Mikester

Charles/BTS, I'm curious as to how CM handles memory management. In particular, my friend seems to think that CM's memory management is poor based on comparison to other 3D games he has played. I.e. he's hearing his hard drive crunch a lot when loading large maps, etc., as info is apparently being cached to the hard disk. I think the main reason for this is that large maps and high unit counts do indeed require great amounts of memory as previously discussed a number of different times here on the board. His contention is that he believes that other games produced by large game companies vs. good ole little BTS probably have programmers that go in and streamline code, etc., before the game is released in order to improve memory managment, usage, recovery, etc. I tend to think that no such optimiztion is probably being done by the big game companies and that the reason CM "seems" to need a lot of memory is because in fact it does use a lot of memory in order to keep track of all those units, the map terrain features, trees, etc. In other words a large CM map with many units is a totally different beast in terms of memory usage and requirements vs. say a multi-player game of Doom on a "large" Doom map. I believe he is, at least in part, trying to compare apples to oranges and also living under a false belief that big game companies are spending the time and resources to perform some "magical" code massaging to improve memory management and usage. Assuming that such code tweaks and optimizatoins are even practical which based on my programming knowledge and experience they most likely are not. In other words, if a game needs a certain amount of memory then it needs that amount of memory, period. No amount of code streamlining / magical tweaking is likely to change the fact that it does. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks, Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 07-26-2000).]

GB 101, Welcome to the CM world. The MadDog mod's are pretty good. I've installed all of them including the hi-res grass textures. Depending on your system though this might cause things to be too slow. The sound-pack is definitely worth installing in my opinion. If nothing else, I'd highly recommend downloading and installing it. Mikester.

Sounds like this and other gamey scouting issues are going to be addressed by BTS in the upcoming patch as indicated over in the "Gamey Recon" thread. Mikester out.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software: Word back from Charles is that he is going to reduce the ability for a crew to spot enemy units. The new range will be something like 25-50m only. This means that if you do what you are supposed to do with a crew, which is move it to the rear, you will have NO problems. But if you try to move the crew through enemy territory on a scouting mission, it will most likely only spot an enemy unit just as that unit wiped it out. So at best you might spot one enemy squad or MG before losing your expensive crew. While this is not a perfect solution, on balance it is FAR more accurate than the way things are now. And because this is a fairly easy tweak to make, it is the best and most practical solution to put in place at this time. Thanks to everybody for the debate and ideas. This is how CM is made better and better each and every day! Steve<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Dang it. Missed this. I need to start paying more attention I guess. Steve/Charles/BTS glad to see this is being addressed. Please ignore all my other recent ranting and raving today here and on the other thread about bailed out crews. Thanks. Mikester out.

From Scott C in post above: "But, most importantly: I started remembering what I have read. What REALLY happens to tank crews after they bail? They head for the rear 99.9% of the time (literally!). They don't stand beside the infantry and fight, they don't guard POWs for the local infantry commander, they don't stop for ****. They head back to the rear as fast as they can. Nobody has spoken up with any examples that dispute this, nor do I ever expect they will." Scott hits the nail right on the head here. This is exactly what crews did. They were not ordered to go play recon roles and get killed. They went to the rear. Yet CM in all its realism allows players to abuse bailed out crews, use them for recon, etc. And at what amounts to no real penalty for doing so. In my view, this needs to be "fixed" in the game by the game designers. There is very little reason I can see for allowing people the ability to abuse how bailed out crews can be used in the first place when it can most likely quite easily be prevented by implementing design changes to the game. Why allow players the opportunity for unrealistic game play when it can be prevented???? Mike D aka Mikester

Hey Tom, Good to see you back. Don't take any of the following personally. I know it's been discussed. Only thing is little (strictly my opinion here) has been done yet to prevent gamey crap with bailed out crews. Frankly, I don't think Charles/BTS's arguement that you've noted above comes even close to solving all of the gamey issues related to bailed out crews. And if you leave the door open for people to use crews in totally unrealistic manners there are going to be any number of them that are going to be all too happy to do just that. Crews can be as fragile as all hell, damn near totally unarmed, no morale, or whatever, and they can still be sent marching into defensive positions which I'm trying to keep concealed until his real forces come up and make my units expose their positions by firing and/or just plain sight them outright. They likely will die in the process, but the bloody damn damage of giving away my positions is already done and only at the "cost" of losing the crew which any number of folks seem to not care about in the slightest. Granted, this is pretty stupid to do in an op where you might need the crew to reman a tank that gets repaired later on, but in the single battle scenarios people have been using crews in unrealistic manners since the demo and are continuing to do so now. Actually, even in an op I think this might be a problem come to think of it. As the player of the tank/vehicle that got knocked out you know whether it was just abandoned (i.e. might return to service later in the op) vs. just plain knocked out completely (i.e. not coming back at all). Given this and knowing which of your crews just bailed out of vehicles that are totally knocked out these crews could also be sent forward to their deaths in gamey BS moves since the player knows their vehicle is not ever going to return to the op later on. Sorry about all the ranting and raving guys, but I'm starting to see more and more of this occurring and I think something needs to be done about it by the game designers. They might agree and they might not. My main point is why not make it totally impractical/outright impossible for people to abuse how bailed out crews are utilized in the first place. Hopefully this might be being addressed in the soon to come ver1.03 patch. Again, sorry for going off the deep end on this one but when you start to have this gamey stuff pulled on you when you are playing a game it really ticks you off as the defender. Mikester out.

Adding the extra 64MB of memory definitely helped my system with the larger maps / greater numbers of units. Mike

Visions IntelWeenie?????? It is happening more and more. People are using crews as scouts / cannon fodder on a growing basis in the games I've been playing. Completely and totally gamey play crap is starting to occur. In my view, BTS needs to address this in the game. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing bailed out crews plain and simply just disappear to prevent people from abusing/using them in totally unrealistic ways. I know good and well they have no offensive capability to speak of and they die easily. But that doesn't matter a hill of beans when they are used as scouts to find mine fields, trip ambushes, or just plain and simply find out my defensive positions by waltzing forward until they get blasted by something thus giving away the defenses position. Mikester out.

BeWary, Welcome to CM. I recall this has been answered already and the answer was no. The scenario files/format of the demo are not compatible w/ the final game code if memory serves me correctly. You might want to try and use the search function here on the board to confirm. Mikester out.

It's about $1 US per MB. The deal I'm going to pick up here in about an hour is $79.99 for 64MB DIMM w/ $20 rebate = $59.99. About the best I've seen recently. Mike

This has been known to happen. Especially to open top AFV's. I saw an American M10 tank destroyer controlled by the computer player do this to itself trying to fire its main gun at my infantry at extremely close range. Couldn't figure it out for longest time. Had FOW off though because I was doing some testing. When I checked the M10's kill record it showed that it had killed, you guessed it, 1 M-10 TD. Mikester out.

Wayne, The other thing that would probably help would be a "better" video card. Only "problem" is that the one you have is pretty darn good already. So while I'd imagine you would see some improvement w/ getting the "latest and greatest" video card vs. the one you have now, it probably wouldn't warrant the cost to obtain one. In other words the benefit to cost ratio of such a move in your case probably isn't high enough to warrant the new card. Of course, if you have lot's of money you don't know what to do with, then go for it. Mike

My buddy and I both have 64MB system ram like yourself and have both been seeing similar problems. He just went and got another 64MB of ram and says that it does make a difference on the large maps w/ large numbers of units that we've both been having problems with. He said things loaded more quickly and scrolling around the map / replaying the movies went more smoothly as well. I'm going to go over and get my memory tonight. Mikester out.

Thanks for the update Matt! It's greatly appreciated. I hope they looked at making jagged lines for next battle setup start lines, etc. Regards, Mike

I hate to say this this way, but....... BTS needs to fix the way the front lines are redrawn in between battles of an op. The way it is handled right now is pretty bad in my and my buddies opinions. Judging from several other threads I found this morning doing a search and numerous comments by many folks on this same subject it sounds like a definite change needs to be made. The "problem" seems to be in the way the front lines are defined for the next battle. It appears that 1) It is almost entirely based on the position of the attackers forward most units and 2) The actual position of the defenders units is not taken into account at all. Also, the new line is pretty much just drawn as a straight line across the map at that point where the attacker has made his most forward advance. Take all this, and then add in the no-mans-land buffer zone that is tacked onto this new forward line determined after the battle, and the defender can end up being pushed way back from where they probably should be. This is totally unfair to the defender in my view, gives the attacker way too big of an advantage, and I dare say, is downright unrealistic in my view. Furthermore, once (i.e. already) folks figure out this is how things work you end up with nothing but gamey tactics of the attacker trying to sneak units to the other side of the map in order to win the op. This seems to be especially easy in some scenarios when the first night battle arrives. And this appears to already be happening from the comments people have made in regard to operations ending after only the first or second battle even though a large portion of the both sides forces are still on the map. Bill, do you know if ver1.03 is going to address these issues? I certainly hope so. Other than this I love the operations. Only other thing I would like to see is a view of the entire operation map so that we as players know as an attacker how far we really have to go to reach the end of the map and as a defender how much more ground we have to give up. Maybe the entire map could be displayed during each of the pre-battle setup phases for player reference with setup zones and an outline of the next battle map shown for reference. That way we could see where we are at relative to the rest of the map and plan accordingly. Once the battle starts, it could then just display the current battle map area as the game does now. Thanks. Mikester out. [This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 07-24-2000).] [This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 07-24-2000).]

TCP/IP????? YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gimme, gimme, gimme. NOW, NOW, NOW! Mikester out.

Did you define the set up zones on the map where the units can possibly be placed during the setup phase? Did you place the units in the map preview into these setup zones? Mikester out.

Experience setting only applies to units that are yet to be selected. Do what you are saying and click on an actual squad that was, for example, originally bought as "regular" experience level. The experience level of this already purchased unit will not change. Mikester out. [This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 07-21-2000).]

Guess it's good to see I'm not the only one experiencing this. Like Schrullenhaft said, I thought in the demo we used to be able to see in and out of the buildings no problem when there was at least one unit in the building and the walls had thusly turned transparent. I'll have to try the shift-o thing tonight. Thanks, Mike

I'm running an nVidia GeForce256 video card w/ 32 MB of ram on a Dell 500Mhz processor PC. When I have a unit in a building and the camera view is set outside the building the walls appear transparent and I can see the unit(s) in the building. However, if I select one of these units, hit the tab key, and then go down to camera view 1 I can see over the shoulders of the guys in the unit, but not out of the building. All I can see trying to look out from this viewpoint is a big white opaque wall that cannot be seen through at all. I've loaded the latest drivers as of last week from nVidia which did nothing to help this "problem". What is the latest ver. of Direct X? I think I downloaded and installed the latest version of Direct X shortly after getting the final version of the game a couple of weeks ago. I'll have to check what ver. is loaded when I get home tonight though. Thanks in advance, Mike D aka Mikester

I believe the reason is they figured they'd have v1.03 patch out so soon relative to having a v1.02 patch out that it wasn't worth taking the time to issue a v1.02 patch at all. So they are simply going straight to the v1.03 patch. Mikester out.

Hey Samu, My understanding is: v1.01 is latest ver. for actual game (via patch) v1.02 is latest ver. for Gold Demo Only v1.03 for game is supposed to be out sometime very soon (includes applicable stuff from v1.02 demo patch plus other new stuff). Mikester out.

I have a book at home that IIRC has pic's from the war of Arnhem during / after the battle. Send me an email at mikester@attglobal.net to remind me so I don't forget and I'll take a look at it when I get home tonight. Mikester out.

The much better "uber weapon" is the German Wirbelwind. It's mobile for one. Probably slightly better protection for crew. And, it's got those nasty quad 20mm cannons. Ouch. I've done some serious damage using one of these as mobile fire support during an attack. Mikester out.

Melloj, BUY THIS GAME. It is single handedly the best computer wargame I've seen in my 20+ years of board and computer gaming. There are no statistics, charts, logistics, etc. to worry about. While the armour and gun penetration values are available for you to look at, you do not need them to play the game. You will love this game. Mikester out.