file's version number and location, you should contact Dedicated Server Error BIS support about it. In the meantime, you can tentatively bypass the problem by running OFP's main game executable program, OPERATIONFLASHPOINT.EXE, with the -server argument and with the original CD in the CD drive.

Installing Red Hammer from the OFP Gold CD downgraded me from version 1.40/1.42 back to 1.30!

So reports OFP player Badger. The solution that worked for him was to simply rerun the Ultimate Upgrade 4 patch again after Red Hammer was installed from OFP Gold.

Where are the explosions? Nothing's exploding!

From OFP's main menu, click on OPTIONS and then on VIDEO SETTINGS. Make sure that CLOUDLETS is enabled.

I'm hearing the messages "OH NO, 2 IS DOWN! DAMN, 2 IS DOWN!" or similar repeated over and over again when playing OFP!

Of course, it might not be soldier number 2. It might be soldiers 3 through 12 just the same. This could happen in both SP and MP games.

Several players have reported this problem after upgrading to OFP version 1.40. I recall less than a handful of players reporting this soon after OFP came out in June 2001.

Installing OFP version 1.45 or greater resolves this problem.

One OFP player found a solution that worked for him. Select the dead soldier's corresponding FUNCTION key (for example, F2 for soldier number 2), select STATUS (option 5) from the COMMAND MENU and then select IS DOWN (option 8).

Some players have suggested hitting the ALT+TAB key combination twice to quickly jump out of OFP and jump back in again.

Other players said that none of these solutions worked for them.

Ondrej Spanel, BIS' Lead Programmer, said that they've now been able to reproduce the problem. To tentatively prevent the problem from occurring, Ondrej said do not use the STATUS>REPORT STATUS command sequence.

In Windows XP, OFP fails to start or crashes to desktop right away!

If you're running Windows XP with Windows 98/ME compatibility mode enabled, try disabling that first to see if that's the cause of your problem. It has been for many others.

If you're still experiencing crash-to-desktops (CTDs) after disabling compatibility mode, do not enable it again anyway. Search The FAQ for "ctd" for other possible causes of your problems.

Why am I getting a Windows ACCESS VIOLATION ERROR in DirectX file D3D8.DLL?

OFP Player TLX kept getting this error under Windows XP after installing installing Microsoft's Windows XP Application Compatibility Update. When he uninstalled it, the problem was resolved.

This does not mean that Microsoft's update may be the only cause of this problem but this is a good place to start looking.

Why is there no dust rising at bullet impact points?

From OFP's main menu, click on OPTIONS and then on VIDEO SETTINGS. Make sure that CLOUDLETS is enabled.

I'm getting message "CAN'T MEMORY FILE" or "CAN'T MEMORY MAP" or similar.

The recently released OFP version 1.96 beta upgrade patch includes definite resolutions to this issue. Make sure you carefully follow the patch's installation instructions. When running OFP, verify that you're not inadvertently running an earlier version by checking the OFP version number displayed at the top-center of OFP's main menu.

Should the problem persist, you may need to resolve this problem by reducing the number of unofficial addons from OFP's ADDONS subdirectory or completely removing them altogether and placing them elsewhere. OFP internally maps information about all present addons into memory and this can trigger storage shortage errors. A great way to manage your addons, by the way, is with mod folders.j

If you've done all of the above and still have this problem, try using the newly introduced -nomap parameter on OFP's command or target execution statement in a Window's desktop shortcut. The -nomap command line switch causes OFP to use a different file access technique when a memory mapping failure occurs. There is a slight performance expense if the -nomap file access technique is triggered but this should get you up and running.

OFP Player Evil-One said the above only worked for him after he removed the -nosplash switch from his shortcut's command line. Go figure but it's worth a try, isn't it?

Still having problems or you can't install OFP 1.96 beta for some reason? Read on ..........

Several OFP players began reporting this error in February 2002. The message is most often issued in regard to a large PBO file (e.g., 1985.pbo, music.pbo, o.pbo and others).

This error may occur even when you seem to have ample RAM and free disk space. If you've got an ATI Radeon card, try installing newer drivers. Also try reducing your PC's AGP aperture size in your system's BIOS settings.

Another possibility is that your system is short on memory. If so, solutions range from buying more RAM to using a memory manager program, terminating other executing programs, rebooting or a combination of these. Also check your Windows virtual swap file settings, as a larger swap file has been known to resolve other memory shortage problems.

Supposedly this problem should have occured less often in OFP: Resistance, as OFP's internal management of addons has been improved to reduce memory usage. However, if you experience this problem with OFP: Resistance, the procedures above are just as relevant. In addition, have a look at this Tweak3D article on the subject of AGP aperture size settings. After decreasing his AGP aperture size to 32MB, OFP player Forrest Thiessen no longer received OFP's "CAN'T MEMORY MAP" messages and was finally able to play OFP: Resistance. Your mileage may vary.

Got an ATI Radeon video adapter? Read here as well.

If you've got OFP: Resistance and none of the above solved the problem, here's a wild solution that was suggested to OFP player Ginbo by Codemasters support. Their suggestion was to edit Resistance file O.PBO in the \RES\ADDONS folder, delete the new 46 byte prefix data at the beginning of the file, save the changes made and try running OFP: Resistance again. Amazingly it worked and Ginbo is now a happy puppy! If you resort to this solution, why not do it the easy way, by downloading OFP player Lobanak's itty-bitty utility, CutPBO, and let it automatically do the dirty work for you?!

Why do OFP's text, crosshairs or other objects look blurry?

If text on OFP's menus or mission briefing screens or if certain objects in OFP look blurred to you, check your graphics adapter's Direct3D mipmap setting. The mipmap level of detail should be set to the best image quality possible.

You can usually find the mipmap level of detail setting somewhere under the ADVANCED settings of your Windows display properties.

I cannot completely land a helicopter. It hovers a meter or two off the ground!

This is an annoying bug, introduced in OFP version 1.45. This has been corrected in OFP version 1.46. If you insist on staying behind with version 1.45, you can bypass the problem by using the ACTION menu to shut the engine off for the chopper to touch ground and complete the landing.

OFP crashes to desktop with message "config.cpp/CfgVehicles/Fountain.animPeriod"!

So far, everyone that has experienced this problem determined that it was caused by an unofficial modification to OFP, especially by [dynamicrange|Satchel's Dynamic Range sound pack].

To resolve the problem, remove the modifications made, restore OFP's original files (you did make a backup of course, didn't you?) and see if the problem is resolved.

If the problem continues you mat need to reinstall OFP. Follow this thorough reinstallation procedure to play it as safe as possible.

If the problem is resolved, try installing the unofficial modification again and see if you get the error message.

Why isn't OFP detecting my mouse wheel?

Whether it's a Microsoft, Logitech or el-cheapo mouse, this problem is usually resolved by uninstalling any custom drivers that came with the mouse. Simply let Windows determine and install its default mouse drivers.

I start OFP and I hear the music but the screen is just black!

Chances are you've set OFP's vertical refresh rate setting to a value not supported by your monitor.

To check this out, start the OFP preferences program and select a low resolution, such as 640 x 480. Save the setting and start OFP. If you can now see OFP's main menu, click on OPTIONS and then on VIDEO SETTINGS, where you can adjust the vertical refresh rate setting.

Once that's done you should be able to raise OFP's display resolution to something higher than 640 x 480 and execute OFP normally.

I start OFP and get message "A debugger has been detected. Please unload the debugger and try again."

OFP's CD copy protection mechanism, SAFEDISC2, runs some checks at startup to ascertain whether you are attempting to monitor its protection methods for the purpose of cracking them.

If you really are running such a debugger program, then you deserve this message. However, there are other innocent Windows programs out there that can trigger a similar false positive condition. OFP player Exatheon discovered that when he terminated a Windows utility called Bomb Shelter, the message was no longer displayed and he could finally play OFP.

Several owners of Sound Blaster Audigy series audio cards have resolved this problem by only installing the audio card's drivers and not any of the optional programs and utilities that come with the card.

Some Sound Blaster Audigy 2 owners have reported that the error message can generally be avoided by turning off the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 "Weclome" splash screen. You can disable the splash screen by selecting the check box labeled "Do not show this again". This screen can either be accessed when Windows starts up or by clicking on the Windows START button, selecting the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 program folder and selecting the WELCOME MENU entry therein.

DVD audio applications may also cause the debugger error message to appear. So make sure to reboot prior to starting a gaming session if you've played any DVD audio during your current Windows session.

Otherwise, if you come across this message on your PC and you're not out to outwit SAFEDISC2, check to see what Windows program or utility that you're running might be causing this error.

I can see desktop icons and images flickering through my OFP in-game display!

This seems to occur when icons blink on the Windows task bar or in the task tray. It also may occur when Windows Update and other programs pop up a notification window while you're playing OFP.

If your graphics card supports Hardware Transform and Lighting (HW T&L), run the OFP preferences program and select an appropriate HW T&L entry in the DISPLAY TYPE drop-down list.

If that's not applicable or doesn't help, try pressing ALT+TAB to go out and come back to OFP.

(With thanks to squadmate Uziyahu for pointing this issue out to me).

What can I do about blurred crosshairs, ironsites and other objects when playing OFP with 3D glasses?

An increasing number of people playing OFP are also trying to play it with those new-fangled 3D stereoscopic glasses. A large portion of them encounter the "iron sight" problem, i.e., it's blurred or in double-vision, hence useless for shooting.

OFP player Peter Tan has forwarded in a 100% guaranteed, sure-to-work-or-your-money-back (from Peter - not from me!) list of steps that you can perform to make the crosshairs as well as the iron sights useable in 3D glasses.

The following procedure refers to 3D glasses with NVIDIA stereo drivers, as the majority of the users out there own an NVIDIA-based graphics adapter.

1. Configure your stereo drivers to activate stereo only with a hotkey. If you make it activate automatically, you may run into eye-watering problems due to incorrect stereo separation and/or convergence. 2. Start up OFP. From the main menu, select a single player mission, such as "Steal The Car" for configuration and testing. 3. Once in the game, switch to your iron sights. 4. With Stereo Separation at 0%, increase slowly (CTRL-F4) until you see your iron sights start to split into 2. Note that with some older GeForce cards, the iron sights may be rendered as 2D objects instead of 3D, and hence, unsplittable (only 3D objects split). If this is the case, you're out of luck in trying to make OFP work in 3D. You may stop here now. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. 5. Hit CTRL-F5 to reduce convergence, until the sights become one again. You may want to lay your iron sights onto a vertical object, such as the edge of a wall, while in 3D mode. Then, close one of your eyes, and see where the iron sights really are for this eye. Then, open that eye, close the other eye and see where the iron sights are for that eye. If the 2 iron sights are not on top of or very close to vertical object you laid it on while in 3D mode, reduce convergence. If your convergence is already at minimum, then you need to reduce STEREO SEPARATION now. 6. Test by playing the mission. See if you can hit anything. 7. Repeat steps 4 to 6 as necessary until you are able to see and hit targets without problems with the iron sights in stereo mode, and the stereo mode has enough depth for you to really shout "WOW!".

OFP Player Scott Green comments on the above: "Everything Peter said is spot on except it won't work unless you switch off HW T&L. Slows the game down but - hey - its in stereo, so who cares.

For additional reference, Nvidia has a document available, called the "NVIDIA 3D Stereo User's Guide". The guide is in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

Terrain textures are sometimes transparent and I can see through hills.

This is usually caused by problems with your video adapter's drivers or video tweak programs. Try installing another version of these. Sometimes a newer version does the trick, sometimes an older version does.

Why am I seeing floating glasses in front of me while in a vehicle?

Well, so far, its' been attributed to bad addons. So simply stop using them and gripe directly to the addon maker.

I can't see more than 50 meters ahead of mission! Why is everything foggy?

Well, there are indeed missions that use OFP's weather effects to produce fog. However, assuming you're having this problem with every mission you play, it may the video settings you specified under OFP's OPTIONS menu.

OFP reg Mister Frag says that it may possible be caused by your maximizing both OFP's framerate and visual quality settings. This is especially true if your PC's processor and video components are not up to coping with the required resources needed to support these settings at their maximum.

Mister Frag says you should make sure you experiment with the framerate and visual quality settings to find a good balance between them that is reasonable for your system.

Setting Visual Quality to maximum and Frame Rate to minimum provides the best visuals, regardless of how long it takes to draw them. If your system isn't powerful enough, framerates can really suffer, which may make OFP's gameplay lag or stutter.

Setting Visual Quality to minimum and Frame Rate to maximum means that OFP will attempt to reach a framerate of at least 40fps, and will allow OFP to increase the visual quality as much as it can while meeting the frame rate goal.

If you have a leading-edge system, you can still exceed the 40fps goal with full visual quality.

OFP displays very dark on my monitor.

This could be something silly, like you haven't adjusted your monitor's brightness and contrast correctly. What do you think those tiny little button are for?!

However, if you're brighter than that and you've been through the ropes of installing the latest drivers for your video, checking your Windows display property settings and playing around with OFP's own brightness and gamma video settings, then maybe it's just your monitor. I've experienced this on a old IBM P92 17 inch model.

There's still hope, though. You can try out a software product, called Powerstrip, that lets you tweak your display hardware to the max! You download the latest version from Powerstrip's developers, Entech Taiwan.

All the voices in OFP sound the same! How come?

Under OFP's AUDIO OPTIONS submenu, make sure you set the VOICES option to ALL. Setting it to SINGLE causes one voice to be used for all the voice dialogues in OFP.

Error message: "Picture equip\m\m_9k32launcher.paa not found".

This message may pop up while looking at the mission book's weapons pages, if one of the pages refers to the Strella AA missile. The message may also appears during a game, as well.

In some editions of OFP (possibly the European editions), this error message has appeared since OFP's first version and through its latest version as well. The error is caused by OFP having problems finding the picture of the Strella's missile that should normally appear under the weapons tab in the mission book. Other than the message, though, the Strella works just fine during gameplay.

Why am I getting an error message that says "Error d3derr_out of video memory"?

This may very well have nothing really to do with video memory but rather can be caused by an overload of addons. If that's not your problem, however, read on.

This most often happens on systems with graphics adapters with less than 32MB of memory. It sometimes occurs specifically when using more graphically complex island addons.

To attempt to resolve this problem, try lowering your resolution, both in size and from 32 bit to 16 bit. Make sure you have the latest or most stable version of your graphic adapter's drivers.

If you've tried everything including reducing all other graphic related preference and option settings that OFP makes available to you, it's time to seriously consider getting a better graphics adapter with more video memory onboard.

Why can't I accurately aim my cursor with my Logitech MX700 mouse?

Skipping mouse cursor pointers could be caused by a number of things. For the Logitech MX700 mouse, download the latest drivers and make sure that the 'Disable acceleration in games' option is enabled.

Other issue that may affect your aiming accuracy in OFP can be found in this FAQ item.

There are some bad GOTY CD keys out there!

If you've purchased OFP's Game Of The Year (GOTY) Edition and cannot get OFP to accept the CD key printed in OFP's Field Manual, the CD key may be bad. Codemasters has stated that some of the GOTY manuals had incorrect CD keys printed in them.

If you think that this is the problem that you're encountering, your best bet is to contact Codemasters and tell them so.

Getting message "Setup encountered an error. Application may not work properly".

See this FAQ item.

I'm getting a "D3DERR_OUTOFVIDEOMEMORY" error message!

See this FAQ item.

Why can't I ALT+TAB in and out of OFP?

If you're having trouble ALT+TAB'ing between OFP and other Windows applications, try changing your display resolution setting in the OFP Preferences Program to something lower than your Windows display resolution.

For example, OFP player Jaffo runs Windows with a resolution setting of 1280x1024x32. If he sets OFP's resolution setting to that of Windows, he cannot ALT+TAB between OFP and other Windows applications. Once he lowered OFP's resolution to 1280x960x32, it worked fine.

Ever since I restored backed up campaign save files, I cannot progress in campaigns!

Check to see whether your campaign save files are set with the READ-ONLY attribute on. A file with a READ-ONLY attribute cannot be updated. This can easily occur when you restore OFP's campaign (or mission) save files from a CD-ROM, as a CD-ROM is itself READ-ONLY by definition and this attribute will be retained when files on a CD are copied to your hard drive.

== OFP's main menu has a green sky and no text. Most OFP players experiencing this problem resolved it by going into their PC's BIOS setup program and reducing the AGP aperture size to 64MB.

I've tried everything except reinstalling OFP!

Then maybe it's time to do just that! But before you do, let's try something less radical. Make a backup of the following two files, then delete the original copies:

   \OperationFlashpoint\FlashPoint.cfg

   \OperationFlashpoint\users\yourPlayerName\userinfo.cfg

Then run the Preferences program and click AUTODETECT. Then try starting OFP.

If that didn't help, carefully follow these steps to do a full reinstall:

1. Make a backup of the following OFP subdirectories: ADDONS, MISSIONS, MPMISSIONS, USERS and possibly WORLDS, if you've installed some unofficial island addons there. 2. If you've purchased the Red Hammer campaign by download from Codemasters, make a backup of Red Hammer's files. 3. If OFP: Resistance is installed, uninstall Resistance first. 4. Uninstall OFP. 5. Manually remove any residual OFP directories and files remaining after the uninstall. 6. Run SCANREG.EXE to make sure there are no problems with your Windows registry. Use SCANREG's "-fix" command line option to have SCANREG automatically fix registry error. 7. Reboot. 8. Install OFP from the CD and reboot. If you need to install one or more official upgrade patches and/or addons, do so now and reboot after each one. 9. If you've purchased OFP: Resistance, install it now. If you need to install one or more official Resistance upgrade patches and/or addons, do so now and reboot after each one. 10. Run the OFP preferences program and click on AUTODETECT. Click on the ADVANCED button to make sure that those settings are still what they were before you uninstalled OFP. 11. Start OFP and check that everything works as expected. 12. If that fails, go back into the OFP preferences program and, if the display resolution field shows that T&L is being used, change it to an equivalent resolution using DIRECT3D instead of T&L. Then click on the START button to run OFP again. 13. Once OFP is running to your satisfaction, completely replace OFP's USERS subdirectory with the backup copy you made in the first step of these instructions. 14. To restore any unofficial addons and missions, select all the file contents within the backed up copies of the ADDONS, MISSIONS, MPMISSIONS and WORLDS subdirectories and paste them into their respective OFP directories. When prompted by Windows to replace any existing files with the ones being pasted in, specify NO or else you will wind up with older versions of official files and you'll have to go back to step 1 of these instructions and do everything all over again. Comprende?

If none of the above has resolved your problem and you're up the creek without a paddle, follow these instructions for contacting BIS support directly.