Better Load Times

[mjkerner]

Another plus from BFC's rework of CMSF2 appears to be much faster load times.  I haven't tested it a lot, but so far loading the game and loading individual battles both have improved vastly over, say, CMBN or old CMSF for that matter.  

(AMD Opteron 2.2 Gig processor; 64 bit; 32 gig RAM; Nividia GTX950; Windows 10)

 

[SapperHarvey]

Yeah, it's easily the fastest loading CM game for me, takes about 20 seconds to load into a battle. Some of the other WW2 titles take 3-4 minutes to load for me.

Edited December 5, 2018 by SapperHarvey

[Kevin2k]

Same here. much appreciated! Either the textures are more modest or the transfer rate has improved. In case of the latter, I hope it can be included in the scheduled patch for the previous v4 games.

[Thewood1]

It might be fewer trees than in some other CM2 games.  But it does load faster that CMSF1.

[IICptMillerII]

I've noticed much faster load times, both while loading a large scenario and while processing turns. I also think the game runs smoother, though I've never had much difficulty with performance in CM. Any and all improvements are very welcome, and it certainly runs/loads faster than CMSF1 did. 

[Kevin2k]

I just tried the CMSF2 demo on a core i3-2310M  laptop with intel graphics. All low settings, but one can actually play a tiny quick battle, and only the text rendering is a little off, the rest looks like it should....Now back to my normal desktop...

[Blazing 88's]

Mods... the amount and types of mods, eventually installed, slow load times no?  I actually have never found it to be an issue for me with the other titles.  Besides, it's worth the wait for those that do.

Edited December 6, 2018 by Blazing 88's

[MikeyD]

The game sees mods as just another art file among the BRZs so it shouldn't slow it down appreciably, unless you've got some CRAZY huge mods being uploaded. I've loaded games with entire terrain packs in the mod folder without the game even noticing.

[Rokossovski]

Yes, load times seem much quicker.    I was wondering if other folks were seeing the same improvement.

[peter thomas]

Must be related to the install size. Smallest ever install. 4GB, plus half a gig in the documents folder. How come a 4 module pack takes up only 4GB when CMFB, for example, takes up 14GB?? I wish they were all this small, then I wouldn't have to choose which 2 I could afford to put on the SSD. 

[37mm]

I loaded up the original Task Force Thunder... the old "breaking the berm" scenario takes less than 30 seconds to load up & turn processing speeds are less than two seconds.

Even with Kieme's HD mods, "movie mode" & a bit of reshade my fps is a smooth 30 frames per second (capped*).

The performance is light years ahead of the old CMSF1.

 

*The half adaptive refresh rate on my graphics card profile.

[domfluff]

CMSF, even version 2, generally has far less complex maps than the later games - even with the changes, there isn't anything like the topological complexity of some of the CMFB maps. Unit density is also usually much lower, and the maps are frequently smaller (since the originals were much more limited in size, and a lot of the changes are either not changing map size, or extending them a little).

I wouldn't be surprised if this was the major contributor really. 

What I *have* noticed is that the weird extra in-game slowdown that the CMSF 2 trees seemed to cause in the demo seems to be gone, which is very good news.

[sburke]

5 hours ago, peter thomas said:

Must be related to the install size. Smallest ever install. 4GB, plus half a gig in the documents folder. How come a 4 module pack takes up only 4GB when CMFB, for example, takes up 14GB?? I wish they were all this small, then I wouldn't have to choose which 2 I could afford to put on the SSD. 

Answered in another thread by Steve, has to do with CMFB covering multiple seasons, you have artwork for regular, muddy and snow conditions winter uniforms etc. if you really want it smaller it would mean CMFB only having snow condition and winter clothing battles. Be careful what you wish for. 

[peter thomas]

Ah! Thanks.

Edited December 6, 2018 by peter thomas

[MikeyD]

CMSF2 can give you dense urban areas, water, bridges,  huge maps and numerous trees.  What is doesn't have is those dense European forests that require a lot of difficult calculations for LOS. I recall when I first moved from CMSF1 to initial release CMBN I took a monster framerate hit because of all of the dense, close, LOS-blocking foliage on the maps. CMBN (and the other titles) have become very much faster using the current V4 game engine, CMSF2 is reaping the benefits as well.

[37mm]

On 12/6/2018 at 9:20 AM, domfluff said:

What I *have* noticed is that the weird extra in-game slowdown that the CMSF 2 trees seemed to cause in the demo seems to be gone, which is very good news.

I thought that initially however I realize now, that because I has uninstalled the Demo, the improved result I was seeing was because the CMSF2 game had no graphics card profile.

When I later gave CMSF2, the game, a graphics card profile the "tree foilage issue" reappeared with vigour.

So currently CMSF2 is the only BFC title/demo I have without a graphics card profile... I have no idea what setting is causing the issue but, seeing as how the whole point of the graphics card profiles was to allow a smoother game, it kinda shows just how well optimized CMSF2 actually is.

 

Even after saying this... it should be noted that CMSF2 engine 4 tree's are still definitely far more memory intensive than, say, CMRT engine 3 tree's.

Because of this I've been playing around with a mod to reduce the foilage... my experiments seem to have had some positive results so far.