Madmatt

If you already have an in progress 1.03beta game you should be okay without converting it first. Madmatt

Actually that behavior was added shortly after the last public beta was released. So MikeyD, I guess you are a slacker of a beta-tester after all? Madmatt

Just corrected some misdirected links so if you tried those pages above and it didn't work just try again and be sure to refresh the page. Madmatt

As the topic says, both the Battlefront and CDV 1.03 patches are now ready for your consuption. Get the Battlefront patch from here: http://www.battlefront.com/products/cmbb/downloads.html Get the CDV Multilingual patch from here: CDV's Combat Mission 2 Official Site BE SURE YOU HAVE ALREADY UPGRADED TO 1.02 BEFORE YOU PATCH TO 1.03. PATCHES MUST BE INSTALLED IN ORDER!!!! I would also suggest you rename your existing CMBB .exe file before patching so you can always load the old version if you need to. NOTE: If you have the 1.03 Public Beta currently installed you should still install this patch (You can install it right over top) as this patch includes a few new items over the beta version. CMBB Patch Version 1.03 May 15, 2003 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Readme INDEX: > Important Patch Version Note > What Version of CMBB Do I Have? > Version Compatibility Note > In Progress PBEM Procedure > v1.03 Patch Changes > Patch History > Manual Errata > Troubleshooting Guide IMPORTANT PATCH VERSION NOTE * This v1.03 patch must be applied to a copy of the game that has ALREADY been patched to v1.02. It will not work on v1.0 or v1.01. Please review the "WHAT VERSION OF CMBB DO I HAVE" section below to see what game version you currently have installed. WHAT VERSION OF CMBB DO I HAVE? * You can check the version number by running the game and looking at the lower right corner of the Main Menu screen. The current version is listed there. VERSION COMPATIBILITY NOTE: * Games saved in v1.03 can't be loaded in by older versions. If you are playing others by email or TCP/IP, make sure you all upgrade to v1.03. IN PROGRESS PBEM PROCEDURE Transferring PBEM files from Version 1.0/1.01/1.02 to Version 1.03: 1.. In CMBB versions 1.0/1.01 or version 1.02, load the pbem file. In an orders phase, save the pbem file as a saved game by clicking on the little "SAVE" button on the command bar at the bottom of the screen. 2.. Exit the battle 3.. Repeat Step 1 for all pbem files you wish to convert. 4.. Install the 1.03 patch 5.. Open CMBB Version 1.03 6.. Open the saved game file from step 1. 7.. Choose Email as the startup option for the saved game. 8.. Place your orders as you normally would in a PBEM, and press "GO" 9.. Congratulations! You have now converted your pbem file. 10.. Repeat as necessary for any in progress game you wish to upgrade.. Once the file has been converted to version 1.03, it cannot be reopened in earlier versions. --------------------- v1.03 Changes --------------------- * PBEM games in progress must be saved as save-game files and reloaded into v1.03 before PBEM can continue. MODIFICATIONS: * Ordnance aims better at soft targets just behind the crest of a ridge (i.e. on a reverse slope). * Simulate tendency of uncapped AP ammo to shatter on high-hardness Russian armor (plates of 60mm or less, generally). This reduces, for example, the ability of the German 37mm gun to penetrate the T-34. * Russian blunt-nose APBC ammo is reduced in effectiveness versus homogenous armor (e.g. Tiger, late StuG III) but increased versus face-hardened armor (some Pz IV, early/mid StuG III). * TacAI is smarter about having a tank prioritize facing its front armor toward an enemy before opening fire on that enemy, if getting the front armor oriented is more helpful than shooting. * Chance of permanent immobilization after bogging is slightly lowered. * Very slight reduction to tungsten penetration values, and a slight increase in the TacAI willingness to use tungsten even if the weapon has a large amount of AP on hand. * Wooden buildings are more flammable. * Vehicles are more likely to burn when knocked out. * Minor TacAI tweaks. * When ordered to button up, a tank commander will not self-unbutton for a minimum of one full minute. UNIT DATA CHANGES/FIXES/ADDITIONS: * BA-20 armor sloped and increased to 10mm. * Romanian 81mm mortar has correct blast value. * Several Romanian aircraft added and data updated. * For the British 2-pounder tank cannon, Soviets receive HE ammo starting April 1943, and APHV ammo (standard AP shot but with slightly increased muzzle velocity) from January through May 1943 (switch to APCBC after). * Soviet 45mm antitank gun and 76.2mm ZiS-3 field gun may use canister ammunition. * Regimental SMG Company added to Soviet Guards Infantry TO&E. * Minor changes to some aircraft data. BUG FIXES: * Captured units may not "follow vehicle". * Escaped prisoners don't show their former weapons in the "gun rack" interface. * Icon/profile graphics added for BT-2, Pz 38(t) E/G and Vanatorul de care R-35. * Position of MG gunner in SPW 251/16 adjusted slightly. * The 'short' 75mm German gun can knock out a wooden bunker. * AAA vehicles fire at aircraft correctly. * Hungarian M39 rifle has proper graphics. * Small fixes made to models for Valentine III, Matilda II, SPW 251/16, and BT-7M. * German 28mm Heavy Antitank Rifle graphical model is larger. * Corrected a problem where a waypoint added by the TacAI in avoiding an obstacle could "float" above the ground. * Troops imported into a QB have ammo reloaded but only to the percentage set in the QB parameters. * Corrected a rare problem where it was possible to discover unspotted barbed wire with the LOS tool if the wire was placed near a boundary of woods and other terrain. * Prisoners will not cause units to balk at "friendly fire" (this prevents a gamey issue). * Random settings in the QB generator won't combine armor force types with division types that have no armor (like Partisans). * Corrected a problem that sometimes caused two players in an operation to be shown different victory results. * Fixed a rare problem where a unit could fire a heavy weapon and not show muzzle flash/smoke. * Soviet crews show the proper Soviet pistol graphic. * Corrected a problem that sometimes caused a fire to grow larger (or not) depending on how many times the action was replayed. * Corrected a problem where a split squad could replenish more "healed wounded" casualties between battles in an operation than they should, resulting in an "extra man". * Fixed a rare problem that could cause loading a PBEM file to crash the game. * Corrected a problem where the casualty tally could be slightly incorrect in cases where a PBEM game was ended by a cease-fire or surrender in a turn where a vehicle or gun crew was just about to bail out. * Corrected a problem in the 'gun rack' interface that would sometimes not show the right MGs for a misidentified vehicle. * Split squads don't have direct negative effects on global morale or victory points. * Split squads don't cause large miscounts of casualties at end of battle. * Somua S-35 model places passengers properly. * When you 'reset' an artillery strike it remembers whether the original plan was for a wide pattern or not. * Fixed a FOW issue showing optics info for not-fully-identified vehicles. * Fixed a bug where vehicles would occasionally 'miss' a nearby waypoint and have to turn around in a tight space to reach it. * StuG IV gun won't depress into the hull when the vehicle is knocked out. * Vehicles that TacAI-retreat from a threat stop hiding. * For orders delay, a tank's in-leadership status is properly remembered across saves and reloads of the game. * Artillery aiming error is "reset" properly when you retarget out of LOS. * Corrected a bug in the TacAI hunting logic when smoke shells are available. * Changing targets and then switching back to the original target (all before clicking GO) won't forget target acquisition levels. * (French version) In editor, the Operations Parameters screen, the Battle Window size control has its "minus" button. Madmatt p.s. Now onward to CMAK!!! [ June 06, 2003, 12:22 PM: Message edited by: Madmatt ]

Make sure and totally remove any old driver remnants. There are several utilities available at www.guru3d.com that will allow you to do that. Next, install the 30.82 drivers (other more recent drivers will work but you may need to disable FSAA so thats why I still recommend 30.82 which have no issues). Make sure and delete the CM Prefs file then go ahead and relaunch the game. My guess is you have some old driver remnants still resident which are causing the conflict. Madmatt

Alt-Tab in and out and the changed elevations will be displayed. Seems to be a Anti-Aliasing issue. Madmatt

We understand and appreciate the pains some people have to go through in order to play CM as intended. You need to understand that in the case of Nvidia and ATI both companies have repeatedly admitted to us that the various faults reported here are the cause of their drivers and not our internal graphics code. Even if we were to code a workaround to compensate for a specific issue (which there is no guarantee we could even do) that does not guarantee that a new driver release from the video card company would not break the fix all over again. Look at the history of the Nvidia drivers. Prior to version 30.82 there were driver releases that worked perfectly well and then others that broke FSAA. With the release of 30.82 and 30.87 Nvidia addressed all the issues and they worked great. With 41.09 they again broke FSAA. Later drivers also created severe framerate loss (a problem encountered by many other games I might add) until just a few weeks ago they released 44.03 which fixed the framerate issue but still did not compensate for the FSAA bug. As a small developer we have to get the very most out of our patch releases and we simply can not continually dedicate time and effort to releasing numerous driver workaround technical patches especially when the video card makers do not provide any roadmap on when new drivers will be released and what, if any, issues they can cause or fix. The claim that "these drivers work for all my games" really doesnt mean anything. You do not own ALL games that are out there but I can ensure you that CMBB is NOT the only game in which any given driver has problems with. As said above, our code is the constant here. The various drivers are the variable and therin is where the problems exist. CM's core code (on the PC) was written from the ground up to conform with Microsofts standards for a DirectDraw application. Unfortuantely many videocard makers like to play fast and loose with those standards in order to eeck out every once of performance of their drivers. The result is that often certain features become broke. While Battlefront does have a working relationship with both Nvidia and ATI they are not always too quick to address the issues that crop up. All we can do is continue to report the issues to them and be hopefull that future driver releases resolve them. If ATI and Nvidias drivers are so stable and bug free, why do they both release so many new versions seemingly every month? There is an assumption here that we are just sitting back when a new driver issue is reported and say "Whelp, its up to them to fix!", but that is not true. Everytime I get a report of some technical issue I conduct internal and external testing and research to properly indentify the problem and where the issue lies. When the problem is found to be in the drivers we then contact the video companies and we proceed from there with trying to get them to issue a fix in a future driver release. Some of the issues we have indentified in the past with various drivers and reported back to the manufacturers include: * Z-Mask sorting order out of synch * Anti-Aliasing not properly reinitializing when in a mixed 2D and 3D environment. * Mipmap level corruption * DirectDraw screen refresh failures * Misallocations of available VRAM * Miscalculations/reporting of available VRAM All of those issues above (and there are many more) were core driver function call issues and not something we could have coded around. In the end, we want you the gamer to enjoy our games with whatever hardware and software you have installed but the era of driver unification and support is still a distant dream. We will however continue to do whatever is within our means to make our games as troublefree as we can and when troubles do surface we will maintain our commitment to getting them resolved as best we can and passing that info on to you. Thank you for your time. Madmatt [ May 29, 2003, 03:20 PM: Message edited by: Madmatt ]

The official 1.03 patch (both Battlefront and CDV versions) is undergoing final QA and preperations for release. It is to be a coordinated release with Battlefront and CDV versions being released at the same time (or as close as the internet allows). I have no firm release date for you to give but it should not be much longer. Madmatt

You were warned two hours ago to stop spamming and posting pointless posts. Since this post has come in AFTER that warning you are hereby banned for continued spamming. Madmatt

Matt, the new driver has a setting under AA that says "application". It seems to help the image quality and I do not get the text problems. Sparklies are gone, and the equipment detail is much sharper. It may be wishful thinking, but I wonder if nVidia put that setting in as a work around to allow programs like CMBB more direct control over the way AA is used. </font>

These drivers seem to work pretty good but they still suffer from the same old FSAA bug that have been in all Nvidia drivers since 41.92. To get around that, just disable FSAA in the Nvidia control panel or as others report above you can alt-tab out and back in to the game whenever you notice the text not being displayed. Madmatt

You may want to check the updated Troubleshooting Guide for CMBB as I cover some possible fixes for the layering and text corruption problems. Still, the Kyro chipset is not a very good choice for games and you would be better served with a newer card. Madmatt

Works for me, what other parameters do you have set in your battle? What is the region, year, month etc...? Madmatt

The new official 44.03 Nvidia drivers (released a recently) fix the framerate issue. FSAA is still broke but that is easy to work around. Madmatt

Just to confirm that my own testing has also shown that the framerate slowdown issue is resolved with these new 44.03 series drivers. While the Anti-Aliasing issue is still evident it is easily worked around. Be sure to play with the Antitropic Filtering setting to see even better quality graphics in game. Madmatt

Please be sure to reviews the online Troubleshooting Guides for CMBO and CMBB before you post a question here. They are both updated frequently and now contain info regarding the newly released Special Edition versions of each game. Here are the links to the guides: Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord Troubleshooting Guide Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin Troubleshooting Guide Note 11-12-2003: I just updated these guides with some new issues and fixes and also indexed them a little better to make it easier to search for your particular problem. Madmatt [ November 13, 2003, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: Madmatt ]

I did some tests on this just to be sure and from what I can see it's not that accuracy is diminished (which should have no effect since a FO can even DIE after the first rounds hit now) but rather a smoke pattern is a little thicker than a normal HE pattern. This is done to ensure proper coverage of the intended area and to try and guarantee full smoke coverage. I tested this by comparing the fall of HE shells and smoke shells targeted into the same area. The smoke shells all landed within the area of the HE shells (between the North and Southmost HE round impacts) but they extended about double the thickness of the East and Westernmost shells. Due to the limited duration of smoke plums I think you will want this overlap to help keep the target area covered/obscured. Madmatt

I can! I'll post a bone when I have one to post. Madmatt

No new models this time around. Patch should be less than three megs in size or approximately the same size as the current 1.03 public beta. Closing this thread up now. When we have an update to report on the 1.03 status, we will make it. Madmatt

It's not your fault that CompUSA carried the CDV European version by mistake. You should keep your copy wihout guilt. You will need to use the CDV European versions of the patches though, not the US patches. As to the lack of campaign mode, no version of CMBB has a campaign mode, CMBB uses Operations which are linked battles. Madmatt

The new CMBO Special Edition retail version which should hit US stores any day now will already be patched up to 1.12. You wont need to patch it further. Madmatt

As soon as the 1.03 beta patch is done being tested we will release the official 1.03 patch in both CDV and Battlefront flavors. ETA, when its ready. Madmatt

This really should be posted in the Tech Support forum. What is happening in one of two things. #1 is that your new CD drive is having a problem reading the outer sectors of the CMBB CD. Some Cd drives have difficulty with CD as filled up ( as the CMBB disc. Does your new computer have a second CD drive you can try and install from? If so try that. Another option is to try and copy the complete install.exe file from the cd to your hard drive and then run the install from there. #2 Check the CD to make sure there are no scratches or surface blemishes, if you see any clean the CD as best you can and try to reinstall. Madmatt

This really should be posted in the Tech Support forum. What is happening in one of two things. #1 is that your new CD drive is having a problem reading the outer sectors of the CMBB CD. Some Cd drives have difficulty with CD as filled up ( as the CMBB disc. Does your new computer have a second CD drive you can try and install from? If so try that. Another option is to try and copy the complete install.exe file from the cd to your hard drive and then run the install from there. #2 Check the CD to make sure there are no scratches or surface blemishes, if you see any clean the CD as best you can and try to reinstall. Madmatt

We have forums setup solely for the purposes of finding online games. Please use them instead of posting here. Madmatt