Lucky_Strike

Can't say why the copy-protection wasn't triggered, it may be that in VMware Fusion I was using a virtual environment cloned from a real PC or, most likely, the Bootcamp environment, or even the demo versions of games. I know that I had problems with one of the demos refusing to run on my Mac so that is maybe why I ran it under emulation. The one on Wine is certainly a fully licensed install of BN - I still have it on my Mac, though I think Wine was a trial, or something, when I last ran it so probably won't run now. Incidentally I've also run the CMx1 games under emulation, again no big issues that I can remember. I fully expect that VMware will make an M1 compliant version of Fusion, how well the graphics will function with the built-in M1 graphics will have to be seen. When I've run them under emulation they have always been using a discrete GPU rather than on-CPU graphics. Wether Wine will update to M1 is anyones guess. I'm happy with my Intel Mac for now. I also have a gaming PC because quite frankly I've never really trusted that Apple support would always be possible in CM and the graphics-side of Macs has always been a bit of an issue for me. What I'm very interested in is the possibility of running CM on one of the new cloud PC streaming services that are springing up - like Shadow. These will cut down massively on the cost of PC ownership for someone like me who just uses it for gaming - and only for CM games at that!

UPDATED LINKS Okay folks here are the very latest links where you can grab the mod: Google Drive Apple iCloud Microsoft OneDrive Mega Cloud Drive Please download the read me pdf first (please), then if you just want to get started without any faff download the file named Hedgerow_Hell_or_How_Not_to_be_Seen_1.zip and you'll be up and running in no time. NOTE: if you've previously downloaded the mod from prior links in this thread AND you use the latest version of ReShade (4.8.2) then you only need the revised Read Me pdf and Hedgerow_Hell_ReShade_presets_v2.zip OTHERWISE you have everything you need already. @Bootie If you'd like to grab the latest files from one of the links I think they are about as ready as they're ever going to be to upload to the Warehouse. Let me know if you'd like a couple of images and short intro, happy to provide. Cheers!

'bout five clicks, a few keyboard strokes and you're done. Then it's a case of how much, or how little, you want to do with the fx. I'll do a version with pictures at some point.

Of interest - despite what the game requirements say I have successfully run CMx2 games under Windows emulation on Intel based Macs using both Wine and VMware Fusion. Generally the games have worked without much issue and are playable though not sure how well they fare with really large scenarios. From memory I think they were lacking some of the mist effects. So if the emulation software makers continue to support Macs on M1 silicon (why wouldn't they), with OpenGL as part of the emulation, there's no reason we can't run CM under emulation, though YMMV of course.

On first run after installation it should be okay since no fx are being used, the only thing that you might get is some mouse pointer trailers across your screen. Once CM has fired up and the ReShade overlay menu has appeared you can follow the brief tutorial to get an overview of the main menus and UI. After the tutorial is done, and before setting up any fx, it’s worth making a couple of small changes - first go to the settings tab in the ReShade overlay and add a keyboard shortcut to toggle the fx on and off, it’s the second entry I believe. I have mine set to the end key. Next, just below the keyboard shortcuts is a pull-down menu which probably reads Block all input when overlay is visible, change that setting to Block input when cursor in on overlay. Then you should disable screen edge camera movement in CM. This will stop any crazy spinning in the game view whilst you have the ReShade overlay open. To do this open a scenario, saved game or whatever. Click through to the game view and close the ReShade overlay if it’s open (toggle it on and off with the home key), now press alt-E - this should switch off screen edge camera navigation - test it’s off by moving your pointer to the edge of the screen. When that’s done you can bring up the ReShade overlay and nothing should spin, but you should still be able to navigate your game view by moving as normal with mouse dragging and clicks etc, except when you’re in the ReShade overlay. If you use the screen edge navigation you can toggle it on again with alt-E once you’re done with the ReShade overlay. You can now experiment with the fx. These few changes mean you can control when ReShade is active. You don’t what the fx running when CM launches, nor in the editor or menus, so you can toggle the fx off as soon as you launch CM and only toggle the fx on once you’re in the game view or 3D view, if you’re editing a map.

Yes I think something broke for a while so that the spinning was just all the time. @Mord’s guide is very useful although it’s getting a bit long in the tooth now, so an update is probably due. It would be great if we could pin a ReShade guide somewhere in the forums that could be updated regularly with installation tips and tricks. I may investigate further, otherwise might have to create some sort of wiki somewhere.

As @Lethaface says it’s easy to install / uninstall. Remember when you install it to install for OpenGL and all should go smoothly. If you hate it, it won’t break anything and you can easily uninstall. Also see my advice regarding setting up keyboard shortcuts to toggle the fx on and off. Unfortunately because CM is quite old and the way its GUI is set up means that ReShade affects the GUI as well, which gets very annoying really quick unless you take control of it. As I mentioned earlier I will try to make an installation guide as soon as I can.

Is that working correctly now? In the last version I used the spinning drove me nuts. I’ll have to dare to turn off the screen edge navigation thing and see what happens!

Great! That’s good to know. It does take some time to get to know what everything does, it’s not the most intuitive of interfaces, but once you start to find your way around it things fall into place. The depth effects are especially amazing, and it’s definitely worth seeing what you can do with them. As you say they are great for screenshots. In CM the depth masking is quite simple so tweaking it is not too difficult. When I have time I will try to do an installation and setup tutorial. Yes I have that same error, it’s a missing texture I think, I don’t know where that comes from, it wasn’t installed with my last version either so I think it’s actually something that is missing from the current installer. I don’t think that PandaFX stops working because of the error, not even sure that the texture is used. Thanks for your screenshots - really good to see the mods in action.

LOL. We will persuade you eventually ... But seriously, ReShade could go some way to creating a seasons look for you even if you just use LUTs and nothing else. I even saw a snow fx yesterday which was quite interesting if not a little odd, I had snow on my Bocage! LUTs are very clever, they are just very simple colour references that have a tiny impact of frame rate but can completely change the colour palette used in the game. They only affect colour, the rest of the post-processed image is the same. Unlike CMs built-in Movie Lighting mode they can also be used alongside the games own anti-aliasing. The things that put people off using ReShade is how complicated it looks and, in Combat Mission games at least, how it affects the user interface. The trick is to install it in the game, launch the game and to then immediately open the ReShade menu ignoring what it does to the game UI. Then set keyboard shortcuts for turning on and off the fx. Once that is done it’s much easier because whenever one launches CM one can immediately switch the fx off so one doesn’t get any of the weird, psychedelic effects on the CM UI. The other thing to do is to toggle off navigation by screen edge in CM as this has been known to cause a spinning effect when the ReShade menu is open. Screen edge navigation can be toggled off or on easily as needed in CM, can’t remember what the keyboard commands are at the moment. Once these two things are done it’s easy to switch ReShade on and off as needed and to play around in the ReShade menu as much as you like. And if it’s all too overwhelming it’s easy enough to uninstall.

@Lethaface So I installed ReShade 4.8.2, the latest version. There were a couple of errors, I noticed straightaway that the LUT effect in the sunny preset was not working as expected. This is because the designer of that fx has changed how he groups and apply LUTs. I have corrected that and now things should work as expected. I suggest installing all the fx packs when installing ReShade, this way you won't be missing any of the fx when you load my presets. You can always cull the unused fx later. I am attaching my latest presets to this message. They are: CMBN Hot dusty sunny summer day 04 ReShade 4.8.2.ini - A hot, dusty, parched day with emphasis on oranges and leached out colours, high contrast, deep shadows and some haze in the distance CMBN Damp light rain mist summer day 04 ReShade 4.8.2.ini - A suitably dreary wet day with emphasis on greens, lower contrast and mist around tree tops and in the distance There are some screen shots below of these in action. You will need to make your own UI Mask of course. And if you haven't set the depth masking you won't benefit from depth related effects so switch those off (DOF, MXAO, Bloom), though it's a shame not to have at least bloom effects working as they are quite important in creating the look of the presets. IMHO it's worth investing a bit of time setting up ReShade to work with depth related fx correctly. Wet day with Reshade Wet day without Reshade Wet day with Reshade Wet day without Reshade Hot day with Reshade Hot day without Reshade Hot day with Reshade Hot day without Reshade Let me know how you get on with these. Hedgerow_Hell_ReShade_presets_v2.zip

Yes, I think I've just become accustomed to it. If I load something like Bois de Baugin with quite a few large wooded areas I can get a little bit of flickering, whereas I can load a small quick battle with a smattering of trees and see loads of flickering. I wonder if it's connected to which tree models are appearing or possibly the LOD thing. I see it on both rigs so it's not an nVidia or Radeon thing, at least not for me. The only thing I will say about it is that it's less obvious scooting around at ground level. I think it's fine to complement a fella on his flowers - sure it happens to Monty Don all the time!

@Erwin @Vacilllator Okay. for what they're worth here are the current settings I'm using. The CM panels are actually from my iMac but they are the same excepting the screen res and ATI left-click thing. My iMac has a 27inch 5K screen and a Radeon Pro 575X 4 GB GPU, with no extra controls over the GPU, running CM at a resolution of 3200 x 1800. I tried 5K for CM but all the dialogues were tiny, though the rest of the graphics were fine, 3200 x 1800 is the highest I could manage before it gave me headaches trying to read stuff. On my Windows 10 PC I have a GTX 1660 OC 6GB which I run at 2560 x 1440 resolution. This also runs through the Mac's monitor and again I did try higher resolutions but 2560 x 1440 is comfortable, I may try 3200 x 1800 but the feed from the PC to the Mac is a bit convoluted so I prefer to just leave it alone 'cos it works. I only use the PC for CM, no other games or apps, so it stays pretty much as is. The nVidia control panel global settings are: The per game settings for BN are: There are more things set (bold in the per game settings) than I thought, but I really don't know why they're set. Some are bold but still show the same as the global settings, so they are things I have tinkered with then reset to the global settings again. I may try turning each one off to see if I notice any difference. The way I see it the less the GPU is processing for very little noticeable gain then the more I can squeeze out of it for ReShade.

I get semi-flickering trees sometimes. Depends partly on resolution I think, goodness knows why. Interesting that it's the nVidia controls that instigated it on your system, I'll have to see what I have set in there.

I'll post the best I can, but there are so many variables ... it'll be something.

... and drinking straight from a bottle of VSOP by the looks of it! Think I've seen a bootleg of that somewhere - doubtless there'll be one out there. Expect we'll hear himself telling the bouncers to remove that rowdy Puritan before I come down there an' sort 'im owt!

Okay, okay - Mr Townshend and his bunch of fish farmers ... This looks like a personal pic of himself?

I mess about with the settings every now and then and immediately forget why I did what I did, so set them back to default. I figure that the game is best left to deal with them, especially as the game's graphics engine is so old, it can't really use much of what the GPU settings offer these days. @Erwin When I get a chance I'll have a look at what all my settings are and post a screen shot or something on here for you. But I have to say in the past I've just followed advice from others who seem more knowledgeable of this stuff. For sure you need to keep that FXAA off - I'm pretty certain that's the setting that makes text go wonky. These pages were most helpful, though I think the threads are quite long and a bit old. Also, annoyingly, nVidia keep adding to and changing stuff on their control panels. If you're anything like me you've probably messed about with your graphics setting umpteen times and have never been 100% satisfied or sure of what's happening. I think graphics performance and the CM games are a bit like an itch you can't scratch!

If the game is handling it then the nVidia drivers ought to respect that. I don’t know what difference it makes to have the nVidia GPU control the AAA or whatever else it can do, personally I’ve futzed about with all those settings so many times but can’t say that I noticed any difference other than garbled text or slow downs, so I just leave it to the game to handle it with ReShade doing it’s magic. On the Mac there are no direct controls for the GPU so the game is always fully in charge. The biggest thing I notice on the Mac is how the Bocage renders, it’s better on the PC with nVidia card than on the Mac with a more powerful AMD Radeon ... For custom per game setting using the nVidia controls one has to add a custom setup as none of BFs games are listed. Can’t remember off the top of my head how that works but it’s something like make all your setting choices then assign it to run whenever the game .exe is launched and save.

I guess in retrospect Mr Daltry and his motley crew should have that title.

It was actually one of the modified Borgward IV's - the Panzerjäger B IV Ausf B which were Ladungsleger Borgward B IV's with six Panzerschreck tubes mounted on the rear deck, extra armour and smoke dispensers on the front. There were apparently 56 such conversions made and the unit equipped with these was committed to the Berlin defence.. This one was filmed in Alexanderplatz next to the turret front and gun of an IS2. There had been some very heavy fighting in this area and several of these Panzerjäger were seen in and around the platz. This particular vehicle has lost the Panzerschreck tubes but the smoke dispensers and reworked front can still be identified; somewhere about 33:38. My question though - are we going to get to play with these in F&R? Fantastic late war German Wunderwaffe.

I define draw distance to the line at which the mini ground textures kick in. I guess there are also other distances such as how far before certain doodads disappear, though this can vary quite a bit as you noticed with crops. Some of them, like brush seem to never quite disappear. Trees change at another distance, so it’s really a case of which bugs one first I would say. Your settings look fine, I don’t know if Vsync on or off has much of an effect, don’t really know what it is. I think Better is fine for most settings, I run 3D models at Best with 3D textures at Better. Do you have Anti Aliasing on or off? Or are you letting the GPU control that? One thing to remember is that the game engine runs on fairly old technology by today’s game standards so there’s only so far we can push it, or that it’s worth pushing. The nVidia drivers allow for custom settings at a per game level so it’s worth taking advantage of this if you run other more modern games as well. The difference between High Res and Medium Res is quite minimal. You have to get right up close to really notice. If you haven’t tried them then a quick swap is worth a go. I generally run the Medium Res. It’s only when I test and develop stuff that I use High Res. Also I have the luxury of two systems so I can keep the gaming rig set up at a sweet spot whilst I tend to design the mods on my Mac.

Yep, mystery indeed, as I said I think we need some How to instructions from one of the elders. It’s a bit like the issue that comes up time and again with people running out of picture storage space. It’s only when someone like Warts bothers to explain that we find out how things work around here. God knows what we do when there’s a fire, where’s the exit ... Well when the time comes, or if the time comes, I may have to forego ‘Mod God’, which does actually already belong to Paul Weller, and use ‘It’s toasted!’ instead. BTW I like your new title, very appropriate. We could all use that...

Just watched part two, just the ...tary to go. Very good clips used in this, though a lot of it is unsurprisingly post battle, they are relevant and well strung together, unlike some other programmes where the tendency is to use any old sequence of a howitzer firing or a Panzer 1 when they’re talking about a Tiger, you know the kind of irritating lazy-researcher kinda a thing. Think I noticed a Borgward B IV Demolition vehicle next to a dismembered IS2 turret in one of the clips today, will have to go back to have a look, not an bit of film or still I’d seen before.

I think he’s probably already been blocked ... and yes I enjoyed part one, no spoilers please.