CoolColJ Posted August 22, 1999 Share Posted August 22, 1999 I have a Pentium 2 celeron 400 mhtz, 192 megs of ram and a Leadtek s320 II TNT2 16 meg video card running 150 mhtz. How many FPS can I expect with everything on, average ? CCJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted August 22, 1999 Share Posted August 22, 1999 Gee, why do you ask? Uninformed opinions on other BBSes by people who know nothing? Tough to say, but I expect nothing less than 30fps even with a pretty hefty scenario. This is with all options on. We have someone playing on a similar machine (450Mhz I think) and he is getting about 40fps sometimes. FYI Our development machines are roughly 200MHz 604e Macintoshes. One has a slightly improved ATI 1st Gen card, the other a good ATI 128 Rage card. This is basically the low end. We are getting acceptable frame rates even with debug code and lots of optimizing yet to be done. Unlike Quake, CM doesn't need to have a high framerate to be playable. 5fps is playable, though not very good We are getting well above that in most circumstances, even with all options on and LOTS of tweaking left to do. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolColJ Posted August 22, 1999 Author Share Posted August 22, 1999 Hahhhhahaha You read that I didn't notice that FPs readout in the quicktime movies until he pointed it out Well the reeason why I upgraded from my Cyrix M2 300 was to get more FPS But it was cheap, The P2 400 cost $215 Australian and is sitiing inside my 486 case Iron fist in a glove LOL Yeah it really erks me, I really thought some of those guys were a bit more open minded.Is there an open ended forum for computer wargamers in general? CCJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted August 22, 1999 Share Posted August 22, 1999 The majority of gamers are, but a decent chunk of those guys are anything but open minded. Sad, because it must suck going through life thinking that everything else is bad We have no real open ended forums here. Only ones that directly relate to our games. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Beman Posted August 22, 1999 Share Posted August 22, 1999 Since this is a game where it doesn't really matter what you (the player) perceives on each turn's movie, but rather what your units see that is important, I ask this: If the FPS drops to something fairly low, like 10-15, is there a noticeable choppiness (i.e. does the framerate go 15-6-9-16-3 like a flightsim on a min-spec machine) or is it a steady x framerate? It seems to me, since I don't have to know how to program (not my job; my job is telling programmers what they should be doing) that the framerate would be more constant than in a flightsim or FPS. In CM, by the time you watch a movie, all/most of the numbercrunching is done (right?) and the computer just has to worry about depicting death and mayhem from a "script" written by the numbercrunching part. If I'm wrong, feel free to point fingers and laugh gleefully. DjB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Lokesa Posted August 22, 1999 Share Posted August 22, 1999 Too funny, I also read that thread. Nevertheless, I'm hoping they'll come over after the release. Would love to play CM agaisnt some of my old nemesi from the CC2 days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted August 22, 1999 Share Posted August 22, 1999 Doug, the framerate does tend to remain fairly constant for a given camera position in a given game in a give turn. But all things are variables For example, you could be looking in close at a backwaters of the battle and get 30fps, then look at a very cluttered battle with LOTS of stuff going on, from a wide view, and get 15fps. But if you dropped the camera down (getting rid of the horizon elements) the rate could go back up to 20fps. It REALLY depends on your hardware. If you have a beefy system the framerate will remain fairly constant at all times. A really low end system (like mine) and it will go all over the place depending. But I can't stress this enough... even at 5fps Combat Mission is playable and enjoyable. Quake at 5fps would be completely unplayable. The reason is that Quake requires milisecond control in realtime, while CM's calculations were all done ahead of time. If you watch the movie at 5fps, 50fps, or skip it all together the game results are exactly the same. The only thing that happens is that animations are choppy at slower framerates. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Beman Posted August 23, 1999 Share Posted August 23, 1999 "If you watch the movie at 5fps, 50fps, or skip it all together the game results are exactly the same" No, if you skip the movie altogether you're going to lose. DjB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted August 23, 1999 Share Posted August 23, 1999 BUT if you win without ever looking at the movies think of the bragging rights . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Davie Posted August 23, 1999 Share Posted August 23, 1999 Doug, you want to bet that someone would lose if they do not view the turn playback? If you really think that, well heck I'll challenge you as soon as the demo comes out. -Position a: analysis -Position b: analysis -inductively infer what has occured via difference between the two. Again, if you really think that ya have to refer to the movies in order to win, consider this a public challenge. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest KwazyDog Posted August 23, 1999 Share Posted August 23, 1999 Lokesa, its funny to find out how many of us here are actually old CC players. I think we were all holding on to the hope that maybe one day theyd wake up and and give real wargamers what they wanted, realism. After a couple of chats with people closely involved with that particular game, I realised that is wasnt gonna happen. I was kinda amused by that thread though where one guy mentioned both that he was a 'die hard gorand' but needed good graphics. Obviously hes never played a wargame such as Panthers in the Shadows, or any other wargame before about 3 years ago for that matter. I think that once the demo is released and a couple of reviews are done, those people may change their opinions [This message has been edited by KwazyDog (edited 08-22-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted August 23, 1999 Share Posted August 23, 1999 Mr. Davie, Tom, please don't take this reply the wrong way. But, it will be interesting to see how you and inductive reasoning stand up against someone that watchs the entire movie from each of the previoius turns and knows exactly what is going on. How many battle field commanders do you think there are out there that issue orders to their troops, then close their eyes, wait for 60 seconds at a time having no real clue what is really going on, and then open their eyes and try to deduce what the heck has transpired in the last 60 seconds in order to give their troops their next orders????????? I think you will be doing exactly the equivalent to this if you play the game as you propose. But then it is a free country (Canada still is too, isn't it?), so by all means have at it. My guess is not very many, and most of those that have tried to do so are long since dead and/or got a lot of their men killed in the process. By the way, this is not a public challenge. Just some thoughts on your statements. In any event I would very much like to know how your little experiment in not watching the movies turns out after you have played a few games against some folks (not the computer AI either). Especially head to head w/ a timer on. Not much time for scratching one's head and trying to "inductively reason" what has happened over the last sixty seconds then, right??? Of course there isn't much time to try and deduce what is going on on a real battlefield either, which is exactly what CM is trying to model. And I would imagine that just as in real life you are going to want all means at your disposal (sight, sound, battle reports, unit status reports, etc.) to understand what is going on when you are playing a gaming simulating such combat like CM. In any event please try your experiment against ten people playing in head to head mode over the internet with a turn limit timer on and let us know how it turns out. As for me (and most others here I imagine), I'll stick to watching the movies to help understand what is going on vs. trying to induce it from before and after turn status data any day. The battlefield is a dynamic place and CM's playback capability is much more than just a "cool" side show to entertain us or provide "eye candy". It can, and should be, used as a real tool to help us arm chair generals to better ascertain what is going on on the battlefield in order to make rational, well informed, command decisions before issuing orders to our troops. I think perhaps you are missing the point of having the movies in the first place, no? But to each his own. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 08-22-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted August 23, 1999 Share Posted August 23, 1999 Tom, gotta side with Mike and Doug on this one Although I don't think a good player will *loose* by skipping over the movies, they are crucial to a good victory. In a game I am currently looking at there are about 4 significant areas of conflict. Each requires (to different degrees for different turns) attention during playback. One turn I forgot to watch the movie while looking at one of the more minor battles and when I got into the next turn I was at a bit of a loss. My tank was immobilized, there were craters everywhere, and several of my units were short a few guys. All I could see in the woods was one squad and a couple of symbols. OK, sure, I can guess what happened, but I didn't KNOW what happened. If I had watched the movie this would not have been a problem. As it turned out I could watch the movie again, as the US player, since the game was against myself What happened was a Bazooka team had whacked my tank, the shell craters were from missed bazooka shots, and the casualites from small arms fire from a MMG. But as the German player I couldn't have known this for sure that it was just one bazooka from a certain location. That information had come and gone during the course of the playback. Had I watched the movie as the German player I would have seen where the bazooka smoke trails came from, figured it was only ONE team, and therefore known where to start pumping fire into the woods. I would also have figured that one of the unknown unit symbols was certainly a MG of some sort. If this game had been for real against someone else I (German player) wouldn't have had a clue where the bazooka was and most likely lost my tank for good the next turn as a result. I have seen more extreme cases than this, like going back to an area and finding a house destroyed and the unit inside missing. Gee, wonder what happend to it? Yes, I can very easily determine that someone snuffed it, but who and from where and with what? Very important stuff to know! So the person that has these answers is going to have a leg up over a player that doesn't. Knowledge is King, assumptions and logical deductions are Princes at best. Because of this skipping the movies is just plain dumb. Also, why would you not want to be caught up in the atmosphere of the battle? Clinical spreadsheet games are as dry as the Dead Sea. Yawn! I'll take an exciting portrayal of combat any day. Close Combat, for all its many faults, at least had the atmosphere thing down pretty well. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Davie Posted August 23, 1999 Share Posted August 23, 1999 Mike D/ Steve I'll grant you that you can gain and obtain information by watching the movies. Er, I certainly would not want to claim that watching the playback would be detrimental to the success that you could acheive Now, that having been said you have to realize that not everyone has the same playing style. And Steve, isn't that one of the cool things about Combat Mission; that it *is* flexible enough to allow different interface perspectives? I will not use 3d; I'll go with exclusively a top down view. CM will allow that. But I'm playing Mike who wants to use 3d; no problem. He can do that. Yeah, I do look at warfare rather like a game of chess. Boring perhaps, but that's what does it for me. And yeah Steve, I do play games and make spreadsheets up I've got 3 or 4 spreadsheets of range .vs. damage for various main guns in Steel Panthers, trying to figure out individual weapons attenuations. Heh; again that is what does it for me. Ok Mike, I'll try 10 games using the demo and without viewing the playback and see what happens. I'll also do the same thing solo .vs. the AI and report on that as well. Timer? Won't use it. Ever. Won't play a game against anyone who puts that down as a condition of playing. If two friends can't play reasonably, well there's no reason to play. In a tournament, that's something else that I'd have no problem with, but for a friendly game it just ain't my cup of tea. Grin; I'm even tempted to do a screen dump of a map and superimpose a hex grid on it and print it out just for old times sake Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted August 23, 1999 Share Posted August 23, 1999 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Now, that having been said you have to realize that not everyone has the same playing style. And Steve, isn't that one of the cool things about Combat Mission; that it *is* flexible enough to allow different interface perspectives<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Correctomundo Just wanted to point out that NOT viewing the playback will leave gaps in your knowledge of what happened. So much goes on in a single turn of CM that guess work doesn't cut it more often than not. Heck, I play back turns 5 or 6 time just to make sure I understood what happened BTW, same thing about 3D usage. The player that gets down into the trenches *will* have a better idea about terrain, hull down positions, fields of fire, etc. The top down views can't give you this info as well because they are, uhm, 2D. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Davie Posted August 23, 1999 Share Posted August 23, 1999 'Correctomundo Just wanted to point out that NOT viewing the playback will leave gaps in your knowledge of what happened. So much goes on in a single turn of CM that guess work doesn't cut it more often than not. Heck, I play back turns 5 or 6 time just to make sure I understood what happened' Fair enough, and you are correct. But lets say that I want to play the game as company or battalion commander....maybe even as a lazy British officer hidden in a copse of trees sipping on tea, moving his units by the map? All I might know is that 'Oh sh*t, I can't raise that tank on the radio any more. WTF'? Hey, I've got *no* problem admitting that you can get more information using 'ALL' of CM, but I'll draw a line at what I want to get out of a wargame. And in a simulation sense, I'll claim that less info can sometimes be more realistic. Personally, it would freak me out more to have a tank under my command suddenly be out of communication with no explanation that I can discern. It is at that point that the tactical cat and mouse game that I enjoy ensues. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted August 23, 1999 Share Posted August 23, 1999 Trust me, even watching the movie 10x CM still gives you less info than any other wargame we have ever played. CC is probably the closest, but it doesn't go nearly as far. Until you have had a gray thing called "Tank?" start lobbing shells at you, brewing up your stuff all over the palce, you ain't seen nothing I've also had stuff whacked by nothing so far as I can see. Not even a damned symbol! Just "ouch" and head scratching Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest KwazyDog Posted August 23, 1999 Share Posted August 23, 1999 Not to mention the fact that your troops can actually hear stuff moving around without even seeing them! I imagine youd be feeling pretty nervous for a forward infantry squad that can hear 2-3 armoured vehicles coming up the road Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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