karch

I'm curious why not. They aren't hard coded into the game, they are 3 files sitting in the scenarios folder. If the application will only play games with those names, change the name of your new scenario to one of the 3. But if the application does some kind of check to verify the exact file size or something, then there is almost no way to do it. Unless someone explains why it can't be done, I'm betting it can be done once the game comes out.

I'm not quite sure about that. I seem to recall Steve mentioning that, while they won't be changing a thing... that as long as you use ONLY the items in the demo, you'll be OK. Meaning, if you get a list of the exact vehicles, inf. units, buildings, and terrain tiles, you could make any number of scenarios that could be played with the demo application. I don't know this for sure, but that's how I understood it and it seems to make sense. Just think about it, as long as you use the exact tiles that are in the game... road curves and everything.. meaning if there is no left hand dirt road tile used, you can't use it either. And using EXACTLY the same vehicles, you may be able to get a really cool T34 & KV VS PZ III and IV scenario with accompanying infantry. There is a little artillery for both sides and MGs and mortars. You could make yourself a pretty cool scenario. We'll see shortly if it would play in the demo. It probably will. BFC, let me know if this is a forbidden topic and I'll delete it. I don't want to be crossing any lines or anything. This could either be described as a "customization" of the demo, or a very soft hack.

Into the cooling fan, Stan....

Good answers.. check out this thread. Does your problem look like the screenshot I posted? If so, you don't have any ATI RAVE extensions running. Let me know if this is the case and I'll also try and help get you running. Scott strange display thread [ September 12, 2002, 10:57 PM: Message edited by: karch ]

Good question. I don't know. I'd love to play again if someone would like to try and wipe out the Soviets. I want to try a different setup and see what happens. I may get creamed, but it will be fun to experiment. Takers? Email me. scott@karchfamily.com

It seems that neither Macs or Windows boxes [ they're BOTH PCs ] Can run CMBB in software rendering because CMBB forces resolution down to 640x480 but then later checks for 800x600 resolution and tells you you need 8x6 to play. It is probably an oversight, not expecting many people to play in software mode, but I think a good number of Mac users will do so for convenience. Especially those of us that don't need the extra graphics. The engine in CMBO was used to start CMBB and I'm guessing this is where the auto 640x480 resolution change came from, but the new 8x6 requirement is needed for the interface and they just forgot about software rendering forcing back into 640x480. Any chance on this being fixed/changed for the final version?? I know you guys are up to your eyeballs in work and it isn't the most important thing.. but I'd sure appreciate it, and it may get some PC users able to at least hobble through games until they can figure out their video card problems. Keep up the great work. Scott Karch

Great post V. I agree completely. It was the first game I played and was lucky enough to play over IP agains a person. We actually kept the initial placements to see how it played and I was able to get a 75-25 victory as Soviets with the default placements.

I'm sure I read that the delay you see has nothing to do with how long it really takes people to bail from tanks, but to add the feature of the enemy not knowing your tank is actually dead yet and still fire at it. Once thee tank is actually abandond, the enemy knows it and would never keep firing at it (one of the cool new features). It's the only way they could figure out to have the tank effectively knocked out but not have the enemy know it for sure. I really think this has nothing at all to do with how long it takes someone to climb out of a tank

jaypee, All I can say is I hope after a few months of seeing how cool CMBB is, you change your mind and find a way to allow booting back into 9 occasionally for the game. Is it also being used as a server of sorts? I just can't imagine why you wouldn't be allowed to reboot back into 9. I hope things change. I really want as many Mac users as possible to buy CMBB since they are tracked separate from Windows CDs. I'd really be crushed if the engine rewrite was not a Mac program because not enough Mac users bought CMBB. Just my 2 cents. All the best.

Sorry. I haven't had a chance to check the forum. Yes, email me the screenies and I'll post them.

OR..... you could use both. Use OSX for everything except Combat Mission, then reboot into 9 for your games of Combat mission ( less than 2 minutes on a fast machine). Then boot back into X when you are done. Yes it's not what we want, but it's very easy to do and you still get to play Combat Mission. WWII Online may be a fun game for some, but it's no replacement for Combat Mission, they can't really be compared except for the fact that they take place in WWII.

I sure hope so! I'm not really trying to be argumentative. I also hope to see even higher poly counts on vehicles, fully modled moving suspension and other cool things. In 2-3 years, who knows, but we can wish.

That is true, but they don't have the number of potential smoke ... er... generating items. A FPS showing smoke from firing guns from, say 16 players running around is much simpler to display than the potential dust "objects" from 32 fast moving tanks and 120 artillery shells that burst that turn. That is a lot more smoke/dust than in the types of games you are mentioning. CM tends do reduce those types of details, including poly count on men/vehicles and all round rotating wheels on tanks because of the scale of the game. In games where you may only have 5-20+ models to worry about, CM may have to deal with 30-100. If they made models and included all the detail other games do, no computer could run it. At least that's the way I understand the issues.

I did notice some of the ground tiles flipping between different dark colors when panning around, but nothing crazy. And only when at level 2 or above. Not at level 1. I just figured it's the lack of VRAM and not being able to get all the textures it wants. Could you try and take a screenshot of the wilder texture problems and either post it here or email it to me so I can post for others to look at? I've played on an iBook with 8MB VRAM and iMacDV (slot loading) with 8MB and it seems to run as well as CMBO for me. Now if BFC would only not force software rendering into 640x480 so I could play it from within OSX!!

From what I can tell, that only happens when you don't have extensions loaded for your graphics card/chip. Make sure you aren't booting with extensions off, and if you can get into the extensions manager, try rebooting once with Mac OS 9 All, or something like that for your sets of extensions to make sure all the graphics and 3D extensions load when you reboot. If that doesn't help, either someone deleted all the video extensions, or they may be out of date (but I haven't heard of that happening yet). Try rebooting with all MacOS9 extensions running and see what happens.

I think I ran into that last night while farting around (a highly technical term us propellor heads use). Did it look anything like these? I got this image by trying to run with all extensions off, or after turning off all ATI and graphics extensions. Does this look anything like what you were talking about?

So it sounds like if BFI can NOT have CMBB try and change resolution to 640x480, then we should be able to play in software mode. Probably won't make it into the game now, but hopefully will be released in a Mac patch at some time. Either the Mac is forcing the res change or CMBB is. If it's the Mac, we're out of luck, but it's probably just CMBB. The software 3d res change to 640x480 is probably left over code from CMBO and they just forgot to only take it down to 800x600 as that is now the MIN resolution. Lets hope they can do it.

I've tried twice already and I just don't think you have enough ammo to beat the Soviets as the Germans. You did it with existing standard forces?

Chris. I'm really glad you showed me the X version of switchRes, but I can't get it to work with CMBB. I'm running 10.2, so that may have something to do with it. I made a set just for CMBB I have a rule set for CMBB so it is NOT allowed to change resolutions, but what I see happen is CMBB starting, changing to 640x480 quickly, then swithing back to 800x600. Unfortunately CMBB has already started at 640x480 and gives me the message that 800x600 is needed and quits. Exactly where are the settings you are using? Maybe it just doesn't work in 10.2 I don't know but I'm feeling better about it. Scott

GIFs are a VERY lossy format. GIF files can only contain 256 colors. They can be any pallette of 256 colors, but reducing a 16 or 24 bit image down to 8 bits would be considered LOSSY. Now it doesn't generally contain the artifacts that JPEG can introduce, but that has nothing to do with LOSSY or LOSSLESS. Just a correction. Yes, if he is saving them as JPEGs, he probably has some pretty high compression settings set somewhere.

Your iMac may not have had a PCI or AGP graphics card, but it did have 6-8MB or VRAM and an ATI chip. Saying it has no graphics card is misleading. If that's a slot loading model, then I don't know what you're talking about with the graphics quality. It looked fine to me, it just couldn't handle high res graphics. Not enough VRAM to load into. I also disagree with you that even though it gets really slow with lots of objects, smoke etc, but everything is moving with each frame redraw.

The only time I've played it was over IP head to head. I won as Soviets 75% -25%. It was a real see-saw battle with momentum swinging back and forth a couple times. You have to wait for the germans to get really close, like 150M or less before you open up with your AT guns. I was lucky and got flank shots on 3 IVs and killed them all in 1 turn. It was staggering. The ATRs really helped distract the tanks. I haven't played it again, I really don't enjoy playing the same scenario more than once. I'll have to until the whole game comes out, but I agree that only your first play of the game should count. Otherwise you know too much to make it a fair fight.

From my understanding of when BFI was describing it, this is all part of making the "Death Clock" work. Again, this is my understanding and may be wrong. Once crews leave the tank, the computer knows it is truly knocked out. The enemy sees it too. Programming limitation, no way around that. Keeping the crew inside the tank even though we know it is KOd and the crew is leaving is the only way they could have the enemy not know it is being abandoned. Because there are still troops in the tank, it is not listed as dead and the AI or even you, may still target it to be safe. The downside/byproduct of this is the crew stays inside the tank longer possibly all getting KOd by a catastrophic explosion. I understand that there are only 2 options for vehicles. Manned/active and dead/abandoned/KOd If there were a 3rd option, abandoned by the enemy doesn't know it yet, that would be great, but I understood that it couldn't be done with the engine and that this is the closet thing that could be done. Given the option of having my troops too long abandoning a vehicle to increase the unknown variable compared to knowing instantly if any vehicle is KOd or abandoned, I'll take the new version. I love it. I rarely have any use for crews, so the few that get roasted because they were too slow due to the death clock will be more than offset by the increased realism of not knowing what vehicles are truly dead.

spoiler - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - I played Zittadel and my KV platoon leader backed down and was on his way back up the same incline from the initial scenario placement when it bogged. It did recover next turn just in time to get killed. I was a little surprised that it bogged, but figured anything can happen. I'd guess it's a very low chance of it happening, and there have been a LOT of people playing this game. I wouldn't worry about it until there are LOTS of people complaining about it. Did I say I love this game?

I'm trying to get CMBB back running in classic mode, but have the same issue when starting up CMBB without the RAVE extension it forces the computer into 640x480 and then says that the game must run in 800x600. I tried the switchres extension, but it doesn't seem to run in 10.2. Anyone have any other idea on forcing the computer to stay in 800x600 so we can play it in software mode? Otherwise, can BFI look into NOT having the program try and downsample back to 640x480? Love the game, just trying to run it from inside X.