Canada Guy

Schrullenhaft, Thanks very much. This helps immensely. I installed the card and following your directions, everything went smoothly software wise. The problem is that the 8800GS card is so much bigger than the 800GT. I would say about 9cm longer. In a tight case, this is a problem but it eventually worked. The fan is also so much thicker that it takes up an extra PCI slot. I had to re-arrange my USB/Firewire card resulting in restricted airflow but I had no choice. I will be playing with the settings this weekend and seeing which allow me to maximize my CMSF settings while still allowing me to play CMBB/CMAK. On the “Application determined” AA setting, both CMx1 and CMx2 worked. This is a marked improvement to the newer ATI cards which ran CMSF wonderfully but with the text problem in CMx1. I appreciate the help and the info.

I know that it is almost impossible to create the old CMx1 QB generator in CMx2 because of all the added complexity. It would be nice though to have some help with creating your maps though. With all the different levels, angles and now 8m squares, the computer never gets it qute right. I remember the roads from hell in QB CMx1. What I would like to see is a button to create a map with heights, brush and trees only, based upon certain user defined values. (e.g. hilly/flat and desert/brush/trees). No buildings, roads, or walls - though roads might be easier if you have only minimal options (1 road, 2 roads, no roads). Everythng else would be left up to the designer but would allow variation in terrain. I know that once you get to do something well, every map tends to look like that when you design your own scenarios. My train station in CMBB is usually always in as it looks good and is fairly realistic. I think this is why I loved the idea of a meta-tile so much. I could design train stations and other designers could do what they do best and I could pick and choose (and then alter) to suit my situation. A good map could be finished in half the time.

Does anyone now how the Soviets communicated? From what I have read, the Soviets had an even less capable communication system than either the Western Allies or the Germans. I had asked in another post about the AI being able to handle the discrepancies between tactical doctrine of the Germans/W Allies/Soviets but it would be very evident (especially in the early war years) that the Germans would have a better comm net set up than the Soviets. I would also like the effects to be a little more transparent. Bring back the time clock for movement (maybe for any level less than elite) or make it a radio button. These books are interesting but hard to get a hold of. Soviet Tactical Doctrine in WWII By Shawn Caza Soviet tactical doctrine in WWII (TM-30-340) by George F Nafziger

I finally broke down and bought my video cards. 4670 (1 Gig) for the kids machine (but they will not mind if I accidentally install CMSF on it just in case). I got this one for US$99. I bought it for my machine but CMBB/CMAK is not playable with it. I am running XP but the best I could get was with the text fix. Not exactly what I wanted. 8800GS (384Mg) for my machine. I have not installed it yet but for US$40 I thought this was a steal. I will install it this weekend as I have to remove my old X800 GT and all the ATI drivers for it and then find the latest Nvidia drivers. Having never had an Nvidia card I am not sure what to expect. It should also play CMSF a lot better than my old 800GT (6600 equivalent) and am looking forward to seeing what CMSF really looks like with the graphics turned up. Any advice that anyone could give would be helpful.

What about after 1.11? I know that the engine and game continue to evolve and that BFC probbaly did not plan on having 11 patches but are there continual plans to keep updating CMSF or is there a point where we say that it is cooked and done and all efforts are now going into the next family of games? I am still assuming that a major breaker bug would be fixed (e.g. Vista SP2 breaks the game) but in some ways I would hope that after a while we can call CMSF done. Releasing more patches probably makes their lives even crazier as they will also have to patch CM:Normandy as well and they may have different code to deal with Nomandy specific situations. Even CMBB/CMAK patches stopped after a while and there are problems with them and Vista/DX10 out there still. Just curious.

I have played real time and wego and did not enjoy RT as much. I am too unaware (especially on larger maps) of what is all happening to all my units. I am not even a good enough player in wego to want to hamper myself even more in RT for my battles.

Apocal, I hope you realise that I was trying to be funny. Yes, but it would depend upon the subject matter. "Combat Mission: University Administration" would not appeal to many people, no matter what their job or interest would be.

Actually, I am very surprised that guys actively in the military would be playing this game. It would be like me going home after work and playing a university administration game. Not something I would do to decompress (though the universty administration game is maybe what Angryson should be playing to decompress. At least it would help him get to sleep faster).

I do not remember being in any meaningful discussion (especially one that I was the centre of) in the last few weeks but then it has gotten up to +7C with no snow here in late November and my mind cannot cope with this anomaly. I definitely do not want “gaminess” entered into this to make people feel better or have their pre-conceived notions pandered to. So no inherent German tactical bonus just to make it feel more WWII-ey. I think I just want to make sure that all the adjustments that are going into CMx2 do not make the game unrealistic. The 50 years+ since WWII has brought new innovations to squad make-up, inherent squad weapons, etc and it gives he game a different feel (and as a result different tactics). You seem to be optimizing the game to take this into account. Can the engine then take into account the lack of these 50 years of innovation? It seems to me that this can be done. Just to extrapolate a little, the Germans would feel more like the US forces in CMSF and the Russians would feel more like the Syrians (Lets say from 1941-1944). Or in Normandy, you would see more resources (ammo etc.) available to the Americans but sort of green, more élan to the Commonwealth and more leadership ability to the Germans. Is this doable in CMx2? I think so. Can you program in the affects this would have on the units in Normandy? I believe so with supply, fitness and morale and leadership ratings respectively. But what about tactical doctrine? That is a little harder to program in and not get gamey.

Will the game engine need to be tweaked as you move to a WWII environment? The game upgrades that seem to be implemented in each patch seem to be focused on modern day tactics and combat philosophy. Will things have to be changed once again when you move to Normandy (and I would then assume again when you move to Bagration)? I am just not too sure how you would transition to a game where the German army at the tactical level relied upon personal initiative (even amongst NCOs) while the Soviets relied upon higher level commands that were carried out at the squad/platoon level.. I guess what I am asking is how the different tactical combat philosophies can be handled with a game engine that currently revolves around a further 50 years of tactical refinement. And as for graphics, they are a step in the right direction and one that you had to make to compete in the game market today. Using the CMBB/CMAK “engine” would have gotten you very bad reviews even if you had the best tactical game engine around. Younger gamers expect “Crysis” level graphics. I think that is what sets us apart as a gaming group. We can handle the low level graphics as witnessed by the amount of people that still play CMx1, because the tactical engine was great for its day. But without something to catch the eye of this year’s potential gamer, you lose their gamer vote. I witness this in the PBEMs that I play (and lose) with people from around the world. We are almost all in our 40s. Try getting the younger generation to play CMx1 and it is like pulling teeth. They expect tanks to have hit points with little green bars. I guess this brings me to my next question: Can the graphics engine be refined with each new family of games? Or do you plan on keeping the current game engine stable and just add units/terrain/eras?

For some reason I thought CMBB was a 2000 release. At that time you had "Red Alert 2" and "Escape from Monkey Island" which would not exactly be considered cutting edge today. CMBB definitely beats them. By 2002 though, CMx1 was a little long in the tooth graphically. Now though, CMSF feels like a step back aesthetically. It may just be the terrain though. It all looks so depressingly similar and dull. It looks like my city in February with snow, snow and more snow with no colour no matter where you look. The forests and grass of northern Europe (East and West) I think will make this game more graphically appealing. I do have a question though. The game engine has been built and set (with updates) but is there room to expand graphically with each new game family? Or will the graphics be of this quality/resolution for the entire life of this game engine?

I know you are only joking but given the times that each game was produced, I would give CMBB graphics a 9 and CMSF about a 7. This does not mean that CMBB is a great game graphically in 2008 but at the time it was fairly cutting edge (considering they once thought of building it as a 2D top down game, the result is quite beautiful). CMSF is good, but it does not equal "Crysis" graphically, nor should it, but CMBB was the "Crysis" of its age. They have instead spent their time fixing the game engine and AI and have done a good job. I will have to see if "Bagration" will let me put aside CMBB and enjoy the Ostfront goodness in it's CMx2 incarnation. But really, if graphics were so important to most of us, would we play CM in any form. And for some reason, I find CMSF et al kind of sterile. I actually prefer the "Larry, Moe and Curly" to the 1to1 representation in CMSF. CMBB lets me suspend my disbelief with its simple graphics but CMSF is too real to suspend my disbelief but not real enough for immersion. This is also neither here nor there. I know I will still buy CMSF and all its modules, as well as the next game and the next... There are very few comparable games that cater to my tastes.

It seems that the 8800GT or the 8800 GS are the way to go. I have never used Nvidia as ATI was nice enough to start including the fog tables for us. Redwolf, The ATI X800GT does exist. Trust me as I have been reinstalling different video cards in my system for the last 2 weeks. Here is a site that creates a heirarchy of Nvidia/ATI video cards. The X800GT is listed on the same line (and to the right of) the Nvidia 6600 GT. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Best-Graphics-Card,2033-7.html I bought the 4670 for a song (<$100) but it was a no go. I am thinking now of getting the 8800GT (512mb) even though it is a little pricier ($135) but it might solve all my problems. Now to figure out uninstalling ATI drivers and installing Nvidia's.

I was thinking of a more modern card. The 7600 is probably similar to what I already run CMx1 with right now. I would like to get a 8800GT but have not heard if it suffers the same problems that a 4670 card does (either does not run or it displays white text). It seems that ATI has changed something in their DX10 capable cards so anything after the X1950 is effected. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I currently have 2 machines. 1. Windows XP - ATI 1550 (I recently bought an ATI 4670 and it is a fantastic card but unfortunately, it gives the bad text problem for CMBB/CMAK. This means the kids will get the 4670 - 1Gb card) 2. Windows XP - ATI 800GT (My machine and want to upgrade) Currently I can play CMBB/CMAK with no problems but I would like to upgrade to a more capable card so that I can play CMSF+ on my machine with greater bells and whistles as well as CMBB/CMAK. Question: I want to replace the 800GT with a newer card. Anything later than the ATI1950GT seems to cause the white text problem no matter what I attempt. What is the best card that I can buy that will both let me run CMSF with bells and whistles and let me continue to play CMBB/CMAK? I am assuming that I will have to go to Nvidia and price wise, the 8800GT seems like the best bet. Does this card cause any problems if I continue to run XP? What other cards are recommended that would give me the results that I want?

If the settings are not changed though and the game works perfectly with my ATI-X800GT but does not work with the ATI-4670 it has to be the card itself. Does this have to do with the DirectX 10.1 capability with ATI cards? And is my only alternative to buy an NVidia card to continue to enjoy the game in Windows XP?

What is very strange is that I have my older ATI - X800GT and it works fine running on XP. I swap it for the ATI - 4670 card and the text is screwed up. I have not changed the settings for the cards at all so it cannot be my settings but rather the 4670 card itself. On both cards I set the anti-aliasing to "Let the Application Decide" which from other forums indicates that this shuts down the AA for a game that does not include AA settings. If it is AA it is not consistant.

I recently bought an ATI 4670 and installed the latest ATI drivers (8.10) and get the text problem. I replaced the text with the one suggested by the thread but it now has big blocks of black background against the text. Is there any way to make the background transparent again? Or is there a way to shut off Anti-aliasing? I went to the Catalyst control menu for my graphics card and the lowest setting for AA is x2. You can let the application decide though so how do you just shut off all AA? Or is there a way now?

The good thing about this whole system (like CMx1) is that you can still simulate some early war battles with the given mix of equipment to some extent. I would also love to see an early war module (France, Poland, June - February Barbarossa) but I will take what I can get as this is turning into a great game system (now that I can actually play it as my technical issues have been mostly dealt with - thanks to BF and players for the help in fixing it). My question concerns the feasibility of creating an entire movie from stitched together turns. That was one feature lacking in CMx1 and there was some talk about it earlier in CMx2. Has the gavel come down on one side or the other for its feasibility? I would love to see the entire game played out after it is all said and done with all information being visible. This would be a great learning tool and would be very interesting to watch at the end to see what both sides did.

I also loved the Med/Desert terrain (second to Ostfront). It also might not be too much work once other titles/modules have been released. If we already have "WWII: Normandy" and "WWII: Late War Western Front" units plus terrain from CMSF then they could combine those (plus a few add ons) into WWII: Western Desert. This is assuming that the TO&E did not change that much between 1942/43 Afrika and 1944 Normandy. You could have the main game (Operation Torch) and 2 modules (Italians and Brits). So we have Title: CMSF M1: Marines M2: Brits M3: Germans/Canadians/Dutch Title: CM-WWII: Normandy M1: Commonwealth M2: Arnhem M3: ? Title: CM: Modern Temperate Climate M1: ? Title: CM-WWII: Late War Western Front M1: ? Title: CM: Ost Front M1: ? I would also like to make some suggestions Title: Korean War (US vs N Koreans) M1: Chinese M2: Brits/Canadians/Turks Title: Barbarossa (June - Oct) M1: Push for Moscow (Snow terrain + more units) M2: Push for Leningrad (enter the Finns) I would also like to know if there is always a set number (or minimum number) of modules for each main title? So always 3 modules or always at least 2 modules or you will not make the main game title. So we could never expect the 1940 Russo-Finn war as a stand alone title (just as an example) as there would be no opportunity for follow on modules.

I now updated my .net file to 3.5 and it helped to solve 1.5 problems. The problems 1. sort of a Problem - Graphics still redraw and the trees disappear and then slowly come back. Roads are graphically downgraded unless I a very close to them. This may be that I have the fastest setting for graphics though. I am not sure if this also is causing my trees to redraw and disappear frequently. Though now when I scan the battlefield things do not slow down as much. Much like the experience with CMx1 which is a good comparison. 2. Solved- My cursor is now more responsive. It does not act like it is on ice and I have more control over it. 3. Solved - I can now click on the opposing forces. My cursor does not freeze anymore when I go to target a unit. - 2.5 problems down, Half of one to figure out.

I decided to update all drivers over lunch and see how everything works. -I installed the latest ATI graphic drivers v8.9. -I made sure that every single CMSF option was set to fastest -I set the ATI mouse option to ON The problems 1. Problem - Graphics still redraw and the trees disappear and then slowly come back. Graphics are sluggush. When I scan the battlefield things appear to slow down. 2. Problem - My cursor is still not responsive. It feels like it is on ice. The cursor continues on for a fraction of a second after I stop my mouse. Mouse control is still very difficult and choosing units difficult. 3. Good - I can now click on the opposing forces. My cursor does not freeze anymore when I go to target a unit. - One problem down, 2 more to figure out. My graphics card (ATI X800GT) only has 256 megs of memory but it has been updated to the latest drivers. I do not see much difference in the settings from when I tried the highest setting going down to the fastest. I am thinking of moving to a ATI 4670 graphics card. Could this help with #1? I have no idea how to fix #2 but I also run a wireless mouse. Has this ever been an issue?

I have tried it both with and without the ATI fix. Both seem to do very little to my problem. Could it be that I have an older ATI card. The 800GT is getting a little long in the tooth. I will try to update to the latest video drivers from ATI but I do not expect much improvement.

I, unfortunately, have sort of the same problem. I have a ATI 800GT XP (SP3) 2 Gigs Ram AMD 3500+ and have experienced several problems making the game virtually unplayable. 1. Graphics redraws every few seconds and the trees disappear and then slowly come back. 2. My cursor feels like it is on ice. I move my mouse but when I stop it, the cursor continues on for a fraction of a second. Like it is gliding on ice. This makes mouse control very difficult and choosing units almost impossible. 3. I cannot click on opposing forces. When I try to move my mouse over an American unit (I was red), the mouse becomes stuck a few pixels away from the blue unit and it can take up to 30 seconds for the mouse to respond. It can take up to a few minutes for the mouse to actually get on target as I move it a few pixels, wait for the cursor to catch up, rinse and repeat. If I did not position right, then I have to continually repeat. It can cause the game to freeze momentarily as the engine waits for my cursor to come back. I have tried with both the options for mouse on and of but both seem to cause problems. I am running ATI driver 8.3 currently but updating does not seem to help according to these forusm. This makes the game very frustrating and creates disappointment with the entire experience. I have both CMSF and the marine module installed so I am up to 1.10 which I was hoping would fix my probem.

BF, Since we now have a new engine for the forums, is there any chance that we will be able to attach an avatar to our identities? Or does this open up a whole new can of worms with people using inappropriate avatars? Not that any posting I have ever read has been anything less than professional (but if there is anything untowards I just blame on the Finns)