Schrullenhaft

I believe this is a known issue. The Voodoo Banshee's have a Voodoo 2 core for the 3D operations. I believe that the latest drivers still don't support transparencies very well for this family of chips (and it may be a hardware-level issue too). The Voodoo3's and later will support transparencies with the latest drivers. Unfortunately I don't think there is anything BTS can do to address this issue. I don't know if you have any games other than CM that show off transparencies/fog (within DirectX - OpenGL and GLIDE may be a different story).

Yes, you can only apply this patch to the full version. It will not work with the Demos. I'm not sure what the Demo is at version-wise. I believe it is either 1.02 or 1.03.

Some of the face mods required that the file names be modified before being used (because there were several selections for just one BMP entry in CM). As for the Plush-grass texture mod... I don't know why that didn't come up as it should replace the default BMPs in the directory. Did you get any dialog boxes mentioning that you were overwriting files when you copied them into the BMP directory ?

Pvt. Ryan's instructions are quite complete. On the PC when you launch the CM105.EXE file you will get the PKZIP self-extractor dialog box. The default directory is "C:\" (if you don't change anything then you will extract a directory - C:\CM V.1.05 UPDATE - this is where the update files will be). If you click the "Finish" button then you will have a directory called "cm v.1.05 update". In here will be the "combatmission.exe" executable, a readme file and a directory of BMPs for the catastrophic explosion. If you're running 1.01 or later, then you will already have these files in your BMP directory for CM. Find the "cm v.1.05 update" directory and hightlight the "combatmission.exe" file. You can either press Shift+drag the file to the C:\PROGRAM FILES\CMBO directory (which will move the file) or you can press Ctrl+drag and this will copy the file (and leave the original in the "cm v.1.05 update" directory/folder). When you do either you will get a dialog box asking if you want to overwrite the "combatmission.exe" file - Say YES. You are replacing your original/current version of CM with this latest patch (which is the complete executable). In essence you are replacing the whole program (other than the bitmaps, sounds and scenarios). When you start CM you should see the "v.1.05" in the lower right hand corner of the initial splash screen (that has "Play Game", etc.). Subsequent screens don't show the version number. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 08-26-2000).]

vu95 - I don't know if these drivers are any better than what you have or have tried already. These are the latest Reference drivers that S3 have released for the Savage4 chipset. You may also want to experiment with your mipmapping levels and their detail. These settings usually should be available from Control Panel > Display control panel > Settings Tab > Advanced button > and check out whatever Diamond/Savage/S3 tabs there are, specifically for DirectX/Direct3D. Reactorcritical (go to Savage 4 section; v. 8.20.29, 8-22-00): http://www.reactorcritical.com/download.shtml There is also an "S3TC" tweak utility that you may want to download to see if it helps with your problem.

It's gamey because you have such a pervasive knowledge of the battlefield in CM that normally doesn't exist. This is a limitation that will be very hard to program a solution for in the future. By sending a jeep up all possible avenues of approach your opponent will gather a bunch of intel on your units and positions that would be unrealistic. Utilizing such a tactic in real life would quite often just indicate that you lost a patrol that was headed in a particular direction. If you were lucky they may have radioed in when they engaged, but even then you would only get a partial amount of the info that you would get in CM. What would be needed to offset this is some kind of situational awareness in the TacAI that would allow it to ignore such a contact if it was seen as being an unescorted probe. That way a recce jeep could pass through some of your initial ambushes (depending on your concealment, etc.) and get whacked by someone further down the line. But considering how hard it is to come up with a solution for AFV targeting, this is going to be an unrealistic expectation at this point for BTS to come up with a tweak to the TacAI that will work for everyone (or possibly anyone since such situational awareness would be a pretty complex tweak). [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 08-26-2000).]

What version was the other player using ? I wonder if you'll always get this message (despite it being inaccurate about you having to upgrade) if the versions are different. If you opponent is on 1.03, you might get this message. Do you have 1.03 available on the PC ? You may want to copy that into the CMBO folder and see if the PBEM will open. Otherwise I guess Charles will need to say something on this (unless someone else has a solution).

Nick Carter - This particular problem was with the Voodoo 3 & 5 series cards. It was driver related. If you're suffering the same problem, but you're using a TNT2, then you should update your driver. I'm using a TNT2 at home and I've never had a problem with the textures going white. For the latest Reference drivers you can go here. Be aware that some users (mostly GeForce users to my knowledge) have had some mouse cursor corruption problems within CM while using the latest 6.18 Detonator3 drivers. You may want to consider downloading the 5.33 drivers also if you run into this problem. The 6.18 drivers apparently have a noticeable speed improvement (don't know how much of an improvement it will be on a TNT2 though). Reactorcritical (go to TNT/TNT2 section): http://www.reactorcritical.com/download.shtml

Unfortunately there is no way to give a more "3D" look to the rubble with standing walls and all. BTS will have to put up some polygons to map the destroyed walls onto. Hopefully we'll see something like this in CM2 (that seems to be the consensus at the moment) - maybe they'll even make the walls "double-sided" so a texture can be applied to each side. The texture is 672.bmp (on PCs). You can modify the appearance of the rubble texture, but it will remain 2D only. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 08-25-2000).]

Nice job Tiger. Thank you for all the work.

3dfx has commented to BTS that they've duplicated this problem and that it is a problem with their drivers. I'm not sure if this latest beta has fixed this problem or not. There are several threads in the Tech Support forum about this problem. I believe 3dfx began patching the driver for the v5500 first, so hopefully this latest BETA is a result of that work. Voodoo3 BETA driver (8-23-00; v. 1.05.02): http://www.3dfxgamers.com/drivers/voodoo3/voodoo3_win9x_beta.stm

I'm making a guess here, but I would assume that SoundSprokets are necessary (in CM) for sound on the Mac. I believe this is the API that the sound routines have been developed in. I'm not sure what kind of alternatives there would be on the Mac to replace these extensions. They would have to support the same calls, which would probably make them just as "hog-gy" on the CPU as the Sprockets themselves. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 08-25-2000).]

gburg59 - This is the unfortunate state of PCs and PC games (I bet that Microsoft's XBox never makes it or gets really bad reviews or developers abondon it). They push the hardware and make a number of calls that drivers may not support sometimes. Even new cards can have drivers that don't support all calls correctly. Do you know if any of the games that you run use DirectX or are they all OpenGL or GLIDE-based ? Lock ups are always hard to diagnose. Since many systems run fine without this problem I wouldn't blame CM's code. Charles can't account for all the variety of hardware out there. Most of the big companies can't either. This isn't something as simple as fixing a few lines of code and you no longer have a problem (such fixes are pretty rare). Often drivers, other software or combinations of hardware and drivers can cause untold incompatibilities. I believe that there are other people on the forum who are using a Diamond Monster 3D. I don't know the number of problems these particular people are having. A number of people have opted to get upgrades on their hardware (though not specifically Monster 3D owners). Do you know if your Monster 3D is providing the 3D for DirectX ? What is your primary video card ? Do you have updated drivers for it ? Sometimes IRQs can become an issue. You are going to have decide whether CM is worth the extra configuration (and possible new hardware) or not. There will probably be no simple fix.

Kitty - you may not be the pirate, but the person who sold the CD to you may be one. Since they weren't kind enough to give you the manual it is possible that they copied the CDROM and kept the manual and then sold you the CD. This is only conjecture however... so I could easily be wrong. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 08-24-2000).]

Excellent work Tiger. I'm not a grog, but for those that will notice... on the "late" versions of the Tiger I believe that the roadwheels don't have rubber on them.

I guess the question here is... Despite the "miserable detail" does the latest ATI Universal Installer fix the text box problem ? Someone mentioned in another thread that 9.0.4 had the latest ATI drivers/extensions and that it could be extracted with some utilities. I have no idea if these drivers are any better than the Universal Installer though. elementalwarre has offered an extracted driver for those who don't have 9.0.4. This thread has some details on where to update if you do have 9.0.4: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum8/HTML/000483.html [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 08-24-2000).]

Did it have that "DOS Look" before you moved it to the CMBO directory ? My copy that extracts is 3,692,032 bytes in size is yours this size ? I would suggest deleting the file if it isn't this size and re-extracting it (if you kept the self-extracting archive). Otherwise you may need to download it. You shouldn't normally run into a problem of moving a file (which is what you're doing when you Shift+drag a file in Explorer). You may want to attempt to copy the file first if you believe that you are having problems with moving (moving a file should actually be faster). Ctrl+drag will "copy" a file. I would suggest running Scandisk on your PC to make sure that there aren't any file system problems.

Do a search for babbon2 as a poster and you will find some details on the Voodoo series and the RAVE drivers. He is (from what I gather) either the developer writing or testing the RAVE code for the Voodoos series at 3dfx. Apparently a Voodoo3 series RAVE update (b13 ?) is forthcoming that will apply some of the fixes that have recently been applied to the latest Voodoo5 driver. He's recently posted to one of the Voodoo threads in the Tech Support forum.

Yes, trucks should be able to tow guns. I'm not sure if there are some guns that may be too big for them to tow however, in which case a "prime mover" would be necessary (Sdkfz 7 series for the Germans).

The gradual color variation of the "grass" textures (lighter for higher elevations) is supposedly related to "height". The original textures and the "low-res" MadDog mod supposedly allowed for the easiest visual distinguishment of elevation. There's also the "grid" overlays available on CMHQ. Unfortunately any changes to show a more "cliff-like" terrain on a grass texture will show up all over your map (or at those elevations for the textures you modify). [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 08-23-2000).]

A feature that I'd like for future consideration by BTS would be a "random" option for the type of engagement. Neither opponent would know beforehand what they were facing. They may be able to figure it out by the size of the setup zone compared to the map size or by the location of the victory flags, but there is still an element of surprise. If someone rushed the for the victory flags or desirable terrain, they may just face enemy units that are already dug in.

Someone mentioned that they used "certified" drivers from their OEM (Dell in this case) rather than the newer Reference drivers of the video chipset manufacturer. In this case I believe it was a TNT2 or Matrox from Dell. I don't know if this person has had any further problems with CM or not. You may want to do a search on "Win2K" and "certified" in the Tech Support forum. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 08-23-2000).]

apcall - here are the latest drivers from Creative for the AWE32, though I don't know if they are any newer than what may come with DirectX 7.0a. Creative AWE32 Win9x drivers (read readme.txt): http://www.creativehelp.com/files/download.asp?OS=Win98∏=awe_32 However, I don't think that these files will actually help in regards to your problem, which seems to be video oriented. Which set of drivers are you running for the Monster 3D ? Is it enabled for DirectX (I assume it is) ? Have you adjusted/experimented with any settings of your Monster card (in the Display Control panel, I believe) to see if this helps with your lockups ? Is your Monster 3D sharing any IRQs with another device ? You can check in Control Panel > System control panel > Device Manager tab > double click on "Computer" and you will get a tabbed dialog box with IRQ usage listed. Scroll through the list and find your Monster/Voodoo card and see if another device is using that IRQ also (ignore "IRQ Holder for PCI Steering"). If it is sharing an IRQ, then this may cause a bit of a problem when the Monster 3D needs to do a log of calculating.

My personal preference would be to arm the AT/Mortar/Crewed Weapon teams with some sort of light firearm (appropriate for the nationality) and give them a low ammo count (5 to 10) to simulate the likelihood that they wouldn't be packing much secondary weapon ammo and so that they wouldn't be used/abused as in the manner of better equipped line infantry. I'm sure BTS doesn't want to make such changes to CMBO (if at all), but it would be nice for consideration for CM2.

apcall - What version of the Voodoo drivers are you running ? Are you running the Diamond Monster drivers ? Diamond Monster 3D Drivers: http://www.diamondmm.com/default.asp?menu=support&sub_menu=Legacy_Graphics&item=drivers&product=Monster_3D This is an FAQ for the Monster 3D. You may want to check your memory address of your Monster in the Device Manager as an example of one thing to check: http://www.diamondmm.com/default.asp?menu=support&sub_menu=Legacy_Graphics&item=faqs&product=Monster_3D#14014 3dfx Reference Driver (Voodoo Graphics; 4-29-99): http://www.3dfxgamers.com/drivers/voodoo_graphics/voodoo_graphics_win9x_new.stm To use the Reference driver you should uninstall the Diamond Voodoo drivers. The latest drivers are considered "Quake 3" compatible. When you selected your resolution was it the "Primary Display" or something else (for your Voodoo) ? If the resolution was listed as Primary Display then you (I guess) would be running on your S3 325 PCI card (for which DirectX 7.0a would have the latest drivers). You would probably want to use the Voodoo for CM's display (if you're not already). Just in case you want to experiment (but S3 doesn't always do a really good job on their drivers): S3 Virge (325) drivers (5-13-99; v.4.03.00.2111-3.12.01-PR): http://www.diamondmm.com/default.asp?menu=support&sub_menu=S3_Graphic_Chips&item=drivers&product=Virge_325 I'd probably suggest staying with your current Virge/325 drivers. What sound card are you running ?