Bagpipe
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Posts posted by Bagpipe
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Surely there is a rule somewhere about not necro'ing bug threads from years ago right?
I just say what we are all thinking dont shoot the messenger
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15 hours ago, Schrullenhaft said:
The games are published and managed on Steam by Matrix/Slitherine and NOT by Battlefront directly. Matrix/Slitherine would be the best entity to complain about Steam issues since they are responsible for it. Battlefront can also communicate Steam issues to Matrix/Slitherine, but they cannot directly make changes to the product and its representation on Steam.
That's why I commented just before you saying it was a major (ok minor but could cause grief) oversight by the publisher. It's important that BF are aware of this as they are the ones giving away money to their publisher to sell their product after all right?
I was always gonna buy F&R just not right now, but alas my arm was firmly twisted.
I will have to go speak to Mr.Rutins over at Matrix and see what he is willing to offer me to cease and desist!
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3 hours ago, Vacillator said:
From the BFC store:
https://www.battlefront.com/red-thunder/cmrt-battle-pack-1/
See the pink bit near the top, under the title 'Overview'. In short, yes it needs F&R.
EDIT you beat me to a reply
. F&R is worth the extra.
I don't use the BF store when the product is on steam anyway. Nor would most people who see a product on steam to be fair.
Just a major oversight by the publisher -
never mind, just saw a review saying it needs fire and rubble but the steam page does not indicate this.
Kinda jaded with that to be honest but I guess I can stretch to another £13 to complete the full bundle at an extra discount...
Eyebrow firmly raised!
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Just bought Red Thunder and Battle Pack 1 on steam but the BP campaigns say i need Fire and Rubble which I was not aware of?
Is this correct or is it bugged?
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On 1/13/2024 at 5:38 PM, Bil Hardenberger said:
Bill, take a look at my blog, gives a good basic run down on using real world tactics in CM.
https://battledrill.blogspot.com/?m=0
Look for the Tactical Toolbox on the left side of the screen
Edit: changed the link to the web version
Ahhh i did not know this was your blog. It is one of my bookmarked sites. Cracking stuff on there!
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17 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:
It's not yet another war in a totalitarian dictatorship like the Syrian civil war is
Except Putin is a totalitarian dictator. Not that those are limited to just Syria and Russia mind you...
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16 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:
I must say I disagree here. The amount of detail in Graviteam is incredible, and they just keep adding more and more. Just recently, they added simulation of exactly where each soldier gets hit by bullets and fragments. Some hits will kill immediately, some will wound, and some wounds will eventually kill - again depending on what part of the body gets hit.
And just to take it to the almost silly levels: I suggested to the developer that Soviet molotov cocktails might in some cases fail to burst if they hit soft ground or deep snow, simply because the bottle won't break. To my surprise, they actually went ahead and used my suggestion and changed the game code to do this.
Which is not only detail for the sake of detail - it means Soviet infantry is now less effective against infantry in snowy and muddy battles.
One can definitely make an argument that Combat Mission is better as a game than Graviteam is, but I think it depends on one's preferences. Both are worth playing in my opinion. CM has micromanagement, turn replay and also better urban combat. But Graviteam has much more detail and work put in overall, as I see it.
I agree with your opinion and would add that it's not comparing apples for apples either.
GT and AB both have much wider control over the player force as a whole (strategic layer) as you progress which CM does not aim to provide because that's not their focus.
I don't think either game is better than the other either and I certainly think GT and AB do a damn good job with their simulations of the actual ground based combat. Obviously infantry are less useful in AB but that's for another discussion lolIs it less detailed than CM in terms of the "resolution" of the simulation? Yeah possibly slightly, but that is inherently because CM is working at a lower level so has to provide higher resolution in doing so, and can do just that because of the smaller number of units and therefor munition trajectories etc. that it has to account for.
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Can't wait for BAOR update to CW though I REAAALLY need that engine 5 upgrade because the game still runs so sluggish especially on the larger battles/deployment phases.
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On 11/20/2023 at 1:15 AM, Redwolf said:
No, it really is the OS in full control of all those power saving features for the hardware.
Some minimal set is controlled by the BIOS, but that applies mostly to laptops.
Well then in that case I am hardly surprised. Windows causes nothing but bother these days, I think they want users to try different systems
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It's a hardware setting so not Windows exactly though I don't doubt that Windows in general does not help the issues one bit. Updates cause more problems every time lol
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So to keep this brief, I recently was encountering crashing issues with what I thought was due to Windows 11 and the TPM not behaving with my Ryzen 3700x cpu. I got around that and it led me to continue having occasional issues but now only when the computer was doing very little.
This led me to discover the CPPC or "collaborative processor performance control", or whatever it stands for.
There are settings to control this in your BIOS though the naming may vary depending on specific hardware/brand etc.
So anyway, this used to be known as "cool n quiet" or something and it basically allows your CPU to throttle the power (even on prefer max performance power mode) when it is idling or close to idling.
There is also a setting that allows "preferred cores".
Now, I am not an expert in this stuff but having disabled all of it I have seen my rig return to stability and just now I thought I would try out the ever heart-breaking "Bear in the Sun" mission from the CMCW US campaign.
If you have seen my previous posts around this you will know that I have had a hell of a time with stuttering during set up, beyond what you would expect or call reasonable. I'm talking 2 solid minutes of non-responsiveness etc. Real bad.
With this CPPC stuff all disabled, forcing my cpu to not go into a low power state when on a low load (which is what you find during deployment phase in CM i suspect), I was able to deploy and play some of the mission for testing and it never stuttered more than a couple of heart beats.
So if you are having the bother I have been, this may be another thing to consider if you are handy with the BIOS etc. If not then please don't go messing around in there as you could really upset your rig if you change the wrong settings.
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Regarding larger scenarios/maps - Designing and selling a game that allows users to create something the game cannot handle is in itself a flawed game. That's my opinion on that matter anyway. Scenario designers are not to blame for using the tools provided to them fully.
The issue I face is usually at it's worst during deployment phase, trees and shaders on/off etc makes very little difference on my rig. Whether it is an issue with the repeated deployment zone texture, or if the code concerning deployment tiles is the issue, is not for me to say.
There seem to be a lot of "apologists" (I use that term gently ofc) tip toeing around the subject of performance in the CM games though, I mean sure the games are great and you want to see them succeed and when someone questions their quality you get defensive etc. I get that but it doesn't actually help the games/devs/publishers/us in the long run.
The conversation inevitably leads to people comparing specs etc when in reality a game of this scale should be easily run, individually computed bullets or no, on modern hardware, the facts are that the game does not properly utilize the hardware. Any quick analysis of your cpu/gpu/memory usage during a scenario will show you this.I feel pretty strongly about this one issue because I genuinely believe these titles would do massively better if it were rectified. Many, many potential new players try these games and hate the performance (performance vs. visuals) so pass on them when they don't realize what they are missing out on. You see conversation regularly about it on many social platforms etc.
So it feels like this endless loop of lack of dev resources to fix the issue which is then antagonized by a lack of sales to accrue more dev resources which is ultimately a death sentence. Which nobody wants.
I mean, I basically bought Cold War because I had money to burn and felt the pang of nostalgia from playing the original game way back in my childhood some time.
After that I bought a further two titles, knowing that they don't perform well, just to try and support the devs a bit hoping that somehow my extra £100 or whatever might actually help lol.
I hope this doesn't read as me raining urine all over things, that's not my intention. I have great respect for the devs and the community.
I just think that maybe there needs to be more honest conversation about the issue and more pressure put on the devs/publishers to prioritize remedying the situation. -
I have not bought any of the ww2 titles though I would like to. I think unit count is higher in those generally so figured it would be worse than the modern ones though I guess there are less sensors etc to compute and what not.
I have tried all the things to try and alleviate it but nothing helped.
The performance in general is pretty poor with CM games, that I can live with given how it is basically running off some ancient necromancy knowledge that the devs possess but when it grinds to a slideshow, and I mean 1-3 fps if you are lucky at times, during deployment phase and occasionally when playing larger warsaw pact scenarios... it goes beyond reason.
I do not know if it is something to do with Ryzen CPUs or RTX GPUs...
I think the more modern ryzen CPUs can have issues if games are not written in a way that utilizes their boost clock function etc. (to put it really basically lol) but even at that a base clock of 3.4/3.6Ghz should be more than adequate for something like this, at least to prevent a slide show issue. Task manager regularly shows almost no utilization of the hardware when this occurs too which is usually quite telling.
I won't list the number of games I run perfectly fine, because that is tiresome for everybody and childish, but it is in the 100's and many are similar "kind" of games in terms of calculations and what not.Anyway like I was saying, it would be awesome to know more about when to expect the engine update because I am sure there was talk around the announcement period that it would help to mesh with the modern set ups a little better.
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18 hours ago, BFCElvis said:
I couldn't find any Help Desk tickets by searching your email address or name. I also didn't find any DMs in the past couple of years. You may want to open a ticket. I may be able to help.
https://battlefront.mojohelpdesk.com/
You read this post I believe and we had a conversation via the forum messaging 1 year ago. Understandable if you have had to delete older messages to free up space.
But it did happen incase you are inferring it did not?
We talked at length about how the deployment zone texture was causing huuuge lag spikes when in view which becomes more and more apparent the larger the scenarios/deployment zones. Remember?
I can send you the convo if you like but we didn't get anywhere lolEDIT: just checked again, November 22 2021 you replied by DM. So almost 2 years ago! wow time flies
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Sorry to be that guy, again but...
When is the engine update coming? Can we have an update or have I missed word on this?
I would really love to be able to enjoy the 3 CM titles that I own but they just do not play on modern hardware as discussed in depth in previous posts and DMs with the devs trying to work out why it doesn't (so let's not climb down that rabbit hole again lol).
I bought CW, love it but cant play larger scenarios due to it completely grinding to a halt at deployment phase.
I then bought SF2 and BS hoping that with them having been around longer they may have been optimized slightly better but the same issues are apparent, I mean come on it's no secret that the games do not perform anywhere near as well as they could/should right? So again, rabbit hole. bad. no.
I just really wanna be able to enjoy all that I have paid for *stamps feet* and am really hoping it can come this side of Christmas please? *smile and fluttering eye lashes*
Thanks
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On 2/9/2023 at 8:33 AM, Chibot Mk IX said:
Yes, ATGM's flight took time to reach its target at long distance.
in the game the TOW speed is 160m/s
https://community.battlefront.com/topic/141829-tow-missile-speed/
so a 1600m distance engagement means TOW missile will take 10s. A lot of things can happen in 10s, enemy maneuver and disappear from crosshair, or the enemy quickly react, 5 seconds to aim, fire, an APFSDS kills ATGM operator 2 seconds later, causing the missile out of control and crash.
Was about to ask why the TOW in game is so slow but I see on the linked thread that this discussion is under way already
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14 hours ago, Sorcerer117 said:
- I was watching some reviews about Flashpoint, and the fact that i cant chose my units and there isnt any skirmish mode i didnt bought.
- Maybe next time, but still, dont being able to chose my army is kinda lacking
You can in the editor. You can make your own scenarios any way you wish.
As for the ready-made scenarios, well, of course you can't pick your units as it wouldn't be a "Scenario" then really.
FC is awesome, I am new to it and I am absolutely loving it. Even bought the DLC knowing that Southern Storm is weeks away lol sod it, fun is for having -
7 hours ago, Artkin said:
I have also noticed a FPS hit when in the deployment stage, which immediately gets better when the go button is pressed. Not sure why your game dies so hard though. I lose maybe 5-10% fps in setup, nothing like what you are experiencing
Sometimes it just locks up completely for a good 2 minutes. It is bizarre. It is as though the setup phase just lulls my CPU to sleep...
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2 hours ago, Codreanu said:
I notice the biggest performance drop when looking at the deployment zone itself, on some of the big CMCW scenarios I will get single digit FPS when I look at the deployment zone but if I turn the camera away it gets somewhat better. Quite strange. Does go back to normal after I hit play though.
THIS! absolutely the same as what I experience. CPU utilization at this point is also as low as 2% with gpu pretty much idling at 40% and RAM looking very unchallenged also. The only fix is optimization from the devs unfortunately.
Pointing the camera straight down to the texture/shader/blue square sorts it but the moment the camera is observing all/lots of them the FPS plummets.
I have tried to find a way around it but cannot. Asked staff for advice to fix too but nobody could offer anything.
At the moment I can play as far as Neuhof and then that is it for the US campaigns. Gets boring playing the same 2 campaign scenarios over and over lol though I am getting pretty efficient at smashing the Russian advance with my roadblock just before Neuhof... -
On 9/13/2022 at 12:17 AM, Artkin said:
I thought AMD cpu's had pretty good single core performance. What model do you have, and also what gpu? AMD gpu's arw notorious around here for having OpenGL issues, on top of poor OpenGL performance.
I have never had performance problems in CMCW with my i5 9600k, and my now rtx 3060 ti
I have a NV GPU so its not that. I play countless OpenGL games with no issues.
The problem I have is only apparent at setup phase seemingly due to the blue overlay texture being repeated ad nauseum on larger scenarios. The game grinds to a halt. 5 FPS is good at this stage.
The minute I hit end turn and it disappears we are all good but I can't deploy my units correctly due to the severe, and i can't emphasise the severity enough, stuttering. It is single handedly the worst optimized game I have played in years and I play loooooads of games.
Not having a go at the devs, I understand that it is probably something they don't look forward to getting into especially using something with such an ancient base as CM. It's almost as old as I am after all and I am pretty broken!
I have tried every trick in the book to try to improve it but nothing works.
If anybody can find the texture file in the packs please let me know where it is because i have exploded every brz file and cant find the damn thing to see about modding it out for something with much lower resolution.
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2 hours ago, Sunbather said:
Did you also try to crank up the resolution to 8k in the text file? And turn off shadows and set 3D model quality at "improved" or even lower.
Increasing the resolution will force the game to load more textures beforehand, you will still be playing in your native resolution though!
See this guide here, works for every CM game:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2601713366
yes, when i say every trick i mean that and more
It's not a gpu issue. It is that many modern cpu use lower single clock speeds with boost options as demanded by the software.
This software can't utilize that and so the single clock runs at only 3.6ghz or so which is just not enough for the larger scenarios.
Why I don't know, especially when you are only at deployment phase etc. I could go on but it's tiring lol -
I cannot state how important update 5/performance improvements are. As a relatively new player to the series, I am heart-broken at being unable to enjoy the Cold War campaigns on my modern machine. I have already tried every trick in the book, and nothing helps. The game simply overloads one core but does not utilize the core boost functionality that you see in modern AMD cpus so even when it stutters to a standstill my CPU is still only at "4%" utilization at most.
I know many of you think that it is still okay that a game these days needs a single core at 5+Ghz to run efficiently but...it's simply not.I know the devs are aware of the issues but honestly...battle packs and PBEM tournaments should be last on the list way after performance gains because as a new player owning Cold War and wishing to buy the rest of the titles, I simply cannot in good faith spend any more cash on this series until we see results.
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13 hours ago, Redwolf said:
The 12th generation Intel chips (Alder Lake) have the best single core performance right now. In desktops minds you, laptops are a different matter.
That makes them the most suited for CM right now.
Again, being realistic and given that my current 3700x wont even reach 15%% utilization when running CM, its not really a matter of needing better hardware at the moment. It's an issue of the game engine needing some serious improvement to utilize the hardware people already have.
CMv5 --- AI image upscaling --- imagine this?
in Combat Mission - General Discussion
Posted
Someone's been reading too much speculative journalism. Either that or just bought shares in some AI company...
BF are hardly the market leaders in showcasing innovative computer gaming technology so I think your words are all just bluster with little real thought behind them.
Think a few deep breaths are in order and maybe some meditation or something.