Schrullenhaft

Do these crashes occur regardless of which side you are playing ? It seems strange that during the plotting of a fire mission is when you get the crash. I'm not specifically aware if a sound is associated with any of that process (other than the radio chatter for the fire missions - afterwards). Until this point all of the sounds play fine within the game as far as you're aware ? Is your extracted folder for the HQS 3.3 mod located within the 'Z' folder that is within the 'Data' folder of the game ? Or is it located within the User Data/Mods folder (within the Documents folder of your user account) ? If it is located in the latter location, you may want to create a 'Z' folder within the game directory's 'Data' folder (if you haven't created one already) and put the mod there. So in the case of CMSF2 from Steam the location would be (that appears to be on your D:): D:\Steam Library\steamapps\common\Combat Mission Shock Force 2\Data\Z\HQS 3.3 (or you may have it in the 'HQS CMSF CMSF2 CMBS CMA\HQS 3.3' directory). The main game folder location shouldn't really be an issue as far as I'm aware and it shouldn't be necessary to move the game around. As long as it is located on a drive that is always present (preferably not an external drive that may get disconnected). I guess the really strange thing here is that the game continues to crash after the mod has been removed. The game has been completely exited before the mod is removed, correct ? By removing these mods you have either deleted them or moved them completely out of any game directories, correct ? I wouldn't imagine that Steam would somehow be caching any of these files so that they somehow remain present even after they've been deleted/removed. You can play the mod sound files without problem outside of the game, correct ? Do you know what sound chip/card you have in your computer and what driver it may be using ? I don't know of any specific audio chips/cards that would be incapable of playing these sounds within the game. Looking at one of the wav files, 'American adjust fire out 0' it has a 44100Hz sample rate, 32-bit (float), Mono. I don't know if editing/resampling these files to be 16-bit or 24-bit PCM might help or not. I'm not sure of the exact data on the original files, so such editing/resampling may make no difference.

I'm not sure about the delayed mouse input, but do you know if your CMBS Steam-installation is possibly using your integrated Intel video rather than your Nvidia 2070 ? The game may likely default to the Intel video and you may need to create a 'profile' for CMBS within the Nvidia control panel's 3D settings. This should have the game run on the Nvidia GPU rather than the Intel one. I have no idea if this will make a difference or not with the mouse input lag or not.

Sequoia - Regarding the M47 Pattons, I believe that none were in service by 1979, though I don't have any sources on this. It appears that the 90mm guns from the decommissioned M47's were used to arm the 90mm Kanonenjagdpanzer tank destroyers. Those would still be around in 1979, but they were becoming obsolete going up against T-64's and T-72's.

Wodin - it sounds like your CPU (or GPU) is pretty busy when the game is running. Is this a desktop or laptop computer ? What do you have running in the background (beyond the Steam client) ? What video card are you using and what resolution are you running the game at ? Do these lag issues occur with every game/scenario or just certain ones (especially large or very busy scenarios) ? I wouldn't suspect that there is anything specific about the Steam version when it comes to performance. The games should be almost identical between the Battlefront and Steam releases.

You would probably have to ask CDV for such a patch. It was their decision to utilize a specific copy-protection system (that I believe had problems with certain patches that came out for Windows 7). I'm not sure what the legal implications are of providing a patch that does away with the copy-protection for a game that was distributed by another vendor. Though the CM1 series is so far off the radar of CDV that you probably can't even find patches for CM on their website. The last release of CM1 series from CDV was the 'Anthology' (all three games), that I believe didn't have any copy-protection. There were the "1.04" patches (that had to be purchased) that addressed an issue that came about with Windows Vista. These patches introduced the eLicense copy-protection system (the previous system was a disc-based copy protection from Battlefront). The 1.04 patches solely updated a DirectX function that was having issues with the video drivers that came out around the time of Windows Vista. Eventually these drivers updated to the point that the 1.04 patch wasn't necessary (though I have seen it fix an issue with AMD drivers that came about much later). With that progress I guess the decision came down not to distribute the 1.04 patch anymore. In fact the GOG.com games are version 1.03 and not 1.04. I believe the 1.04 patches could be applied to the CDV distribution of the CM1 games (though I don't know if was officially supported to do this). This would basically convert your CDV version to a Battlefront version using the eLicense copy-protection. This would limit you to two concurrent activations of the game; requiring unlicensing to move the game to another computer. I'm not sure how well eLicense works with virtual machines, but I would guess that it can work. The release of the last CM1 series title, CMAK, was 2003; when Windows XP was less than a year old. The CM1 series are old enough that even Battlefront doesn't sell it directly anymore. The only official source for them is GOG now (where the games are about US$6 each). I believe that the 1.04 patch was US$5.00 when Battlefront sold it.

I have version 3.5.99 of FRAPS working fine in CM games under Windows 10 20H2 x64 with an Nvidia video card using the 456.71 drivers (not the very latest). I'm just using the default options for FRAPS, which includes the hotkeys of F10 (Screen Capture), F11 (Benchmarking), F12 (Overlay) and F9 (Video Capture). What video card/chip and what drivers do you have installed ? If you're running a laptop, does it have Intel integrated video and a dedicated video chip (Nvidia or AMD) ? Do you have any software loaded up (running in the background/system-tray) that may be capturing any of these hotkeys ? I would guess off-hand that the games where FRAPS may be working might be DirectX-based games, whereas CM is OpenGL-based. However there are no specific controls/options within FRAPS regarding these two rendering systems. Are you using any sort of graphics post-processing for CM like 'Reshade' (which MIGHT interfere with FRAPS) ?

I agree. It would be awesome to bring the timeline back to 1955 or so. I just assumed it might be more work than what the team would want to do. There's definitely some very plausible conflict scenarios in Europe in this time frame. I don't know the exact dates of some weapons systems being deployed, but this timeframe would probably give a significant tactical advantage to the Warsaw Pact forces at times.

Modules I'd like to see (staying with the European theater), that I assume could stand a chance of being realistically expected: 1. West Germany / East Germany 2. Britain (BAOR) / Poland / Czechoslovakia 3. Canada / Netherlands / Belgium / Denmark (Centurions !) / Austria (?) 4. A module that brings in the timeline between '83 to '91. This would update all of the equipment and organizations for the previous modules/base-game. However this would be quite hard to execute with the current licensing scheme (with the desire to limit each module to not requiring other modules beyond the base-game). Winter textures would probably be appreciated too (covering modules and base-game content). Perhaps this module could be done first so that all follow-on modules would have all the equipment/organization of '79 - '91. Modules that would probably be unlikely to be made, but would be cool if they did show up: 5. France 6. Italy / Yugoslavia / Romania / Hungary 7. Norway / Finland / USMC / Sweden (?) I would assume that any content that goes beyond the European theater may warrant enough work to be considered its own base-game. However I could be wrong on that account. This entire game family would remain with the current engine (CM 2, Engine 4 and probably an Engine 5 Upgrade).

It most likely should (this would also be included with the latest patch - which will include the module). My current install of CMRT has an 'Activate New Products - CMRT' shortcut in the main program directory for the game.

The file you have highlighted in your image is the one from the MACOSX directory in the .zip file. Do NOT use that file. The actual executable is outside of that directory. I downloaded this specific file from the link that you provided and I was able to extract it and run it (though I didn't install it). The two images here show Windows viewing the .zip file with the actual patch just below the '_MACOSX' directory. The second image shows the file inside that '_MACOSX' directory, which is the file you have copied into your CMFI game directory (notice how it has a size of '1KB', whereas the actual patch has a size of 324,054KB in the first image). Also, once you do get a valid download I suggest NOT putting the patch file in your game directory. Put it somewhere else and run it from there. Otherwise it may install itself to a subdirectory that it creates and you won't have the patch actually installed at that point.

Looks like something went a tiny bit wrong with creating the .zip package for this patch ('CM2_Win_Fortress_Italy_v112_Patch.zip'). However, there is a good file within that archive that is outside of that MACOSX folder that will work ('CMFI_Win_Fortress_Italy_v112_Patch.exe', about 331,880,448 bytes in size when extracted). You can ignore the file that is in the MACOSX folder and also simply not extract it if you can individually extract the files. This folder and file appear to be 'left overs' from possibly creating this patch or archive on a Mac and doesn't serve any purpose on the PC side of things.

Uninstalling and reinstalling the game on a computer where it has been previously activated will NOT show an activation window again. This will only happen if you delete or reinstall Windows itself (resulting in the need to freshly activate the game) or change the hardware in this computer significantly enough to invalidate the activation (a new motherboard, CPU or videocard MIGHT do this). These sorts of changes will typically result in an error dialog box about the license rather than a black screen that might quickly disappear. In these situations you would need to us the gsClean utility to remove the activation and allow for the activation window to come up again on the next run of the game or activation shortcut. It's only in these situations that you would see the activation window again. In the past a few users have run into issues with the file compression on the installer files. Typically these were probably .zip files and they were using the Windows Explorer's built-in unzipping capability. Some people ran into issues with this decompression while others didn't. When it comes to .rar files, I would assume WinRAR would be a good choice (I've used it myself), but if necessary you can attempt to extract the files with Bandizip and see if that makes a difference (this would be extracting the .rar download that you initially get from Battlefront that in turn provides the actual installer files). I'm not sure exactly what you would see if the main game executable was corrupt in some manner. Typically I would probably expect a "blue-screen" error or some other error dialog, but a 'black screen' that quickly disappears could be a possibility. In most cases though you would probably get an error during installation if there was significant corruption of the installer files.

I guess the other question with re-downloading the game installer is how you are extracting it. I believe John is suggesting specific compression programs to extract the installer files with (7Zip or Bandizip ?). Have you installed and used those ?

Were you ever able to successfully activate CMBS on this computer or did you never see the license screen ? Which specific GeForce driver do you have and is it something supplied by Microsoft or something downloaded from Nvidia's website ? Typically there shouldn't be much, if any, difference between some of these video drivers now-a-days, but there's always a possibility that something is strange.

A GeForce RTX 2070 Super here, but it doesn't have the absolutely latest drivers (though I wouldn't think that would be much of an issue). How is CM not running. Do you get absolutely nothing when you launch it or some kind of error or display corruption ? Were you able to activate the game(s) at all ? If you're installing CMBN you are NOT using the 1.x installer (which isn't compatible with Windows 10), are you ?

If you're running on Windows 10, then the 'Engine 1' version will not activate (an incompatibility with that version's copy-protection system and Windows 10). What is the latest upgrade that you have purchased ? If it is 3.0 or 4.0, then use that installer since it will have a lot of the content (modules and most patches) in the single installer.

Make sure that CMFB is not running at all (Ctrl-Alt-Del and start the 'Task Manager' and look for it within the 'Processes' tab and if it is running, highlight it and click 'End Program'). If necessary, launch the installer by right-clicking and selecting 'Run as administrator' from the popup menu. You may also want to temporarily disable any anti-virus/security software during the patch installation in case it is interfering with the file copy process of the installation. If necessary, reboot your computer and install the patch the first thing after Windows is fully loaded.

All of your iMac options sound good and should play CM fine (including the new engine when it comes out). The only question would be if upgrading from the Radeon Pro 5500 XT to the Radeon Pro 5700 would be worth $300 or not. The Radeon Pro 5700 is about 42 -70% faster overall than the Pro 5500 XT. This performance difference may not be truly significant with the current game engines of CM, but the next one MIGHT show a more dramatic increase with the faster videocard.

Unfortunately there is no "fix" for this issue. If has existed ever since CMSF1, though it will likely be more noticeable on maps with more foliage or other features on the map. Technically this behavior is actually a "feature" that is intended to help with video performance. The idea is to limit the number of higher resolution textures/models that have to be moved around by the videocard as the game camera is moved around the screen. This results in higher definition textures/models being used within a certain distance from the game camera (view) and then lower resolution textures used further away and then a point where no textures/models are present (being rendered only once the camera gets closer to them). Supposedly adjusting the '3D Model Quality' and '3D Texture Quality' settings in 'Options' would help with this, but most users see only a minimal (if any) discernible difference between the different selections. Sometimes moving the camera forward, then slowly back will populate the screen with some higher resolution textures/models. But you will only get so much by doing this and they can quickly disappear as you move far enough away or shift the camera in different directions, etc.

Make sure to get the latest versions of your purchases. If you have 'Engine 4.0' purchases for your games, then go to those downloads, since they will be 'all-in-one' installers with the latest patches for that game (all modules and latest patches). You will need your license keys for each game, module and the upgrades. Typically for a 4.0 Upgrade you will need the 4.0 and 3.0 Upgrade license keys (unless your for the base game/combo was AFTER the 4.0 Upgrade for that game was released - then only that base game/combo license key is needed). You will need to use the 'Activate New Products..' shortcut (that may be on the desktop or within the game's primary folder) to activate most of the license keys. If you didn't purchase 4.0 Upgrades for your games, then the 3.0 Upgrade downloads should also be 'all-in-one' installers (all modules that are compatible with 3.0 Upgrade and the latest patch for those 3.0 Engines).

I would assume that the Matrix/Steam release of any game will be close to what the Battlefront release will be (with whatever delays there are in releasing the patch to Steam). I HIGHLY doubt there will be any unique patches or features for the Steam releases.

I think the registry settings will only list where the game was installed and put up an uninstaller in the 'Apps & Features' control panel. Patches MIGHT reference this registry entry to find where the particular game is installed or they may just use a default and not pay attention to any registry key. If you used a non-default directory, then simply knowing its path and providing it during the patching process would probably be enough. I would assume it would be safe to use the backup copies of the game (restoring both the game's main folder and any data folders for the game that reside in your user account folders). Once the game and any modules/upgrades are activated, you should be good to go. If anything doesn't work then simply reinstall. Even deleting the game completely and reinstalling should NOT require any further activation (as long as Windows doesn't become corrupted again and require a clean reinstall).

I'm not familiar with this particular display issue. Do you know what resolution you selected during the initial resolution selection process ? I believe the lowest is 800 x 600 and the most common maximum resolution is 1600 x 1200 (though with a 1920 x 1080 display, this resolution will NOT be available). However, I know of at least one additional resolution above that at around 2560 x 1440 (or something close to that). The resolutions that CM utilizes are standard 4:3 aspect ratios. So landscape displays (16:9 or 16:10) will either display the game in a stretched mode (covering the whole screen) or by centering it with black fields to the left and right (in order to maintain the correct aspect ratio). Typically the monitor will be the deciding factor on whether the image is 'stretched' or 'centered'. Some settings for videocard drivers can could also determine how to display 4:3 aspect ratio programs. There appears to be some sort of mismatch between the resolution that the game is attempting to run at and how your monitor or video driver is attempting to display it. From the appearance of your screenshot it looks like your display is attempting to 'center' the image, but it is getting cropped to be even smaller than it should. I'm not sure if this is a case of the display driver trying to do one thing and the monitor is attempting to do its own thing, resulting in an image that is unnecessarily cropped. Perhaps changing the resolution will be a place to start. If you've been unable to exit from CMAK normally (requiring you to 'kill' the game in order to exit it), then a Prefs file will NOT be saved. If you DO exit normally, then a Prefs file will be saved and you would need to delete it in order to reselect another resolution (this file will usually be at the 'root' of the game's directory, but it might get written to another location when it comes to Windows Vista and later - a feature of Windows security). The resolution selection process will typically start at the highest possible resolution AND highest possible vertical refresh rate at that resolution. What is offered is a cross between what the monitor supports and what the video drivers support. So the previous maximum resolution I mentioned earlier of 1600 x 1200 will NOT appear for users who have a standard HD display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (since the vertical, 1200, exceeds the HD vertical of 1080). During the resolution selection process the screen will mostly be black and there should be a green or white box in the middle of the screen with the resolution and possibly the vertical refresh rate listed within it. Pressing the 'Enter' key or the 'OK' button on the screen should select that resolution. If the monitor is incapable of displaying a resolution the screen might either appear completely black or have a distorted display (multiple images or weird classic-like TV scrolling, etc.). If nothing is pressed the game will try the next lower vertical refresh rate until it eventually reaches 60Hz at which point the next attempt will be at the next lower resolution, but at the highest vertical refresh rate supported by the video driver. This progresses all the way down to 800 x 600 at 60Hz for CMBB and CMAK. At that point you get an error (the routines can't just 'loop around' to start over, unfortunately). So if this happens, simply restart the game and the process will start all over again. What video card and driver are you using ? You might need to experiment around with some of the settings within the video driver control panel.

Have you tried BOTH 'Alt' keys on the keyboard, in case it is a defective key ? Do you have any other utility installed that might be mapping the Alt-Z and Alt-R keys. It's possible that your Radeon drivers may be mapping those two (possibly for the 'Overlay' functions). Although the 'Options' keys aren't customizable, do you have a customized Hotkeys.txt file (any changes from the default, whether directly to the file or via the 'Options' panel) ? If you do, then perhaps going back to a default one and seeing if that somehow works. Of course for this to be the cause you would have to have customized hotkeys for all of your CM games.

The listing of CMBN in the Apps with a 'red X' through it simply indicates that it is an uninstaller and is completely normal. I'm not completely sure you can fully disable Microsoft Defender. If you have nothing else installed to replace it, then it might still be running (despite attempts to disable it). Supposedly stopping the 'Windows Defender Antivirus Service' and stopping the 'Antimalware Service Executable' as mentioned in in this article would do the job, but I'm uncertain. What makes this confusing is that it seems some people have no problems with Microsoft Defender, while others do.