jiggles

In my view the anisotropic filtering offers much more than a 5%, or 1% improvement in visual quality. For CMBB I think AF is actually more important than FSAA. But the difference can't really been seen in screenshots, the real benefit of AF is apparent when you move round the map. Much less shimmering.

Hummm. I've tried them this morning, and after a bit of messing about they work. Nearly. I'm still getting the odd bit of missing text (eg. the password prompt in a PBEM), but other text seems OK. Can't say they seem much faster to me. No problems with my SGI flat-panel via DVI (and boy have I had problems with that and NV drivers in the past!).

Yeah, BTS please fix, or do sumfink!

Yeah, prompted by your post I tried a QB with 6 KV-2s against Axis whatever in October 1941. Two of the KV-2s were taken out by a PSW222 (!) forcing the crew to bail. Alright, my tactics were very much "stick your chin and let them punch it". Guess this proves that it's not so much übertanks that are important, as übercrews and übertactics

The average graphics card around when the next iteration of CM arrives (which is what, 2 years away?) would be able to render much more detailed models. A couple of graphical additions I'd like to see are a) bump-mapping on the models, better trees, c) better lighting/shadows and d) volumetric smoke effects. The first is pretty easy to do, the others would take a bit more work. [ October 22, 2002, 04:07 AM: Message edited by: jiggles ]

The thing which slightly disappoints me about the briefings is that a number are predictably misleading. SLIGHT SPOILER: + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + For example, when the briefing says something like "you have a dozen IS-2s and half-a-dozen T34/85s, expect only light resistance", then I find it's foggy... well I know I should pack some tasty fish snacks. Heeeeeere kitty kitty. (Still can't win though!).

Well, I can tell the difference running my flat-panel via DVI compared to analogue. DVI is better, much cleaner. I'd never buy another analogue flat-panel. But then I'm fussy like that (champagne tastes and beer money, as they say). Your mileage may vary. I guess the best way to answer your own question is to try to compate the difference side-by-side. Have you considered the upper-range Samsung monitors? I've read good reviews of them (though never seen one). [ October 19, 2002, 11:13 AM: Message edited by: jiggles ]

I'm sure in a QB I witnessed Russian anti-tank rifle squad shooting at attacking Germans. The sounds made me think they were shooting their ATR. Maybe the engine doesn't distinguish. Anyway, surely a 14.5mm round would make quite a mess of your average foot-soldier?

I've lost two squads whilst trying to creep them along the edge of the map. They weren't under fire or anything. Just got bored and wandered off for a coffee and Danish I guess. Whoops. Can't remember which scenario it was, but as I only started with three squads, that was my assault pretty much buggered (skewz my French). It's rather embarassing though. Imagine what the Russians thought, with me turning up with two-thirds of my players missing.

OK, goes like this, I start a game and play for a bit. I then hit the Windows key to drop back to the desktop. When I return to full-screen CMBB the screen goes black for a few seconds (mouse pointer still visible), then once the normal picture returns the frame rate is awful. This typically seems worse with larger maps. It's almost like the game, or the drivers, are trying to load all the textures again without unloading them when minimising. Or something. Any ideas? [Athlon 2000+XP, 1GB RAM, GeForce 3 with NV 30.82 drivers, nForce motherboard]. Oh yes, I don't have any other large applications running when this happens. The usual background applications, but nothing that upsets any other games. [ October 14, 2002, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: jiggles ]

Woohoo! Just got an e-mail from Amazon, it's in the post. Just hope Mr Postie has got some fresh rubber and extra go-go juice for his PostieVan. (You know, a bit like BA Baracus' van). :cool:

He's probably tired of being phoned up all day and asked whether they'll have "Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3" tomorrow.

FSAA isn't instantly noticeable in screenshots, especially if they're hi-res or compressed using a lossy algorithm (ie. JPEG). AF as you say is more noticeable when moving the map around, or if you have a gridded terrain mod

Yes, I concluded this from the Yelnia scenario in the demo. If you start as Russian, leave your troops where the are, and unhidden, you get spanked in the first turn by a barrage. If you conceal your troops you don't.

One word: WOOHOO!!! That is all. Thank you for listening.

You don't need 40.xx drivers to get anisotropic filtering. The 30.xx (and indeed 2x.xx I think) series are capable of it, it's just that it's a bit more difficult to turn it on than with 40.xx (need third-party tweak utility, rather than NVIDIA control panel).

If only it were that simple over here; in the UK we use both!

Either: a) right-click on your desktop, choose Properties, then Settings, or... or Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Display (How you get to them might be different, as I'm running XP Pro with the same user interface as Windows 2000, rather than the horrible plastic green/blue thing you get by default.) [ October 05, 2002, 10:26 AM: Message edited by: jiggles ]

Anti-aliasing is a technique which is used to reduce the jagged edges you see around the objects rendered by your graphics card. Another feature supported by modern cards is anisotropic filtering, which helps reduce the shimmering you see in the ground textures in the distance in CMBO/CMBB (especially when using the hi-res modded textures). In my opinion the anisotropic filtering has at least as much if not more impact on CMBO/CMBB. With 30.82 drivers you can alter the anti-aliasing settings from Display Properties -> Advanced -> GeForce -> Additional Properties -> 3D Antialiasing settings (on Win XP anyway). You can't control the anisotropic filtering from the control panel, you should get a third-party application such as aTuner (available from http://www.guru3d.com/atuner/ ). Change the Direct3D settings to 4xS Antialiasing and 8x Anisotropic Filter, and the results are quite beautiful. In particular look at the distant map as you move the camera, there's a lot less noisy shimmering with both these settings like that. If you play other games you should be careful to turn these off before playing, as they have a real big impact on the frame rate. It's not important in CMBO/CMBB, and your card should be quite capable of handling both these settings at maximum in Combat Mission. The 40.xx drivers allow you to alter anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering from the control panel (so you don't need aTuner), and supposedly give better performance. I can't get them to run, so I'm sticking with 30.xx for now.

INCOMING....!!!!

*shrugs*

Well I got them from here where it says "Windows XP/2000" (I'm running XP Pro). :confused: :confused: :confused:

Ugh, what a question! Well as I think I've said above, my experience has been that 30.82 is better than the older 28.xx and 29.xx series drivers. As the saying goes "your mileage may vary". Another saying goes "if it ain't broke don't fix it". If you haven't got a problem with 28.xx then I'd stick with them. I'm sticking with 30.82 for now. The only reason I'm messing about with 40.xx is just plain curiosity.

I'm wondering why these stupid things always get released on a Friday? I tend to buy all my software by mail order. If it's released on Friday there's almost no chance it'll be in the post and delivered by Saturday. So I miss a entire weekend of CMBBing!!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

30.82 is the latest official WHQL driver, yes. There's actually a 31.40 floating around too. Versions 40.71 and 40.72 are official betas, in that you can download them from NVIDIA rather than your local favourite repository of leaked beta drivers. But they are beta nevertheless. It's just a bit worrying that old, solved problems seem to be reappearing. Someone somewhere isn't doing their regression testing correctly!