karch

I got a Major victory as the Russians playing double blind last night. If you hold off until you can ambush tanks from the side or get them from a couple angles, you can do allright. spoiler * * * * * * * * * * * * It was a real seesaw battle with me doing well to begin with until I lost both my KVs by being impetuous. Then my oponent crushed one PakFront. After flanking along the map edge with IIIs his IVs came up the middle and were sandwiched between 3 ATRs left over on the PakFront hill and another group of 4 guns. I took out 3 Mk IVs in 1 turn!! Then things swung the back to me. WIthouth the 75mm HE rounds, it was tougher to to get my guns to stay down. I killed all but 2 German tanks and had 5 47mms left. Left my troops set to the default setup. He moved way left of my Russian tank hunting teams. Has anyone had any luck with them? They never cought up to the action for me.

Link to one reason they are bad. Browser accellerators seem to be the worst, pre-caching all links on any pages you are looking at. Easy when you want to go look at one of those links, but it crushes the web servers you're looking at. DL accellerators act like multiple downloads, putting the different DL pieces back together into 1 file at the end. Yes it is faster, but you are doing it at the expense of all the other users connected to the server. If everyone was using it, there would be no speed advantage. You are basically hoarding as much of the DL speed as you can and not being a very friendly internet user. The more people use it, the worse the connections will be for standard downloaders. They can't be blocked because the programs lie to the web servers about what they are. The DL programs say they are unique DLs from unique computers. If the DL program responded truthfully to the server request, it would usually be blocked.

A single server could handle it just fine.. it's getting the bandwidth from the server that's expensive. I've seen 2 year old servers handle 80MB/sec downloads on a LAN. Now any company other than MS or Apple affording bandwidth like that is unlikely. And going to really fast third party mirror sites costs money. LOTS of money and is very often charged by the megabyte. I understand people's frustration, but everyone will get the demo, maybe today, maybe tomorrow. I'd also say that people using DL accellerators are hurting the downloads for everyone else. They are hogging all the bandwidth by opening multiple streams from the server instead of sharing 1 stream/person.

CMBB runs fine on my 2nd generation Clamshell iBook. 366mhz G3, 8MB VRAM. The sky looks dithered, and I'm pretty sure other textures are downsampled and dithered, but it seems to run as fast as CMBO and looks much better. Great job Dan. Are any of the Russian guns from my Aberdeen pics?

How does it work? Where are they getting the data from? Does it force multiple FTP streams and then combine them in the app? If BFI only has a 1 meg/second connection, they can't send more data than that. The only things I can guess it's doing are: Somehow caching the data somewhere when other users download the demo using this program, then everyone pulls it down from the cached file somewhere. But then you're at the mercy of the pipe to the cache. Opens multiple FTP streams to the server, so if it's only allowing 2k/s per user... act like 10 users and you get 20k/s... but at the expense of all the other users. Everyone can't use it and get faster download speeds. It's just not possible from one server. Anyone know? Now if everyone loaded the file onto Limewire, we could have hundreds and hundreds of hosts, you can download from multiple hosts simultaneously and get REALLY fast downloads. But there, you're increasing the available DL bandwidth with additional servers.

finished the download... you guys can have my bandwidth now. I found that if I brought the download manager up to the front and didn't touch anything, I could get speeds as high as 70k. Something to try.

Downloading fine with IE 5.2 on OSX. Hey, at least the download works in OSX!!! Getting about 30k / sec

those instructions are very good. In a nutshell, 3 options I use, I'm sure there are more. 1) When classic is starting up inside X, hold down the spacebar to bring up the extensions manager. Scroll down to Classic RAVE and make sure it's turned OFF. Then you can play CM inside OSX. It doesn't look nearly as good, but sometimes it beats having to reboot. 2) Reboot back into OS9 using the Startup Disk application in system prefs. When booting back into 9, make sure you hold down the shift key to bring up the extensions manager. Again, make sure Classic RAVE is turned OFF. Allow 9 to continue booting, then play. 3) Duplicate your OS9 system folder so you can use one for Classic in X and the other to boot into straight for 9. Inside the classic control panel in X, you can set which copy of OS9 you wish to use as your classic OS. You can have as many versions of OS9 on the same drive as you like. It will boot the selected OS9 as classic every time. Then use the Startup Disk app to switch between OSX and your CM OS9 system folder. The version X will use (call it Classic OS9) will get the Classic RAVE extension loaded every time Classic loads, but that's OK. Select your OS9 system folder in the startup disk app. The first time you reboot into OS9, hold down the shift bar to get into the extensions manager and make sure Classic RAVE is turned off. Since OSX won't be trying to use that system folder to boot up classic, you won't have to deal with the Classic RAVE file again in that sys folder.

Keith, I'm sorry I didn't mean to offend you at all. Your description of VB is just about what I meant. Very poor choice of words. I just seem to know of more people that pick up VB and are able to start out making apps far faster than people getting going in C++, but I could be wrong. Let's wait until CMBB comes out and then start talking. Thanks for the post Gordon.

Wow. REAL REAL programming. Maybe all we would need is some tweaks and a recompile on the Mac platform. I'll try and get ahold of Gordon to see if we could figure out a port of his C++ app to OS9. Might save us a LOT of time. If not, maybe I'll just have to go it alone, but trying to mimmic the way CMMOS works, conventions etc. If Gordon reads this, drop me a line at scott@karchfamily.com

I'm guessing that the program was built in Visual Basic. A Windows only development platform. One option is for me to use FileMaker Pro. There is a plugin that allows the movement of files. It's also cross platform Mac/Win and is a very open development tool. The other option is to look into Real Basic, also cross platform. Since I already develop in FileMaker every day, it would be much easier for me. If it won't work, then maybe it's time for me to learn REAL programming.

I'll start doing some research on shuttling files. Would any windows user let me know, how does the system work? Are files all named custom so they can all be in the same folder, then renamed when they are put into the CM BMP folder? Are there individual folders of files for each unique set with the file names set the same as in CM? What is the structure of the CMMOS file "holding area". Folder naming conventions, file naming conventions? This will obviously have to wait until I at least get the demo.. or maybe a beta version??? I don't even use mods, but I'm interested in trying to do this.

I didn't realize 10.2 had a newer version of RAVE, but it still doesn't work. Software rendering IS better than nothing. For returning PBEM turns and such, it's fine and beats having to reboot if you're only playing 1 turn or so. I'm actually surprised Apple updated RAVE at all. Maybe it's a good sign that by the time Apple hardware will not boot OS9 (next year?) that ther is a chance that the Classic RAVE extension will advance enough to be able to play Combat Mission. The version is now 1.8. What version of RAVE does OS9 use?

Any beta testers available to let me know if the textures are inside resource files or as loose BMPs like in Windows. If they are loose, then it would be much easier to batch. Inside resource files, and it's tougher.

I'm all for the new engine taking place in the mediteranean. N. Africa, Italy, Greece, Balkans Get their feet wet with the new engine. See how Grants sponson mounted main gun works, etc. Then the possibility of going back to Europe. What I'd love to happen, would be ALL of WWII Europe instead of just the early years. Yes it would be a lot of coding, but a lot of what we waited for is the TO&E of units for the whole Eastern front and Overloard to VE day. Those things won't change, so there would be far less unit research needed to have CM 4 be CM Paris to Moscow, or something. Basically, all of WWII that took place in Western Europe and the Soviet Union. It's a tall order, but since we are just pipe-dreaming, that's mine and the reason I think it is at least possible.

[ August 22, 2002, 07:52 PM: Message edited by: karch ]

Hey, you forgot Will it run in OS X?

I remember reading that doodads are only eye candy and not part of the world MODEL CM uses. Doodads are placed randomly, I think each time the map is drawn, like between turns. For grass, tombstones, etc, it's no biggie. They are small and unobtrusive. They also don't do do anything to LOS or cover. Your haystack may be jumping around your field each turn!!

Great posts everyone. I was wondering if CC could do something like that. I'll be getting a copy. I'll be having CC remove Classic Rave in either 9 or X, since for a quick PBEM return, I'd rather play in software 3D than hardware since I don't always want to spend the time rebooting, but that's just me. Another note, in the Classic control panel in X, you can specify exactly which OS9 folder to use as Classic. Even if you have multiple 9 folders on the same partition, wouldn't that force X to use the same 9 folder each time, leaving your gaming 9 folder alone even if you just booted from it? Just curious.

If you want to run CM from insice X through Classic, the only way is to hold down the space bar while Classic/OS9 is booting to bring up the extension manager and disable Classic RAVE. This will force CM to run is software 3D mode. It doesn't look as nice from close up, but from level 3 or so, it isn't so noticeable. There will, most likely, never be a way to play CMBO or CMBB with hardware 3D unless Apple updates Classic RAVE, or BFI rewrites the 3D code. Neither of which seem very likely. I recomend putting OS9 on a seperate partition. CM doesn't have to be on the partition, just the OS. This way, OSX can use the OS9 on the OSX partition as Classic, and you can have a copy of OS9 for CM that you don't have to fiddle with each reboot. The main advantage of this method, is that you can hold down the option key when booting and the boot loader will fire up showing you which volumes have bootable OSs on them. If partition MAIN_HD has OSX and Classic and SECOND_HD has a different install of 9, holding down the option ke when booting will give you 3 options to try and boot from . X on MAIN, OS9 on SECOND, and NETBOOT. You don't even need to run any programs or utilities to reboot into different OSs if they are on different partitions/volumes. It's very clean. If this is confusing or I worded it wrong, please either post back or send me an email and I'd be happy to help you out. regards Scott Karch scott@karchfamily.com [ August 17, 2002, 01:14 PM: Message edited by: karch ]

This is the kind of paranoid misinformation you two post. Any Mac user past and present, new computers included can play CM with only the OS supplied by Apple. No one needs to repartition anything, no additional boot volumes or anything. Get your facts straight. This may happen in the future. Complain about it then. Some truth and a whole bunch of crap. Funny, I see it as BFC making a game that is compatable with an OS Apple has been selling for the past 2 years. OS9. You know. I'll be the first to complain once there isn't an easy way to play the game. Until then I'll continue to correct you when you make gross generalizations that confuse the average Mac user and make them think that CM isn't compatible with any Mac past or present.

Here is the misinformation posted by you too. Everything following is quoted from this thread and is either not true or such a gross exaggeration as to not be taken seriously. No one should believe any of the following statements. ----------------------------------

As all Mac users know, Combat Mission does not work in OS X, except in software rendering. Which means it doesn't look as good, the textures are much rougher, and it doesn't run at as high a frame rate. There has been much discussion about computers running OSX and finding ways to play Combat Mission. Here are some answers I have come away with after talking with Apple. 1) If you install OS X 10.2 on an existing computer you have, you have many options to keep playing Combat Mission. a. keep a clean install of OS 8-9 on your computer to boot into and play CM b. If you reboot into the version of 9.2, just disable Classic Rave in your Extensions manager when rebooting and you'll be able to play fine. 2) If you buy a new Mac and don't have an old clean copy of OS8-9, you can: a) reboot into the same OS9 that OSX uses as classic and disable Classic Rave, just duplicate the OS9 system folder, delete Classic Rave from one and boot into it whenever you want to play Combat Mission. Apple is not stopping any currrent shipping computer, including the new ones, from booting into OS9 and playing Combat Mission. They also are not stopping any current computers that upgrade to 10.2 from booting into 9 to play Combat Mission. Some day, this will change, but for now, any Mac owner can have as many different versions of Mac OS 8, 9 or X and still be able to experience Combat Mission in full hardware rendered 3D. Some day Macs won't boot into 9, the Sun will go Supernova and we'll all die. But that doesn't matter right now. Every Mac owner can play Combat Mission. Scott Karch scott@karchfamily.com

This will be my last post. It is my feeling that Karsten and Mr Fathead are spreading disinformation that unwary Mac CM players may read and actually believe is true. I agree that they come off as paranoid. All I'm arguing is that any current Mac user has nothing to worry about moving forward with OSX and keeping running OS9 for playing CM on any current computer they have. That's all from me until 10.2 comes out. Then I'll either be vindicated, or come back with an apology.

Except that they said it isn't. And there isn't anything Apple is going to do to stop that. You can bank on it. Or take my bet. Impossible and rediculous. They would have to make an update to every different computer with different ROMS. tell me what this would do I think that is rediculous and don't see what it has to do with OS9 booting. Please explain That's in your ROMS, and I say they can't change those because YOU need to run the updater and they need different ones for every different computer. Those are your ROMS. See point number 1 To do what? Just reset the PRAM and restart. OK, I could see that they could do this from inside X. Except that you would see copies of startup disk app from X 10.1 around the net so you could still boot back into 9. So, they could make that more of a pain, but not stop it. Fine. Then reinstall OS9 from your OS9 CD and don't run that software update again. Fine, I'll just keep my OS9 system on an external drive that's not connected on boot. But I think you're crazy to think they would bother wasting time to do something like that. Fine. Then reinstall OS9 from your OS9 CD and don't run that software update again. That would have no impact on a currently running OS9 to keep booting OS9. And playing CM Has no impact on playing CM on an old computer running OS9. I've never called Apple for support on anything, and don't know anyone who has. Same as above. Won't stop anything other than people calling in. If they are already playing CM, this won't stop them That has nothing to do with current computers booting into OS9 and playing CM. Our current debate. I agree that at some point, probably next year, new Macs will not be able to boot into 9. But all previous ones will, I say forever, even after installing X 10.2 or greater. Any programmers old games/programs that currently run in 9, will continue to run in 9 even if they don't develop the program any further in 9. What does this point have to do with your current computer booting into 9 and running a legacy app? How will this keep a current computer from booting back into OS9 to play an old game? That would have no impact on a currently running OS9 to keep booting OS9. And playing CM That would have no impact on a currently running OS9 to keep booting OS9. And playing CM That would have no impact on a currently running OS9 to keep booting OS9. And playing CM Wrong. I will have Classic OS9 one the same partition as OSX, I will have a seperate partition for my gaming OS9, which will not be modified in any way. I will use the Startup Disk program to tell my computer to boot into OS9 when I want to play Combat mission. When I'm done, I will reboot holding down command X and reboot in to OSX. You will not have to change your copy of OS9 to run Combat mission. All you have to do is tell your computer ro reboot into 9 and reboot and play. We'll see in a few weeks. If I'm wrong about any of this,now or in the future, I'll come back and post the biggest apology thread you guys have ever seen. I will. I just don't see why Apple would bother wasting the time just to piss people off. New programs won't be developed for OS9 from now on, hardware won't either. Why not just let it die a slow quiet death instead of spending tens of thousands of development hours on old computers and old operating systems? Steve wants to make Apple money and not waste it. I don't see how spending this money will either save Apple money or make them money. If you bought and are using X, great they are getting their money. All the programs you buy will be for OSX, so Apple and the other developers will stay happy. What good does stopping booting from OS9 really do?