NameLessOne

I've posted about this before, but my system has changed somewhat since then, and the problem persists. I have a Powermac 8500 with a Powerlogix G3 upgrade runnning at 320 MHz. It has 240 MB RAM, two 4 GB HDD's, an 8x CD-ROM, and an ATI Xclaim 3D+ video card (w/ 8MB RAM). I recently upgraded to MacOS 9.0.4, but I had exactly the same problem with 8.1. Oh, and yes, I do have the latest drivers from ATI (I tried some older drivers, too, but that didn't help). When I first got CM, it ran fine. when I installed the G3 ugrade a few weeks later, CM still ran fine. For the past two months, however, I've been unable to play it at all, and I don't know what changed to cause this problem. What happens is this: I can start up a game (quick battle or scenario - I haven't tried operations yet), and during the deployment phase, after about a minute, the game quits with an error 13. This happens regardless of what screen resolution I use, or what version of CM I use. I've tried turning off the G3's backside cache (no effect), turning off virtual memory (no effect) and increasing CM's memory allotment (no effect). If I skip the deployment phase (just press GO as soon as the game starts), then I can play for a few turns (much more than a minute), but eventually the game will quit. I'm guessing that this has something to do with my video card, because Bugdom and Nanosaur (the only other 3D intensive games that I have) also exhibit this behavior. They run for a minute or so, then quit. (they both did this with 8.1 as well) The change that I've made since my first post on this topic is that I swapped my old 1 GB HDD for a 4 GB HDD, and I upgraded from system 8.1 to 9.0.4 (clean install). I hoped that this would fix things, but it hasnt helped at all. Does anyone have any ideas on what might be causing this problem?

I'm trying to play CM on my Powermac 8500 with G3 upgrade. Every time I try to play a game, CM quits after 30 seconds (or so) claiming that an error of type 13 occurred. It doesn't matter what screen resolution I use. It doesn't matter wether Virtual memory is on or not. It doesn't matter wether the G3's backside cache is enabled or not. It doesn't matter what version of CM I use (I've tried 1.00, 1.03, 1.04, and 1.05; each with 80000K allocated to it). All permutations that I can think of have exhibited this behavior. Here's my system: Powermac 8500/120 w/ Powerlogix G3/320 upgrade 240 MB RAM MacOS 8.1 ATI XCLAIM+ w/ 8MB RAM (ATI driver version 2.7.1) CM was working fine until fairly recently. The only thing I can think of that has changed is that I ran Norton's Speed disk. Any ideas as to what's going on?

I would be happy to lose my first PBEM game to you. Is this to be a ladder game, or just practice? I'll play any scenario (DYO or otherwise), any side, and any weather condition. Full FOW of course. Have your people email my people and we can set something up.

Increasing CM's assigned memory was the first thing I tried. It didn't help. I dropped my screen resolution from 1152x870 down to 1024x768, and this has helped. I played through about ten turns of one game without a problem (I had to quit after that to go to work). Is this some problem where CM is unexpectedly running out of video memory? CM FEATURE REQUEST: can there be a preferences setting somewhere so that CM can automatically switch to a preset screen resolution (and back again), so that I can keep my 'desktop' resolution at 1152x870, but still run CM at 1024x768? Thanks for your attention, Charles.

Update: Just for fun (actually, it was out of desperation), I moved my monitor connection over to the built in video on my 8500's motherboard to see if CM would run without the ATI card. It does! It's slow and doesn't look all that nice, but it doesn't crash. It seems to be something relating to the ATI card, but, as I said before, the gold demo ran just fine with it.

This sounds like the same problem that I'm having with my PM 8500 (as posted in a diferent thread). I'm using an ATI XCLAIM 3D+ video card at 1152x870 resolution. I've tried the latest ATI drivers, too, but that hasn't fixed the problem.

Updating my ATI drivers didn't fix the problem, but it did change it somewhat. Instead of hanging up my system after five seconds or so after starting the scenario, my system doesn't hang for ten or fifteen seconds now. At least I get to press a key or two and look at a couple of units.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I'm running system 8.1, and that I do have the latest version of gamesprockets.

I just recieved the retail version of CM (yay!) and installed it on my PM 8500 w/ 120 MB RAM (virtual memory off) and ATI XCLAIM+ video card. The gold demo ran fine on this machine, but the full version (with or without the patch) hangs after starting a scenario. The game will show me the map and all of the units and I can hear the background noises for about five seconds, then my machine hangs. I've already removed the extensions that were added to my system since playing the gold demo, but that hasn't helped. Any ideas?

I was reading the other thread about artillery effectiveness, when a question occured to me: if two (or more) FO's are targetting the same location, how can they tell wether the shells that are hitting (or missing) are from their guns and not from the other guy's? Wouldn't the FO's get confused by the other's shells? Just wondering.

The gold demo on my aging PM8500 w/ 8MB ATI Rage Pro card is a little choppy, but playable. I can (and will!) play the full release version on this system.

The gold demo on my aging PM8500 w/ 8MB ATI Rage Pro card is a little choppy, but playable. I can (and will!) play the full release version on this system.

I thought that you folks at BTS might be interested to know that the gold demo runs just fine on my (relatively low end) Powermac 8500. Here's the system: PM 8500/150 32 MB RAM (128 MB w/ virtual memory ON) ATI Xclaim 3D+ w/ 8 MB VRAM (1152 x 870) MacOS 8.1 The frame rate during replay isn't what I would call 'smooth', but the game is eminently playable. Even the choppiness of moving around the battlefield isn't enought to be annoying. BTS has done a great job! I hope you're all plannning a big vacation (with your significant others), 'cause you certainly deserve one!

There are several issues that keep coming up over and over again. While I enjoy the discussion, it is getting a little tiresome to see the same things rehashed (I applaud BTS for their patience in dealing with these threads!). I'm thinking that maybe a summary of the reasoning behind these design choices could be included in the FAQ so that those who are new to this board (and game reviewers in particular) could at least understand that these things have already been considered. It probably won't change anyone's opinion, but it might cut down on the number of times that these issues are raised here, and if they are, we can say "read the FAQ" instead of occupying BTS's time by rehashing old arguments. I'm especially concerned about the people who will review CM for their respective publications. They may not have time (or interest) to 'unlearn' their wargame habits, and may cite these issues as reasons for not recommending CM. If they had a better idea of what to expect the gameplay to be (and why), they might be more likely to write an objective review. The preview at Games Domain, for example, while generally positive, mentioned a few concerns which have been argued on this board before (and currently). I think it's important that they have an answer to these concerns before they write their reviews. I don't expect that many (if any!) reviewers will bother to search this message board to see why certain features are (or ar not) implenented. Most reviewers would, at least, read the FAQ. I'm just trying to think of easy ways to answer the most common questions and design concerns before they become yet another lengthy thread or, worse, a bad review.

Shift-click has another interpretation on the Mac. Option-click is how this behavior is more generally implemented.