mazex

As a long time hardware nerd, gamer and developer I sign that. Treat yourself and your rig with an ATI X1950 or sumfink (they are avaliable in AGP versions). I bought an X1950Pro (AGP 512Mb) to my nephew who has an old P4 3.0 with 1 GB memory just like you. He had an ATI 9600Pro in it before that was showing it's age badly. With the X1950Pro he can play Oblivion at max settings with no problems and Company of Heroes on max runs like a charm. Test drive unlimited also runs flawless. He has no "real" games on it but they generally require less power /Mazex

Well, I forgive all the graphic stuff mentioned above that make this look somewhat like CMBB++ (accept the magnificent vehicles and soldiers) if BFC removes the CMx1 skybox... Make default rolling terrain for a while and then some haze to finish it off or sumfink! If that's impossible, at least use a skybox made from a FAR bigger texture! I place great hope in the comments that all the textures etc are placeholders... EDIT: At least make "high res" skybox an option, even if you leave empty placeholder textures in place for them! EDIT AGAIN: Those diagnoal "shadow stripes" in the latest images are not going to be in the final product I hope? /Mazex [ May 29, 2007, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: mazex ]

Mmm, and thats a good price too! </font>

This may be of interest to you, then </font>

Mmm, and thats a good price too!

Dammit - I wanna spend some money! /Mazex

Hmm, regarding Panzerkekse... When I did my military service in Sweden in 1989-1990 they where cleaning out old supply depots. All the food I ate during exerices was from 1971 - including biscuits. Feels rather weird eating food that is was made when you was one year old at the age of 20 Those biscuits whould have been possible to use as ERA armour for daring tankers. The problem would have been that the tanks could have been completely destroyed even after a hit by 9mm ammo if you used one of the "bad" packs Isn't the best tank the Swedish version of the Leo 2 by the way? Strv 122 has superior battlefield communication equipment, fire control systems etc than the other Leos if I'm not misinformed (or out of date as they where deliviered 1997-2001 (but they have been upgraded very recently with new software etc)). I think it was Greece that recently tried out all available tanks on the market and the Strv 122 was the winner... /Mazex

There can be only one: * Cold War 1991 A friend of mine runs Massive Entertainment here in Sweden and me and others harrased him enough about the cold war setting (not that he dislikes it himself ) to do "World in Conflict" (coming later this year)... They have received a lot of positive feedback for choosing an amazingly "forgotten" setting for their game. Now I'm harrasing him regularly about adding a WeGo "expert" mode as a WeGo cold war CMx2 game seems out of the question for BFC That World in Conflict engine sure has the looks (DX10 support etc) and the alphas I've tried are simply awsome (and I really don't like RTS games)... OK - I don't want to go advertising for another game, the pun is: Be among the first in a possible wave of cold war games as that setting has been "dead" for a long time! There are other games in the cold war pipe line coming! /Mazex

And have a look at the Syrian central coast line using google maps... It looks like this for many miles. Green houses everywhere. Interesting tank terrain You can even see the dense green house coverage on the "mini map" (a shade of blue at the coast line) /Mazex

Not that I have fired more than a few mags with an M16 but they do actually sound like pop-guns

Hmm, an interesting anequdote about the AT4 is that some of them where nicked from a military supply depot by Hells Angels here in Sweden. They where later used in a local "war" between HA and Bandidos... HA where reportedly not pleased with them as anti-personel weapons as the lethal effect is caused by a thin "beam" breaking the armour of a tank and then the heat and over pressure kills everyone inside. When they fired them at the Bandidos HQ one of the bandidos members was killed after a direct hit, but everyone else in the room survived. With to much air and open doors in the room, the effect was not that good obvioulsy. I don't know if the US army has the HEDP version in Iraq? Hells angels only got hold of the HEAT version... When I did my service some guys at another platoon hit a moose dead on with a ballast loaded round as the one in my picture above. The moose was ripped in two parts... The officer supervising the exercise where the moose passed the firing range was reportedly very lame when he said "No one fire on that moose please..." /Mazex

You dont see the point? Look at the image below - it's at the top right part (the AT4 round on the picture is "brown" (ballast loaded) so my wife may sleep safe). And yes - the sound when firing it is shocking for everyone in the vicinity accept the person pulling the trigger (or rather pressing it)... /Mazex

Well, the idea that the players can use the "laser beams" to see where the fire is coming from is what I meant with "targeting lines" (I was maybe a bit unclear there but I meant it both ways). There is still a common misconception due to the shutter time of cameras that makes some people think that tracers look like "lines"... They don't. Naturally the nature of limited fps makes games suffer the same problem as cameras, "the other way around" as only a few frames are shown during the flight time of a bullet To be able to make a tracer look as it should we need 300 fps or something I guess... P.S I am sure that BFC knows how a tracer looks when fired IRL. The effect is done deliberately and I'm just asking for the tracer "beams" to be tuned down a bit. /Mazex

Hmm, the videos sure look great - and visuals have never been the strength of the CM series... Middle East cities are littered with junk and stuff so a little more "garbage" should be possible to add without loosing fps on modern PC:s? Sorry Moon but I don't count a 6600 as modern hardware Make littering optional for us lucky people with 8800 GTX cards? Another thing, I've been playing Lego Star Wars 2 a lot lately with my five-year old son... The storm trooper lasers in that game are bad, but I think they've got some serious competition here I get the point that the laser beams shows the aiming so that you can avoid having "targeting lines" on but I still think that they should be tuned down a bit... Hey It's a Beta - I know... From my own experience after firing thousands of 7.62 tracers they are not that easy to see in daylight. Sure you see them, but more as tiny bright dots blasting away... Keep up the good work and release it when it's done! /Mazex

Great work! Those animations are done. Another hour spent on them is an hour that could be spent on AI or damage modelling. If you are going to spend time on graphics, the CMx1-style "skybox" is the first thing that should go according to me... Some generic rolling terrain that fills out the "sand pit" we play in must be possible to do on 2007 hardware? /Mazex

Hmm, have you seen "The crying game"? Are you sure she's a... ? /Mazex

Well, I'm 37 and I'm glad to notice that I'm in good company here! Started gaming in 1981 on the Spectrum at the age of 11 and I think I've played most war games and simulators since that Wrote my first own game in 1983 and right now I'm working as a manager of a development department. Serious "all night" gaming is harder these days with two young sons but there's always time for some PBEM shootouts in CM or SPWAW, or a quick online sortie in IL2. My oldest son is starting to like LOMAC so there is hope for some serious family LAN gaming in a few years! Unfortunately he's only five so he's more into "Bob the builder", but my time will come. See you in the field! /Mazex

Hi! As you have an MB with an AGP bus my advice is to get an ATI X1950 Pro with 512Mb ram like this one (considering your budget): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102071 Bought one to my nephew who's sitting on an old 3.0Ghz P4 box (replacing an old Radeon 9600 Pro). He loves playing Oblivion and it went from a slideshow to perfectly playable at maximum settings at 1280x1024 (HDR+ all goodies). The X1950 Pro is very good value for money and it is available for the AGP bus.... The Nvidia 7900GS could be a candidate but the X1950Pro beats it in almost all benchmarks. The 7900 is supposed to be a better overclocker than the X1950Pro so if you´re into that it could be an option... Regards /Mazex P.S Myself I'm one of the lucky bastards sitting on an 8800GTX (+ Asus Striker Extreme + X6800 C2Duo + 2Gb Corsair cas 4). A combination which I really recomend. Unfortunately it would require some budget modifications... [ April 09, 2007, 12:05 PM: Message edited by: mazex ]

This is GOOD news indeed! My interest in this game just bumped from 7 to 9! A full map editor would bump it all the way to 10 As there are people making maps for IL2 I guess that it should be "doable"? Maybe importing some IL2 maps with a nifty tool? Mmm... Sweeet! Still, I guess the 30+ maps will give us enough to play with for quite a while! /Mazex

Great proposal - and that "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" is one of the best documents for CM-size scenario design that I've seen... I also agree that the Hind would be nice to have (and Syria is supposed to have 90 of them). It's simply the meanest looking piece of military machinery ever assembled (the He-111 is a contender - mainly as a symbol for nazi bombers though). I guess helos will be rather hard to implement well on a CM sized map though... /Mazex

I fully agree. I guess Sweden would never participate in an actual invasion of Syria. The scenario I would see most fit is a potential scenario where NATO forces led by the US have done the invasion part (base game) and law and order breaks down completely after that instead of Syria switching peacfully to a western style democracy. I remember seeing that in a place or two lately so it's not too fictional? (sorry, could not help that comment). In that case Sweden and other smaller european nations could send troops to help stabilize the situation and an interesting fictional story after that would be rather easy to make up... Something like this: CMSF Module 2 - "Armageddon": "Background: A year after the US led invasion of Syria the situation is getting out of hand. Extremist militia forces using modern equipment control large portions of nothern Syria and Iraq, and massive domestic critisism in the US after the Syrian invasion has led to a withdrawal of most of the US troops from both Syria and Iraq. People in the US claims that the disastrous invasion seems to have been led by desktop generals... Border clashes with the Israeli army is threatening to start an all out war in the region as Iran is ramping up their nuclear program in a response to Israeli "agressions". Lots of UN peace keeping troops from the EU are massacred and the EU decides to deploy several Battlegrops as NATO is "dead locked" due to the US withdrawal of almost all ground forces from the region. The EU battlegroups immediately gets in the line of fire as the extremist forces in norhtern Syria supported by Iraqi forces tries to retake Damascus. Civilian casulties amasses and withdrawal of the EU forces would risk a complete breakdown in the region..." Regarding JAS-39 deployment to Afghanistan as a marketing activity to get it battle proven for increased sales, I agree on that one too (and that debate is rolling right now in Sweden). /Mazex [ March 03, 2007, 04:12 PM: Message edited by: mazex ]

Well, we just had an election and the next one is in four years so the plans would go through any way. We currently have a right wing government but I'm not sure if the social democrats would stop it. The green party that is usually part of the left wing coalitions are naturally screaming about it, as well as the "real" left (the social democrats are kind of right wing "light" nowadays)... The proposal from the military is to use JAS in Afghanistan and maybe Africa within two years. Syria perhaps if a civil war would break out? /Mazex

Well Steve - latest headlines in Sweden this latest week is that Sweden is planning to send JAS-39 fighter-bombers to Afghanistan within two years... Some people are whining but others are applauding it - and the government and military has said that the plans will continue... This is definately a change of course regarding Swedish international military deployment (even though Sweden had J-29 Tunnan jets in Kongo in 1960 that where in combat). /Mazex

Well, I found this on Google... Name: Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_284B&SUBSYS_A0021458&REV_02\3&13C0B0C5&0&D8 Driver: C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\hdaudbus.sys, 5.10.0001.5013 (English), 1/7/2005 17:07:18, 138752 bytes This mean that you have probably not installed the drivers found on this page för your Gigabyte motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/Driver_Model.aspx?ClassValue=Motherboard&ProductID=2321&ProductName=GA-965P-S3 Download all these driver and install them - especially the audio drivers. I suppose you problem should disappear that way... Good luck! /Mazex

1) Check master slave settings for both drives and decide which one you want as the master... 2) AFAIK you can only have two drives on one IDE bus. Most modern devices are SATA so the IDE bus is dying... There are even MB:s without any IDE bus nowadays... Buy a SATA HD and use the IDE for your optical drives, or buy a cheap DVD with SATA if the HD is new and expensive... 3) Try changing "Primary display adapter" (or something like that) in the BIOS. Set it to PCI-E and disable the built in VGA card if there is one. 4) Search harder /Mazex