Canuckgd

Thanks very much for this Kingfish! Really appreciate your answer. Sounds good! Glenn

Good day, and happy holidays for those that applies to. I'm seriously considering getting CMAK. I have CMBB, and CMBO is on the way (owned it some time ago, so I have played it). I noticed on the Scenario Depot that some folks have made scenarios for CMAK that cover the Western Theatre in France, Belgium and Germany. I'm mainly interested in following the Canadians through Europe & Italy, so this caught my attention. Are scenarios realistic (i.e. terrain, snow, units) for the European Theatre in CMAK? If I wanted to reproduce a CMBO scenario in CMAK, is that possible? I assume that some pieces of equipment may be missing, but how much of a difference would there be? The second question is (related to the above), how many inherent scenarios in CMAK are dedicated to Italy vs. N. Africa (i.e. are most of the included scenarios for N. Africa or Italy)? Many thanks folks. Appreciate your time. Glenn

Thank you Schrullenhaft. This helps a lot! My main usage of the computer is for photo-editing in Photoshop, thus the reason I was thinking of the Matrox line of cards. Gaming is limited to Battlefront (CMBB, CMBO) at this point so if the card will work with them, I'm happy. I know what you mean about the potential for driver issues though (have had enough of driver issues to last me a lifetime at this point - mostly with ATI), so if anyone out there has used the Parhelia specifically, that too would help. Many thanks again . Glenn

Well, after much deliberation, I think I'm going to go get myself a Parhelia 650 (Matrox) video card. Anyone using this card with CMBO, and if so, have you seen any problems? Will this card depict fog? Thanks Glenn

Yup, as I recall I had no problems running it with XP. I haven't had it on in a while as I lost my disk right before a reformat, as I say, but I re-purchased it last night so will be able to tell you for sure in a couple of weeks, but unless SP2 did something CMBO doesn't like, it should run fine. Thanks for the tip about turning off the firewall before downloading mods though - I might not have thought of that. Glenn

Thanks Philippe & Panzertruppe. I'll go check this out ASAP. I don't know if the retail version is up here in Canada or not (not seen it to date), but I'll check that. Thanks again - I'll be back into CMBO soon now! Glenn

Thank you Philippe! That really helps a bunch. Next dumb question - do you have a link for CMHQ? I have been out of 'the game' for a while now and my links are gone. Many thanks! :cool: Glenn

Howdy, I used to own CMBO, and lost the disk - right before I did a reformat . Anyway, I'm seriously thinking of purchasing it again (I know it's old, but I really enjoyed that one ). One thing I'm trying to remember, does CMBO depict snow in winter (given the proper geographic locations, of course)? Many thanks. Glenn

Thanks once again Redwolf. Appreciate the feedback as always. Man, when it rains, it pours! My monitor has started going south on me now, so it looks like I'll have to purchase both a new monitor AND a video card! Some days.... . Anyway, I'm really hoping I can swing the NVidia, which all things considered (including "down the road"), would be the better bet overall for me. I'll let you know Glenn

Well, I own a Radeon 9800 Pro, and will be switching ASAP. If I can, I'll go NVidia 6800 GT within the next few weeks. I've had lots of issues with my Radeon, not the least of which was an attempt to upgrade from the Catalyst 4.7 to 4.10 drivers last week. The install failed and according to ATI, the procedure then was to go in and edit several parts of my registry :eek: ! Uhhh, I don't think so! Frankly, I've been using Omega drivers because of very poor performance for Flight Simulator, so even there, the Radeon hasn't been very good for me (ymmv). I hate the fact I don't have fog in CMBB since that adds a tremendous amount to the ambience of CMBB when the weather is down. In any event, I'm not a fan, and would recommend something other than ATI, I'm afraid. Glenn

Thanks very much for your comments on this. Since I do do a lot of photo-editing on this computer, it does sound like the Matrox would fit the bill for that. As for gaming, I do so little of it that as long as I can get decent performance out of the Matrox, it may work for my purposes. However, that might limit me a bunch in the future if I do decide to do a bit more gaming with more "graphics-intensive" systems. Decisions, decisions Thanks again for your help. Time to start pricing these things and making a final decision (it looks like I'm going to need a new monitor as well, judging from the "jumping" around this one is starting to do :confused: ). Glenn

Does anyone use a Matrox video card of any description with any Battlefront releases (CMBB, CMBO, CMAK)? As per Redwolf's suggestion, I would like to go with NVidia, but my main work with the computer involves photo-editing, and Matrox have come very highly recommended for that job, but they also stress that it's not a game card. At the moment, the only games I have are CMBB and Flight Simulator 9, and I may soon only have CMBB and CMBO on my system as games (FS takes a LOT of room and I seldom have time for it anymore). As such, if I go with Matrox, does anyone know if it will give acceptable performance with CMBB (etc.), and can you see fog effects? The Matrox is within my budget now, whereas at the moment a new 6800 GT is pretty tough to afford (later maybe). Thanks! Glenn

Thanks Redwolf. Appreciate the advice. Time to start saving my pennies I guess . Hopefully for Christmas . Thanks again, Glenn

OK, been looking around at cards. For CMBB, CMAK (and I'm sure CMBO would be happy) purposes, how about the Asus V9570 GFX-5700 128MB DDR AGP 8X w/TV-OUT, DVI for a card? I can go up to the 256MB memory on the same card, but am not sure how many games would use that extra RAM. Thanks for any advice on this. Glenn

Well, all I can say is I wish I had got CMBB before I got my new computer last year . Then I would have seen this forum. ATI was recommended to me at the time, but even then I was reluctant as I owned ATI before the last card I had (my last card being a Ti4200), and I had problems with it then. That's why I switched to NVidia. However, I got "convinced" that the Radeon Graphics were better (and at that time they may have been - I did see an improvement from my Ti4200, but probably an "apples to oranges" comparison there). It wasn't long after that though, that I had to switch to the Omega Radeon drivers because of very poor performance in Flight Simulator 9, and only recently switched back to the ATI drivers (had a reformat done because of a "tweak" that apparently the Radeon card takes great exception to :mad: ). I've debated going back to the Omega drivers, but I use this machine mainly for photo-editing on a semi-pro basis, so don't really want to upset the apple-cart at this point again. Right now it's working fine (after going back to the CAT 4.7 drivers), but first chance I get, I'll switch it out for an NVidia. Live and learn I guess, but it's an expensive lesson. Incidentally, ATI did give a "solution" to a failed install of their drivers, but it entails fairly extensive editing of the Registry. Sorry, just not going to do that, nor should one have to. When I get my new card, I'll do a reformat and start from scratch. :mad: Glenn

Thanks guys. I have had the omega's before and they worked great. Don't know if you get fog or not though since it's still a Radeon card. I think I'll give them a try though, as it'll be about $500 Cdn to replace this card with something equivalent. My next PC sure won't have an ATI in it though (this is only one of my problems). Many thanks again. Glenn

Thanks guys. I have had the omega's before and they worked great. Don't know if you get fog or not though since it's still a Radeon card. I think I'll give them a try though, as it'll be about $500 Cdn to replace this card with something equivalent. My next PC sure won't have an ATI in it though (this is only one of my problems). Many thanks again. Glenn

Yes, I saw that too (regarding the Mac). Unfortunately I can't seem to get ATI to respond directly to my question (automated replies), but from re-reading the posts as you suggested, I'm betting that nothing's been done. I've had numerous other problems with this card as well, so I think I'm going to switch to the NVidia after all. This is my second ATI card, and I've had serious issues with both now. Such is life. Thanks again for your feedback. Glenn

Yes, I saw that too (regarding the Mac). Unfortunately I can't seem to get ATI to respond directly to my question (automated replies), but from re-reading the posts as you suggested, I'm betting that nothing's been done. I've had numerous other problems with this card as well, so I think I'm going to switch to the NVidia after all. This is my second ATI card, and I've had serious issues with both now. Such is life. Thanks again for your feedback. Glenn

Yes sir, I have done that, and all say that fog isn't visible in CMBB with a Radeon card. However, supposedly the 4.10 drivers have fixed some of the fog issues, but ATI weren't (refused?) to be specific about just what was fixed, or how (i.e. they didn't say that they will now show fog in DX9-based sims/games). All I get from them is an automated reply, which isn't helping. Anyway, since 4.10 drivers just came out in the past couple of days, it is unlikely there will be anything that recent in the tech support forum at this point (however, I will double-check again just to be sure). Thanks for your time and the reference. Glenn

Yes sir, I have done that, and all say that fog isn't visible in CMBB with a Radeon card. However, supposedly the 4.10 drivers have fixed some of the fog issues, but ATI weren't (refused?) to be specific about just what was fixed, or how (i.e. they didn't say that they will now show fog in DX9-based sims/games). All I get from them is an automated reply, which isn't helping. Anyway, since 4.10 drivers just came out in the past couple of days, it is unlikely there will be anything that recent in the tech support forum at this point (however, I will double-check again just to be sure). Thanks for your time and the reference. Glenn

OK, sorry to be a bit persistant in this, but I just spent the last 1.5 hours trying to update my ATI drivers to the CAT 4.10 in hopes I might end up with fog in CMBB. I have the SP2 patch installed in XP, and I first got a message saying that the publisher (ATI) was "unrecognized". Interesting. I proceeded with the install anyways, but it failed partway through, and I had to do a restore, then a reinstall of the 4.7 drivers in order to get any video at all to work. Now, before I take the risk and repeat this little exercise, is anyone here running a Radeon 9800 Pro card with the latest (4.9 or 4.10) drivers, and if so, are they seeing fog (ATI claims they fixed that little problem some time ago and I should update my drivers - hhmmnn)? If they are running those drivers and they are getting fog, I'll try and update one more time. If they are running the latest drivers but NOT seeing fog in CMBB, then I'll leave the drivers where they sit, and as soon as I have a bit of extra cash, I'll go get an NVidia card (yeah I know, graphics aren't as good, but from what I've experienced and heard, they aren't nearly the hassle either). Many thanks, and sorry to rehash an old subject. Glenn

OK, sorry to be a bit persistant in this, but I just spent the last 1.5 hours trying to update my ATI drivers to the CAT 4.10 in hopes I might end up with fog in CMBB. I have the SP2 patch installed in XP, and I first got a message saying that the publisher (ATI) was "unrecognized". Interesting. I proceeded with the install anyways, but it failed partway through, and I had to do a restore, then a reinstall of the 4.7 drivers in order to get any video at all to work. Now, before I take the risk and repeat this little exercise, is anyone here running a Radeon 9800 Pro card with the latest (4.9 or 4.10) drivers, and if so, are they seeing fog (ATI claims they fixed that little problem some time ago and I should update my drivers - hhmmnn)? If they are running those drivers and they are getting fog, I'll try and update one more time. If they are running the latest drivers but NOT seeing fog in CMBB, then I'll leave the drivers where they sit, and as soon as I have a bit of extra cash, I'll go get an NVidia card (yeah I know, graphics aren't as good, but from what I've experienced and heard, they aren't nearly the hassle either). Many thanks, and sorry to rehash an old subject. Glenn

Patrocles - my mistake. I just found out I have the Cat 4.7 drivers, not 4.9! I see the 4.10 drivers are now out. Do you see fog with your card? I also have SP2 installed, but CMBB runs fine with it (except no fog, of course). If you do get fog with your 4.8 drivers, I may give the 4.10's a shot, but I'm always timid about making changes to an already good-running system (except no fog, of course ). Thanks. Glenn

Dark Horse, Nope, sorry. Nice place though, but I'm half-way across the country from there . Glenn