Why can't Combat Mission look and run as well as Wargame: European Escalation?

[moeburn]

I have always been a huge fan of the Combat Mission series, right since the first Beyond Overlord game in '99. That game never ran well on any of my systems until my recent years. Now with CMx2, the graphical improvements are a beautiful addition; the amount of detail when close up on a Stryker vehicle is incomparable to any game I've yet played. Yet on any given average view with "balanced" model quality and "best" texture quality, I get an average of 20fps.

Now I just recently discovered a great RTS game (and I said game, not tactical combat simulator, I'm not comparing that aspect) called Wargame: European Escalation. It's based on the IRISZOOM engine from R.U.S.E., and I quote from wikipedia:

It features large maps up to 150 square kilometres in size, which can have up to 100 million scenery objects. It gives the player the ability to zoom in and out and to get, in an instant, from a large commander's view to a ground view closer to the combat.

I run this game in DX11 mode, at absolute maximum settings in every category, and I get an average of 45-60fps in most scenes, maybe slowing to 30fps when zoomed in and the action is extremely thick. There are towns with hundreds of buildings. And these are no simple cubes either, they each have their own shadows, balconies, fences, streetlights, chimneys, every little detail is rendered at amazing efficiency:

Believe me, they do not skimp on the polygons on the vehicles either:

So why is it that my system can run this game without a single hiccup, yet when I try to play a game in CM with a few too many buildings it runs slower than that tesselation tech demo from Unigine? Keep in mind this occurs in wego AND real-time modes, so I know it isn't my CPU bottlenecking the system. Is there something very complicated going on inside my graphics card in this game that I just can't understand and appreciate? Or did battlefront simply not have the resources to create such an efficient engine?

Also, just out of curiosity, if an engine like that were for license, how much do you think it would cost battlefront to license it? A mix of the game mechanics of CM with the graphics of Wargame would be an orgamesm.

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[Ranger33]

First off, there aren't nearly as many calculations going on in the background of Wargame. Not to say it's a "simple" game, but relative to CMBN there isn't nearly as much going on under the hood.

Secondly, CMBN isn't very well optimized compared to Wargame, and seems to have some sort of bottleneck. *shrug* If they had more funds, more coders, more everything, it would be better, but it is what it is.

You are comparing a high-budget game where the smooth engine is probably it's best feature, versus a low-budget game where the graphics engine is basically functional enough to work and everything else (ballistics, LOS, etc) is the focus.

[MikeyD]

"Look as good" is a relative term. CMBN opted for real world coloring while most games now go for a 'fake movie' color balance. You know, those washed-out sepia tone colors in Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, the 300, etc. I believe it was the George Clooney Kuwait war heist film "Three Kings" that first used high contrast filtering back in 1999, it caused a firestorm of indignation. Nowadays we're so accustomed to it in war movies we don't even realize how far from natural the color balance is.

[MikeyD]

Oh, if you've played the European Escallation demo/beta its really pretty laughable gameplay. I joked that it was CM with everything that the gorgnards demanded added and everything that made the simulation aspect even halfway decent removed.

[LongLeftFlank]

Sorry, one look at that map screenie and I call BS on "greater realism".

Not one car in sight, first of all. High-res houses and walls look very nice, fine, but there are absolutely no hedges or other vegetation other than big mature trees -- yes this friggin well matters, because all that clutter restricts LOS and can make a suburb like this a real b**ch to fight through in high summer. As it is now, you're either in a building, in a street or in a yard, and whoever has the big uber tank(s) or the infinite ammo chaingun strapped to his waist or whatever sweeps all before him within moments of the enemy opening fire. No "tactics" required. From a pure tactical standpoint, not really much evolution from the Battlezone arcade game I used to play as a teen 30 years ago.

True, a lot of CMBN maps also suffer from a lot of these same issues, but it is clear to me that a game engine derived from some real estate CAD program doesn't do much from a "realism" standpoint to compensate for slipshod map design.

All that said, I do agree that CMx2 is quite a resource hog for what you get visually. There are good reasons for that though, and at day end, frankly, I'll take CMSF / CMBN over anything else on the market any day of the week.

[gunnulf]

Basically in terms of old school tabletop & dice wargaming then W:EE pays homage to a 1/300 scale modern warfare rulebook. It even has a nod to modular terrain block hills. Great fun and very well thought out and executed game that I have been enjoying a lot. Some things abstracted for scale and gameplay but gets a good balance in my opinion, and looks good too and really captures the 1/300 size well. You just know the developers used to play it with Heroics & Ros models. I still have boxes of T80s and Challengers etc in the shed somewhere...

CMBN is more in the 1/72 scale territory obviously, much more attention to realism & detail and specifics. You know the developers would have been playing the games where it would take a few minutes to total up the pluses and minuses for every tank shot and games would often run out of time to play in an evening.. Again, I have boxes and boxes of PzIVs and shermans gathering dust...

I just count my blessings that both games exist and allow us to play out both genres with such ease and recapture the spirit of the tabletop with undreamed-of style and speed. Bravo!

[Rambler]

Say what you will, at least it can do proper shadows. Kinda of like, oh I don't know, 99.7% of other games out there. Something CMx2 can't even do after five years. Just sayin'...

[noob]

Say what you will, at least it can do proper shadows. Kinda of like, oh I don't know, 99.7% of other games out there. Something CMx2 can't even do after five years. Just sayin'...

To true, even after weeks of intense fighting with a wily opponent, going through the full spectrum of emotions, the agony, the ecstacy, the crazy pyrotechnics that come with the average CM game, it all comes crashing down when i'm reminded of badly rendered shadows....curse you BF for making me this way !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[womble]

So why is it that my system can run this game without a single hiccup, yet when I try to play a game in CM with a few too many buildings it runs slower than that tesselation tech demo from Unigine?

Because oranges make lousy cider.

[Rambler]

To true, even after weeks of intense fighting with a wily opponent, going through the full spectrum of emotions, the agony, the ecstacy, the crazy pyrotechnics that come with the average CM game, it all comes crashing down when i'm reminded of badly rendered shadows....curse you BF for making me this way !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Be sarcastic all you want. Is it too much to expect a feature that has been in since day one and has already been through one engine upgrade to work correctly? No.

[Chek]

Oh come on rambler you can do better than that how about accurate shadowing playing a more significant part in camo and concealment.

Not it would look prettier...

[noob]

Is it too much to expect a feature that has been in since day one and has already been through one engine upgrade to work correctly? No.

The shadows look fine on my PC so it must be down to the GFX card, i use an Nvidia GTX 275.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Some Mac users have had issues with shadows since the last patch. But they generally look good on my laptop (Nvidia card). They are jaggy and shimmer because they are not high quality soft shadows and I leave AA off for the performance boost, but I think the game looks better with them on.

[RockinHarry]

Would be interested in how does compare CMN OpenGL vs. DX11 generally, not considering realism stuff going on under the hood?

[Vanir Ausf B]

The minimum spec graphics card for CMBN is only OpenGL 2.0 capable IIRC which is equivalent to DX 8.

[moeburn]

"Look as good" is a relative term. CMBN opted for real world coloring while most games now go for a 'fake movie' color balance. You know, those washed-out sepia tone colors in Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, the 300, etc. I believe it was the George Clooney Kuwait war heist film "Three Kings" that first used high contrast filtering back in 1999, it caused a firestorm of indignation. Nowadays we're so accustomed to it in war movies we don't even realize how far from natural the color balance is.

Actually that's one of the things I can't stand about games nowadays. Don't get me wrong, I think attention to a color palette is important in developing a game, but sometimes these people just take it so over the top that it detracts from the immersiveness of the game. I think if they just used real-world colors, it would make me feel like I was actually in the game, rather than watching a war movie like you said.

First off, there aren't nearly as many calculations going on in the background of Wargame. Not to say it's a "simple" game, but relative to CMBN there isn't nearly as much going on under the hood.

Secondly, CMBN isn't very well optimized compared to Wargame, and seems to have some sort of bottleneck. *shrug* If they had more funds, more coders, more everything, it would be better, but it is what it is.

You are comparing a high-budget game where the smooth engine is probably it's best feature, versus a low-budget game where the graphics engine is basically functional enough to work and everything else (ballistics, LOS, etc) is the focus.

Well I know there are lots more calculations going on in CM, but are they still going on when you play turn-based? I had the impression that all these calculations were done at the beginning of each turn, and then when you are watching it play out, pretty much all of the processing is being done by the GPU from then on. And Wargame is doing these calculations too; LOS, individual ballistics, front/side/rear armor, it takes all of these into account, albeit probably not as accurately.

Also, I understand that Eugen Systems probably had a higher budget from their success of R.U.S.E., but some of these optimizations that could be done seem like things that game developers have known about and have been doing for years now, even in free indie games.

Oh, if you've played the European Escallation demo/beta its really pretty laughable gameplay. I joked that it was CM with everything that the gorgnards demanded added and everything that made the simulation aspect even halfway decent removed.

Actually I think it is pretty fun gameplay. But thats my point, Wargame is intended to be more of a game, whereas CM is more of a simulator. Practise at Wargame, and you might become good at Wargame. Practise at CM, and you might gain some real combat strategic knowledge.

Sorry, one look at that map screenie and I call BS on "greater realism".

Not one car in sight, first of all. High-res houses and walls look very nice, fine, but there are absolutely no hedges or other vegetation other than big mature trees -- yes this friggin well matters, because all that clutter restricts LOS and can make a suburb like this a real b**ch to fight through in high summer. As it is now, you're either in a building, in a street or in a yard, and whoever has the big uber tank(s) or the infinite ammo chaingun strapped to his waist or whatever sweeps all before him within moments of the enemy opening fire. No "tactics" required. From a pure tactical standpoint, not really much evolution from the Battlezone arcade game I used to play as a teen 30 years ago.

True, a lot of CMBN maps also suffer from a lot of these same issues, but it is clear to me that a game engine derived from some real estate CAD program doesn't do much from a "realism" standpoint to compensate for slipshod map design.

I don't really understand what you mean, no cars? There are about a hundred cars in that parking lot on the second pic. Also there may not be any in the pics I provided, but there are actually lots of long skinny hedgegrowths in the game that often line roads and separate towns, providing excellent ambush cover for your anti-tank troops. Not to mention the fact that every single object in the game; hedgegrowths, houses, trees, walls, hills, EVERYTHING is considered in line-of-sight; both laterally and vertically when attacking from ground-to-air.

It seems like you haven't played the game? Cause whoever has the tanks does NOT win if they try to invade a town or a forest. Tanks are pretty much useless in this game for anything but long-range engagement. Try to send a tank into a city or a forest, and they won't see the hiding infantry units until the last minute, who will wait to fire a LAW at their rear armor from close-range. It is very satisfying to destroy a unit worth 10x more than yours so easily. And there isn't any "infinite ammo" in this game; ammo is very limited and often needs to be resupplied using trucks and FOB's. In fact, wargame included one realistic aspect that CM forgot: limited fuel. Maybe thats because in Wargame you often have to travel 150km just to get to the other side of the map, but it means you have to put careful consideration into every movement order you take.

I feel I should restate this: I am NOT comparing the "realism" of these two games, merely the graphics engine. Wargame did not intend to compete with CM on a realism level, and CM is not made for the casual player like Wargame is.

Is CM actually in OpenGL? Cause that would explain a lot. OpenGL appears to have reached its limits in terms of competing with DirectX in graphics/efficiency. The last game I remember that did it well was IL-2 Sturmovik, and even that old game chugs along on a powerful system with maximum settings.

[LJFHutch]

Send an infantry squad into a town in CMBN, now send an infantry squad into a town in WEE. There's your answer But yeah, one of the main things as said is optimization, WEE is very nicely optimized.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I don't know how many people worked on Wargame, but the CMx2 game engine was written almost entirely by one guy. That's probably why

[moeburn]

Send an infantry squad into a town in CMBN, now send an infantry squad into a town in WEE. There's your answer

I don't understand, answer to what? Both will go into a town, both can hide in buildings, although in CM you can actually choose which floor to go on, and WEE is missing the crucial "face direction" command, but other than that I don't see the difference...

I don't know how many people worked on Wargame, but the CMx2 game engine was written almost entirely by one guy. That's probably why

Really? I didn't know that, but if that's the case, kudos to him/her for doing such a great job! (please do not infer sarcasm, I am serious)

[c3k]

DX vs. OpenGL seems the biggest difference. Then, hunting around the edges, I'd say there's a huge polygon difference in models. Additionally, the ballistics/morale/behavior modelling in CM seems far beyond anything in any of the RTS' I've ever played (I've NOT played/seen the one referenced by the OP). Finally, in WEE, how many maps can the player make using the in-game editor?

[moeburn]

DX vs. OpenGL seems the biggest difference. Then, hunting around the edges, I'd say there's a huge polygon difference in models.

Right, but polygons aren't the bottleneck in my graphics card. If I can play games with tessellation cranked to the max, than clearly the number of polygons is not an issue here.

Additionally, the ballistics/morale/behavior modelling in CM seems far beyond anything in any of the RTS' I've ever played (I've NOT played/seen the one referenced by the OP).

It might be more accurate than the ballistics/morale in WEE, but if its all calculated at the beginning of each turn, then no matter how accurate it is, it should have absolutely no effect on performance in CM, just how long you have to wait for it to finish calculating.

Finally, in WEE, how many maps can the player make using the in-game editor?

42.

[womble]

It might be more accurate than the ballistics/morale in WEE, but if its all calculated at the beginning of each turn, then no matter how accurate it is, it should have absolutely no effect on performance in CM, just how long you have to wait for it to finish calculating.

The engine has to cope with it being done on the fly though, for RT play. And the accuracy is significant in any mode, I reckon, as the trajectory of rounds is modelled rather than a hit/miss chance. I would gather that some of that is done on the fly, too, as the graphical representation in WeGo has been stated to be potentially somewhat different to the actual calculated bullet paths. From my recollection, I think that, since watching the same firefight on different loads of the turn can produce different numbers of "that went right through him; must've made his terrain save" moments.

[sfhand]

Since OpenGL has been targeted as a suspect in the performance hit question I figure this may be enlightening (it was for me):

http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-and-not-DirectX

Edit: I realize this blog is from a gaming site, but as a blogpost that is not promoting a product but rather BF's graphics API of choice I'm hoping I don't get any demerits for posting it

[sburke]

Thanks sfhand, nicely informative article, enlightening sounds about right..and on top of that it makes this forum sound absolutely positively upper crust English debate school nice when you read down in the comments section!

Seriously, for someone oblivious to the background and history it makes it a little clearer why BFC would have chosen the route they have. Dang maybe these guys really do have a clue what they are doing and aren't just throwing darts....

[moeburn]

Since OpenGL has been targeted as a suspect in the performance hit question I figure this may be enlightening (it was for me):

http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-and-not-DirectX

Edit: I realize this blog is from a gaming site, but as a blogpost that is not promoting a product but rather BF's graphics API of choice I'm hoping I don't get any demerits for posting it

Wait... what? Live tessellation has been in OpenGL for 5 years now? F%!@ you Microsoft for making me believe that DirectX was better!