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peckham

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Everything posted by peckham

  1. That's odd easytarget, because Belaja smert's configuration is a desktop (not a laptop), so the problem's not limited to just laptops (or video cards, since I was having the problem with an ATI Mobility Radeon FireGL 7800, while Belaja smert's having it with an Nvidia Geforce 4 Ti4200). Could be some subtle variation in the mainboard chipset architecture? The "bug" introduced by Microsoft's "fix" has something to do with system processes and runtime prioritization. Perhaps there's something unique to certain chipsets and bridge drivers that don't play well with the SP2 hotfix installed. In any case, laptop or desktop, and whatever chipset you're running, I have yet to hear from someone having this problem who's been unable to fix it by uninstalling 328310 (and enough have succeeded in fixing the problem by removing it that I'm certain it's the catalyst). [ December 30, 2002, 11:55 PM: Message edited by: peckham ]
  2. Could well be limited to XP Pro, which is what I'm running on both a desktop and laptop that had the problem. If so, that's good news for anyone running XP Home.
  3. That's certainly another solution, Tigger, but considering the fact that some MP games can take whole days to play, I need the option to hop in and out of the game to conduct other business simultaneously. Again, the permanent fix is really as simple as uninstalling the MS hotfix in your add/remove programs. I'm not sure whose "fault" this particular glitch is, i.e. Microsoft's or Battlefront's, but considering that the hotfix just came out on Microsoft's Windows Update site, 12/11/2002, I see no compelling reason to leave it on. Just remove it. Fixes the problem, guaranteed, 100%. Matt [ December 27, 2002, 08:19 AM: Message edited by: peckham ]
  4. Hey, those of you with an ATI Mobility Radeon (like Bogdan) should make absolutely certain they've downloaded Rage 3D Tweak from www.rage3d.com and disabled Z Mask! This literally involves installing, rebooting, then going in and enabling it, hitting apply, then disabling it and hitting apply again. It nearly tripled my frame rate. Matt
  5. All, Do note that you should be able to go back into your add/remove programs and remove 328310, which fixes the problem. I'm not particularly concerned about the security issue that this "fix" is supposed to fix. Matt
  6. I figured it out!!! Okay. This problem may affect other users, since it's related to an XP SP2 hotfix (post-SP1). Here's what I did to track it down. 1. First, to answer your question Matt, it happens whether I hit CTRL-ESC, the Windows key, or ALT-TAB. 2. After posting my error message here, I used an early system restore point to go back, pre-windows-updates, and noted that CMBB went back to working fine, i.e. the display did not "black out" after minimizing once. 3. On a hunch, I whipped out my original build discs and initiated an image restore back to factory defaults. 4. Upon completion, I installed and tested CMBB. No problems. 5. I proceeded to connect to IBM's website to download all the latest drivers, including the latest video driver. Installed and tested CMBB. No problems. 6. I connected to the Windows Update site and installed SP1 for XP Pro. Tested CMBB post-install. No problems. 7. I connected back to the Windows Update site and installed the following post-SP1 hot fixes: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;329834 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;329048 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;328310 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810565 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;329115 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;329390 Tested CMBB. THE PROBLEM WAS BACK. 8. I recorded the hot fix numbers (the last number in each of those hyperlinks) and proceeded to uninstall them one at a time. The culprit was 328310. From MS's support site: MS02-071: Flaw in Windows WM_TIMER Message Handling Can Enable Privilege Elevation The information in this article applies to: Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Professional Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1 Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP2 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP3 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP2 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP3 Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1 Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP2 Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP3 Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP1 Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP2 Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP3 Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP4 Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP5 Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition SP4 Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition SP5 Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition SP6 Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP1 Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP2 Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP3 Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP4 Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP5 Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP6a This article was previously published under Q328310 SYMPTOMS Windows messages provide a way for interactive processes to react to user events (such as keystrokes or mouse movements) and communicate with other interactive processes. The WM_TIMER message is sent at the expiration of a timer, and it can be used to cause a process to run a timer callback function. This message may create a security vulnerability because it is possible for one process in the interactive desktop to use a WM_TIMER message to cause another process to run a callback function at the address of its choice, even if the second process did not set a timer. If that second process has higher privileges than the first process, this would provide the first process with a way of exercising the functions. By default, several of the processes that are running in the interactive desktop do so with LocalSystem privileges. As a result, an attacker who can log on to a system interactively can potentially run a program that would levy a WM_TIMER request upon such a process, causing it to take any action the attacker specified. In this scenario, the attacker can have complete control over the system. The security patch that is described in this article addresses this vulnerability, and it also makes changes to several processes that run on the interactive desktop with high privileges. Although none of these processes would allow an attacker to gain privileges on the system in the absence of the WM_TIMER vulnerability, we have included them in the patch to make the services more robust. RESOLUTION For more information about how to resolve this vulnerability, click any of the following links: Windows XP (all versions) Windows 2000 (all versions) Windows NT 4.0 (all versions) Windows XP (All Versions) Download Information The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center: Windows XP Home Edition and Professional All languages: Download the 328310 package now Windows XP 64-bit Edition All languages: Download the 328310 package now Release Date: December 11, 2002 My guess? This "fix" will create problems for anyone running CMBB, that tends to drop out of CMBB for various reasons during a game. Matt, can you guys test this? Do you need any additional information from me? I'm totally cool now, since I don't care much about that particular hotfix, but it could be an issue when Microsoft releases SP2 for XP and bundles this in, in which case anyone with SP2 would have the problem. Thanks, Matt
  7. Has anyone had a problem where they minimize CMBB, then click on the taskbar button to restore it, and the game screen goes completely black? This happens to me every time I drop out of CMBB with the windows key, or CTRL-ESC. No way to restore the game, as everything stays totally black...I have to switch to taskbar and forcibly end the program. I'm using an IBM A31p laptop with an ATI Mobility Radeon FireGL 7800 card w/64 MB of RAM, under Windows XP Pro.
  8. I'd tend to think that on the smaller scenarios, you could get pretty close to history, since operational variance goes way down and strategic AI initiatives are limited enough to direct the AI to perform historically "valid" moves based on setup (assuming the designer has done a good job assigning zones and addressing all of those indirect variables).
  9. Well, it's still just a game. And there's better coming, believe me. It's just a matter of who from, and how long we have to wait for it.
  10. It doesn't have to be to compensate for poor AI. In wargames, it's usually meant to supplement a tactical AI by offering a historical strategic directive. The strategic AI in Combat Mission, while impressive enough for what it brings to the table, doesn't allow a scenario designer to build historical imperatives into each side's strategic initiatives. In the smallest scale scenarios, it's not as important because the size limits the amount of gray-area-between-strategic-and-operational flex you can inject into the design. In the larger scenarios, of course--battalion level--it makes an enormous difference to the deployment of forces and the specific groups that you assign (in various strengths) to attack specific objectives. This is really only a problem for folks interested in recreating certain battles based on historical record and eyewitness testimony. It's not a criticism of the game engine proper, but a request to have the capability to have some operational control (directives-through-scripting) over a given side. Realizing of course that the best laid plans go to hell as soon as they encounter combat, it would still be fun to have as optional for purists interested in attempting to tweak a battle toward historicism as much as possible.
  11. I'm pretty sure this has already been decided, hasn't it? Didn't the BTS boys come right out and say it's going to be N. Africa and thereabouts?
  12. Earlier discussions are prompting me to ask this, and I couldn't turn up anything definitive in a search. 1. Is it possible to do any sort of AI scripting in scenario design? 2. If the answer to #1 is no, do the scenarios that accompany the game have any sort of hard-coded AI scripting? Or are the bundled designer scenarios identical to the average user-design variety (assuming higher quality control in the former, of course). The manual breaks things into Op, Strat, and Tac AI, which all makes sense to me, but I just want to be certain I understand this clearly. Are we saying that a scenario designer's only real interaction, outside of playtesting, is to create the map, the background and intelligence report, and assign respective forces and/or reinforcements? Forgive me for asking--I just haven't done any scenario design on this particular series yet.
  13. You should have seen the debacle that served as a "debate" about the greater (or lesser) merits of Breakaway Games' revamp of the Sid Meier Civil War engine. Not that it still touches the legions of nitpickers devoted to CM, of course.
  14. You'd better be careful how you define nitpickiness, too. Nitpicking is what grognards do, and can be, keeping thing festive, a wonderful opportunity to interact with the developers and assist in improving the game. Most of the nitpicking that takes place here seems to be the result of people trying to learn how the game works. The nitpicking acts as a soundboard. If everyone could just (a) accept the common goal of getting at the truth of how something works, ( not concern themselves with having to be "right" about something, and © relax a little bit about turning legitimate suggestions to the BTS team into vulgar imperatives, I think things would flow much smoother. Just think how much extra chrome we might get if everyone worked with BTS in a positive light on nitpicker issues, instead of forcing them to slog through dozens of argumentative posts that seem (on both sides) to degenerate into penis size debates.
  15. As long as the flag doesn't show up as neutral in the game itself, in terms of FOW, I agree wholeheartedly with BTS' interpretation of 'control' as it applies conceptually to the CM series. If the flag showed up as neutral as soon as a sole-defending unit ran out of ammo, it would be an obvious "charge" signal to opposing forces. As far as I know, this doesn't happen. That flag only shows up as neutral (in this case) after the game ends, correct? BTS is basically saying "ability to defend" = "legal control of an objective." IF you have no ability to defend, you have no ability to control. As long as you have so much as one round to defend, you still have temporal control of the objective. The only problem I see here is that this can lead to gamey tactics, like having an AFV hold onto its last round of ammo just to hold the objective (betting on FOW to stave off an assault/advance) and win the objective, which would obviously NOT happen in the real thing. In this case, as someone else noted earlier, that last round really doesn't differ much from no ammo at all. I suppose it's just the best compromise-on-realism point that BTS could come up with.
  16. When I interviewed Soren Johnson at Firaxis on the Civ III AI, as well as two of the Codemasters AI developers, the sense I got from the AI community in general is that it's not nearly as difficult as most believe to code a challenging AI that doesn't cheat. Most developers aren't out to create such a beast, however. They only spend a fractional percentage of total development time on coding the AI, first of all, and even then most of them are aiming for a fairly wide demographic. Most non-grogs that play CMBO or CMBB will be heartily challenged by the computer AI because they won't be doing things like looking for perfect hull-down/maximum-LOS spots for a tank, or using HQ with binocs as spotters for mortar teams sitting on the other side of a hill somewhere. For this crowd, the AI will be plenty challenging. My point, which was really Soren's (and shared by the folks at Codemasters and Bioware who contributed to my article on AI for CGM) was that it's not nearly as difficult to create a challenging AI in these sorts of games as some might have you believe. Absolutely. Many other games do this, 3D or otherwise. Speaking to your last point, I'd love the option to play cooperatively at different levels, with the computer AI. A year ago I was engaged in a lengthy discussion with several grogs over at the now-RIP Computer Games Magazine forums on various ultimate wargames in terms of realistic C2 vs. engaging gameplay. One of several possible variations on that theme included a game like CM where one could elect to have several battalions engaged in a battle, with you assuming the role of one battalion, company, or platoon, with commensurate C2 issues sorted out in terms of FOW and your ability to receive orders from your HQ (and so on...the list of issues here can be exhaustive depending on your level of interest). It's low on my request list for future CM games, just given the other things I'd like to see and which I think are more tenable given BTS' development capabilities, direction, and goals. I think it's something that will factor into a certain sort of future wargame, eventually. [ December 08, 2002, 10:41 AM: Message edited by: peckham ]
  17. Still not good enough. How hard would it be to have a hotkey to enable a nice light-brown contour line to make this less gamey? There's nothing that makes it more "realistic" to have the designer's arbitrary color-codings be the "challenge" vs. just handing over a concrete contour-line function. Whenever a game builds, as part of a specific feature challenge, its own limitations into the equation, the result is usually problematic. I'm not as certain about the nations covered in CMBB, but at least in the Normandy campaign, both sides had access to topographical maps which laid out contour lines for strategic planning. The Squad Battles series, which is very roughly the same scale as CMBB, has a contour-lines option. [ December 08, 2002, 09:52 AM: Message edited by: peckham ]
  18. Wait--so are we saying that it's impossible for Joe Average Consumer to actually script AI in CMBO and CMBB? I've never spent any time in the scenario editor to speak of, but I just assumed there was at least some basic interface to do things like direct a unit to move to a certain spot by a certain turn. I did a bit of work on HPS' Squad Battles series (I'm the webmaster for World at Wargaming) and while the 2D paradigm certainly simplifies basic AI scripting in that series, you are at least able to "direct traffic" on a more or less turn-by-turn basis. It is absolutely essential to coordinating assaults, setting up fallback points, and so on. Am I reading correctly that every user-designed scenario out there is designed for multiplayer only? Does the computer AI somehow auto-prioritize movement paths and objectives, and auto-initiate advances on its own when you play vs. it? This would be pretty disappointing. In spite of the fact that computer AIs generally tend to be vastly inferior to uber-human-opponent, I'm weighted 90/10 toward the single-player experience due to my fascination with AI design and theory. I also prefer the idea of replaying something with strategic/tactical historical value, as opposed to merely a historical setup that deviates sharply from history after turn one. And it can be a pain in the butt trying to set up reliable multiplayer matches with random strangers. [ December 08, 2002, 09:33 AM: Message edited by: peckham ]
  19. Haven't been able to separate the wheat from the chaff, and can't find your email address (not listed in your profile). Any chance you might be able to email me?
  20. Has anyone put these together for CMBB yet, i.e. a breakdown of all weapons, units, and vehicles used in the game for quick reference, sort of like the Access or Excel sheets that are out there for the Talonsoft East/West Front stuff?
  21. Yes sir, that's what I'm doing. I have a Dell Inspiron 1 GHz laptop with a Geforce 2 Go card and 32 MB DDR-RAM on its way in the mail as we speak.
  22. As info, just went to IBM.com and downloaded the latest (4/15) ATI Mobility 128 drivers for the A2x series (I have an IBM A21p). After install, went into display driver options, DirectX tab, and noticed the addition of "Table Fog Support" which is checked by default. Thrilled beyond words, I went to load up CM. Lo and behold...nothing. Nada. Nyet. So what's the story? I have the internal weather options cranked to max. Is there something else I need to be doing?
  23. As info, just went to IBM.com and downloaded the latest (4/15) ATI Mobility 128 drivers for the A2x series (I have an IBM A21p). After install, went into display driver options, DirectX tab, and noticed the addition of "Table Fog Support" which is checked by default. Thrilled beyond words, I went to load up CM. Lo and behold...nothing. Nada. Nyet. So what's the story? I have the internal weather options cranked to max. Is there something else I need to be doing?
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