Notice to all visitors and members of the Train-Sim.Com message forums: If you plan on using a signature banner in your posts, we would like to remind you that there is a maximum size for banners. That maximum is 450 pixels wide by 120 pixels high, and not to exceed 25k. Your compliance is appreciated. FORUM RULES Problems? There are two common reasons for problems with logging in and posting messages. The first is that you are running a firewall that prevents your messages from being sent to the server. The other is that you have cookies disabled; the DCForum software requires cookies to work properly.
I looked through the threads and could not find anything spicific to this problem. I have used the makeace tool before without any problem, but its been a couple of years since I used it. I am trying to convert a TGA into an ACE file. I even downloaded and installed the tool update again. I am useing the MSTS Makeace interface tool, so there is no chance of miss spelling like there could be by using a batch file. It is saying "this program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down". And then another window opens and says "at least one registery item failed". The TGA is in 512x512 24 bit. Any ideas on what is happening here?
Additional information: I loaded the files, I needed to make into an ace file, onto a zip disk, and loaded them onto my wife's computer and the make ace tool worked just fine 4 times and then it stopped working and started locking her computer up. I have changed my video card out to a radeon 9000 pro 128 since I last used the makeace tool a couple of years ago. I turned my card all of the way off, just in case, with out any change in the makeace performance, and I have everything in the background turned off. My wife's computer has a Diamond 32, with a Nvidia driver, but it even stopped working on her's after the 4th time. The interface tools, I have two of them, the TGA tool 2 and the MSTS makeace interface as well as the direct batch method all have the same error message pointing to the makeace tool. As I said earlier I downloaded and installed the latest makeace update, 9-3-01 again, just in case something had happened to it. Am I the only one with this problem?
Back when I was running a Radeon card on my system (7500, I believe), I found that I had to turn off graphics acceleration before makeace would run properly.I believe that you have to go into "dxdiag" in order to turn off the acceleration. After you are through with makeace, be sure to turn the graphic acceleration back on before running MSTS or its editors.I hope this helps a bit.Henry
Thanks Henry for the suggestion, but as I stated in my latest post, I already tried that. At least in the performance area, my card has 4 levels of performance and I tried all of them. I did get my gs4 4-8-4 Daylight painted, the hard way. I did the painting on my computer with photo shop elements, and hauled the tga and ace files into my son's computer in the bedroom, which by the way he has the same brand and size computer that I do, with my old video card no less, a Diamond Viper V770 32, and did the conversions on his computer. Ok I am going to get on the net to ATI and see if any of there tech's can shed any light on this, because I do beleive that it is a video card issue, since I know now that the makeace tool is working just fine, in the right environment. Thanks again Henry
I think you have to turn off the graphics acceleration from within DirectX, by running DxDiag and going to the video tab. Beer is not a matter of life and death. It is much more serious than that. mervyn.
Yes I finally found Direct Draw in the directX dialog display window when I was looking for somthing else, thanks. And it does allow makeace.exe to work. The only problem is getting direct draw turned back on. I push enable and it says its enabled when it is not according to MSTS, so I have to restart the computer 2-3 times usually wind up shutting down completly and waiting the 10 seconds before restarting. And even then sometimes the enable button is greyed out too. Seems to be more trouble than it is worth. I wonder if MSTS will make a tool that will work with direct draw on, or is that not really the problem. ATI was no help, they just refered me to Microsoft, like its not there problem. I was warned about buying an ATI card, now I think I know why. It will be Nvidea again next time. I wonder if I can put an Nvidea driver on this card ha ha. Ok I'll just have to use my other computer to do the conversions. I am having no luck keeping the windows transparent in some passenger cars I am trying to repaint. I have read the doc.s and have saved in 32 and used the trans check in makeacewin.exe and the cars come out with the sides missing and the rest of the car grey with no color. If I save in 24 bit the colors and the car are complete but the windows are black, not transparent any more. I am not painting over the windows either. So exactley how to save it before converting and or how to convert and keep the windows transparent.