[Horrible frames. Getting frustrated.]

1 minute ago, BletchleyGeek said:

That's an incomplete answer @Schrullenhaft: the situation isn't static.Things have been changing over the past two years.

I do have a i7-4400k + GTX 1080 system (not designed to run CM but to do work, mind you) and I have appreciated a steady and slight deterioration of performance over the past year and a half. 

So what changed so the envelope of optimal performance contracted?

There may be two causes for that imo. First, the patches to "fix" the Specter (and his colleague whose name can't recall) chipset bug, which had a "slight" performance hit. We seem to have forgot about that, yet those patches easily laminated a good 10% off performance on most operations, and more on I/O bound operations (which include also the CPU sending data to the GPU). I think I remember it hit harder older chipsets like the i5. Second, NVIDIA has been obviously been reworking their drivers to drop support for "legacy" cards (older GeForce mainly) and gearing up for the incoming RTX extravaganza. That has probably changed the assumptions on which the shadowing, LOD and scene culling algorithms in the engine were resting on.

I wish Phil was still around. Perhaps he would have been able to keep up on top of this and update/refactor shaders and the shadowing heuristics, trying to keep ahead of the curve. 

Yes, performance has gotten a lot worse which I know is because of the RTX series which is why I said modern computers won't be able to play CM in a year or two because Nvidia & Intel are doing really crazy things with their products now.

 

1 hour ago, SgtHatred said:

Use Shadowplay to upload a gameplay video to Youtube and lets see how bad it is. Your PC should play the game fine.

I will maybe, just give me until like tomorrow i'm really tired lol.

[Horrible frames. Getting frustrated.]

1 hour ago, Schrullenhaft said:

There is also the issue here of 'expectations'. You may be expecting a far more fluid game play than CM will give you. You can't compare it to most games which have optimized graphics engines (and generally excel at graphics presentation vs. more detailed game mechanics). Graviteam typically has far less units on screen to be controlled (to my knowledge). I'm not familiar with the 'Command' game unless it is the 'Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations', which isn't a 3D game as far as I can tell.

The nicest video cards will not give you incredible performance as you might expect. The CM series is primarily CPU-bound (which also includes OpenGL graphics calls, as far as I can determine), so there are diminishing returns with higher-end video cards, though I couldn't tell you what the 'optimum' video card configuration would be for CM. There are some threads in the forum about 'shadows' and certain Nvidia driver versions (though I don't know how well that would hold up for your R9 290 -based system, and the linked thread is mostly about crashing). For some people turning off shadows results in a noticeable improvement in frame-rate, while for others possibly downgrading your video driver to 388.71 (somewhere in that range, December 2017) may help. What is on screen can make quite a difference to the framerate. A lot of buildings, trees, units and significant elevation changes along with a large resolution can bring down your framerate significantly. You should notice differences between a small map with mostly open country and one with a lot of buildings, forests, etc.

Since CM is quite CPU-bound, making sure that nothing else (or very little) is running in the background helps a bit. CM basically only runs on one core (there are a few exceptions to this, such as when it is loading up scenarios and possibly a few other things). CM is also 32-bit on the PC, which means at the best only about 4GB of memory space will be utilized by the game.

If you're running a very high resolution (beyond 1920 x 1080), you may want to consider coming down in resolution and see what sort of difference that makes. This thread mentions some issues with 'irratic framerates', which may point you in a certain direction. I'm not sure if power-saving settings may have an effect on what you're seeing. I would assume not, but it may be worth checking out (using 'optimized/performance' settings, etc.). Here are some Nvidia settings from an old thread (which might not be the most up-to-date).

I expect to run at the same frames or better as people with same spec's as me. And, I mean Command MALB, yes. The fact it doesn't have any 3D rendering means my CPU/RAM/SSD is not the culprit. CM has very little rendering (It uses LOD's) so it's not my graphics card. I'm running the game at 1920x1080 and I have shadows turned off. And Graviteam Tactics uses platoon's so you can have around 1000-2000 units in a single battle. I'm not downgrading my graphics card lol. I've even tried downgrading the OS a few years ago to XP just for this game to see if it was the lack of legacy support for Windows Features (i.e. DirectPlay)

I made a helpdesk ticket a few hours ago. Now I wait I guess.

[Horrible frames. Getting frustrated.]

1 hour ago, rocketman said:

Yep, can also vouch for Nahimic being the bane of CM-games. Quickly uninstalled after identified as culprit.

I built my computer so I don't have any bloat on it.

3 hours ago, Blazing 88's said:

Yeah, as weta_nz mentioned, sounds like the onboard intel graphics card is running CM, cause those are the symptoms I get when my Nvidia profiles get overwritten by accident (usually when I make the wrong selection when updating my drivers ). Direct you Nvidia controller to start-up all CM games you have with the settings you require /want and you should be good to go hunting.

It's running off of the 1080

 

 

4 hours ago, sburke said:

Before you make too many assumptions, my pc runs CM fine and has for years so it isn’t the game per se.  I’d open a ticket with the Helpdesk for more specific technical assistance .  In almost every instance I have seen with complaints like this it is something on the users pc that is messing things up. Sound applications have been frequent culprits for issues and comparing CM to other games isn’t quite apples to apples as most of those are much more graphic driven than computational. 

There are other threads on why OpenGL but in brief at the time of creation for CMx2 OpenGL was THE thing.  That things have changed since then is basically the norm for the computing world. BF is not in any position to completely rewrite the code though. 

The helpdesk should be able to sort you out, best of luck. 

It's nothing on my PC. I've built three PC's and none of them could run Combat Mission. All running i5's, with two having a dedicated card (r9 290 & gtx 1080). 

I'll make a post on helpdesk but I mean they already have my money lol so I'm not sure if they're going to go the extra distance and help me but I'll check it out. Thanks.

[Horrible frames. Getting frustrated.]

First off, I know the game runs on OpenGL. I don't know why that is but it is. I know the game performs hundreds of calculations for every soldier or whatever. But I play games like Command and Graviteam Tactics/Achtung Panzer and those run perfectly and Command simulates a hell of a lot more than CM.

So, I built a PC pretty much specifically for these three games and I can't get it to even work properly. I get maybe 10 frames in a battle and even when I get more than 20 frames the camera lags behind so ****ing much it's unplayable.

I have a i5 4690k, 32GB of ram and CM is installed on a SSD and have a GTX 1080. I am literally giving it every chance to run but it doesn't. People get 40fps on giant battles and I can't get 10 on Tiny.

Please help.

I made a post four years ago with a similar problem but my computer has gotten a lot more powerful since then and performance is a lot worse. I can't be the only person having this issue.

At this rate, modern computers may not even be able to play Combat Mission in a year or two. This game needs some serious optimization. 

[They meant september of next year!]

Sorry please don't ban

[What do you think the first module of Black Sea would be?]

I just bought Shock Force due the price and to my knowledge that's the only Combat Mission that offers some unconventional warfare (IED's & Spies) which is really hard to achieve in other Combat Mission Games (Normandy, Red Thunder) but in a game with a fictitious battle with NATO & Ukraine vs RU; I think unconventional warfare would be beneficial. I would hope to see a expansion for militia as the troops currently fighting in Ukraine are either rushed musters or civilians. Ukraine's not winning a head on fight against Russia. Realistically they would adapt to guerrilla tactics such as ambushes. Militia can also be offered for both sides of the fight which in my opinion makes a decent expansion for Black Sea.