Lugnut

http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/screenshots.asp?id=1495

I think there are two simplifications in the simulation that make this sort of Banzai charge more effective than it should be. The first is granularity of fires. Squads seem to fire at only one target at a time and at discrete intervals. In the situation where one or more of your squads is being charged by a number of enemy squads it is not uncommon for all the defenders to target just the closest attacker, leaving the others a clear run in. This answers the question of why your troops were brave enough to run full tilt across open ground into enemy fire - from CM's point of view the attacking unit _wasn't_ under fire. If unit fires were split up into smaller time chunks & amongst multiple nearby targets this effect would be reduced. Which brings me to my second point, the behaviour of units under fire. While I am sure there are many documented instances of troops charging enemy positions with no regard for personal safety, it's unlikely it was the norm. A squad advancing on an enemy position that comes under fire would most likely immediately hit the dirt, return fire and then continue to advance by scurrying from cover to cover. The point here is that the advance would be _slowed_. The occasional fanatic squad could still charge on regardless, taking heavy casualties (is a running target more vulnerable to fire than a moving one in CM?).

I just tried installing the new 6.50 drivers on my PC (TNT2/M64, W2K) and immediately started getting system crashes when playing CM (no BSOD, PC would just reboot itself). I'm now back on 6.34 and everything's working fine. Don't know if this is just a W2K thing (probably is).

I found that if you went all the way back to the first NVidia drivers for W2K (3.78 IIRC) then the transparency problem was fixed. However this is not much of a solution for me as too many other things didn't run with these drivers (eg Quake3, Maya). The reason some OEM drivers work with CM is probably that they're based on these 3.78 NVidia drivers. (oh, and no, I'm not the OMAG Lugnut) <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Schrullenhaft: It's strange since some people reported that the problem "went away" when they installed 'certified' drivers from their OEM (Dell in this case). There really isn't much differentiating these OEM cards from retail cards (other than the occasional BIOS string manipulation for the OEM). So I would have assumed that these 'certified' drivers would have worked for anyone with a similar card. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep. The problem seems to be that any white pixels drawn onto the screen come out transparent instead of white. I've found you can help the problem some by editing the game's bitmaps and changing white to a light grey. This won't fix the text or the after-action report screen, though. Matt, has BTS confirmed that this is _definitely_ a driver bug? If so, let us know so we can start emailing NVidia about it - you never know, it might help speed up them fixing it. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Morphing Cell: I wonder if you also have this problem: The after-battle report has the 3D battlefield as its background, rather than the white background as it is supposed to have. This problem is apparently related to transparency.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This seems to be a problem caused by using NVidia cards in W2000 (I get it too). You'll find that if you 'Alt-Tab' back to the Windows desktop and then back to CM, the screen will be refreshed properly.

Someone should do a mod that makes all the bitmaps greyscale so the game looks like old newsreel footage [This message has been edited by Lugnut (edited 12-21-2000).]

I use some other web-boards that are driven by the O'Reilly software. It's ok but they're slooooooooooooow. Don't know whether the board software or the host hardware is to blame, though. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Schrullenhaft: Not quite as "pretty" (and I can't really comment on how bulletproof it is), but O'Reilly Software makes a product called WebBoard. The underlying engine is SQL, which may help with searches, etc. I'm guessing that it's PERL-free from what little I've seen. O'Reilly Software's WebBoard: http://webboard.oreilly.com/ <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

HE == High Explosive AT == Anti-Tank

I now have a new wargaming superstition to add to the list - Big dice roll better than small ones. - Painted figures fight better than unpainted ones. ...and now - Tanks with cool texture mods fight better than those with the default. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Madmatt: ... First off we get a killer new mod. On one hand its a mod of my favorite German vehicle the Hetzer. On the other hand it accomplishes what no other mod has attempted, having physical camouflage on the texture! That's right, stuff like trees and branches and leaves. I didn't think it be made to look convincing but it was and it ROCKS!!!... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't lead with your tanks. Use infantry & scout vehicles to flush out enemy AT assets first.

...of course then I discovered that Quake3 & Maya wouldn't run, so it was back up to 6.31 Bugger. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lugnut: I've had this problem as well (can't see text after dropping back to 2D after being in 3D view). I found that 'downgrading' to version 3.78 of the NVidia drivers fixed it for me.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just wanted to say a big thanks to the CM coders for making it possible to reliably switch away from CM and back to the Windows desktop. If only more games could do this without crashing or otherwise flaking out

Another good book is "The Recollections of Rifleman Bowlby" (Alex Bowlby). Bowlby was a British infantryman on the Italian front.

I've had this problem as well (can't see text after dropping back to 2D after being in 3D view). I found that 'downgrading' to version 3.78 of the NVidia drivers fixed it for me.