Hpt. Lisse

Huh, interesting. These next-generation 3Dimensional glasses are supposed solve alot of the problems you're talking about, without inducing extra eye-strain. Their site is littered with recommendations from every legit PC rag I've read. And they just released a brand-new driver for it (Nvidia, 56.64 drivers). However, the CM screen does have 2-D toolbar in it, and I'm not sure how that would render out. Edit: Though, it does list a minimum refresh rate of 70 Hz, with higher ones preferrable. Which isn't a problem for my rig, but could be for others. [ March 25, 2004, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: Hpt. Lisse ]

I dunno, Colonel... those glasses on your face when playing CM may be a little difficult to hide from your wife. Not to mention, by the time I get to your part of the world for a processor upgrade, she'll slay me at the door! "So, this is the guy who talked you into this stuff!"

Convince?!? Convince nothing! You were fated to own that graphics card, Colonel. Or at least, that's what you say when the missus asks...

Just eyeballing the E-dimensional stereo 3-D glasses here and wondering if any CM players (specifically, with Nvidia graphics cards) have used this product. It's not listed on their game list, but it should work. They even have a 56.64 driver update. Thanks for any input... Hpt. Lisse

Oh, it's required all right, if you want your card to perform in any D3D/OpenGL mode... However, this isn't an Nvidia-FX5900 series thing alone... the ATI 9700 & 9800 series requires the supplemental power adapter as well. The cards simply exceed the power requirement of the AGP 2.0/3.0 slots they reside in. Small price to pay. It would be interesting to hook up a volt meter and see just how much extra current these cards draw on the molex connector... I believe (it's been awhile, ya know) my Voodoo 5500 card required a molex power connector as well. So did the few 6000's that made it out (yeah, some were actually manufactered, not 2 but 4 GPU's working in unison). But never a wall AC adapter.

You're hooked, which is a good thing. Unless you're married. The manual will answer all. Here's the short list. 1) Yes, the game recognizes the difference between a "knocked out" vehicle and an "abandoned" one. Your crew were probably taking casualties inside the tank from partial penetrations, etc., and wisely decided to haul ass. Click on Hotkeys and make sure "detailed armor labels" is on. No, your crew isn't suicidal enough to run out and hop into an immobilized, spotted tank while every enemy in the area fires at them in the hope of getting off another couple rounds. 2) No, ammo trucks didn't service actively engaged AFV's. In the Campaign mode, where there many battles occur over several days, your troops get re-supplied. 3) See Manual 4) Yeah, it's a bit slow. But great for folks who travel or are married with kids. Us single folk prefer the TCP/IP games. Good luck!

Hey Schrullenhaft, what was that Ti4600 and 4200 AGP x8 problem? Is this it?

I see some heavy-hitters over in ATI's camp available for the Mac - The 9800 Pro, the 9700, etc. Nvidia only seems to offer the FX5200 Ultra, which isn't really comparable to the ATI competition. As you are no doubt aeare, Charles programs CM on a Mac, so it would be interesting to know what his hardware setup is. Does one get fog when using an Nvidia card in a Mac? Sorry, not alot of help, perhaps Schrullenhaft knows something about it...

What OS are you using? Does the manual list the brand/type of motherboard? Have you had the cover off of the machine yet? The number will be physically printed on the motherboard somewhere. (i.e., this computer I'm using has a Gigabyte GA-7VM400M motherboard). Yes, you are looking for a AGP video card - PCI vid card is a last resort for those without an AGP slot. Man, pricewatch shows the FX5900 down to $185... I'll give you the extra $35. To settle for a FX5700 (128-bit bus)when a 256-bit vid card (the 5900) is so close... That's like buying a Porsche 911 and not getting the turbo model because you couldn't come up with another $35. The difference in performance is massive, and worth every extra penny.

True - ATI is embracing PCI Ex. whole hog, while Nvidia will continue to have their GPU's AGP accessable, producing two versions of the same card (which theoretically sacrifices some speed when used on a PCI Ex. card). Nvidia wants to see how fast PCI Ex. gets universally accepted first. However, many people on this forum have to save up just to buy a $200 vid. card, let alone an entirely new motherboard (a new system, really, if one considers what's involved). Maybe, when CM X2 comes out...

Just letting ya know how it all worked out. The factory-refurbed IBM 933MHz ThinkPad was in great shape - the video chip is the R6, or Radeon mobility, with 16MB dedicated memory. System is Win2000 Pro w/128 MB. (Yeah, I expect to be installing some memory soon). There is a video driver update at IBM (fairly recent, too) that I downloaded but haven't installed yet. On went CMAK and the patch, loaded up all 8-bit terrain mods, and hit it. Chug chug chug. Switch to 800x600, and life is better, but still not what I would call playable. Then I remember the Z-mask trick, download Rage3D tweaker, and disable the Z-mask buffer. This literally doubles my framerates, and I can at least play PBEM battles on the road. I haven't tried the new driver 'cause the old one works quite well. So that's where we ended up in laptop land.

That surprises me. Was it an apple to apple comparison? Was it a tree-heavy large map with x8 AA turned on perhaps? I only ask because I own the same video card - the newer driver may be a hair slower on my rig (I mean like %3), but sure beats ALt-Tab ing all day.

The step up from a 5200 to the 5600 is significant, as you can see here . This is far more important than the vid card having 256MB vs. 128MB. Schrullenhaft can walk you through the physical installation, but you will have to find out where in your BIOS to disable that on-board Intel vid chip once the card is in place. Was Dell helpful at all?

It's all volunteer. But BFC should be paying Schrullenhaft - look at this guy, over 4500 posts, he's helped countless CM players with hardware/software issues. I'm beginning to suspect that he never sleeps... My only worry is that Dell may not want to help you with this. Let us know how it works out...

No, Colonel, an integrated graphics chip resides on the main motherboard of your computer, and usually shares the system's (in your case, 256MB) memory for it's display duties, so one doesn't remove it. In many cases, though, one can disable it IF an add-on graphics card is plugged into the afforementioned AGP slot. This article here demonstrates that even low-end video cards outperform integrated graphic chips by a wide margin. The bad news is that, when I go to Dell and try to spec out a 2400 like yours, it doesn't give me any other graphic options other than the integrated one, which leads me to think that your motherboard may not have an AGP slot on it. However, all is not lost. As Junk2drive mentioned, there are video cards that reside in PCI slots, of which your computer has several. Inno3D even makes a 128MB FX5600 model that is PCI. Check out Pricewatch for your options and cost. Let us know if this is a direction you want to proceed in, and we can continue to help out. (or Dell tech support can, too, I would think).

Rob, Read this recent comparison of video cards before you make your decision, then cost compare the ones you like. Tom's Hardware Vid Card roundup You may be surprised at some of the benchmarks, depending on what games you play... the older Ti4600 beats a FX5600 non-ultra in many situations. Having the extra RAM (256 instead of 128) doesn't make a difference in any current games I'm aware of (in fact, it slows down the card a hair, as the onboard memory controller has to deal with 2x128MB banks instead of one...) [ February 24, 2004, 01:17 AM: Message edited by: Hpt. Lisse ]

Yyyeeessss, if there's any way to find out what motherboard you have inside, we could better assist you... it should be visible when you first boot up your computer.

As always, good recomendations from the S man. Keep in mind, though, that stepping up to the FX5900 line (the SE is a slightly slower version of the 5900 non-Ultra) increases the memory bus width from 128 bit to 256, which is an important feature. I've had a eVGA 128MB FX5900 for a couple months now and love it - it's down to $190 US right now. Let us know what you get.

No problem, Herr Colonel, list out your new box's specs and we can steer you in the right direction.

Take a look here to see how your video card stacks up. Tom's Hardware Get the picture?

Thanks for the shout - Junk2Drive, familiar with XP's propensity to consume available memory, will definately get 512 for the laptop. The 16 MB is dedicated, not integrated memory for the GPU. Schrullenhaft, you never sleep, my man. I'm hoping to never play anything over a med. battle, and that using the 8-bit terrain mod (vs. the standard 24-bit) will help the GPU load somewhat. Push comes to shove, I'll try running 800x600 desktop and see if it's acceptable or not. Then it's back to CMBO, which isn't the worst of all things to suffer... Thanks again.

Step One: Forget it. The integrated Intel 3-D chip will not render fog under any circumstances. Note that this has no effect on actual gameplay. No ATI based video chip will render fog, either. Only Nvidia based cards will give you proper fog table emulation. (I'm not sure of the other manufacturers, like Matrox). This also holds true for Intel's next generation chip, Extreme Graphics 2. Time to invest in a video card, my friend.

Hey ya'll, I just picked up a IBM thinkpad A31 (933 MHz) for "cheep", primarily for writing but would like to load CMAK. I've already downloaded several items from CMMODS in preparation for its arrival (8-bit optimized terrain, etc). Looks like I'm working with an ATI Mobility Radeon chip w/16 MB memory. Not great, I know but let's see what we can do... At any rate, I've been primarily a Nvidia guy for a few years now (a slave to fog tables, I tell ya) and have no idea what ATI driver would be best for this experiment. It's coming with Win2000, though I will probably roach the HD and install XP Pro. System memory is only 128 MB, but I'd expect that to increase to either 256 or 512 within hours of its arrival on my doorstep. What's the driver call? Thanks for your input. Hpt. Lisse

Jack - Yeah, a high-end FX card will gain you ground (esp. 5900 & up), BUT, the Ti4600 was a solid performer (I still run one in my other box, and it runs CMAK just fine). You could easily wait for the next round of vid cards from Nvidia and ATI, and not really miss out (assuming your CPU is above a 1.2 or something - one interesting chart at Tom's hardware shows the difference between same vid card/different CPU's...)

I played CMAK all night with the 56.55's and had no issues. This morning I looped 3DMark a few times, with no crashes. I scored 5180, when the 53.03's would turn in 5140, so no loss there. I've been waiting for a decent driver for some time now. Like Schrullenhaft said, with our luck, they'll screw 'em up with the offical release...