Ultradave

If it was me I'd set all the options on their lowest settings and then work up from there, one step at a time, and see if you get to a good quality with acceptable performance. Only change one setting at a time, and only by one step. The graphics are pretty nice quality even at their lowest settings. Shaders are Alt-R from the game screen and shadows are Alt-W. (hotkeys). They are toggles and you'll get a small message in white at the top of the screen. Shaders to me a personal preference. I think some scenarios look better and some don't, depending on the terrain, with shaders on, so you won't really be missing much without them, if it helps performance. Hope that helps. I have a Mac but mine is quite a bit higher spec so my actual experience with the game has been great.

Getting back to the performance discussion. I've used Onyx now for a number of years. It has lots of handy maintenance routines bundled into a useful interface - unix scripts, permissions, cleanups etc. And it's free. Versions are available for every reasonably current version of OS X. Quite handy and I use it every two weeks or so, and don't have any issues with my computer (MacBook Pro 15", 4 GB RAM, 1GB Graphics). And my computer is pretty loaded up. Besides CMBN/CW/FI/SF I have numerous unix programs (for research work), Parallels Desktop with virtual machines for Window and Linux (also for work). I can't recall ever getting equivalent of the annoying message "Windows has performed an illegal instruction.... OK?" - and when you click ok, the computer crashes and/or reboots. The worst I've had is a program becoming unresponsive and then force quitting it. I use Chrome for my browser, mostly because it seems a bit faster. Dave

Our biggest tabletop efforts - SPI's War in the East. Took a whole semester in college, 3 Russian and 2 German players. Luckily one of the guys had a private dorm room so we had it set up where the roomate would have been (this was a long time ago). 25mm Napoleonics. Massive battles in a conference room on 6ftx24ft tables. Awesome

Played lots of diplomacy, both in person and online (Usenet days).

Mostly turn based. I've tried real time for a couple small scenarios where it's easy to keep track of what's going on. So used the turn based from CMBO years, I stick with that.

And if you need a third, I'm your man. Whatever you like.

I tried them too and had the same issue - a very quiet battlefield.

Another one to increase the average. I'm 56, recently took early retirement. You'd think I'd have tons of time, but I decided to go back to school to keep busy (and it has kept me VERY busy). Started gaming with Avalon Hill's Tactics II, Blitzkrieg, Bismark, Midway and moved on to many others. Also played a lot of naval miniatures (WWII, 1:1200 using Seapower and Seekrieg). Dave

After purchasing the Mac version, running through the tutorial campaign and a couple of small scenarios, I feel ready to provide someone with some target practice in a PBEM game :-) Since I'm new to SF I'd prefer a small to medium game, and would prefer to play US as that's all I've played myself so far, but I'm not adamant about that. I have H2HH and dropbox. Dave

Agree with that. The biggest changes will be the soldiers and equipment for the Italian theater. If you are tired of slogging your way through bocage, it could offer a more open terrain break :-)

20 Battles. (two are variants of one of them - one vs AI, H2H and variant) 3 campaigns Basic training campaign Advanced training campaign

Can't wait for that :-) Any recommendations on must have mods like sound files, etc? I see that there are many. Also, recommendations on how to handle the mods for the various versions (NATO, Marines, British) or can they coexist reasonably well?

Just purchased and downloaded. And once again a thank you to the Mac team. I had tried the demo a while back using Parallels Desktop and the experience was not good enough. Runs fantastic on my MacBook Pro and no issues at all with installation and licensing. Great job!

I just tried running on my new (6 month old) MacBook Pro with the graphics settings set to automatic switching, which from the way I read Battlefront's Mac info means that it will NOT switch to my 1GB graphics card but will use the Intel on board graphics (for non Mac people this is a way to save battery life when the high end graphics are not needed). I opened up a couple of scenarios and they looked just fine. No issues moving around the map and to my eye everything looked the same. Hope this helps you. The built in graphics are 384MB shared.

Finally finished - looking forward to the fun (and fitting it in with CMBN/CW, CMFI, and oh, yes, the rest of my life)

I'm happy that it's here for Mac OS, but man what a slow download - and I have a pretty fast internet connection. It'll get there eventually. :-)

Spoken like a true artilleryman. Infantry - Queen of Battle Artillery - King of Battle Armor - who knows (my roommate went armor and I went artillery so I jest)

Going back a couple of posts, a LAAW has backblast but no where near what a Bazooka had. Just don't stand behind it. Way back in my Army days I fired a 90mm recoilless rifle, and Holy #$$^,the blast from that would have gutted the inside of a small building. (it's like a bazooka on steroids).

Another Murphy's Law: Tracers work both ways.

We only do what is asked for. And we can't see you. :-) Dave (ex - Fire Direction Officer, 2/321FA, 82d Abn)

I'm an expert at sending my guys across a street in a town when I think the the opposition across the street has been cleared out..... ....now where did THAT machine gun come from?

I'd just like to add that I'm happy to pay the $10 for an upgrade to what I consider to be an outstanding game, to pay for the work involved in putting it out. It's pocket change really. I played CMBO until Macs no longer supported it. Loved that game. I'm thrilled that Battlefront is supporting the Mac platform again and paying $10 for the v2.0 upgrade is a small price to support keep that effort. $10 is a bargain, for many of the reasons already listed so I won't go into all that business reasoning that Battlefront knows better than any of us anyway. Just wanted to add a non-whiney note of thanks for your inexpensive upgrade, and the helpful and prompt customer support (mostly on the forum but help tickets when necessary). Nice to see this time that the 1.11 patch and the upgrade installed with no issues at all (and I've had some that needed help before this). Keep up the good work and keep those Mac versions coming. No comments about the Mac/PC wars please - I use it because the OS is Unix and I need Unix for work/research. I have Parallels and Windows 7 running on it too, but I prefer running things on the Mac side.

I know others have posted about this, but I just wanted to add my appreciation for this scenario. I'm on the second phase, securing the town, and I selected attack now without waiting for reinforcements, if only because on D-Day morning, I feel that's what the men on the ground would have chosen, not knowing if any reinforcements were imminent. It's fun reading the immersive story, and I'll admit being swayed by the fact I'm an ex- 82d Abn Division artillery officer. Thanks for the hard work that went into creating this fine effort. Dave

Just to be clear, my post was definitely speaking of reality, just to give some background. Game concepts may vary :-)

A TRP doesn't necessarily mean it was fired on (it can be and that would be more accurate but doesn't have to be). A registration corrects firing data for current conditions and is not necessarily fired on a spot that will be a TRP although by coincidence it can be. The firing battery conducts the registration and then sometime later (most likely) the FO and infantry/armor CO plan their fire support and designate TRPs. A TRP is a preplanned target that the firing battery has already computed firing data to and does not have to depend on an observer to provide a location for on the fly. The TRP can come from a map recon (road intersection for example). Then the unit on the ground can call for fire on the TRP when they need it. Saves time in the fire direction center as it's already plotted and calculated correctly. Just need to send the precomputed data to the guns. So you fire the registration mission on a well known point to improve firing accuracy, then can plot TRPs with a reasonable confidence that your rounds will actually hit where you thought they would. (speaking as an ex-arty officer of towed 105mm from before the days of computerized firing and GPS - back then we called it "charts and darts").