BeWary

The file may be conflicting with another file of the same name. Search the computer for MSOE.dll. If you have more than one, rename the one not in your Outlook folder to MSOE.bak. If Outlook still doesn't load, try uninstalling the program and reinstalling it. If you have your Windows CD you should be able to add the program from Start->Settings->Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs->Windows Setup. If you don't have the CD, try downloading some of the related Outlook programs here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.asp? Unfortunately I'm not sure which would fix your problem. Select Win98 as your Operating System. Good luck. BeWary

Windows 2000 actually runs most games just fine once you install Service Pack 2 (or higher). I think DirectX 8.1 is part of SP2, but if it's not, download it from www.microsoft.com/directx. Here're the service packs: http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/servicepacks/ Hope everything goes well. Just remember to let the service pack back up your system files before it runs, just in case. BeWary

Check your FSAA (Full Screen Anti-Aliasing) setting under Display->Properties->Advanced-><your card>. It should be set to 4X or off (I think 4X works). But I do know if it's set to Quincux it may cause the problem you're having. BeWary

He asked what would make unzipping faster, and no, more RAM will not make unzipping faster unless, as I said, he has 32MB or less (and only because Windows is going to use most of that for itself, assuming Win9x family). RAM is only used for storing programs and their data. So only if it gets used up and the computer starts accessing the hard disk wildly will more RAM help. However, unzipping files is not exactly a RAM-intensive process, at least it shouldn't be, and therefore it probably won't make a difference for him. The CPU is doing the unpacking (unzipping), so a faster CPU is really what counts.

Faster CPU will help, yes. More RAM, probably not, unless you have like 32MBs or less. Also could depend on what zip program you're using and how it is unzipping the files (one at a time or all at once) into memory. You could always try a different unzip program. Winzip seems to work ok. I use PowerZip at home. It's good too. BeWary

You'll probably be fine with whatever you get, just make sure you have a decent 3D video card (The GeForce2 To Go seems to be pretty good. I don't know if there are newer, better laptop 3D chips yet). Laptop are just like desktops, only smaller. BeWary

Everybody's a smart a$$

Speaking of bug-a-boo's, I just noticed the other day during a setup turn that I could "dig in" my tank in the middle of a concrete courtyard. Pretty funny to see really. Me thinks they should have jackhammer sound effects go off when you do that.

Just for giggles and gaffs, why don't you try setting your monitor resolution to 1024x768 and deleting your CM prefs file. Perhaps CM doesn't support the resolution you're trying to run in? Could be some sort of hardware problem though. If you know anything about CMOS settings (and/or have your motherboard manual), try poking around and make sure everything's set up correctly. May be that someone set your machine up incorrectly. Try updating your BIOS first. Also try updating your machine through WindowsUpdate to make sure you're not missing some "critical" patch that may solve your problem. If you can get your hands on some spare RAM, or if you have two DIMMS in your machine, try switching them out or just using one at a time. If it's bad RAM that should help you find the bad DIMM. Good luck, BeWary

Yes, you'll keep your status. Your login ID and password give you your number and status. It has nothing to do with what ISP you use. Cheers. BeWary

My bad. For some reason I thought you were talking about letting players program in their own commands and associated A.I. (like the convoy thing you mentioned). I didn't realize you meant it to be for the computer A.I. only.

Ahhh... but then you get into the realm of "cheating" and "gaminess". Graphical mods don't change the way the game plays for one person as opposed to another. But if you let the game behave differently, then you may have problems. For instance, you're playing a TCP/IP game against someone using enhanced A.I. Say you have an orders phase of 30 seconds. Your opponent could use his "A.I. enhancements" to effectively make many more moves/decisions in the same amount of time, thereby entering the realm of "cheating". I just don't see it working out well in the long run, and frankly I don't think it's necessary. All I asked here was for a few tweaks. I'm not saying they would necessarily be "easy" though. Things are rarely easy with programming. I'm not asking for a complete AI rewrite, nor a MAJOR effort like "thousands" of manhours. Let's keep things in perspective here. BeWary

Definitely bizarre, but an entertaining read none-the-less. Beavis and Butthead would love you man. And we learned something new about Madmatt today.

Hey, no worries. It is a public forum after all. I've enjoyed reading your comments. I enjoyed the A.I. I took in college but one course was hardly enough to scratch the surface. Perhaps when I go for my masters I'll look into it more. I'm still trying to figure out where I want to focus for my future. So many interesting possibilities out there.

Tsword, I initially thought the same thing about the tanks trying to stay out of LOS of my units, however, after losing a couple bunkers I had no units that the computer could see. In fact, I couldn't see his tanks for most of the game, because I had no guys near him. All my guys were in a town on the other side of some big hills. The A.I. did a good job of pushing forward its infantry, but it left the tanks behind so they got chewed up. As far as A.I. not being able to take into account various possibilities, I would have to disagree. That's what A.I. does. It analzes all of the possibilites and chooses the best one for what it wants to accomplish. There are various approaches (algorithms) to accomplish that. I've actually been very impressed on many occasions at what the A.I. has done in various situations. I think Charles did a great job with it. I was just hoping for a little improvement in CMBB. BeWary

Well sir, I actually have a B.S. in Computer Science and took an Artificial Intelligence course as part of it, so I am not as dumb as you propose. I simply stated a fact, that the A.I. can be lacking in certain circumstances. I never said it would be easy to fix. Back to my point... yes, human opponents are indeed fun and challenging, but my style of play doesn't often work too well with a human opponent. The choices are either PBEM, which gives a quick few minutes of play, and then it's over for the day (most likely), or TCP/IP, and I rarely have hours to spare at a time to play. So the A.I. is my opponent 99% of the time, and sometimes I'd like to be able to defend instead of always attack. As for the scenario I played, All or Nothing, it was included with the game and seemed to have good flag placement that would encourage the A.I. to advance (i.e., the BIG flags were in town, with only one little flag on a bridge in the middle of the map). In was raining in that scenario, but in the AAR only about 10% of the computer's tanks were bogged/immobile, so that wasn't the main problem. A couple of quick suggestions if I may. I noticed that the A.I. seemed to cancel the movement orders of most tanks between turns. This caused further delay as they stopped and waited for the command delay to pass. Something like that could probably be tweaked for CMBB. The computer's tanks kept running into each other (i.e., bunching up), which added a lot of delay as the computer tried to figure out how to resolve the traffic jam. The A.I. also liked to go the hard way. It decided to go across wet, hilly fields, and even up steep slopes scattered with trees instead of sticking mainly to the roads, which would have gotten them to the town MUCH faster. I think out of 30+ vehicles the A.I. had, I only saw 2 ever use a road, and then not for long. Keep in mind that most of the roads were concrete and therefore un-mineable (except for daisy-chains), so the A.I. should have used them more. I'm not asking for perfect attack A.I. In fact, I have had a number of rather good times defending against the A.I., but there's definitely room for some tweaking. BeWary

Hi all, I'm guessing this has been discussed already but a quick forum search was fruitless, so... will the A.I. for the attacking computer player be enhanced in CMBB? It could be quite, shall we say, lacking in CMBO. For instance, I recently played All or Nothing as the Germans against the CPU, and 75(!) turns later the computer had barely moved 1/2 way across the map. It had a ton of tanks but it moved them so slowly and without direction that they never got anywhere. It was kind of anti-climactic. Thanks, BeWary

Perhaps before you reboot, after the uninstall, you can choose new generic drivers. Usually you would select the regular generic VGA driver supplied by Microsoft. After that, reboot, and trying installing the new NVidia drivers. Good luck. BeWary

Really? Hmmm, I'll have to try Anisotropic filtering then. I think I have it off. I just set the FSAA to 4x and that helped a lot with the sparklies as the map is scrolled. I didn't notice too much of a performance hit either except when scrolling in front of high-res buildings (I use a GeForce 2 Pro 64MB DDR). BeWary [ July 19, 2002, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: BeWary ]

Olle, I wouldn't recommend "installing on top" of your current OS, as for one I don't think Windows would let you, but even if it did, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. An uninstall/reinstall of the OS is almost always a good idea if you're going to be moving the hard drive to a completely new machine (since EVERYTHING changes and the possibility for conflict is high), but since you're mainly just changing the motherboard/cpu, it probably won't complain too much (probably just initially). I'd say try moving the hard drive as is. If you have problems that aren't easily resolved (e.g., updating drivers), delete Windows and install fresh. Before you reinstall Windows you could always "export" the parts of the registry using regedit.exe that hold information about your installed programs, and then "import" that data after the reinstall. However, note that many programs make changes to the registry in numerous places that aren't always easy to find, so a complete reinstall of many or all of your programs may be in order. Good luck. BeWary

I believe that you're just seeing an empty patch on the ground, similar to the others in the background, though it would definitely be cool if the tanks knocked over the wheat as they went through! As for the new model, it just doesn't seem right. The old one seemed more realistic. BTS, please do somefink! BeWary

Actually, USB polls at 120Hz, much faster than the 40Hz that PS2 polls at. So if you have a good USB mouse (one that takes lots of "pictures" per second), then you should get even faster response than with a PS2 mouse. That has been the case for me with first-person shooters and my MS Intellimouse Explorer 3.0. (the Logitech Dual Optical Mouse is another good FPS mouse). BeWary

Probably not your problem, but a friend of mine had to turn off Quincux anti-aliasing before he could see anything other than a black screen in XP. Might be your problem if you have the Quincux option. I've read you have to select 4x or no FSAA for it to work. BeWary

Before you guys run out and buy new CD drives, try to find out if there has been a new firmware release for your drive. I had a practically brand new DVD drive when Diablo 2 came out, and I couldn't get it to work until I updated the firmware. Check the manufacturer's website for firmware. BeWary

Are you sure your ALT keys work? Sounds like a bad keyboard to me. Course, could just be that your system is hosed. I'm sure it's not a CM problem. BeWary