Schrullenhaft

Several people on this board use video cards based on the ATI Rage Pro series of chipsets (Rage Pro, Rage Lt Pro & Rage Mobility). Such ATI cards as the Xpert98, Xpert@Play, Xpert@Work are based on these. Some newer laptops are based on the Rage Lt Pro and Rage Mobility chipsets. Unfortunately there are many other Rage chipsets out there that aren't supported by this modified driver. Rage I (mach64's), Rage II, Rage IIc, Rage II+, Rage 128's & Rage 128 Pros (which have been working for me however). Anyway... people have complained of features lacking in the latest drivers from ATI (or their laptop manufacturer). Well, there may be hope.For those of you who are willing to experiment and possibly deal with drivers that don't have all the features... A developer on the Rage3D site has modified this series of drivers to improve performance and address some issues regarding these chipsets. RageLtMan's ATI Drivers (Rage3D): http://www.rage3d.com/files/drivers/rageltdriver.shtml It may not solve all the problems and it may even cause more problems with CM or other programs, but for those daring enough it may provide some possible fixes (especially those with laptops). I myself will try to dig up a Rage Pro based card and see how well this works, but it may be over a week before I get to testing this. If anyone here feels up to the task, I'm sure a number of users on this forum would like to know if these drivers fix some of the problems.

Madmatt - you may want to modify your URL so that the slashes are forward-leaning. Couldn't get the file until I made that change. Thanks to you and Wild Bill for this.

Def Bungis - I'm unable to email you with the way your address is written. When I use an underscore character between the two names I get "undeliverable" mail. When I just leave a space between them my mail system won't take the address.

Have you deleted your prefs file & restarted CM ? It sounds as if you were running in a software-rendered mode. Do you have "cache" disabled in your CMOS/BIOS setup ? With this off your system would definitely run slow (everything). When you say the "game is running at normal speed" but the "refresh rate is down" what do you mean ? Is running the game giving commands and scrolling around the battlefield ? Is the "refresh rate" the frame rate during playback of your turn ?

I haven't heard of this problem in particular before. Guillemot should have some of the next-to-latest drivers out for their card (based on 5.22). Here's a website that has the latest NVidia Reference (5.32) and Guillemot drivers. If you use the reference drivers some of your control panel tabs will change, along with the designation of the video card: http://www.reactorcritical.com/ You may want to uninstall your current drivers, then intentionally install a generic SVGA driver. Then install the latest Reference or Guillemot driver.

You will probably be limited to software rendering for CM. This will be pretty slow and large battles could take quite awhile to play. In general it should work, but laptops are going to be sub-par performers for CM. You will want DirectX 7.0a installed on your laptop to play CM. DirectX 7.0a: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID=16819 Next upgrade your sound and video drivers: Trident video driver (note that you need a specific revision to your laptop to use this driver - otherwise use the video driver that your currently have): http://www.gateway.com/support/product/drivers/portable/9101.shtml Audio drivers (which you probably already have installed): http://www.gateway.com/support/product/drivers/portable/9102.shtml This is the BIOS update, which probably isn't applicable to CM. If you decide to update your BIOS follow the instructions exactly, otherwise you may damage your laptop. http://www.gateway.com/support/product/drivers/portable/9103.shtml

These are the latest drivers (if you don't have them already): http://www.3dfxgamers.com/drivers/voodoo5/voodoo5_win9x_new.stm I've heard rumblings from some owners of the graphic anomalies that the Voodoo 5 has. I guess most have "adapted" to it in some manner. I don't know where it is in the display control panel, but you probably want to disable the second chip (VCA-100) on the board and that may help your problem. Here's a thread about some specifics on the driver installation. It may apply to you. http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/005920.html [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 07-05-2000).]

I'm not sure about Voodoo 3's on the Mac, but the cards based on Voodoo 1&2's will not perform hardware rendering for CM. Apparently there were too many problems with the RAVE extension that 3dfx makes. This is possibly true for the Voodoo 3. BTS has disabled (to my knowledge) the ability to use the Voodoos on the Mac. It has been hinted on this board that BTS is talking to some 3dfx engineers about their RAVE extensions. So it is possible that your hardware may work in the future (a patch from CM and an updated RAVE extension from 3dfx). However that may be a long time in coming (if at all). So if you have the money and a Mac that can take one... you may want to purchase a video card based on an ATI chipset for the Mac (this is what Apple uses for it's built-in video). Here is a post from the CM Tech Support forum concerning using a Voodoo 3. I'm not sure if they are getting hardware-based rendering or not, but downloading the older version of the RAVE extension may help: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum8/HTML/000190.html [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 07-05-2000).]

What platform (i.e. - Mac or PC) are you running on ? This is most likely a hardware/driver issue. There is a very good possibility that your current hardware doesn't support "fog table / emulation". If you are lucky then it may be solved by just upgrading the drivers for your video display. If you can provide more details on your computer, especially the model/chipset of your video card, then we can point you in the correct direction on getting an answer.

What platform (i.e. - Mac or PC) are you running on ? This is most likely a hardware/driver issue. There is a very good possibility that your current hardware doesn't support "fog table / emulation". If you are lucky then it may be solved by just upgrading the drivers for your video display. If you can provide more details on your computer, especially the model/chipset of your video card, then we can point you in the correct direction on getting an answer.

I will send a copy to all those who have requested it this evening (left the scneario file at home). Thanks

Steve Makarow - Do you know what revision of the BIOS you have ? Here's the URL to the BIOS update, it may fix some of your power saving issues: http://www.gateway.com/support/product/drivers/portable/9303.shtml If you update your BIOS you will also have to update your video drivers (the top two files here): http://www.gateway.com/support/product/drivers/portable/9301.shtml The following drivers are pretty much optional and you may have them installed already. But you may want to check the versions to see if there is anything newer (which may help with your lockups). I assume that your touchpad drivers are installed. Here are the latest versions (which you may have installed already): http://www.gateway.com/support/product/drivers/portable/9304.shtml These are the latest audio drivers, but you may have them installed already: http://www.gateway.com/support/product/drivers/portable/9302.shtml This is the latest modem driver: http://www.gateway.com/support/product/drivers/portable/9306.shtml I'm not sure about your IE problem. You may want to perform a Windows Update on it (usually available from the Help menu > Windows Update option).

Sorry... I don't have the info you're looking for, however someone else in particular may. Joel Montagu ( Joel.montagu@wanadoo.fr )is in the process of testing an operation over the Buron battlefield. He may have some details on the 12th SS. Appui-Feu website: http://appui-feu.panzershark.com/

Barbarossa - well, it looks like several people beat me to the answer. I use a Creative TNT2 Ultra and it also seems to show everything fine. Guillemot seems to keep up with their drivers, so rarely would you need to consider using the reference drivers from NVidia (which will have different looking control panels if you use them). The one thing I'm curious about is if fog looks different on different video cards/drivers.

There is the "alt-G" method of adjusting the gamma within the game. There are five levels of gamma to chose from. I'm currently running a Creative TNT2 Ultra and it is coming up fairly well in the gamma. However that is a subjective judgement. I haven't made any changes with 3Deep, but it is loading on my system. The following URL is to Colorific's 3Deep, a gamma utility that comes with some video cards. This URL points to a beta tester form and eventual free download of the software. http://www.ecolor.com/tsc/fieldtest/invitation.html

Probably won't help, but have you deleted your prefs file ? I think it only primarily addresses the video setting and a few other things, but it may be worth a try. When you apply the patch you are replacing the .EXE in the CMBO directory correct ?

We'll need more details in order to help you. What are you seeing on the screen when your computer locks up ? Do you ever see any of the graphics on screen or is everything just black ? Do you hear any sounds from your speakers ? When you initially started up the game did you get a black screen with text in the center telling you what resolution you were running ? What kind of components (video card brand, sound card, CPU, amount of memory, etc.) and what platform (Mac or PC) are you running. It is possible that you are not meeting the hardware requirements for CM. Finally, there is a chance that you may have a corrupted download. Did everything extract for you ?

I've got a scenario that I would like tested. It's a German attack/US defend, large sized, night battle that is semi-historical. It is a bridgehead defense across the Moselle by the 80th US Infantry near Dieulouard, France 9/44. Just post on this thread or email me at ian_straw@hotmail.com and I will send you a copy. Any feedback would be appreciated. I'll then post it on the CM Webring sites that are taking scenario submissions.

What mouse are you using ? Sometimes an update to the mouse drivers may solve your problem. You may also want to check out the latest v. 1.05 WHQL certified drivers for your Voodoo 3 2000: http://www.3dfxgamers.com/drivers/voodoo3/voodoo3_win9x_new.stm

Ah... missed that. No, it shouldn't really make any difference. You may want to check the CMOS setting I mentioned, but I'm not sure if it will affect a PCI card either. While you're in the CMOS you may want to check what type of "triggering" you're using on the PCI bus. If it is set to "Edge" set it to "Level" (you may find this setting in the Plug-N-Play related menu).

Are there any other devices using the same IRQ (10) as your modem ? If another device is using the IRQ, then you could have possible problems like you're experiencing. Your 3Com modem is software based, but it is among the better ones for that category. This is the latest set of infs for your modem. The file is 569000w.exe: http://consumer.3com.com/winmodem/inf/index.html You will need a diskette to install the software. If these inf files are any newer than what you have, they may help with your problem. You may want to check some settings for your modem. Goto Control Panel > Modems > Have your modem highlighted in the list and click the Properties button > click on the Connection tab > click on the Port Settings button. Check to see if you have "Use FIFO Buffers..." check marked. Then make sure the sliders are at one click away from right on Receive and all the way to the right on Transmit. Now click OK if you changed anything or Cancel if you didn't. Click on the Advanced button > and check the following boxes/buttons 1)Error control 2)Compress data 3)Use flow control 4)Hardware. Have you tried another program other than Outlook 98 ? If you have the Netscape browser you may want to try it's built-in email program to see if it performs any differently. You may want to go to Microsoft's website and perform any updates to the Microsoft software that you have (they have an automated method of doing this - "Windows Update" off the Help menu, usually). Be careful with exercising these updates. Some people have had bad experiences with this process.

Your Gigabyte motherboard is based on the ALI Aladdin V chipset. The following file has nothing to do with sound, but it does have patches for AGP: http://www.ali.com.tw/eng/support/driver.shtml Download the v.1.68 AGP driver. You can try this to see if it helps at all or not (you may have to reinstall DirectX and your video driver afterward). There are also IDE drivers here, but I don't know if you would want to install them (the generic driver you have may work fine). One other thing to do is to enable CPU Write Allocate in the Advanced settings of the CMOS/BIOS. [This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 07-02-2000).]

I can only make guesses at this. Among the things to try was possibly reducing the resolution. It is strange that CM is not detecting your video card correctly. I believe that forum member rune did some testing for BTS on Win2K. You can run DXDIAG in your Program Files/DirectX/Setup directory and check out the Display tab. In the middle of the tab is the DirectX Features. If the "Disable" button is raised, then the corresponding features are enabled (as they should be). With the latest Creative drivers do you have a system tray icon for them ? If you do you may want to tinker with the Direct3D settings in that applet.

One last think I can think of is to update the BIOS. Though this may not affect your problem. Sometimes BIOSs are updated to fix compatibility problems or offer fixes for certain hardware setups and support newer CPUs. If you can identify your motherboard we can point you to a site to get the latest BIOS. This can be a tricky process however. I personally have ruined several motherboards upgrading BIOSs (there are ways around even this in most cases, but it is a lot of work and requires another computer, etc.). Depending on the BIOS manufacturer, you can often get a code from the initial power up screen of the computer. These codes can often identify the motherboard manufacturer, motherboard version and BIOS version. If your case is still off or if you can remember, there will likely be a silk-screen model number on the motherboard which is sometimes accompanied by a revision number (though that is often found somewhere else on the board). Anyway, it is a long shot that a BIOS upgrade and tweaks to your CMOS/BIOS settings will fix your problem, but it is one further option. Another thing you can try is to uninstall your sound card drivers, power off your machine and remove your sound card. Run CM and see if you have lockups. Unfortunately I've heard rumblings from some users on this board that CM won't work without a sound card, so this is could result in a complete waste of time. If you want to take a stab at upgrading your BIOS let us know what BIOS manufacturer is used on your motherboard (i.e. - Award, AMI, Phoenix, etc.). From there we can give you further instructions. I'm not sure of the AMD K6-2 audio card bugs. It's a possibility with the way the MMX-like instructions may work with all of the software-based sound cards. Looking at AMD's sound card and video card compatibility list I don't see any sound cards based on the Yamaha chips or any video cards based on 3dfx Voodoo 3 series for that matter. However this only lists items that AMD has specifically tested. The only patch that is listed from AMD regards Win 95 B OSR2 (Win98 fixes the problem). Yamaha doesn't have any technical support info or FAQs that might address anything like this.

I also support the idea of firing into smoke with reduced effectiveness, especially for prepared defenses. With AFVs smoke screens are a big problem since smoke makes the TacAI disregard the threat from behind the screen and retarget to an often-times lower priority threat. That's why I'd think it would be nice to have a user-targetable override on the TacAI, especially for the main weapon (secondary weapons could fire at other threats, if within the firing arc). I guess what it comes down to is how effective should fire through a smoke screen be ? Just an Area Fire routine that penetrates the smoke screen would be good enough for the moment. As for minefields I would like 2-3 sizes/densities for them. The defender would be given a total allotment that can be sorted out to the 3 densities. That way you could spread out your fields and density for the effect you want to create.