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Horrible frames. Getting frustrated.


tavichh

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First off, I know the game runs on OpenGL. I don't know why that is but it is. I know the game performs hundreds of calculations for every soldier or whatever. But I play games like Command and Graviteam Tactics/Achtung Panzer and those run perfectly and Command simulates a hell of a lot more than CM.

So, I built a PC pretty much specifically for these three games and I can't get it to even work properly. I get maybe 10 frames in a battle and even when I get more than 20 frames the camera lags behind so ****ing much it's unplayable.

I have a i5 4690k, 32GB of ram and CM is installed on a SSD and have a GTX 1080. I am literally giving it every chance to run but it doesn't. People get 40fps on giant battles and I can't get 10 on Tiny.

Please help.

I made a post four years ago with a similar problem but my computer has gotten a lot more powerful since then and performance is a lot worse. I can't be the only person having this issue.

At this rate, modern computers may not even be able to play Combat Mission in a year or two. This game needs some serious optimization. 

Edited by tavichh
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9 hours ago, tavichh said:

First off, I know the game runs on OpenGL. I don't know why that is but it is. I know the game performs hundreds of calculations for every soldier or whatever. But I play games like Command and Graviteam Tactics/Achtung Panzer and those run perfectly and Command simulates a hell of a lot more than CM.

So, I built a PC pretty much specifically for these three games and I can't get it to even work properly. I get maybe 10 frames in a battle and even when I get more than 20 frames the camera lags behind so ****ing much it's unplayable.

I have a i5 4690k, 32GB of ram and CM is installed on a SSD and have a GTX 1080. I am literally giving it every chance to run but it doesn't. People get 40fps on giant battles and I can't get 10 on Tiny.

Please help.

I made a post four years ago with a similar problem but my computer has gotten a lot more powerful since then and performance is a lot worse. I can't be the only person having this issue.

At this rate, modern computers may not even be able to play Combat Mission in a year or two. This game needs some serious optimization. 

Before you make too many assumptions, my pc runs CM fine and has for years so it isn’t the game per se.  I’d open a ticket with the Helpdesk for more specific technical assistance .  In almost every instance I have seen with complaints like this it is something on the users pc that is messing things up. Sound applications have been frequent culprits for issues and comparing CM to other games isn’t quite apples to apples as most of those are much more graphic driven than computational. 

There are other threads on why OpenGL but in brief at the time of creation for CMx2 OpenGL was THE thing.  That things have changed since then is basically the norm for the computing world. BF is not in any position to completely rewrite the code though. 

The helpdesk should be able to sort you out, best of luck. 

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Yeah, as weta_nz mentioned, sounds like the onboard intel graphics card is running CM, cause those are the symptoms I get when my Nvidia profiles get overwritten by accident (usually when I make the wrong selection when updating my drivers 🙄). Direct you Nvidia controller to start-up all CM games you have with the settings you require /want and you should be good to go hunting.

Edited by Blazing 88's
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1 hour ago, rocketman said:

Yep, can also vouch for Nahimic being the bane of CM-games. Quickly uninstalled after identified as culprit.

I built my computer so I don't have any bloat on it.

3 hours ago, Blazing 88's said:

Yeah, as weta_nz mentioned, sounds like the onboard intel graphics card is running CM, cause those are the symptoms I get when my Nvidia profiles get overwritten by accident (usually when I make the wrong selection when updating my drivers 🙄). Direct you Nvidia controller to start-up all CM games you have with the settings you require /want and you should be good to go hunting.

It's running off of the 1080

 

 

4 hours ago, sburke said:

Before you make too many assumptions, my pc runs CM fine and has for years so it isn’t the game per se.  I’d open a ticket with the Helpdesk for more specific technical assistance .  In almost every instance I have seen with complaints like this it is something on the users pc that is messing things up. Sound applications have been frequent culprits for issues and comparing CM to other games isn’t quite apples to apples as most of those are much more graphic driven than computational. 

There are other threads on why OpenGL but in brief at the time of creation for CMx2 OpenGL was THE thing.  That things have changed since then is basically the norm for the computing world. BF is not in any position to completely rewrite the code though. 

The helpdesk should be able to sort you out, best of luck. 

It's nothing on my PC. I've built three PC's and none of them could run Combat Mission. All running i5's, with two having a dedicated card (r9 290 & gtx 1080). 

I'll make a post on helpdesk but I mean they already have my money lol so I'm not sure if they're going to go the extra distance and help me but I'll check it out. Thanks.

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There is also the issue here of 'expectations'. You may be expecting a far more fluid game play than CM will give you. You can't compare it to most games which have optimized graphics engines (and generally excel at graphics presentation vs. more detailed game mechanics). Graviteam typically has far less units on screen to be controlled (to my knowledge). I'm not familiar with the 'Command' game unless it is the 'Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations', which isn't a 3D game as far as I can tell.

The nicest video cards will not give you incredible performance as you might expect. The CM series is primarily CPU-bound (which also includes OpenGL graphics calls, as far as I can determine), so there are diminishing returns with higher-end video cards, though I couldn't tell you what the 'optimum' video card configuration would be for CM. There are some threads in the forum about 'shadows' and certain Nvidia driver versions (though I don't know how well that would hold up for your R9 290 -based system, and the linked thread is mostly about crashing). For some people turning off shadows results in a noticeable improvement in frame-rate, while for others possibly downgrading your video driver to 388.71 (somewhere in that range, December 2017) may help. What is on screen can make quite a difference to the framerate. A lot of buildings, trees, units and significant elevation changes along with a large resolution can bring down your framerate significantly. You should notice differences between a small map with mostly open country and one with a lot of buildings, forests, etc.

Since CM is quite CPU-bound, making sure that nothing else (or very little) is running in the background helps a bit. CM basically only runs on one core (there are a few exceptions to this, such as when it is loading up scenarios and possibly a few other things). CM is also 32-bit on the PC, which means at the best only about 4GB of memory space will be utilized by the game.

If you're running a very high resolution (beyond 1920 x 1080), you may want to consider coming down in resolution and see what sort of difference that makes. This thread mentions some issues with 'irratic framerates', which may point you in a certain direction. I'm not sure if power-saving settings may have an effect on what you're seeing. I would assume not, but it may be worth checking out (using 'optimized/performance' settings, etc.). Here are some Nvidia settings from an old thread (which might not be the most up-to-date).

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1 hour ago, Schrullenhaft said:

The nicest video cards will not give you incredible performance as you might expect. The CM series is primarily CPU-bound (which also includes OpenGL graphics calls, as far as I can determine), so there are diminishing returns with higher-end video cards, though I couldn't tell you what the 'optimum' video card configuration would be for CM.

That's an incomplete answer @Schrullenhaft: the situation isn't static.Things have been changing over the past two years.

I do have a i7-4400k + GTX 1080 system (not designed to run CM but to do work, mind you) and I have appreciated a steady and slight deterioration of performance over the past year and a half. 

So what changed so the envelope of optimal performance contracted?

There may be two causes for that imo. First, the patches to "fix" the Specter (and his colleague whose name can't recall) chipset bug, which had a "slight" performance hit. We seem to have forgot about that, yet those patches easily laminated a good 10% off performance on most operations, and more on I/O bound operations (which include also the CPU sending data to the GPU). I think I remember it hit harder older chipsets like the i5. Second, NVIDIA has been obviously been reworking their drivers to drop support for "legacy" cards (older GeForce mainly) and gearing up for the incoming RTX extravaganza. That has probably changed the assumptions on which the shadowing, LOD and scene culling algorithms in the engine were resting on.

I wish Phil was still around. Perhaps he would have been able to keep up on top of this and update/refactor shaders and the shadowing heuristics, trying to keep ahead of the curve. 

Edited by BletchleyGeek
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1 hour ago, Schrullenhaft said:

There is also the issue here of 'expectations'. You may be expecting a far more fluid game play than CM will give you. You can't compare it to most games which have optimized graphics engines (and generally excel at graphics presentation vs. more detailed game mechanics). Graviteam typically has far less units on screen to be controlled (to my knowledge). I'm not familiar with the 'Command' game unless it is the 'Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations', which isn't a 3D game as far as I can tell.

The nicest video cards will not give you incredible performance as you might expect. The CM series is primarily CPU-bound (which also includes OpenGL graphics calls, as far as I can determine), so there are diminishing returns with higher-end video cards, though I couldn't tell you what the 'optimum' video card configuration would be for CM. There are some threads in the forum about 'shadows' and certain Nvidia driver versions (though I don't know how well that would hold up for your R9 290 -based system, and the linked thread is mostly about crashing). For some people turning off shadows results in a noticeable improvement in frame-rate, while for others possibly downgrading your video driver to 388.71 (somewhere in that range, December 2017) may help. What is on screen can make quite a difference to the framerate. A lot of buildings, trees, units and significant elevation changes along with a large resolution can bring down your framerate significantly. You should notice differences between a small map with mostly open country and one with a lot of buildings, forests, etc.

Since CM is quite CPU-bound, making sure that nothing else (or very little) is running in the background helps a bit. CM basically only runs on one core (there are a few exceptions to this, such as when it is loading up scenarios and possibly a few other things). CM is also 32-bit on the PC, which means at the best only about 4GB of memory space will be utilized by the game.

If you're running a very high resolution (beyond 1920 x 1080), you may want to consider coming down in resolution and see what sort of difference that makes. This thread mentions some issues with 'irratic framerates', which may point you in a certain direction. I'm not sure if power-saving settings may have an effect on what you're seeing. I would assume not, but it may be worth checking out (using 'optimized/performance' settings, etc.). Here are some Nvidia settings from an old thread (which might not be the most up-to-date).

I expect to run at the same frames or better as people with same spec's as me. And, I mean Command MALB, yes. The fact it doesn't have any 3D rendering means my CPU/RAM/SSD is not the culprit. CM has very little rendering (It uses LOD's) so it's not my graphics card. I'm running the game at 1920x1080 and I have shadows turned off. And Graviteam Tactics uses platoon's so you can have around 1000-2000 units in a single battle. I'm not downgrading my graphics card lol. I've even tried downgrading the OS a few years ago to XP just for this game to see if it was the lack of legacy support for Windows Features (i.e. DirectPlay)

I made a helpdesk ticket a few hours ago. Now I wait I guess.

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1 minute ago, BletchleyGeek said:

That's an incomplete answer @Schrullenhaft: the situation isn't static.Things have been changing over the past two years.

I do have a i7-4400k + GTX 1080 system (not designed to run CM but to do work, mind you) and I have appreciated a steady and slight deterioration of performance over the past year and a half. 

So what changed so the envelope of optimal performance contracted?

There may be two causes for that imo. First, the patches to "fix" the Specter (and his colleague whose name can't recall) chipset bug, which had a "slight" performance hit. We seem to have forgot about that, yet those patches easily laminated a good 10% off performance on most operations, and more on I/O bound operations (which include also the CPU sending data to the GPU). I think I remember it hit harder older chipsets like the i5. Second, NVIDIA has been obviously been reworking their drivers to drop support for "legacy" cards (older GeForce mainly) and gearing up for the incoming RTX extravaganza. That has probably changed the assumptions on which the shadowing, LOD and scene culling algorithms in the engine were resting on.

I wish Phil was still around. Perhaps he would have been able to keep up on top of this and update/refactor shaders and the shadowing heuristics, trying to keep ahead of the curve. 

Yes, performance has gotten a lot worse which I know is because of the RTX series which is why I said modern computers won't be able to play CM in a year or two because Nvidia & Intel are doing really crazy things with their products now.

 

1 hour ago, SgtHatred said:

Use Shadowplay to upload a gameplay video to Youtube and lets see how bad it is. Your PC should play the game fine.

I will maybe, just give me until like tomorrow i'm really tired lol.

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Not a "lot worse" for me, but it is noticeable.

Also, I am not convinced that the apocalyptic scenario you paint "modern computers won't be able to play CM in a year or two" has a high likelihood. It is within the realm of the possible (and a given on MacOS X systems), but I refrain from taking the worst case scenario for granted.

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21 hours ago, tavichh said:

Yes, performance has gotten a lot worse which I know is because of the RTX series which is why I said modern computers won't be able to play CM in a year or two because Nvidia & Intel are doing really crazy things with their products now.

In what way will RTX cards break Combat Mission? It's unlikely that any PC hardware will drop support for OpenGL, we aren't suckers running Apple computers after all.

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  • 1 month later...

I believe it's a lost cause, I got a 2080 which is a super fast card, loaded up CM on a whim after not playing for months/years... small quickbattle (with all kinds of the usual shadow issues and shimmering, etc...), lol a very sluggish and laggy 20fps...bahahahaha. I'll back for CMx3, if?!

Honestly I really wish they could stop investing in the current engine, it's so outdated and is struggling more than ever. It's so bad that to me the game is broken, so I really can't justify any more BF purchases or recommendations moving forward unless there is a major engine rework. And I want there to be, the "game" is great it just can't be successfully realized adequately any more for me.

Edited by AstroCat
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  • 4 weeks later...

As a new player to the series, I really appreciate the depth of the game and AI behaviour. UI is really neat too, it's fun to use. However,  I find performance and overall look of the game off putting. The 3D models of the armour are decent to very good, but terrain, especially lighting and shading is something which is grossly outdated and not up to the even low end modern standards.

The game performs badly and there is really no technical excuse for that by looking what and how things are rendered.  AI and pathfinding definitely takes some processing power, but on modern even mid-end hardware it's not an issue and a game like that shouldn't ever drop frames to low 20s. (8700k@5ghz, 2080ti, 32 gigs of fast ram, I don't have any mechanical drives)

I have shown it to a couple of my friends who are massive strategy fans and all I got was "sorry I can't get over how bad it looks and runs". 

I understand that small team, low resources etc. There are widely available graphics engines out there like Unity which would make the game perform order of magnitude better and look much better, even with very little change to existing assets. There is a cost to port, it's not as massive as it seems, assuming there is a will , long term the cost of engine upkeep/upgrades can be lower than maintaining a homebrew solution. On top of that, I'd happily pay for an upgrade like that.

Having said that, I do not regret my purchase, quite the contrary - the gameplay makes up for it, despite sometimes feeling like I am held to a ransom playing a badly looking/running game, because "niche games". This makes me very hesitant with purchasing other games in the series, I'd buy them all if they would look and perform better.

Edited by Reverend Crass
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4 hours ago, Reverend Crass said:

As a new player to the series, I really appreciate the depth of the game and AI behaviour. UI is really neat too, it's fun to use. However,  I find performance and overall look of the game off putting. The 3D models of the armour are decent to very good, but terrain, especially lighting and shading is something which is grossly outdated and not up to the even low end modern standards.

The game performs badly and there is really no technical excuse for that by looking what and how things are rendered.  AI and pathfinding definitely takes some processing power, but on modern even mid-end hardware it's not an issue and a game like that shouldn't ever drop frames to low 20s. (8700k@5ghz, 2080ti, 32 gigs of fast ram, I don't have any mechanical drives)

I have shown it to a couple of my friends who are massive strategy fans and all I got was "sorry I can't get over how bad it looks and runs". 

I understand that small team, low resources etc. There are widely available graphics engines out there like Unity which would make the game perform order of magnitude better and look much better, even with very little change to existing assets. There is a cost to port, it's not as massive as it seems, assuming there is a will , long term the cost of engine upkeep/upgrades can be lower than maintaining a homebrew solution. On top of that, I'd happily pay for an upgrade like that.

Having said that, I do not regret my purchase, quite the contrary - the gameplay makes up for it, despite sometimes feeling like I am held to a ransom playing a badly looking/running game, because "niche games". This makes me very hesitant with purchasing other games in the series, I'd buy them all if they would look and perform better.

Thing is the CM engine is more CPU heavy than GPU heavy, so better and better GPU will unfortunately not help much. It is also on OpenGL. Main thing why it can't be compared to a RTS game that on the surface looks much better, and that is the vast simulation going on under the hood. Especially in large/huge scenarios. So that is the tradeoff for realism under the current engine.

There are settings that can help. I find that shadows look the worst in sunny conditions, which is pretty common in Syria. What you can do is open a scenario in the editor and change the weather to "hazy". Won't change LOS range much but will make shadows better. Also try turning on/off shaders in-game as that can help too. 

There are also mods that can make terrain and buildings look better. Sounds can be improved.

So what I'm trying to say is to make it look/perform the best under the conditions at hand - and then enjoy the ride!

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3 minutes ago, rocketman said:

Main thing why it can't be compared to a RTS game that on the surface looks much better, and that is the vast simulation going on under the hood.

But game performance does not improve noticeably while the game is paused - a time when no simulation calculations should be going on.

For this reason, I believe the performance problems are due to the graphics engine.

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Yes, I have done what I could to make it look ok. Still, I forget about looks when I play it :) 

By the way, simulation is not the problem here, it's underperforming gfx engine.

When I don't, I can imagine how much more popular that game would be if it would be brought to current standards and I am not really talking about AAA quality here.

Edited by Reverend Crass
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3 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

But game performance does not improve noticeably while the game is paused - a time when no simulation calculations should be going on.

For this reason, I believe the performance problems are due to the graphics engine.

I'm just taking the devs word for it. Maybe all the resources needed for the simulation is at hand all the time, even when paused. Just guessing...

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4 minutes ago, Reverend Crass said:

When I don't, I can imagine how much more popular that game would be if it would be brought to current standards and I am not really talking about AAA quality here.

That there is pretty much the wet dream of this entire community. Who knows, maybe they are secretly working on an entirely new engine all along and one day we will be pleasantly surprised.

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