DanielP

Hi, While CMSF is a great game, the game engine is getting very long in the tooth and desperately needs updating. Are there any plans for a sequel with a new engine, and even a new scenario? Admittedly I'm using the Paradox version so I've not got the latest updates, but I think you've really squeezed all you can out of this engine now. Time for something fresh and new. I am aware this can only really happen if there is a demand for the product. Development costs are expensive, I know, and it is something of a niche product. But there is a loyal community here, and I'm sure a new version of the game will bring in new customers as well as the loyal old ones. To be frank, I only bought this game because I found it in a sale. I couldn't bring myself to pay full price for a product that looks so dated. If I feel that way, there are many more who surely have the same view. And this is a shame, because the game is excellent and deserves to be successful. Anyone out there agree with me? Or am I just being unappreciative? This is no criticism of the current game - I love it. But how about something fresh and new?

Okay, thanks for the info. I probably will buy the modules in time, but I've only just bought the original game (for £3.60 on ebuyer!) and I haven't really had a chance to get my teeth into the first game, let alone a module yet. As for Combat Mission not being a big seller, lets face it - I don't think Electronic Arts are ever going to be troubled by Paradox. I suspect none of their titles are massive hits. Games like combat mission are slow-burning hits that sell well over time, as opposed to first-week blowouts. As such there is no excuse not to support them. Perhaps next time you could find yourself a better publisher? Or at least one that supports your customers a little better.

Hi guys, Just bought Combat Mission and would like to patch it to the 1.21 version, but it doesn't exist for my Paradox copy. I understand that some delay is required to recompile the code, but it has been a month since the patch was released. Do you have a date for the release of the Paradox patch, please? Thanks, Daniel

Just bought my copy of the game from ebuyer - about £3.60, postage free. Its the Paradox version, so if anyone has the download copy it might be worth picking it up for the paper manual that comes with it. I'm chuffed to bits! Now if only they did the addons, too ...

I haven't noticed any problems so far. Mind you, my graphics card is overclocked as well as the processor so that might have something to do with it. And I am running a 64-bit operating system, even though the game is 32-bit. I might be imagining it, but Vista 64-bit does seem a little smoother than WinXP when I was running a dual-boot setup. Having said that I only have a small number of maps to choose from. Perhaps the larger maps would cause more problems.

Anisotropic filtering and anit-aliasing work without problems on the missions I've played. I've set all the settings to maximum quality and its all pretty smooth. In fact, as you might expect, the whole game works pretty well. I recommend running Vista with the Classic desktop and not Aero - it makes a massive difference to the performance of games in general. Combat Mission, from what I've seen of it, does appear quite resource hungry for a game with so few bells and whistles, but then it does do a lot of calculations in the background. All the same, I've had no problems with lag with all the settings maxed out. Hope that helps.

Problem resolved - installed the 9.10 Beta drivers and I managed to get through a whole mission without a hitch. So this is interesting: from what I saw this issue has been around since the 9.06 version, so there must have been plenty of people having problems with your game. I guess they just didn't bother to report it. I wonder if this is also affecting the Nvidia cards? Anyway, accept my profound apologies for blaming you for the memory leak. Looks like the culprit was OpenGL. I'll let you know if there are any further problems, but for now I'd like to spent a while with the demo to check out the gameplay - and see if I can actually get through a mission! As a suggestion, you should probably put up a sticky post on this technical forum warning people about potential problems with the ATI drivers. Also, there are no 9.10 drivers officially available - I only managed to get hold of them because one of the posters was good enough to give me a link. Some sort of post explaining it as a known problem would go a long way to reassuring people that your game isn't broken. Thanks, Daniel

I bought the matched memory on recommendation of my brother who was researching all the prices on them. I needed 6GB, and these were highly recommended and an excellent deal at the time. Incidentally, I don't just play games on my machine - I use it for a Cubase DAW most of the time where fast processing helps keep latency low. Most games don't really need a machine with the specs I've got. The graphics card is ATI, something I would never normally buy because of their poor reputation with drivers. Mind you, I won this one in a writing contest so I'm using it for sentimental reasons. I'll upgrade to an Nvidia DirectX11 card when I can afford it. Thanks for the link to the Beta drivers. I'm downloading them now. I had a quick look round on the internet and I did find at least one programming site that suggests there is a problem with some of the ATI opengl drivers dating right back to version 9.6. Looks like there could well be more than a few people put off buying your game going right back to then. I'm no expert on programming, but it seems OpenGL is a funny choice when you could have used DirectX. It would certainly have made my life easier if you'd gone for the DirectX route. Was there a reason for OpenGL? Is it supported by more platforms or something? I'll let you know how I get one with the new drivers. Installing them now.

Latest for Vista64, as far as I can tell, is 9.9. Could this be the reason? Does anyone know where I can get 9.10 Beta's from for Vista64?

Lot of questions. First off, the hardware: I'm using a corsair PSU with OCZ memory. Three sticks of matched memory. Funnily enough, I had considered reinstalling Vista. The problem is that just a few days from now I will be doing an clean install of Windows 7 and the thought of going through the whole process twice is pretty galling. I'm hoping we can fix it before then. To tell the truth, this is the kind of weird system error that is often fixed by a new install, but then why would other people be getting the same thing? As for the drivers, that's interesting. I am using the 9.9 drivers, the latest ones. I'm reinstalling them now as I write. It would be nice to think it is the drivers, but I have a feeling it isn't. One way to check: has anyone had this memory error with and Nividia card? I'll let you know how I get one with the drivers now I've reinstalled them. I'm not holding my breath, but its worth a try. If it really can't be resolved, I might just have to bite the bullet and reinstall the whole OS just to be absolutely sure. I'll keep you posted.

In-game I'm playing the standard, pre-made missions that came supplied with the demo. I've not opened the editor. It occurs on any and all of the supplied missions. It only happens during this particular game - it does not occur on my other 3D games. It tends to happen when I'm moving the screen (moving to another part of the map using the map.) It seems to happen after several minutes of play. It once happened when I was actually trying to save the game - the dialogue box opened, but when I pressed enter to save the game it froze. The game did not save. The symptoms are: the game freezes, the mouse does not move. Hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL brings up the chance to run Task manager, which I do. Rather than quit the game, while its still got the error displayed on the dialogue box, I go into the performance manager and from here I can see that the system is using 3.5GB RAM and the game is running 2GB RAM, the full amount allocated. When I accept the error message the 2GB RAM is freed up and the desktop continues as normal. There are no other major processes running other than this game. While I understand there is a limit to RAM, it seems to be only this game that hits the limit, and it can happen within minutes. All the other games I run seem to manage the RAM properly. Its worth pointing out that sometimes the error message does not relate to the amount of RAM. It occasionally says that the game has stopped working, without any particular reason given at all. I don't think its the antivirus - I use the latest Norton one, and you can see on its own performance monitor that it barely uses any RAM itself. I have tried disabling the antivirus but that has made no difference. I could try disabling the firewall, I suppose. Why should it hit the maximum 2GB limit so quickly? Finally, some people have said that it involves only large maps. In my case the maps have mostly been medium sized. It happens on all campaigns and map sizes, though it may be aggravated by the larger maps. Finally, I'm running in Windows desktop resolution, which is very high. The other resolutions offered are all 4:3 aspect as far as I can tell, so they would not be suitable. I could try lowering the resolution of my desktop to see if that helps, but that would be a workaround, not a real solution. I'd like to hear your suggestions for this, Daniel

Hello, I want to buy this game, but the demo does not run. It gives me a memory error, something that many of the people on this forum have been experiencing. As the game is quite expensive I do not want to purchase this until a workaround or patch is available. To that end it would be useful to gather as much diagnostic data from everyone who has experienced this error. My system is not short on memory. It is a Vista 64-bit system with 6GB RAM, an Intel i7 Processor with Gigabyte motherboard, a Creative Xi-Fi soundcard and Radeon 4850 graphics card 512MB. I should not be getting memory errors on a system that scores 5.9 across the board on the Microsoft test. Using the Windows performance monitor via the Task Manager on Vista I have found the following. The computer seems to crash out when the process gets to around 2GB use. when the entire system starts to use about 3.5GB RAM then the software throws up an error blaming lack of memory. However I sometimes get an error saying that it has stopped working, which may not be to do with the memory but probably is. I would interested to see what other people have happening on their system when it crashes out. Ideas for solutions: Expand the availalbe virtual RAM. This didn't work for me, but it might work for you guys. You will need to run it manually. If you are running Vista, run it in Windows XP compatability mode. It might make a difference, but don't count on it as people using WinXP have the same problem. Switch off anything that could be draining RAM, including windows Aero under Vista. Make sure you have some diagnostic software running in the background as this will measure the performance of RAM. Vista and XP should have this sort of thing built-in. Ultimately this is a common or garden memory leak, which is normally a sign of poor programming. Given that it affects all operating systems it can only be that the software has a design flaw. The good news is that the programmers should be able to find the leak and fix it in a later patch, but they have not seemed to isolate the fault and so finding a fix is unlikely without our help. Please publish any data you can gather on this flaw, including the system you are running and any information on how much RAM is being used when the machine crashes. It may not be helpful, but at least it will show the developers that a lot of people are experiencing this. One final thought: I will not buy software that does not work. The developers will not get my money until this is fixed. I am motivated enough to write on this forum post to get something done about it, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who have found the same problem with the demo and simply walk away without mentioning it. This is losing sales. And if you think this is a problem now, wait until Windows 7 comes out next week. Although I've contacted the clowns responsible for customer service for Combat Mission a couple of times now about this error, no one has responded yet. Out of desperation I am turning to you guys in the community to help find a fix or a workaround.