Schrullenhaft

The 'drop down list' prices will NOT show any sales price. They remain at the original price and can't be modified to show a change in the price (as far as I'm aware). However the price that shows in the 'Cart' should be accurate (it will be what you are charged). In this case there is a discrepancy with what is advertised ($5; $20 off of the original $25 for 'mail delivery' or 'download only' purchases) and what shows up in the Cart ($15). If you have submitted this discrepancy to the Battlefront Helpdesk, then that should be sufficient. The responsible party should get the email and make the necessary corrections at some point. The price will need to be modified one way or the other. Whether it is $5 or actually $15. You will want to wait until that is fixed (assuming that $5 is the actual price) before ordering, since I assume there may be unnecessary complications in attempting to get you a partial refund (if the price is actually $5). I'm not sure when or if you will get an email back from the Helpdesk about this issue since it isn't a standard support issue that the staff can quickly answer.

This may be an issue due to DEP (Data Execution Prevention). The copy-protection system for CMSF is different from all of the other CMx2 games where it is using eLicense. Hopefully this Knowledgebase article will get you running: "0xc0000005" error As agusto mentioned, your anti-virus/security software can also play a part. You may want to add exceptions for EACH game executable (the main game and the 'module' executable files).

Unless you need to play just the base CMSF game by itself (without any modules), then you do NOT really need the Paradox license key (though I don't know what exact copy-protection system the Paradox version uses). Assuming you have the license keys for all of the modules (since you say that you do), then the following installation order should get you running: CMSF reinstall procedure If your copy of the Marines module is NOT part of a bundle, then you typically do NOT need to install the 1.10 patch (since all of that content should be a part of the full Marines module). Bundles that include the Marines module may NOT have all of the content and would need the 1.10 patch. If you get a 501 error, you may be using the wrong license key. You will have to look closely at the activation dialog box to see which license key it needs. If you get an error 11 (or -11 ?), then you may have run out of activations for that license key (each one comes with two). eLicense has an unlicensing procedure that you want to use before making significant changes to a computer (upgrading, etc.) OR when you are no longer going to use that game/module on that computer. Unlicensing preserves an activation so that you can use it again on another install of the game/module. If you are unable to unlicense a previous activation, then you will need to open a ticket at the Helpdesk (click on the blue '+new ticket' in the upper right corner) and provide the license keys that need to be 'reset' to allow for another activation.

I don't know why the program is not autostarting, but you can simply run the setup program on the disc and see if that works. I would also suggest temporarily disabling your security software just in case it interferes. You may also want to run the setup program by right-clicking on it and selecting "Run as administrator" from the popup menu. Is this a recent purchase or is it an old game ? All purchases since the summer of 2009 (directly from Battlefront) should be at version 1.04. If the game was purchase before that or from a retailer (a CDV distribution), then it will be an older version. The 1.04 patch ONLY makes some changes to some of the DirectX graphic API calls used by the game to make them a little more compatible with Windows Vista and later versions of Windows. A short while after the 1.04 patch was released the video card manufacturers updated their drivers so that the 1.04 patch wasn't absolutely necessary to run. However the 1.04 patch does fix a graphical glitch with AMD Radeons.

The 'OpenPlay.dll' file should be in the root of the CMAK game directory; the same directory where the main game exeuctable, 'CM Afrika Korps.exe', resides. There should also be an 'OpenPlay Modules' directory within the CMAK directory. This should have one file in it called 'TCPIP.dll'. I wouldn't necessarily suspect any issues with security software and these multiplayer-related files, but you may want to add exceptions for them (and/or the entire CMAK game directory) within your security software.

One mistake with my example above... If the user has a display resolution of 1920 x 1080 (as their display's maximum/native resolution), then they will NOT see the 1600 x 1200 resolution because the '1200' vertical resolution is larger than the display's '1080' vertical resolution. The first displayed resolution may be the 1376 x 768 or 1280 x 1024, etc. Any resolution that will have a larger vertical component than what the display can work with will either not be offered or will appear scrambled/blank/black on the display (and thus not be useable).

I forgot to mention the issue with the 4:3 resolutions on a 16:9/16:10 display. Your monitor may have the option (within its menus) to select how it displays resolutions. Right now it is stretching the 4:3 aspect ratio resolution to a widescreen one to fill the entire screen, which results in the stretched and blocky graphics. Hopefully there is a setting that will allow the display to display the resolution at its native aspect ratio (which will result in 'black or gray bars' on the sides of the display). If your monitor has no such feature, then it may be possible to have the Nvidia video card drivers do this, but it involves a bit of adjustment with the Nvidia Control Panel. This Nvidia Forum question regarding 4:3 aspect ratio displays might tell you how to do this if necessary.

The games do NOT have an auto update feature unfortunately. The 'boxed anthology' is the CDV release of the games with no copy-protection (to my knowledge). I believe all but CMAK is up-to-date with that release. CMBO (NW Europe) should be at 1.12, CMBB (East Front) should be at 1.03 and CMAK (Desert/Italy) should be at 1.03, however the boxed anthology may be at 1.02. Download the 1.03 patch and installing it should work as far as I'm aware, though it MIGHT require that you have one of the Anthology CDs in the drive to play the game (1st or 2nd, I'm not sure). The version number should typically be visible in the lower right corner of the initial splash screen when you run the game. Coming back to that menu (after going deeper to make selections) does not show the version number again. There is a 1.04 patch for both CMAK and CMBB. These do cost US$5.00 each and change the copy-protection system on the game. This patch only fixes an issue that some DirectX 10 video cards had with the game and their drivers at the time that Vista was released. It also, inadvertently, fixes a display bug with some Radeon Catalyst drivers and the games. There are NO OTHER FIXES in this patch. It simply updated some DirectX calls with a slightly newer/more-up-to-date DirectX call that is more likely to be supported. When it comes to selecting resolutions in the game there are no menu options for this. Instead the game checks for the presence of a 'prefs' file. If it is not present, then the game automatically goes through the resolution selection process. This typically starts at the closest resolution that the game supports that is at or under your current desktop resolution. The CMx1 series of games came out before wide-screen resolutions and displays were common, so these sorts of resolutions are NOT supported. Instead only certain 'discrete' 4:3/standard-aspect-ratio resolutions are supported, with the max typically being 1600 x 1200. There is one or maybe two resolutions supported above this (24?? x 14?? or something like that). The resolution selection process automatically cycles through certain resolutions and vertical refresh rates. So for an user that has a 1920 x 1080 display they may be offered an initial resolution of 1600 x 1200 at possibly 75Hz (a CRT might start at 160 or 120Hz, vertical refresh). Depending on your display's capabilities you might get a scrambled or black/blank screen if the vertical refresh rate offered is too high for your monitor to display properly. If that happens, just leave things alone and CM should try the next lower vertical refresh at that same resolution. If the monitor supports the resolution and vertical refresh rate that CM is attempting, you should see a greenish/whitish box with the resolution and the vertical refresh rate listed inside with two buttons ('OK' and 'skip', I believe). If this is the resolution that you want, then click the 'OK' button (or potentially press any key). With a resolution accepted the game should then start up. If you click the 'skip' button or just let it time out, then CM tries another resolution and refresh rate combo, using the next defined vertical refresh rate (say 1600 x 1200 at 60Hz). Once the game has reached a resolution with a vertical refresh rate of 60Hz which hasn't been accepted, then the next attempt will be at the next lower resolution, but at the highest refresh rate that is defined by either the video driver or possibly the monitor profile. This might be the 1360 x 768 you saw, etc. This will cycle through the various vertical refresh rates until reaching 60 Hz and then go to the next lower supported resolution. If you don't select the last resolution, then the game quits with an error. This is normal. The game will only cycle through the available resolutions once and can't automatically cycle over again. You simply have to launch the game again to go through the resolution selection process again. With CMBO the minimum resolution is 640 x 480 at 56Hz or so. This is a 'software rendered' resolution which will look horrible and should be unnecessary. For CMBB and CMAK the minimum resolutions are 800 x 600. If you want to change the resolution again after making a selection, then you will need to delete the Prefs file for the game and the next time you launch the game it should automatically go through the resolution selection process. This file should typically be written to the game's directory. However with the security features of Windows Vista and later, this file could be written to the 'VirtualStore' directory that Windows creates when programs attempt to write to a directory within the 'Program Files (x86)/Program Files' directories. The VirtualStore directory is hidden from the user and you have to turn on seeing 'hidden files and folders' and 'hidden operating system files', etc. within the File Manager in order to see it and possibly delete the file. This resolution process may seem a bit arcane, but it most likely originated with the way some programs select resolutions on the Mac (a long time ago, OS 9.x). The newer CMx2 series of games have a menu to select the resolution (with a few discrete options) or a file to write a custom resolution to. The default for CMx2 games is your current desktop resolution. With Windows Vista and later there are no graphical fog effects visible in the game. The 'fog table' graphical DirectX calls were no longer supported with Windows Vista and later. The 'effect' of fog is still there, just no graphical representation of it on screen.

If you just purchased CMAK directly from Battlefront recently (not a CDV distributed version from another store/website), then you received the 1.04 version. CMAK originally came out in 2003. The 1.04 patch came out in 2008/2009 (I can't remember) to fix an issue that a number of Vista users were suffereing from at the time. Newer video drivers fixed some of thes issues, but some other graphical anomalys popped up for Radeon users and the 1.04 patch fixed that issue inadvertently. The 1.04 patch was created by the '2nd Programmer' Phil BEFORE he was a Battlefront employee. I'm not sure of the exact reasons for charging for the patch, but it did have to include a different DRM/copy-protection system than what originally came with CMAK.

I assume you may have an ATI/AMD Radeon video card. I believe the 1.04 'vista' patch would fix this graphical issue. The patch wasn't released to address this particular problem, but when it did appear for Radeon users, it worked to get rid of this graphical anomaly. However the 1.04 patch is NOT free and does utilize a different copy protection system (that would no longer require your CD to be in the optical drive). The 1.04 patch costs US$5.00 ('CM Afrika Korps VISTA'). CMBB also has a similar 1.04 patch.

No. It is strictly either solo or 1 vs 1 (PBEM, HotSeat or TCP/IP). Of course there are human mediated systems, but there is quite a bit of effort in setting up such games.

I'm not seeing a link in your post.

You will need to install the PhysX software. This does NOT require an Ageia PhysX card or a Nvidia video card to run (it will utilize your CPU). Some of the graphic effects in the game utilize the PhysX routines, so the software has to be installed. PhysX 9.14.0702 Installer

You both should be able to play if your limiting yourselves to content that you both share (in this case, CMSF base game and Marines module). However, if your games are patched to different levels, then the PBEMs will not work. You both need to be at the same version, with the last patch for CMSF being the 1.32 patch. The NATO module brings the game up to 1.30 automatically. The Mac version of CMSF is already at 1.32 (no patches to install).

The textures and models are exactly the same between PC and Mac versions. Thus the graphics should generally be the same. The main difference between Mac and PC would come down to how well your CPU and graphics perform and the options to tweak such things (usually outside of CM's control) on each platform. Since you would be considering running either the PC or Mac version on the same Mac, then there generally would be little difference in regards to performance. The preference would come down to your familiarity with each OS and its options. One problem with Mac versions tend to be Apple's habit of screwing up drivers for OpenGL on occasion. In situations like that you have to wait until Apple comes out with an update (or a new OS release) to have them fixed. This doesn't happen all of the time, but it has happened in the past. On the PC side you usually have to wait a while for some driver bugs to be fixed (several months to possibly a year) by the video chip developer or simply going back to an older version to get things running again. Newer video cards can be a bit more problematic on the PC side in this sort of situation since there can be a limited number of drivers that may support such a videocard/chip.

If the game was NOT run with the 'run as administrator' setting, then the file will get written to a 'virtualstore directory', possibly located at: C:\Users\{your user name}\AppDate\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Battlefront\Combat Mission Afrika Korps\Combat Mission AK Prefs (I'm not absolutely certain on the file name, but the path should generally be correct). You can only see this directory if your settings for viewing files includes hidden files and folders (Organize > Folder and search options > View tab > uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)' and select 'Show hidden files, folder, and drives'). At a 1920 x 1200 resolution the maximum resolution that CMAK will support is 1600 x 1200. This is a 4:3 ratio resolution, so depending on your display it may stretch the screen/pixels to display it or it may put black bars to the side to change the aspect ratio (and display it in a 4:3 manner without stretching). To change the resolution you will want to delete the Prefs file and re-run CMAK for the resolution selection process to start. If the text is not visible (in the initial 2D screens), then you may want to minimize the game and re-maximize it to see if it will refresh the screen and possibly display the text. This doesn't always work but it one of the only options to get the text to display. The replacement bitmap files work for the text in the 3D part of the game (now appearing yellow instead of white).

I don't specifically think that the 1.04 patch would fix this, but you may want to download the current 'demo' of CMBB and CMAK and see if they behave differently from your current 1.03 installs. The 1.04 patch basically changed a certain DirectX call that the games made and used and updated version (to my knowledge), which fixed some issues that users with Windows Vista and DirectX 10 capable video cards were running into. It also fixed (much later, inadvertently) an issue that Radeon users were running into (I can't recall the specifics at the moment). For CMBB you need to install EACH patch and not just the last patch (1.01, 1.02 and 1.03). For CMAK I believe just the last patch is necessary (1.03). Which driver are you running for your GTX 670 ? Do you know what your 3D settings are in the Nvidia Control Panel (not that I'm aware of specific ones that may cause problems) ? You may want to mess around with any anti-aliasing settings (disabling them) to see if that may help.

Is your copy of CMSF ONLY the Paradox version or do you have modules and/or patches (1.21) from Battlefront ? When you run the installer for CMSF, are you right-clicking and selecting "Run as administrator" from the popup menu ? You may also want to temporarily disable AVG during the installation process (or at least the 'Resident Shield' functionality). I'm not sure why the CMSF executable would disappear all of a sudden (which is what security software is prone to do on occasion). Do you run any other security software other than AVG (a 'firewall' or some other anti-spyware program) ? If you have any modules and/or the Paradox Upgrade patch (1.21), then you will need to add exceptions within DEP. You will also need to check for the presence of the 'Runservice.exe' file in your 'Windows' directory. This will need security exceptions too within AVG or whatever else you may be running. The Paradox-only version of CMSF uses a disc-based copy protection system that MIGHT run into problems with certain security programs or disc-emulators.

Once the module (and the main game) executable has been added to the DEP exception list, then the patches themselves should be fine (no further action necessary within DEP). The file name and location will remain the same and that is the pertinent information for the DEP exception. When it comes to security software, sometimes a new exception may need to be made after a patch is applied since the security software may be looking at more than just the file name and location.

Have you added an 'exception' within your TrendMicro security software for the game executable AND the 'runservice.exe' file found in the 'Windows' directory (if you were able to activate the game - it will not be present if you haven't been able to activate the game yet) ? If you have any of the CMSF modules you will need to add those executables to the exception list too. I'm not sure if a registry 'cleaning' will help or actually cause problems. If the program does it automatically or if you say 'yes' to everything it presents as needing to be 'trimmed', then you may run into some unintended grief. I haven't used CCleaner's registry cleaning functions so I don't know how well they work or it typically targets for cleaning within the registry. CMSF will NOT utilize SLI. There is no code within the game engine to support SLI rendering, however it should generally be ignored by the game and run on a single GPU. The 340.52 GeForce driver should be fine as far as I'm aware. Try to shut down as many programs/utilities as possible that may be running in the background. You can potentially try Razer Game Booster for this function to see if it will help or just do it manually.

The CMx2 series of games (CMSF, CMBN, CMFI, CMRT, etc.) have a different campain style from the CMx1 series. Instead the campaigns are a series of battles with branching depending on how you do within a battle will determine which battle you fight next. Each battle is usually (though not always) fought on a different map. Essentially they are 'linked scenarios'. There are 'core units' of a sort, but they are NOT of the player's choice and you may not always be fighting with them. Each battle dictates the forces that you will be using. There is also no 'experience' gained with any of the units since most campaigns are considered a fairly short window of time, especially the modern combat titles. So in the end there is no 'grand strategy' that is being worked out with the campaigns. The player is generally NOT allocating forces to each battle or deciding where and when to fight.

I'm not familiar where 'setting exceptions' is done with the latest version of AVG, but it may be in either the 'Virus Vault' or 'Advanced settings' sections of the Option menu. In the Virus Vault you may see the quarantined executables and possibly 'restoring' them and at this point there may be an option to set an 'exception'. Hopefully this particular AVG article on .'How to exclude a file..' will work.

The latest versions of the CMx1 series (CMBO 1.12, CMBB & CMAK 1.04) should work with Windows 7. Sometimes you may have to set 'affinity' for the game (from the Task Manager or some other special app) to have it play at a normal speed. Also graphical fog is NOT seen in Windows Vista and later. The 'effect' of fog is there, but its graphical representation is not visible with either Nvidia or AMD based video cards. The campaign system for CMx1 is different from CMx2's. In CMx1 it is typically one large map that gets progressively played on. There are no 'core units' and you don't gain any 'experience levels' or anything of that sort. They are essentially extended battles. I suggest downloading the demos (CMBB, CMAK and CMBO ) see how well they function with your computer. Most issues should be seen with the demos, though there is no campaign play in any of them.

I'm not absolutely sure on this, but I believe that the Steam release of PT Boats is Akella's support responsibility. Battlefront is listed as the 'publisher' of the game, but I don't believe it was involved with the Steam release of the game. Unfortunately I'm not sure how easy it may be to contact Akella support regarding the PT Boats series. The last patches for PT Boats came out in Dec. 2010 (with the Steam release being fully up-to-date at the time of publishing for that distributor), so there is no further development/patch work being done on the game. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the 'wobble of the ocean'. This could be just the way that the water displays as programmed or it may possibly be some issue with a video driver or setting, I'm not sure. Is there a particular YouTube video that shows this effect ? Do you see it in this particular game play trailer ?: http://youtu.be/taE9YnGE17k Is the game being run in DirectX 9.0 or 10 mode ?

I'm not certain, but I believe with some of the earlier TOW series games that you may get a bit better performance by setting the 'affinity'. To do this you would have to launch the game and get into the 3D portion of the game. Once there Alt-Tab out of the game to minimize it and then Ctrl-Alt-Del and select 'Start Task Manager'. In here go to the 'Processes' tab and find the TOW.exe (or possibly '.bin' file) and right-click on this listing. This will bring up a popup menu. Select 'Set Affinity...' and in here UNCHECK '<All Processors>' and checkmark the box next to 'CPU 3' or some other CPU core (preferably one that isn't busy - checking in the 'Performance' tab). I'm not certain if later patches to the TOW 2 and 3 series reduced the possible benefits to doing this or not. The GeForce GTX 770 should be able to handle the TOW game engine with ease, but if that still isn't doing it for you, then turning off the shadows in the game should increase the framerate significantly.