Thewood1

Glad we all wasted our time with that one too.

I've done it on gun elevation, action spots, etc. Go back starting in 2004 an on. And the sideways mortar rounds that required actually zooming in and replaying over and over again...some groundbreaking stuff there that will move the entire genre forward.

Really...the argument is over whether its 4 or 6 times the width of a jeep. Is there not enough content in these games that this is what the discussion has come to? I mean come on...Is this how you spend your spare time? Measuring the width of craters and jeeps on screen. Let's not worry about gun elevation, action spot anomalies, fire, etc. Let's really dig up stuff to be fussy about. If was Steve, I'd quit after reading this thread. To each his own, but at some point I have to just shake my head. PS I love how an actual historical document is just dismissed as scribbles. That is very cool.

You should be nicknamed "The Truth". We as wargamers think its all about the hardware. The only soft factors are the basic "experience", "morale", etc. Even with my limited understanding of sqaud/company-level planning that has to happen before any operation, I am astounded by how much has to happen. We as wargamers don't give enough credit to the above mentioned human factors. Instead, someone wants to rage against the ROF or range of a SMG. But not whether the soldier knows his role and the plan. This is validated by people saying you can't train someone in tactics if they don't use the same hardware.

Related because buried somewhere in this thread was the discussion about how sustainable Russia's defense budget increases were: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/34acde08-c905-11e5-be0b-b7ece4e953a0.html#axzz3z23z346y If oil can climb above $50/bbl, The MoD might be able to stay even. If it hovers around $35-40...some tough decisions are ahead.

While I love ARMA...modding is a mess. There are several competing overall mods with little transparency in how they alter the game itself. If you have the time, you can figure it out. BI seems to have given up on completing a game because they know the modders will clean it up. They focus on engine fixes. There is good and bad about the approach. I like coming to Combat Mission and not worrying about what gameplay mods are mixed up and whether they are realistic or not. The onlt negative side of it is the slowness of new content. It has become glacial. As a campaign or ladder game, that is OK. If you use CM like a sandbox, it can be frustrating waiting for some unit your are keen on to come out.

In fact, the bestbuy HP link just now went to not available. That is the risk of waiting for sales. The model you want might not be available.

Its best to wait until inventory starts a forced turn cycle. That is when you see all the discontinued models getting 25%-30% off.

Neat little search feature up there...

You won't find a good MSI gaming laptop for under $900. My son just bought one and the cheapest was about $900. My MSI was $1100 and was not close to top of the line.

Here is the equivalent HP http://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-pavilion-15-6-laptop-amd-a10-series-6gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-natural-silver/4563800.p?id=1219768909965&skuId=4563800 The lenovo equivalent: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-ideapad-500-15-6-laptop-amd-a10-series-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/4578000.p?id=1219775847283&skuId=4578000 The lenovo is cheaper, but I bet the HP is cooled better. I got periodic heat throttling on the lenovo, but only on really heavy and long game sessions. btw, the listed CPU speed is 1.8GHz...Mine ran at around 2.4GHz without throttling. You can check CPUbenchmarking.com for some CPU comparisons.

I used to have an HP and a lenovo that had AMD A10 CPUs and radoen graphics. Bot cost about $400 two years ago. They played CM decently. I had the graphics on improved or faster on most of the games with only some of the usual stuttering on large maps. I am not sure that config is still available, but am sure something similar replced it. The lenovo used to be at both Best Buy and Staples. I would prefer the HP over the Lenovos due to heat issues with Lenovos. It still played well, but got very hot.

Funny, I have never encountered an unlocked AMD laptop/mobile CPU.

For a desktop, AMD is not really an issue. But in laptops, if you have the money go with Intel and Nvidia...that is the conclusion. btw, the AMD backend cores are not full cores. Hence my comments about the issues with AMD's definition of a core. The AMD backend cores look like full physical cores, but have limited functional capability. SO the extra cores over an Intel are fully usable only for certain things.

AMD CPUs tend to generate more heat and require more power than Intel CPUs. But AMDs tend to be a lot cheaper than Intels. So what happens, especially in laptops, is that an AMD tends to be throttled to maintain heat levels and reduce power consumption. Also, AMDs do not classify cores the same way as Intels so they tend to overestimate the multi-core capabilities a little. But you can build a very inexpensive laptop with a fairly powerful multi-core CPU with AMD. For AMD laptops, it is usually about the cooling system as much as the CPU itself. I had two AMD A10 laptops last year. The HP had great liquid cooling and I got 3.1GHz steady. The Lenovo had only air cooling and was constantly being throttled in the low 2's. And the fan was loud and on all the time when playing CM. For comparison, my current laptop is an i7 at about 3.4GHz and an nVidia 980. My old HP laptop was the A10 with Radeon graphics. The i7 runs any non-CM game at full settings with not a hiccup. The A10 ran at mostly decent, but lower settings. With the AMD, I had to have shadows off in CM to avoid massive stuttering. The i7 still stutters somewhat if there are a lot of buildings and units. But nothing like the A10. And the A10's fan runs incredibly hard the entire time. Hope those data points help.

My own experience and reading experiences here leads me to believe that Its not that CM2 isn't optimized, but that its not optimized to take advantage of PC hardware developed over the last 2-3 years...maybe longer. I also think performance expectations have changed since 2010.

I don't think he is making it up. I have a similar experience. I have run CMBN in its iterations on at least 10 PCs over the years as I upgrade work and personal computers. I have run it on AMD A6, A8, and A10. I have also run it on i3, i5, and now i7s. The i5 is a Surface Pro3 and crappy Intel graphics and CMBN runs OK on lower settings. But what puzzles me is my i7 MSI with nVidia 980 GPU. It only runs a little better than my Surface. I have always used Brinkman's corner as my benchmark. As soon as I get a new PC, I load it up...after contacting the help desk for a new activation. My Surface gets about 20-24 on average, spanning 40 fps with few units or trees in view to 10-15 with a lot of units in trees in the shot. My MSI averages about 30 with the span being over 60 to high teens. My Surface CPU runs at 2.3Ghz on high power and my i7 runs 3.4 Ghz on high power. I use Process Lasso on both to monitor performance. What is different is my perspective. People running scenarios with hundreds of units and 5-12 sq mi maps at the highest settings are being unrealistic. It is not what CM is built for. If I was BFC, I would just put a hard cap on units and map sizes to get people complaining about performance off of the forum. With that said, there is something wrong somewhere, most likely in the older OpenGL libraries, when a solid performing rig sees performance drops frequently on mid-sized maps. I am always puzzled by CMBN putting limited stress on my PC. I monitor the RAM, CPU core 0, and GPU usage during play and even when the fps is dropping significantly, the load on all those systems is only between 25% and 50%. I have no idea why CM refuses to use the power of the single core and GPU power that is available to it. So while I think there are solid issues aligning with what some of the posters are complaining about, I don't think most people who originally started playing CMBN and its sister games have high demands for graphical fidelity and performance.

I just built my own test to look at a tigr spotting at 3000m and a Ural at the same distance. Ural takes 10-20 sec to get a ? and 20-30 sec for an ID. The Tigr takes 2-3 seconds and almost instantly IDs the M1. I ran each ten times. There is something wrong with either the original test or the description of it. btw, in software QA, as well as in manufacturing/engineering, the outliers are what drives solutions. Poor quality comes from rationalizing away outliers. That is the point of continuous improvement...killing the outliers.

I would have thought the response would be something like... "Boy, that UAZ spotting does seem odd. Can you post the scenario for us to look at." Seems rather dismissive for an issue that generates so much angst. You beta testers have stated that you are the front lines for bug finding and that particular post would send up a few red flags regardless of how it was conducted. Even I can see a couple holes in how the test was laid out, but would have at least asked a couple clarifying questions.

Yeah, but its kind of a crap shoot on a download of the big installer. It took me over a week to finally get a clean download.

I would imagine it also depends combat loading, extra armor, fuel, etc.

This is from Military Balance 2014. not very detailed, but all I have access to until i get home.

But haven't the Oplots seen combat?

They might have seen some small increase in sales, but I would imagine there is not a lot of profit at those prices. Especially considering the risk of cannibalizing a CMBN sale at full price.

BTR...thanks for the concise answer.