nox_plague

Yes folks here is the official AMD thread would be great if they let us Beta test it to make sure it's really fixed.
 
https://community.amd.com/t5/drivers-software/amd-driver-issues-with-opengl-in-combat-mission-games/td-p/587742

@BFCElvis @Battlefront.com
Another AMD staff member replied to the thread:
https://community.amd.com/t5/drivers-software/amd-driver-issues-with-opengl-in-combat-mission-games/td-p/587742#.ZB3TXcS-w9Z
"Just FYI, a bug ticket has been created to track this issue: "flashing white screen when explosions occur in front of camera/player" . The OpenGL dev team is currently looking into it."
If you have any information on which OpenGL functions/calls/extensions are used during explosions we should pass it along to help them narrow it down.
CM:CW gets the "Out of Memory" breaking error with AMD drivers after 22.6.1., if you have any ideas on that one we should pass it along while we have the AMD team attention, although we should probably create a separate thread and Bug tracker for that.  One thing at a time.
 

I think it’s great that you can buy the game here on BFC and still get access to the Steam key.
With Steam you can install a title on as many devices as you want, it only checks that you aren’t trying to play the same game on different machines at the same time.
I like to try new devices, use multiple machines and VMs. I reformat my OS every 12-18 months, meaning reinstalling the game on the same machine. Currently I’m over my limit for my BFC account for some CM games.  I’ve even had to purchase a game a couple of times.
With Steam I can install the game as many times on as many devices/VMs/ etc.  I just wish Steam had the MacOS version as well.  Steam is fully multi platform, I don’t understand why they limited CM to Windows only on it.  I assume Slitherine/Matrix are just afraid of MacOS.
Looking forward to Battlefront releasing all the games via Steam.
@BFCElvis Can you please have the Steam icons replaced with the standard BFC CM icons?  The colorful circle logos are so much nicer and easier to distinguish than the dark armored vehicle icons used for Steam installs.

Go into your game folder (my default location is Libraries/Documents/Battlefront/Combat Mission/Final Blitzkrieg) and look for "display size.txt".  Open it and change to size that suits your monitor.  I find that is different depending on the monitor one is using.  If you have a large monitor you can replace whatever the 3 default numbers are with "1920 1200 0" or even larger.  Save the file and start the game.  If the game doesn't look right or the text is too small, try other numbers.  (Eg: For my laptop I use "1600 900 0".)

Battlefront is aware of this issue and are looking at it. However this issue is more likely in AMD's court. The 22.7.1 drivers brought in a bunch of OpenGL optimizations and it is one (or several) of those optimized routines for implementing OpenGL that has caused these problems.
These optimizations have brought some welcome speed improvements to CM for Radeon users. CM loads multiple times faster than it did before. However they have also caused problems that everyone in this thread is aware of now. I don't know how hard it would be for Battlefront to reprogram some of the visual affects in CM that are affected by these optimizations. Using different calls/methods to reproduce some of the effects may be complex enough to almost not be worth the effort. At its simplest it may result in an option to turn off certain effects for compatibility purposes.
If AMD were to address this issue there could be a couple of possibilities:
AMD figures out that some of the optimizations need refining and are able to find a fix and maintain the speed improvements.
or
AMD realizes that the optimizations are incompatible with certain OpenGL calls. This results in a decision to:
1) Consider the incompatible calls as deprecated in their OpenGL implementation - this can be a likely scenario if the calls are older and there are others that are considered suitable replacements (however harder they might be for programmers to implement). The optimizations all remain in place and potentially benefit the majority of OpenGL programs, but CM suffers.
or
2) Possibly reverse/sacrifice some of the optimizations in order to make CM work with their current OpenGL implementation. This would result in a driver that wasn't as fast in all respects as the current ones, but it may still be an improvement speed-wise over earlier drivers. Depending on what programs were affected by the optimizations this could take several possible paths.
           a) If several significant programs were affected and only a few changes are necessary (and thus most speed improvements remain), this could be the driver base for OpenGL going forward. Future drivers will have these fixes and CM will continue to work with newer drivers.
           or
           b) If only a few programs are affected and/or many optimizations have to be dropped or engineered in a manner that significantly reduces the performance benefit the optimizations originally provided. Then AMD could release (if it found that the effort has significant enough demand) a 'beta' driver that may be a 'dead end'. Future updates would NOT utilize this as a base for OpenGL, but instead implement the full OpenGL optimizations of the previous driver. This 'beta driver' would have some speed improvements and compatibility with the latest Radeons, but this would potentially be the last driver supporting certain OpenGL calls in a manner compatible with CM.
I have seen in the past when AMD has reached out to Battlefront to get more info on certain bugs in their drivers. However even with the intense initial interest in fixing the problem it took 9 months to get a driver release that fixed the problem (which was more significant in its effect than the problems experienced here).

For anyone encountering this, the solution (at least on Win10+11) is to override DPI scaling in the executable properties, setting it to "Application". I need to do this for all CM games. There is no need to turn off DPI scaling to run the game. See attached screenshot.
For instance, running CM on a 2560x1440 display, the UI is too small for my eyes, so I want to run it at 1920x1080, so I set this in "display size.txt":
1920 1080 60
But with 150% DPI scaling set in Windows, the game does not handle this at all, thinking I'm running at 1080/1.5 = 720.
If the game engine had supported DPI scaling this would of course not be necessary, as any program that support it will automatically scale accordingly. But for games it's often necessary to override scaling.
It might be possible for Battlefront to fix this by compiling the executable with a manifest telling the OS the application does not support scaling, it will then fall back to using Application scaling:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/hidpi/setting-the-default-dpi-awareness-for-a-process
 

Testing BootCamp vs Mac on my iMac. Specs of iMac:
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)
3.1 GHz Intel Core i5
40 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
Radeon Pro 575X 4 GB
1TB SSD
Windows 10 vs MacOS 10.14
Did a fresh install of CMFB on BootCamp. CMFB on Mac side already installed, pretty much vanilla.
From a fresh boot and start up of game loading time for scenario To Verdenne & Victory described as Huge was about 30 seconds under MacOS, nothing abnormal. Same scenario under Windows 10 took about 50 seconds, slower but tolerable. Second runs on both were appreciably quicker by about a third to half.
Certainly nothing like the 3 minutes you experienced. Game play was pretty much identical.
Probably a driver level issue with your GPU. Just one thing to make sure of, is the PC utilising the GPU when running CM or is it using any built-in on CPU graphics chip by default? This can happen on PC that have both.

Recently purchased CM: Afghanistan and I’m really enjoying it, so different from CM Red Thunder.  Yes, the older engine doesn’t have the elegance of 4.0, but I like the terrain and the challenges introduced by such mountainous engagements. I seem to be great at killing my own infantry with Hinds.  I hope my purchase assures BF there is still interest in this title and a remake would be warmly received (via my wallet).
And learning about the Soviet-Afghan conflict, wow, I hadn’t fully appreciated how the repercussions of this war have so greatly impacted Western foreign policy.

If it was a direct hit, that probably should not have happened.....It's more or less the same as taking a direct hit from a destroyer!
If the shell impacted on the armour the Tiger the crew should be going benny-mental.....There are descriptions from crews of their tanks 'ringing like a bell' and of being able to see daylight through the weld-seams after ISU rounds exploded on their armour. 
Needless to say, the tanks broke and the crew didn't stay in them to find out exactly how long it would take for the welds to crack completely and for the turret roof to fall on their heads!
Here's some of their handiwork on Panthers:

:

Not everything is on there, there's a lot of stuff you can only find on these forums or other places. I'm sure it was a pain for people like 37mm to compile their scenario packs hunting through the scenario depot and Battlefront forums trying to find old scenarios, the most up to date version of those old scenarios, and any accompanying files that came with them, Steam Workshop would literally just be 1 click to install it and would install any new version automatically.

Yeah not being a programmer I accept that this is a bit of a 'things that you don't understand sound easy' but performance is the big one.   The game engine isn't leveraging multi-threading, modern RAM expectations, or anyone's GPU integrated or otherwise nearly to the extent that it could.  I can accept that it might just be too much work to make happen, but as a user I'm just not going to get excited about anything in an engine update that isn't 'the game no longer runs like ass'.
 
There is one QOL update though that I'd like and that's the option to have artillery/air fire missions where I can pick multiple point targets in order. Or an area target with prioritised point targets.  

I should be able to tell a paladin battery of 3 guns 'I want you to precision strike these three points in one salvo'.  Or an attack helicopter 'strike this tank specifically and then go after targets of opportunity in this area' as a single order.  

e; oh and this isn't quite an 'engine upgrade' but get Steam Workshop set up.  That's really not much work at all and would be fantastic for the community.

They had to redub Star Trek so people in Scotland could understand it.
 

I'm very interested in folks experiences with Radeon GPUs, Windows, and CM. There seems to indeed (and based on searching these forums that appears to be the consensus) be a loading issue.
As an interesting data point that it could be AMD Radeon Driver related I offer this data point:
CM Red Thunder - Gog and Magog
MacOS: 15.37 seconds  Windows 10: 185.15 seconds That is a crazy 12x or 1200% faster performance.
No Mods, all settings identical (Display 1280 x 960 (because MacBook has different display this is the best way to standardize), Vert Sync OFF, 3D Quality BEST, 3D Texture BEST, Antialias ON, Tree Detail HIGH, Shader ON)
These computers are surprisingly similar, so I think it is 80% a software issue. I recognize Apple does special hardware optimization, but given these are both Intel w/ Radeon systems hardware alone cannot explain these differences.
Additionally Apple writes their own drivers for MacOS, and they have even deprecated OpenGL (Battlefront please make sure you're ready for Metal/Vulkan.). So again seems like the Radeon driver on Windows 10 or how CM calls the driver is creating serious overhead.
MacBook Pro 2019 16" specs
Intel 9980HK 8 Core 16 Thread 2.4 GHz Turbo 5.0 GHz AMD Readon Pro 5500M 8GB  NVMe SSD AP2048N 2TB PCIe 3.0 (Supposedly the memory for these SSDs is manufactured by Samsung) 32 GB DDR4 2666 MHz RAM macOS Monterey 12.2.1 Custom Windows 10 built PC specs
Intel 9700K 8 Core 8 Thread 3.6 GHz Turbo 4.9 GHz AMD Radeon 6700 XT 12GB GDDR6 (Powercolor Fighter) Driver Version 22.3.1 NVMe SSD Samsung Evo Plus 1 TB PCIe 3.0 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz CL14 RAM  This desktop 6700 XT Radeon GPU runs circles around the 50 watt 5500M in the MacBook Pro, except in Combat Mission 😂🤷‍♂️

For those interested, the first version of the project mentioned above was released earlier last year...

Nope, those are BMP-1Ps (with AT-4).....They aren't even in CM:A.
It's CM:SF with a shalwar kameez on. 

Yes, pretty good ad. Makes me wanna power up CMA again.

Depends on contract details between battlefront and some unknown party, which could be developer 'Apeiron' (rip), production fund 'Snowball Connection' (rip) or publisher 1C (still kicking). The latter was also owner of both 'apeiron' and 'snowball connection'.
Also for history sake, official trailer (probably was already posted somewhere here...)
 

Wrong thread.....Still want to see CM:A brought back into the fold though. 

I simply want to say, how cool an update of this game would be!
 
Really, really cool!

CMA is still alive in our hearts. A few people still play it. (Including me)

If these lockdowns ever end & my work schedule returns to normal the 'People's Beta' should be quickly wrapped up... AFTER that I'll undoubtedly need a break from SE Asia & Afghanistan is looking a good bet for a quick conversion package for CMSF2.
I've become fairly adept at converting CMA scenario's (& even small campaigns) into CMSF2 as I find the mountainous terrain & (essentially) Red vs Red battles very useful to me... this week I've converted two more scenarios from @Fredrock1957's "Major Nosov's Brigade" for instance.
I'd probably like to hook up with (at the very least) @Zveroboy1 & yourself for such a project... there'd be far fewer tags that's for sure (Lowlands, Mountains, Snow & something to activate the 1980's* would be the primary tags & virtually all that work has already been done).
As for the Soviets, although their uniforms could be easily represented by an era specific tag, the voices would indeed be an issue.
For single player scenarios & campaigns, a voice tag a bit like our H&E [rvnaf] tag could be used to add flavour for the appropriate side (with regards FO voices & aircraft voices) however we would either need to make a "generic voice mod" (laughing, whistling, screams, equipment sounds etc) for the 80's OR we could just pretend that the Soviets merely provided air & arty support for a very well equipped DRA.
 
*The modern era would turn the Syrians into ANA, the 80's tag would turn the various Syrian branches into DRA & Soviet forces.

I think that if they wanted to have a CMA game they would just do it. I don't understand why they would need permission from the Russian developer? Just call it a different name and redo the missions and maps. The Russian developers don't have the rights to the Afghan war, OOBs, Operations or the layout of the terrain. CMA is so old you would have an easier time starting from scratch or reskining and adapting mechanics from Shock Force 2 instead of updating the code.
Maybe they signed something where they can't have another game set in this conflict? That would suck.
But if we are having a new CMA game, please try to respect Soviet doctrine of leaving the squad leader inside the AFV and give us an option to detach him independently!

With Lord Steve mentioning CMA in the Welcome to 2021 thread, I think it's fair to speculate about a modern revival of CMA could be a port/upgrade onto the new CMx3 engine (whenever that would release). Crowdfunding has already been discussed more than a few times throughout the forum and it would be nice to see if the developers would let it get the Fortress Italy treatment assuming they get the go ahead from the Russian devs. Anyone else have thoughts?

Based on a number of translated Russian comments I've seen, this is considered by Soviet veterans of the Afghanistan War to be the most accurate Russian film depiction of the war ever. It's 1988, and a VDV regiment is trying to extricate itself from Afghanistan. Somehow, the film manages to distill an entire war down to roughly 2 1/4 hours. It's nasty, brutal, vicious, confusing, definitely not for people with weak stomachs, but it's an immersive experience which includes so many facets of the war, yet never straining to do so. It's unfortunately the Russian is translated, so much of what the Afghanis say has to be figured out from expressions, body language and behavior. The Aghanis are not ciphers, but rather are families caught in a whole series of plights, including their own internal forever war, if you will. The main war is a horror for both sides, and the Soviet Union, in its familiar form, is disintegrating while the troops are out of country. The young and ambitious contrast strongly with the long-suffering and battle weary old hands. Injury and death are everywhere and spare no one. Weaponry overall seems a great fit for the period, and in some cases is applied lavishly.

Don't know how this is handled in CMA, but the VDV guys, some minimally attired, are atop their AFVs, not in them. The AFVs are period correct, and there's a mod I never saw before in the intel reporting coming from Afghanistan. Believe there are lots of gaming possibilities here in the film.
 
Regards,

John Kettler

I've pre-ordered F&R and cannot wait  CM:BB was my first CM game (at 15 years old) and served as my introduction to combat sims and/or war-games.  I haven't played in years and kinda forgot about the games, but Covid gave me time to dig through all old favorites and I remembered CM.  Glad to see it's still in such active development.
Sorry, this is a bit off topic, but I feel like folks here need a bit of an update on Steam.
Steam is the largest PC game distribution platform and marketplace.  Steam was released in 2004 as part of Valve's Half Life 2 release.  I have had it since then and I have over 400 games on Steam.  I also use GOG Galaxy which has better support for classic games, including CM1 games BO, BB, and AK.  
Steam manages updates.  Everyday I have 3-5 game updates that download in the background.  You have controls to tell it when you want updates to download/be applied etc.
Steam provides cloud saves (mutli-platform support for saves too) so I can pick up right where I left off on my laptop from my desktop while I'm traveling.
Steam provides a social networking and multiplayer frameworks so developers can tap into that for multiplayer matchmaking.  It could make it easier to find CM online opponents and I can only imagine how using cloud saves with PBEM it could make the experience SO MUCH BETTER!  Any friends that I have that game we pretty much all meet up and organize stuff on Steam, however for voice chat we tend to prefer Discord (Does CM have a Discord server yet?)
Steam provides rich community mod frameworks and modding warehouse.  Instead of having to manage Z folders, I can find a mod on Steam and immediately "install" it and use it in a game -with one click, and with a fancy UI to manage which mods I want on or off when I start a game.  No filesystem management required.  No need to worry about mod websites going down. It's all hosted by Steam / Valve.  If a modder updates the mod it will auto-update just like game updates, so mod updates are managed seamlessly in the background.
Steam makes it easy to backup games and to migrate games between hard drives. A personal favorite of mine, since I like upgrading my NVME SSDs and I dislike having to uninstall CM and reinstall it and going through support for activation.
Steam is cross-platform.  I'm using it on my MacBook Pro right now.  From what I can tell, CM and Slitherine are only enabling Windows on Steam currently.
All of this is to say, from the end user/customer experience of Steam is amazing.  I do not know about the Developer/backend Steam experience.  I don't know if those Frameworks have good API and code samples to build from.  I don't know what Steam's sales cut is.  I don't know how the Steam approval process works or if they'd want German military insignias modified.  For a small developer like Battlefront Steam may not make sense.  I have no insight into the cons.
If Battlefront does decide to adopt Steam, I recommend really taking the time to utilize the modding, matchmaking, cloud saving, Multiplatform, and updating experiences, because they are pretty awesome for your users.