HSample Posted March 29, 2001 Share Posted March 29, 2001 I like Combat Mission. I want to continue playing it. But I'm getting highly frustrated and annoyed by its near-constant freezing. I use an IMac, running 9.0.4, with 64 mgs of RAM and 19 mgs of virtual memory. I have downloaded and installed the patchs, so I now have combat mission v 1.12 -- and still it freezes. It's quite maddening when this happens after I've plotted the movements and targets of dozens of soldiers/equipment. And it's almost time to give up on the game because of its lousy reliability. It just is not as much fun anymore. I gladly will accept suggestions, but the best resolution is a program that doesn't freeze. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted March 29, 2001 Share Posted March 29, 2001 HSample, Before you officially pull the ripcord and abandon the CM plane why not give your fellow Mac users here and at BTS a chance to respond and help you with your frustrating problem? I have an iMac myself and generally run the game with no problems, my post here notwithstanding. What kind of iMac do you have? Mine's a Gen One 233 MHz with 64 MB RAM (added 32) and 2 MB VRAM on its ATI Rage Pro. OS is 8.6. Theoretically, I shouldn't even be able to run CM with my rig, but I do it routinely, though I have to operate at 640 x 480. I can even run high quality smoke. No fog. You don't say whether you have any high resolution mods in use, as opposed to version changes. If you do, they could be causing your system to overload and freeze, if you don't have enough RAM and VRAM available. What resolution setting are you using? The higher it is, the greater the processing load on your computer. I seem to recall reading that there were some early problems of some sort with OS 9.04, but my brain's fuzzy and I don't remember the details. I bet a search under "OS 9.04" would bring up the thread I'm thinking of, though. I may not have the answers to your problem, but there are people here who do and will be glad to help you, HSample. Please stick around until qualified help arrives. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berlichtingen Posted March 29, 2001 Share Posted March 29, 2001 What flavor of iMac? How much ram do you have allocated to CM? Are you running hi-res mods? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmead Posted March 29, 2001 Share Posted March 29, 2001 I have two iMacs at home, a 233 MhzRevB with 160Mb of Ram, and a Lime Slot loading 400Mhz with 192 mb. I have had CMBO crash a total of 6 times from the first time I cranked up the Beta Demo thru all the different iterations and betas of the shipping version. I would buy more ram. Depending on the machine you have it can be very inexpensive and take less than two minutes to install. OS 9.04 alone is using up most of the ram you have, leaving very little for any apps. I bought some PC133 256MB chips recently as low as $89 at Best Buy. WWW.Ramseeker.com is a great place to buy ram at the lowest prices. If you have a Rev abc iMac the memory installation is a bit more difficult but is not impossible. I can dig up a link with very good instructions with pictures, takes a total of 30 minutes to complete. 9.04 is generally a stable OS and I would absolutely not change to 9.1. You may not be able to install 8.6 or earlier depending on the age of your iMac. The first slot loaders cam with 8.6 installed. 8.5 and 8.6 use a lot less Ram than does 9.04. My Rev b iMac has 8.6 on it and is very stable, my slot loader has 9.04 is also very stable. I believe your problem is a lack of Ram, but there may be other problems as well, could you post or email the extension and device info in the Apple System Profiler, which is part of the Apple menu? I would be happy to look into what the possible problems you are having are. The first thing I would do is shut off virtual ram as it can be problematic. I would also go into the preferences folder in the system folder and toss the CMBO preferences file and let the program make a new one. Good luck, Karl Mead karlmead@hotmail.com [This message has been edited by kmead (edited 03-29-2001).] [This message has been edited by kmead (edited 03-29-2001).] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSample Posted March 29, 2001 Author Share Posted March 29, 2001 Thanks for the informative responses. Here's what I can tell you about my system: I have a cranberry (or is it strawberry? It's red) IMac, 266 mhz, PowerPC G3. It came with 32 RAM and I added another 32. It has an ATY RagePro_C card, with 6 mgs VRAM. Currently, the monitor is set at "thousands" of colors, and the resolution is 800x600, 95 mhz. Perhaps I should change to 640x480? I have not changed the memory requirements for the CM program. It is now set at 34000 minimum and 40000 preferred. KMead, what other specific device and extension info do you need? thanks again! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmead Posted March 29, 2001 Share Posted March 29, 2001 To reiterate, I believe it is a Ram problem where OS9.04 is using too much of your base amount, forcing you to use virtual memory for the CMBO application. Virtual memory (ie part of your fairly slow hard disk) is not a good way of running a program and is likely why your system is unstable. So more Ram is likely the way to go. If you cannot get more ram, there are some things you can do to lower your system Ram needs. You can go into Extension Manager and create a "game set" that has a minimum of system resources loaded, by which I mean shut off most of your extensions, control panels. Some examples of minimum things that have to be there are the CDROM extension, any related to video drivers, usb, quicktime, input and sound sprockets, sound manager modem related if you use that, ethernet if you are using that as your internet connection, and others depending on your exact system config. one way woudl be to choose extensions off and keepa adding to the list of extensioins turned on until the game will run correctly. You can then choose this set at start up by holding down the space bar and choosing the game set. Also remove as many fonts from the Fonts folder in the system folder as you can (charcoal,chicago and geneva have ot be intstalled). Go back to 8.6 which may have shipped on your machine, it uses less Ram. The more physical ram you can allocate to CMBO the better your chances of getting it to run reliably. Good luck Karl 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berlichtingen Posted March 29, 2001 Share Posted March 29, 2001 Originally posted by HSample: It has an ATY RagePro_C card, with 6 mgs VRAM. Currently, the monitor is set at "thousands" of colors, and the resolution is 800x600, 95 mhz. Perhaps I should change to 640x480? I would try that first. 6MB of VRAM is less than CM wants , but should be able to handle it. If that doesn't fix it, it is probably a ram issue... 9.0.4 is a ram pig, so cm is probably running in virtual memory... not something you really want to do. Ram is cheap right now... buy enough so you can turn virtual memory off (it causes more problems than it solves) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSample Posted March 29, 2001 Author Share Posted March 29, 2001 Thanks for those ideas. I will buy more RAM and do as otherwise suggested. Maybe there is a future for CM in my world!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted March 30, 2001 Share Posted March 30, 2001 Sorry guys, but I just gotta break in here with my patented phrase: "What's a Mac again?" Isn't it wonderful to own a Mac with low system RAM and low VRAM? Nowathese days, it is a common to upgrade RAM in 128MB increments. ------------------ For your dream car click here. For a Close Encounter click here. Hey look! I can see my house! And for all you Hamster Lovers out there, check this out! Kitty, this one's for you! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Madmatt Posted March 30, 2001 Share Posted March 30, 2001 Maximus, You don't have a Mac and you have nothing to offer in this topic. Stay out or next time you won't be given a warning. Yuu push and push and push and I am getting VERY sick of it. Just stay away from topics where you have nothing to say constructive. Madmatt 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pford Posted March 31, 2001 Share Posted March 31, 2001 Originally posted by HSample: Thanks for those ideas. I will buy more RAM and do as otherwise suggested. Maybe there is a future for CM in my world!! Before you buy more RAM, get a guarantee that it will work with Apple's ROM upgrades. There has been a set of horror stories of some RAMs not working because of timing tolerance issue once you do an upgrade. Also there are INITS or extension conflicts. On an original iMac, using Conflict Catcher, there is one boot configuration that CMBO just won't run and another, named Combat Mission(guess why), that works fine. Sorry, I don't know which extension(s) are the problem here. I just ran CC until it worked. [This message has been edited by pford (edited 03-30-2001).] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aikidorat Posted March 31, 2001 Share Posted March 31, 2001 Also, I've noticed on my beige G3 (233MHz, 128 Meg ram, ATI rage Pro card, OS 9.1) that I can get CM to crash regularly if I have Netscape open, such as when downloading PBEM files. Locks it up every time. But, if I quite netscape then go into CM, I'm ok. Didnt have this issue with the previous patch and OS 9.0.4, not sure if it's 9.1 or the current version of CM. other than that, very stable and bug free. as for Virtual memory, I have it set at 129M, the minimum it allows. Limits the access to the disk for Vmem. Could be a memory issue... have you installed any mods to the game, or running it as shipped? good luck, you can get it to run without crashes.. dave ------------------ History is made at night 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Galanti Posted April 2, 2001 Share Posted April 2, 2001 More RAM is always a good start, but have you checked that it's not an extension issue? The easiest way to do that would be to run a set with the minimum number of extensions you need. Off the top of my head you'll need Quicktime, Quickdraw (and associated RAVE files), Sound Sprocket, Draw Sprocket, as well as MacOS 9 base files. Set up another extension set in extension manager (or conflict catcher, if that's what you're using). This minimal extension set should also use less ram for the system, freeing up more ram for CM... Ben 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSample Posted April 4, 2001 Author Share Posted April 4, 2001 I bought a lot more RAM, and just as many of you predicted, CM is a lot more stable. I've also limited the extensions I have running when playing CM. Thanks for the suggestions!! My faith in humanity has been restored!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmead Posted April 4, 2001 Share Posted April 4, 2001 Very pleased to have the opportunity to help out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyrene Posted April 8, 2001 Share Posted April 8, 2001 Agh! You got your problem fixed before I could add my two cents!!! I have a Rev D (333mhz iMac, tray loader) with 256mb of RAM and a new, faster 40GB drive and CM runs without a hitch, it has never crashed on me in 800x600 (It will not run in 1024x768). I highly recommend the RAM investment, I maxed mine out when prices were low, and it was the best move I made. Some good, general tweaks to do to any Mac is to turn of the "Last Applications" and "Last Documents" from the Apple Menu which sometimes causes problems, trim down the extentions folder (Any DVD, PCI, ATI Rage Pro ext. if you are on an older iMac, as you will not need them) especially font management extentions, they are notorious for causing trouble systemwide, they don't play nice together, use either ATM of Fontfolio, not both. Extention Overload is an excellent shareware app to help you figure out just what all those extentions are for. Gyrene 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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