Madmatt

Don't forget the garlic butter! Madmatt

Andreas, after looking back at your performance in the earlier beta tests I have run, you would know this how exactly? As has been said above, Beta-Testers are chosen, by me, and no amount of begging pleading or listing out your qualifications matters one little bit to me. When the time comes, and if I want you, will hear from me. If not, well I guess you can have the honor and privilege of purchasing the game, just like the rest of the unwashed masses. Madmatt

Those error files may not necessarily indicate the current issue you are seeing. I would suggest uninstalling the game and reinstalling. Before you reinstall though, be sure and clean out your Windows Temp folder. This should ensure a clean install. Also, manually check to make sure all the old T-72 files are deleted before you reinstall. Some people that reported problems with startup were able to reinstall and have the game launch properly in the past. Also, although you said you were able to view the intro movie, I would suggest installing the DivX codec from the T-72 installer menu.

Sure, mods are not only allowed but encouraged. Go ahead and tell the guys about how to change the music if you want. Madmatt

Just a brief clarification about overclocking and T-72. There is nothing specific about T-72 thats makes it any more or less stable with an overclocked system. We have seen people that overclock their CPU's by more than 10% with no crashes as all the same as some people that don't overclock have had no freezes. The comment is a general one in that with ANY overclocked system, stablity with any given application is somewhat suspect. I have an overclocked system which I have tested T-72 with that has never crashed on me, so as with any overclocking situaiton, your milage may vary. Once more, I want to express my appreciation for all the input you guys have been giving. It has helped us try and better isolate the issue. Hopefully, I will have some more info shortly. Madmatt

We appreciate all the time people are spending trying out various suggestions and reporting back. Just one comment about whats being sent in and reported. ALL info is valuable, even the overclocking type stuff because it is possible that while different people encounter basically the same type freeze, it could be manifested by a variety of different issues. For that reason, keep on sending in what you see because as minor as you might think it is, it does help us pinpoint the trouble or rule out other possible avenues to pursue. Madmatt

Thanks klugman, the more info we get like this the more I can work with the devs to try and pinpoint exactly the root cause and get it fixed. Madmatt

g5r, Obviously they have development boxes and on those systems the game does not crash. The biggest issue at play here is that they haven't been able to replicate the crashes in their testing conditions however, they simply don't have access to the wide array of systems and configurations that you guys all have and since your the ones seeing the freezes, it is your help that we seek. The game is not a beta, the problem encountered, while certainly severe for those that see it, is still in the vast minority of those that own the game. So, do you want to try and be part of the solution or would you prefer to contribute nothing at all here? Madmatt

Fixed. HTML reactivated. Now go and drink your warm glasses of shut the hell up! Madmatt

To answer the question posed in your topic header... Hmm...Apparently not.. Weird. Will have to look into that once I give a shi... err get a moment. Madmatt

One thing I forgot to mention is that if you reply to this thread with info, please be sure and post your full system specs in each of your posts (what hardware you have etc...) so we can keep track of what people with different systems are seeing. Thanks! Madmatt

For anyone having the freeze problem, please review my latest sticky post and try out my first batch of suggestions. I want to keep all messages on this issue in one place so i am closing this thread down now. Madmatt

Guys, please review my sticky post and try out my first batch of suggestions and let me know what you find. Please reply to that thread as I want to keep everything in one place. Thanks! Madmatt

First off I want to comment briefly on the overall freeze issue issue several of you are encountering. CrazyHouse (the games developer) is aware that the game is freezing up on you and are committed to finding and fixing this matter as quickly as they can. Battlefront.com has also expressed our own desire to get this freezing problem worked out in the most efficient way possible. I will be posting to this thread with any new info and data as I get it. This will be your main contact point from now on with regards to this matter. Currently, they (CrazyHouse and their main contact IDDK) have still not been able to reliably replicate the freeze issue on their development systems but myself and their programmers have looked over all the posts here and in email, reviewed the hardware that is in the systems of those that have encountered the freeze issue and came up with a preliminary collection of some things we would like you all to try and then have you report back with what you find. Please note, This is going to be an interactive process with me posting info and tweaks as I get them and hopefully you replying with changes in the games' behavior that you see or any progress that you encounter. I will be checking in daily with any new info I get from the Dev's or with my own testing and work. I understand that you are not beta testers, nor do we expect you to act like ones, however the reality of the situation is that CrazyHouse is a very small Ukrainian based development house with a small, albeit committed, team of programmers that don't have access to the scope and scale of computer systems that you all have. Yes, they are working on this issue (and some other items as well) themselves but we can greatly help accelerate this process with your aid by getting this issue properly diagnosed and id'd so they can fix it and if we can find a workaround or tweak ourselves than so much the better. So, let us begin. After reviewing the hardware specs of all the people that have reported a game freeze one very obvious commonality was shown. Although not all, but surely the vast majority of you have Creative Labs Audigy sound cards. With that in mind, and based on experiences with many other games that had sound configuration issues I suggest that you all make the following changes to see it affects the frequency of lockups. Try and reduce the overall Direct Sound Acceleration level Windows is running. This is done in the following way. Click the Start button, then select the RUN option and in the field type DXDIAG. That should launch the DirectX diagnostic program. With that open, click the "Sound" tab. Near the bottom you will see a slider bar where you can select the sound acceleration level that Windows is running. First, slide it one 'notch' to the left, so that its set at "Standard Acceleration". Now, click the Exit button to leave the application and reboot. Reload T-72 and play and see if the freezes continue to persist. If they do, re-access the DXDiag program, and lower the acceleration level one more notch to "Basic Acceleration", exit and reboot and launch the game again. Please make note if the crashes persist or if they seem to take longer to occur or any other changes you might encounter. What we want to determine is not if this change will fix it, but rather if it affects the problem at all or not so that the Dev's can then isolate and resolve the problem in the game code. We don't expect people to run their computers with no Hardware sound acceleration but it is a useful diagnostic tool. Please let me know what you see by replying to this thread. One non-hardware specific possibility that the Dev's are looking into is that another program or application is trying to steal the 'focus' from the game while it is running and thereby causing a system conflict and triggering a freeze. As mentioned in another thread here in this forum, we highly recommend using a program called "ENDITALL" (now up to version 2) which allows you to view and selectively shut down any and all applications running on your computer. I use this program a great deal myself but you should be careful with it as it's easy to shut down a critical program. Obtaining this program used to be simple but I could only find it available for free from one site currently which was this one: http://www.docsdownloads.com/Tier1/enditall.htm I am not sure if it is in fact still free nor do I make any claims about the website that is hosting it so as with any program downloaded from the Internet, use it at your own risk. I strongly suggest you read the included HELP info that is accessed from within the program itself before you go shutting down things but it is another very powerful diagnostic tool. A good rule of thumb is to only shutdown applications that appear within EndItAll's Status window WITHOUT a padlock. That tells you that it is not a critical or needed system program and can be "killed" (terminated) usually without any ill effect. In order to use this program for our needs I suggest that you run Enditall before launching T-72, and be sure that only windows specific functions are running. You should also manually shutdown any other programs that could be running in the background including Virus-Checkers, Browsers, Email Clients, Instant Messengers and similar. Then use Enditall to clean up the rest. Please report back if you notice any specific application that, when killed, seems to allow T-72 to run longer (or forever) without a freeze and let us know what it is as well. In conjunction with the normal everyday background applications that can cause lockups in games, the Dev's actually did encounter something else which they are looking into. Apparently, while demoing the game at a convention on another computer system they encountered a game freeze, very similar to what you have seen. When they investigated further they determined that it was actually a piece of spyware on the demo system that was triggering the freeze. Once they removed the spyware the game ran all day without crashing. As such, they want all systems that are encountering freezes to be scanned and cleaned of spyware, adware and malware. To facilitate that I STRONGLY suggest two products. The first is Ad-Aware SE (v1.06), from Lavasoft which can be download for free from this site: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,7423,00.asp Conveniently, on that very same page is a link to download the second program that I recommend. That one is called SpyBot Search & Destroy v1.03. Both programs are free and amazingly easy to run and are pretty self explanatory. They are also updated frequently with new program definition files which you can automatically download and install. Install them both, run Ad-Aware, have it scan your system fully and them remove all the spyware and adware it finds. Then reboot and run SpyBot Search & Destroy and have it run its' scan. Those two programs used in conjunction like that will find most every sneaky program your computer may have been exposed to and you will be amazed at what they report. Try them out, then run T-72 and again report back what you find or any changes in the game. Finally, I just want to express my appreciation for your help in this. Even though it has been said that the vast majority of people with T-72 do not encounter freezes this is a matter that DOES concern us greatly. You all bought the game, paid your hard earned money for it and now for some of you it's not working. Don't for a minute think that we don't realize how frustrating and annoying that is for you and we ARE working on getting this fixed for you. Some of you may be new to Battlefront and how we do business, others are not, but you need to know that we stand by our word. Regardless of where and who coded T-72, it's got our name on it and we, and I will work with you guys to get this issue figured out. Thanks, and let me know what you find with this first batch of suggestions. Madmatt

We plan on announcing the subject matter for the 1st and 2nd CMx2 games in a few weeks. Screen shots and other visual materials will accompany the announcement. But until then, we'd like to talk about some of the game stuff in general terms prior to getting into discussions tied to specific subject matter. Our thinking is that once we've revealed the subject matter we'll likely get swamped with questions about how this or that detail will work rather than Big Picture stuff. Right now, at the point of development we are at, the Big Picture is more important to us and we'd like to pick your brains about a few things in particular. Plenty of time for discussing nitty gritty stuff afterwards. For those of you who aren't aware, CMx2 is a ground up game engine based on the concepts of CMx1 (CMBO/CMBB/CMAK). The main goal of this new engine is to provide us with the ability to cover a wider range of subject matter in a shorter period of time with greater depth than was possible with the old system. Oh yeah, and we've made the game's graphical environment cutting edge too. We're curious to know what you guys think are the top 5 things you don't want to see changed from CMx1 and the top 5 things you want CMx2 to do differently. Please keep it to a 5 and 5 only because we're going to tabulate the answers and anything over 5 will be ignored. Also keep the list of things to game mechanics and NOT nitty gritty details. Example of what we're looking for: I'd like to have a campaign system where I shepherd a core group of units from battle to battle This is not what we're looking for: I want the chin armor of the Tiger 1E to be simulated so that it has more detailed armor ratings The first kind of comment is quite valuable to us because it is about the game system. And since we are coding up a game system, these sorts of things are obviously good for us to keep in mind. Specific comments about armor on this or that tank, the look of a particular small arm, or the type of underwear worn by SS Hampstertruppen is really uninteresting and rather worthless. Without the proper context such detail type suggestions are worthless. So for that sort of stuff please hold off until we have are actively discussing that specific setting. And especially do NOT sound off about what setting you'd like to see. We've already made decisions for the first two games that are irreversible, so there is absolutely no point in voicing that sort of an opinion. Since this question is sure to come up, I'll ask and answer it right now: "How much influence do you gamers have over the shape of CMx2's first release?". Well, since we're about 2 years into coding and are expecting to finish up in early 2006, the honest answer is "not much". So why bother asking you guys what you think? Think of this as a last chance double check. The CMx2 design is a culmination of 9 years worth of work and about 8 years of online discussions with you guys. We should be pretty much on the mark because we HAVE been paying attention all along. However, if we find ourselves seriously offbase in a particular area, now is the time to figure that out. We can still make a significant course correction or redirect some development effort towards one feature vs. another if we see the need for it. In the end you must remember that game design is not a democratic process. To put it in feudal terms... we are enlightened monarchs, you are the loyal subjects It is in our best interests to please you and keep you from stabbing us with pitchforks, but in the end we're in charge and we call the shots. And that is as it should be. Anybody that has experienced "design by committee" projects knows exactly what we mean. We didn't fall into this trap with CMx1 and we won't do it with CMx2. Yet in both cases your feedback is critically important and that is why we're asking for it. So let rip with the 5 and 5 lists!! [ August 24, 2005, 10:35 PM: Message edited by: Madmatt ]

We plan on announcing the subject matter for the 1st and 2nd CMx2 games in a few weeks. Screen shots and other visual materials will accompany the announcement. But until then, we'd like to talk about some of the game stuff in general terms prior to getting into discussions tied to specific subject matter. Our thinking is that once we've revealed the subject matter we'll likely get swamped with questions about how this or that detail will work rather than Big Picture stuff. Right now, at the point of development we are at, the Big Picture is more important to us and we'd like to pick your brains about a few things in particular. Plenty of time for discussing nitty gritty stuff afterwards. For those of you who aren't aware, CMx2 is a ground up game engine based on the concepts of CMx1 (CMBO/CMBB/CMAK). The main goal of this new engine is to provide us with the ability to cover a wider range of subject matter in a shorter period of time with greater depth than was possible with the old system. Oh yeah, and we've made the game's graphical environment cutting edge too.

Also make sure you install the DivX codec which you can do from the main installer program. While there are people with issues in the game, (which I will be addressing very shortly in a new sticky thread) those problems are not with it not launching but freezing so your problem is not quite the same. Madmatt

We are excited to announce that Down in Flames has just gone gold! Pre-orders open immediately, and the game is expected to ship within 4-6 weeks. The price is $35 plus S&H. This includes free online play and free monthly content upgrades (new playable aircraft, new campaigns, new rules and features). [ Pre-Order Down in Flames Here!!! }

Tarball, It does neither of us any good for you to have paid for a game that doesn't work. Please email me directly at matt@battlefront.com and we can figure something out. Madmatt

Tarball, It does neither of us any good for you to have paid for a game that doesn't work. Please email me directly at matt@battlefront.com and we can figure something out. Madmatt

All wars are horrid, terrible, often unnecessary and despicable events/ However, we are in the business of publishing GAMES, not geopolitical treatises. You got a beef about what happened, take it up with the UN, or your own ineffectual government, not us. As we clearly indicated, the game is a FICTIONAL account of a volunteer Russian tank crew. I am sure your past experiences were horrible, but they have nothing to do with us, our company or this game. Oh, and your banned for dropping the F-Bomb! Madmatt [ August 08, 2005, 10:25 AM: Message edited by: Madmatt ]

We have just released a Beta Demo for Down in Flames. Based on the card combat game of the same name, Down in Flames offers innovative gameplay and exciting multiplayer online action. The Demo features the following: 1. Ability to play local and online dogfights. Local games are against the AI, online games are against the AI and/or human opponents. 2. Dogfights can be up to 4 players. 3. Four nationalities (Britain, USA, Germany, Japan). You can have up to 4 pilots per nationality. 4. The aircraft available for pilots to fly in the demo are the Spitfire I(British), Bf-109E (German), P-40N (USA), and Ki-61 (Japan). 5. One campaign available to play (Dunkirk). 6. Pilots gain experience from flying missions and can purchase skills with the XP, which will enhance their abilities in combat. 7. Pilots can earn medals and be promoted to higher rank with successful missions. 8. Online game statistics are tracked and displayed on the web site, so players can compare their pilots with each other. .NET FRAMEWORK REQUIREMENT FOR DEMO PLAY In order for the Down in Flames Beta Demo to play, you must have the Microsoft .Net Framework 1.01 or later installed. If you do not have this already, we have included the install file for you to install it manaually. A link to the .Net Framework installer can be found in the Battlefront\Down in Flames Beta Demo Program Group. If for any reason, you do not want the .NET Framework installed on your computer, DO NOT INSTALL THIS DEMO! IMPORTANT BETA DEMO INFO As this is a beta code demo, no guarantees of performance should be expected or inferred. The Beta Demo is being released to the public in order to test for overall stability, online latency and gameplay. Questions, comments and any reports of glitches, bugs or problems should be made to this forum! Thanks and enjoy the demo! Download the Down in Flames Beta Demo Here!!!!

I thought Team Yankee was kinda lame to be honest, his follow up was "Sword Point", about a war in Iran with Russian, US and Iranian forces was much better. In fact, it's just about my favorite. Other books in my fictional modern collection. Bright Star (so so, details a Engyptian Libyan war with some US forces) The Ten Thousand (Another Coyle book, excellent! My second favorite of his. A US Armored Division must fight its was out of Germany after a new government takes control) Red Phoenix- by Larry Bond, co author of RSR. A good modern Korean tale. Also by Bond were Vortex and Cauldron, which were both good reads. Madmatt

I am helping tanski in email but I wanted evberyone to know how NOT to uninstall the game. T-72 creates many registry entries so whatever you do, do not manaully delete the T-72 game folder if you want to uninstall. You must first run the T-72 uninstall untility that you can access via the Start Menu, THEN you can remove any remaining folders or config files. Failure to do this will leave old registry settings that could cause the game to not reinstall until you manually clear them out using REGEDIT. Madmatt

Do you get this error if you run with the "no video" option? Madmatt