A (Not so elegent) Win7 Soloution

[Alzoras]

Ok, so I'm sorta new here, came across what seemed to be an excellent game online reading through AAR. Poking around, I discovered I actually had a copy (lost to the great depths that is my games shelf). So I install it, give it a whizz, naturally doesn't work on win7.

So I log on here, take a poke, and notice the company wants a fee for their compatibility patch. Now I know I know, you guys got some other guy to do it, and he charged you, and the software business is hard, yaddda yadda ydaa.

Personally I think it's the DUTY of a software developer to continue to support their product for FREE until they discontinue it. You guys still sell Afrika Korps on your store, so in my eyes you should still support it.

I know there are plenty of companies that don't. There are also gaming developers releasing games with such stupidity as 'Constant Internet Connection Required To Play" and suchness, far worse than charging for a patch. My point isn't tit-for-tat. My point is be the best, friendliest company you can be and in the gaming world people will always come crawling back for more.

BUT

My major question, shortfrom my customer service complaint, is this.

Wouldn't an XP/98/95 EMULATOR or a Virtual PC, work just as well for 1.03?

I mean, on a modern gaming rig running win xp in the background won't take up a lot of resources? If anyone's tried it, let me know...

I'm off to find an emulator...

[stikkypixie]

Ok, so I'm sorta new here, came across what seemed to be an excellent game online reading through AAR. Poking around, I discovered I actually had a copy (lost to the great depths that is my games shelf). So I install it, give it a whizz, naturally doesn't work on win7.

So I log on here, take a poke, and notice the company wants a fee for their compatibility patch. Now I know I know, you guys got some other guy to do it, and he charged you, and the software business is hard, yaddda yadda ydaa.

Personally I think it's the DUTY of a software developer to continue to support their product for FREE until they discontinue it. You guys still sell Afrika Korps on your store, so in my eyes you should still support it.

I know there are plenty of companies that don't. There are also gaming developers releasing games with such stupidity as 'Constant Internet Connection Required To Play" and suchness, far worse than charging for a patch. My point isn't tit-for-tat. My point is be the best, friendliest company you can be and in the gaming world people will always come crawling back for more.

BUT

My major question, shortfrom my customer service complaint, is this.

Wouldn't an XP/98/95 EMULATOR or a Virtual PC, work just as well for 1.03?

I mean, on a modern gaming rig running win xp in the background won't take up a lot of resources? If anyone's tried it, let me know...

I'm off to find an emulator...

You should not underestimate how change there is between Windows Xp and Win7. Also CM was written before Windows Xp was rolled out. It can be quite hard to make things compatible again. It's just the reality of software.

[Schrullenhaft]

The 1.04 patch is part of new purchases of CMBB and CMAK. For those who have earlier versions of the game, we do unfortunately charge for the patch (the only one we do).

The 1.04 patch doesn't necessarily make the game compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7. What it actually does is update some of the DirectX graphic API calls used to draw the screen and replace them with some slightly newer DirectX routines that see better support in some of the current video drivers. Initially this fixed a very serious problem that both Nvidia and ATI/AMD had when it came to our games and the newest DirectX 10 compatible video hardware with the newer drivers that were released for Windows Vista at the time. The issue resulted in the 3D window being filled with 'edges' as you attempted to rotate and move the camera within the 3D space. The 1.04 patch fixed this issue. However a few months after we released the 1.04 patch, Nvidia (and I believe ATI/AMD) fixed the problem with newer drivers.

Customers who had older DirectX 9 compatible video cards usually did NOT have a problem with Windows Vista. At the time it was just newer DirectX 10 compatible video hardware that was having issues.

So most of the time, depending on the driver that is installed, even a 1.03 version of CMBB or CMAK can work with Windows Vista and Windows 7. However we have seen bugs in some of the drivers where running the 1.04 patch has resolved the issue (a certain problem with ATI/AMD video cards seen recently). The 1.04 patch will probably NOT fix all of the potential issues that will crop up in Windows Vista and Windows 7 with newer drivers and newer hardware.

As for a 'emulator' or 'virtual machine', typically these are NOT going to work. These 'virtual' environments have to emulate hardware access with software and that just isn't going to work with the CMx1 series (though it MIGHT work with CMBO and 'software rendering'). You'll probably find that true of most 3D games and these environments, though occasionally some major 3D titles might see a certain amount of support (because some engineer REALLY wanted to get that particular piece of software to work).

I believe some customers have gotten Wine/Cedega to work (specifically Cedega) on some Linux distributions. However that does take quite a bit of work and knowledge of how video drivers are configured under Linux and going through all of the myriad options for Wine or Cedega (not all versions may work).