Jack Carr

I don't have a PAYPAL account but I'd be more than happy to snail mail you a personal check for whatever I can afford to give. I download mods all the time from that site. It's really great! Thanks. I will e-mail you from home and you could drop me back a line with your mailing address.

This is interesting. It just goes to show you that the latest isn't always the greatest. I made a decision when the FX series of Nvidia cards came out not to upgrade and instead to stay with my Ti4600 running 30.82. After reading through your post I'm glad I didn't get one of the newer cards.

Where was Germany getting it's tungsten from during the war? I notice that later in the war, no German tank has it while the Allied vehicles do.

Easytarget, Thanks for the reply and additional information. I'm tending to lean towards the Intel P4 at this time. I'm going to wait for CMAK to appear and see how my latest and greatest rig runs that. If it has no problems I'll take a "wait and see" approach. If it stutters even a little, I'm going to pull the trigger on an upgrade and go all out on horsepower from a processor perspective. Once again, thanks.

CMBB can hardly be considered "out of print" software. Yeah, this isn't good. I have purchased from Battlefront several copies of both CM games. Some I gave out as gifts and others I kept. Unfortunately, this type of thing will always be going on. What can be done?

Just curious. Are you making any money from your hard work? Breaking even? Operating at a loss?

I recommend a Geforce Ti4600 128mb 4xAGP using driver version 30.82. This card will get you several things when playing Combat Mission: - Good graphics (Including Fog) - Speed/Horsepower - No driver issues/problems in reference to playing CM There are many different manufacturers that make the card. I just saw a Chaintech version of this card on Zipzoomfly.com for $194.00. About the same price as the ATI 9600 give or take $20.00. Good Luck!

How about a picture of Marlon Brando and Maximilian Schell from "The Young Lions" riding on that motorcycle through the desert. Perhaps not dynamic enough.

It would seem to me that your best bet is to stick with an Nvidia card that can run 30.82 and can handle lower than 8X AGP. Isn't this where the driver issues come into play? Minimizing CM to get the text back, no anti-aliasing capabilities? If you play other games and are not dedicated to CM than I can see getting the FX card but until Nvidia can releases a driver that has no problems with anti-aliasing and displays the text without having to minimize the CM application first then I am going to stick with my Ti4600 4x Chaintech. I can certainly afford any of the newer Nvidia cards right now but why bother when all I'll have is problems with CM? Can you tell that I'm dedicated to Combat Mission?

Anyone have any knowledge in reference to the horsepower difference? Take both chip makers top of the line processors: Intel Pentium 4 3.2 ghz vs. AMD XP 3200+ 2.2ghz I have read articles saying that the AMD performs just as well even though the clock speed is a whole GHZ slower than the Intel chip. Anybody heard or experienced the difference. The reason I'm asking is I'm starting to research my next rig.

I was thinking some other things that might be neat would be miscellaneous terrain features. Not something that would take up an entire terrain tile but something like a broken up horse cart, a wrecked vehicle (car), a well, a windmill. That type of thing. It would just add to the character of the terrain. Even better if these types of things could be part of the terrain and be destroyed just like regular buildings can now.

Translated, "God with Us". This was written on every German soldiers belt buckle. Regular German Army only, Heer, not Waffen SS.

Peat bogs, sunflower fields, two-story buildings that are wrecked (specifically for Stalingrad type scenarios).

Any WWII re-enactors out there? I have alot of the equipment and the uniforms. These things really stunk for keeping warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The last re-enactment I went to, guys were passing out from heat exhaustion. I can't attest to the physical fitness of these fellas but on a relatively cool day in September, guys were dropping out and unable to continue. You have to remember that no one at a re-enactment is scared of dying from bullets, mortar fire, etc. These guys are just marching around, moving through brush etc. With an 8-10 pound rifle in your arms and 25 or more pounds of gear/ammunition on your belt/back, wearing a wool uniform, you get tired fast. I might add, that your canteen gets emptied quickly as well. For whatever it's worth...

I think that this would be a great feature. One that would very quickly find it's way into the "I never use it" category. It would be much harder to play because units arriving on the scene would not have the advantage of having their orders issued from an "All Seeing" commander in the clouds. It certainly would take a player longer to issue orders if they absolutely had to know exactly where those enemy units were.

You mentioned a +25% bonus to the AI attacker. Ever try +50%? I play that way all the time. I pick my forces, attempting to be historically accurate and let the AI pick the attackers forces. Because of the overwhelming numerical superiority that +50% gives the AI, more often that not, I have my hands full trying to stem the tide. I like to play late 1944 as a German defender, armor vs armor. With a 1250 point start, I end up with something like this: 3 platoons of infantry with 3 heavy MG42's for support. I like to select trenches for my men. 1 or 2 Pak 75mm 1 or 2 Panzers (Panther, PZIVH, STUGIV, STUGIII, Hetzer, Marder III) Light artillery support (81mm Mortar or 75mm howitzer. Usually spotters.) 1 or 2 tank hunter teams for recon. The Soviet AI usually ends up with: 10 to 15 T-34/85, JS-2, SU-76 mix. Heavy emphasis on T-34/85. 3 to 5 times the number of infantry units I have. Heavy artillery support Plenty of supporting MG's Plenty of tank hunting teams/anti-tank rifle teams 3 to 5 armored cars BA64 or M3A1 Sometimes a Sturmovik I like to have a mix of regular and veteran troops and the attacker gets the same mix. This is a hard battle. Place one of your PAK's in the wrong spot and your in trouble. Lose a panzer early in the battle and your in trouble. If a few Soviet infantry squads infiltrate into your perimiter early on and give your boys in the trenches a hard time, your in trouble. If a Russian tank successfully finds a spot to shell your trenches and you are unable to knock him out, drive him off or blind him with smoke, your in trouble. Give it a shot sometime.

This is an interesting modification. Nicely done. I actually still have this board game in a near mint condition. Does anyone know if it still can be bought in stores or on-line?

I'm really liking the camo schemes. I would like to see a little more detail on the bogies. Rubber rimmed road wheels had black on the outside of the wheel. The detail on the wheels is good, they just seem to be lacking a little color. Let me know if my ass is moldy on this one. Thanks.

I'm just upset that I picked an AMD processor instead of an Intel P4. It seems like AMD XP's are at a standstill while Intel P4's are continuing to get faster. I think AMD is concentrating on their Opteron line or something. Now, even if I had the cash to upgrade in a year or so, I have to think about a new motherboard that supports my existing RAM and is an Intel P4 board. Uh-yuh-yuh! It is a bit of a headache and a wallet ache to keep up with this stuff sometimes. I;m sure someone if not Battlefront will come out with the low-res mods and as others have already posted, the tree toggle, etc. will most likely be there as well. I've gotta start saving my lunch money for an Intel P4 board and processor.

Got any examples of this? I'm betting this thread has the potential to get really hot!

As far as the "money/dough to burn" part goes, couldn't be farther from the truth in my case. I am a realist however and the reality, as can be seen over time, is that software will drive hardware requirements up. As I had stated in my original post, Anyone who made a comment about money to burn is "grasping for straws" to make a point. If you want to play it smoothly you gotta have the horsepower to do it. It's simple. Despise away. Have you been out to the latest gaming PC websites or gotten a copy of any of the latest PC gaming magazines. Every other page is an advertisement for another company that sells ****-hot fast PC's that will run even the most processor intensive games smoothly. Just to name a few, Alienware, Falcon Northwest, VooDoo, ABS, IBuyPower, Vicious PC, etc. The list goes on. Hardware and software companies exist and survive because of that attitude. If that attitude was not prevelant and did not exist, who in their right mind would want to get into the business? Business in general has a bigger, better, growth is good attitude. Better software and hardware drive the market. Folks with out-dated, under-powered equipment at best will be an after-thought. It's simply not smart to feed hardware manufacturers and software companies with that attitude? Dude, it's too late. I didn't start the idea, but as I stated before, I'm a realist. The idea will continue to drive the market. I might add, in the past it was big business, corporations, that drove the PC market the hardest. Corporations needed alot of PC's for everyones desktop. Now this is not so much the case. Gamers and PC power-fiends are a big driver in the hardware and software market. I guess in many of the posters eyes in this thread, those gamers with "money to burn". I used this term simply in reference to the graphics aspect of the game. If I misled anyone into thinking otherwise, I apologize. I'm not familiar with Panzer General 2 so I really can't compare Combat Mission with it however I am familiar with Combat Mission. I'm familiar enough to realize that there is a visual element to the game. Whether or not you think the graphics are good or bad is irrelevant. There are graphics and the graphics make their demands on the processor. What are you gonna do? As you suggested/requested, perhaps Battlefront or a modder can provide low-res trees, grass, tanks, men, et al. Again, this is where you and I part ways. I think this is a bad direction for a software company to go in. Perhaps you should give Tac-Ops a try. I do not have the game myself, but it appears to be a less graphics-oriented game that does not sacrifice any of the realism that you enjoy. I agree with this statement. I think that this statement raises the next obvious question, "What kind of game is Combat Mission?" From what I can tell, Combat Mission exists in both the graphics realm as well as game engine accuracy. Cabron66 has already stated that the graphics in Combat Mission leave something to be desired compared to some other first-person shooter, Half-Life 2. Does your machine play first person shooters well? If not, have you e-mailed the makers of the first-person shooter in question to come out with a lo-res version? It's intelligent to come to the realization that graphics will continue to get better (more visually appealing/realistic looking). There may come a day when the next generation of games is released that requires a ridiculous dollar hardware expenditure to be able to play them well. When this day comes, we're all gonna have a decision to make: "Do I want to stay in this rat-race or not?" If the majority decide against upgrading the hardware/software vendors have a decision to make: "Do we reduce the processor demand or make the upgrade more affordable?"

Cabron66, Tough situation. After I read your post I wanted to respond. I don't think that I am making any earth-shattering discoveries by stating that new software will become increasingly demanding on existing hardware, especially games. I recently, within the last 8 months, put together a brand new machine from scratch. My Machine: AMD XP 2700+ (2.17ghz) processor 1GB PC2700 RAM Chaintech GeForce TI-4600 128mb 4xAGP CL Soundblaster 5.1 Gamer Sound card CL 5.1 Speaker System WD 80GB hard drive 8mb cache 7200rpm ASUS A7V8X motherboard Not bragging about this rig because it's nowhere near cutting edge. The point is, 8 months ago this was a decent rig, now it's an average gaming system. As an avid gamer, I feel gamers should be asking software developers to create more realism, not less. We should want the software companies to come out with more realistic looking grass, trees, men, tanks, ray-guns, etc. not dumb down the look and feel so that our out of date machines can deal with it. As for now, my machine runs CMBO and CMBB like a raped ape! Don't know how CMAK will run on it. Time will tell. But I will say that if it runs CMAK at a less than satisfactory speed, you can bet that I'll be online at Googlegear.com to upgrade my machine so that my machine runs it good. Will it cost me money? Yup. Would I like to spend the money on other things besides gaming PC hardware? Yup. It boils down to one thing, if you want it to run good, then get ready to spend the money to ensure that it does run good. I'm sure that most of the gamers on this forum would agree that they want the games to get better. I for one would rather have BTS and other software companies spend their time and money on producing mind-blowing, out-of-this world realistic graphics than spend their time creating settings to dumb-down the graphics so that slow out of date processors, video cards, etc. are able to handle the load. Good luck with your over-burdened machine.

Was just wondering why you don't like the Creative Labs product? I have a Soundblaster Audigy Gamer 5.1 with Creative Labs Soundblaster 5.1 speakers and have not had any problems. Appreciate your feedback about your dissatisfaction.

My prediction: January 15th, 2004. The delay caused by BTS striving to make sure the game is as bug free as possible. My next prediction: The wait will be worth it!

My prediction: January 15th, 2004. The delay caused by BTS striving to make sure the game is as bug free as possible. My next prediction: The wait will be worth it!