PanzerLeader Posted November 21, 1999 Share Posted November 21, 1999 I'm sorry if this has been discussed before( I don't think so), but in the demo the 20x20m tile edges are really too visible.I can cope with that, but the problem is that sometimes the tile edges get "flashy" and it really hurts the eye in the long run...Am I the only one experiencing this? (The same applies to the screen edges.) [This message has been edited by PanzerLeader (edited 11-21-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted November 21, 1999 Share Posted November 21, 1999 This is a VRAM limitation. To make the transisitions smoother we need lots more of them and at a higher resolution. Unfortunately, the VRAM is simply not there for us to do this. Well, we could, but a 16MB card would probably become the min instead of a 4MB one. Next release this should improve as we phase out support for at LEAST the 4MB cards. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PanzerLeader Posted November 21, 1999 Author Share Posted November 21, 1999 Thanks for the prompt reply, Steve! If you manage to eliminate the problem this is truly the best wargame I've ever played. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BDW Posted November 22, 1999 Share Posted November 22, 1999 I am sure this has been asked before, but at least I am not starting a new thread for it! BTS - why does CM not have graphics options for those of us who have more than a 4mb card? Most 3D game have all sorts of options you can play with depending on what kind of hardware you have. I have a 16meg graphics card and I would love to use that extra power to smooth out those gridlines. Will hardware dependent options be available in future versions of CM? Or will CM always be "one size fits all"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted November 22, 1999 Share Posted November 22, 1999 Actually, the graphics are geared more for something inbetween an 8MB and 16MB card. There is pretty much no way a 4MB card is going to get full quality, even if the scenario is sparse. 8MB cards should do OK unless the scenario has a lot of terrain types and lots of unique vehicle textures. If this happens there will be some downsampling. A 16MB card should VERY rarely see downsampling. In fact... I can't think of a case where this would happen right now Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Charles Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 Steve-- Not to be a pain in the arse, but do you mind if I do an "unscientific" poll and ask the members of this board what kinds of video card they have and the amount of memory on it? Altho not conclusive, it might give you a (very) rough idea whether you can safely increase the minimum video memory requirements. I'll start: Voodoo 3 2000, 16 MB's. ------------------ Not THE Charles from BTS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brucifer Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 TNT2 Ultra 32 Meg... But, I know a few guys that are currently looking into this game and run with a video card that only has 8 meg. so yeah.. I would call this "poll" a VERY rough estimate on this subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott C Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 Rage 128, 16M (the one that came with my new G4) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 12MB Voodoo 2 1000...on my PowerMac 6500 ------------------ "I'm tired of quotes, tell me what you know" -Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 For the record I know quite a few people running CM WITHOUT any 3D card. Increase the requirements and they won't be able to play. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFCElvis Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 Riva tnt 16MB...runs smooth and pretty..no goofy looking things besides the edges which have already been addressed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 Creative 3D Blaster Banshee 16 meg. I too, am trying to get people interested who don't have 3D cards or the couple who do, only have 4 or 8 meg... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Captain Foobar Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 nvidia riva tnt-2 ultra, 32 meg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolColJ Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 ERRR Leadtek Geforce 32 meg card One thing I noticed, on both my TNT2 and Geforce is the mipmapping effect on the roads at view level 1, the road closest to you looks fine, but when you move of to the distance, it goes all block and yuck, I have 12 mipmap levels turned on - on my video cards, so it shouldn't do that (it looks like one mip level) - I just hope its early d3d drivers in the Beta demo ------------------ CCJ aka BLITZ_Force My Homepage - Just updated, check out my MP3 and Combat Mission photos www.geocities.com/coolcolj/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Stone Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 Matrox Millenium II, 8 meg video card. For us novices-- What is downsampling ? I haven't seen any thing 'slow' or odd other than tile edges........ Later Stoner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MantaRay Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 I have a DV 770 Ultra with 32MB VRAM. And I do hope you make a version for the mid to high end machines. No offence to you guys out there with the smaller video cards, but even my card will be obsolete in a few months. Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 Each texture used for a battle has to be stored into VRAM. Each one is stored as a base 2, two dimensional object (64x64, 128x256, etc.). The larger the texture, the higher the resolution (edges, color, crispness, etc.) and the greater the impact on the VRAM. If there are more textures than can be fit into the VRAM, CM has to downsample stuff until it all fits. This is done in several passes by taking lower priority textures, shrinking them down (say, 64x64 goes to 32x32) until some combo fits into the space. The only speed hit is loading the textures as part of the battle loading porocess. After that there is no speed difference relative to that card, just reduced quality. CM is geared for a 16MB card, which is in the upper end of the mid range. An 8MB card will run fine, most often without downsampling. However, if someone goes nuts with all sorts of unqiue texture sets (i.e. lots of vehicles) for a particular battle, then *some* downsampling my be necessary. The 16MB and 32MB cards should have no problemos with anything. 32MB cards are becoming more common, but they are not as common as you 32MB owners want to think they are The highend always wants to believe that they are a larger part of the market, so they can convince developers to go nuts, but they never are. As soon as today's highend becomes common, there will be a new highend and by definition the 32MB folks will be middle. Our inventory of cards says a lot. We have 2x16MB, 1x8MB, and 2x4MB cards. No 32MB cards. Usually developers have the highest of the highend stuff, but in our case we are much more representational of the average customer. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Madmatt Posted November 23, 1999 Share Posted November 23, 1999 CoolColJ, Regarding the mipmapping 'blocky' road thing. I have also noticed that effect (only really apparent on dirt roads though) with both a Rage 3d and TNT2 Ultra card. Setting the mipmapping level isnt going to change this as it is in fact the filtering type (bi/tri or 8_bit_antis)which would have the greatest effect. Let me rattle on a bit about what Mipmapping (filtering really is): Mipmapping is derived from the Latin phrase, 'multum in parvo', MIPmapping suggests putting "many things in a small space". The process involves the generation of pre-filtered, lower-resolution versions of each texture so that textures applied to a polygon closely approximate its size. Currently, the highest quality texture mapping in use in the real-time image generation industry is based upon a technique called Tri-linear MIPmapping. This technique is available on many newer graphics cards at the cost of somewhat reduced performance. The next lower mode, Bi-linear MIPmapping, has the best performance but slightly reduced quality. The effect you are seeing is referred (by some) as filter noise. This is most apparrent in FPS (first person shooters) as the line in the distance (most often on the floor) that the filtering kicks in to 'blur' the textures and make the image appear to have more depth and less 'blocky' or pixilated. One of the features of your Geforce card is full screen tri-linear filtering which 'should' not have ANY noticable filter noise , take a look at Quake 3 (with tri-linear filtering enabled) on both a TNT2 and a Geforce and compare. Several things can cause excess corruption to occur. Chief among these are incorrect implementation of hardware filtering or poor texture handling routines. Also some lower quality textures can display this noise more than others. Perhaps BTS may want to look at this as it should not look as bad as it does. Although this may be a difficult issue to resolve if has to do with the way in which CM fetches its textures. BTW it is only noticeable in views 1,2 and 3, camera views above that pass the filtering 'distance threshold' and all look the same. One last point, sometimes you will notice that certain textures show off this effect worse than others. I have seen this play out in CM by the fact that the 'paved road' texture does not look bad at all, just the dirt road. (Most people did not notice this before because of the lower amount of dirt roads in the the first two scenarios ) This may be because of the large difference in colors and shades in the 'dirt road' texture and may just need to be tweaked a bit so the effect is not as bad. All in all it doesn't look all that bad, just trying to shed some light to what 'it' is... Madmatt out...and spewing techno babble since 1809 [This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 11-23-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Captain Foobar Posted November 24, 1999 Share Posted November 24, 1999 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>For the record I know quite a few people running CM WITHOUT any 3D card. Increase the requirements and they won't be able to play.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I say dinosaurs be darned.... ;p Video cards are getting so cheap now, you can get a spectacular card for under $100. Most people end up upgrading because they want to be able to play some hot new game. (I know i did) No offense to you 8 meggers out there.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkEzra Posted November 24, 1999 Share Posted November 24, 1999 Vodoo3 Graphics. I bought my E-Monster 500?P3 so I could download this demo I've been gaming w/486 just waiting for THE game to arrive that would make me break my piggy bank. Best money I've spent since my wedding license! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Captain Foobar Posted November 24, 1999 Share Posted November 24, 1999 Very careful wording there, markezra. Does your wife read this forum??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gromit Posted November 24, 1999 Share Posted November 24, 1999 Hello everyone: In reference to the video issue- I can play great on a P400/128 w/16MB TNT but when I took the demo to a friend's to show him a problem cropped up. He has a P2/400 w/32MB Ram and a 4MB video card. I didn't think there would be too much trouble, however, I found that his machine is one of those $500 models that has a fixed set of hardware, i.e., you cannot replace the videocard, etc. and a sound chip on the motherboard. While the game ran without major problems, the action got to be "herky-jerky" and the framerate dropped dramatically compared to mine. I think the lack of a more "up-to-date" videocard (and possibly the sound too) made the fact that my friend had a P2/400 w/32MB superfluous. So what's my point? My friend is a longtime gamer who, despite the fact he is CNE and works with computers all day, decided to get a cheaper machine because he doesn't play 3D action or even real-time or simulation (air) games (the quintessential grognard!). I have a hard time believing he is the only one out there with his particular "view" of the computer gaming world... why risk alienating a bunch of people? CM runs great on my machine- I would like it to be acsessible to other people like my friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Charles Posted November 24, 1999 Share Posted November 24, 1999 Sorry I haven't responded yet. I have been pretty busy with real life lately. Very good points regarding accessibility. Up until recently I had been hanging with the flight-sim crowd, so my viewpoint became a little distorted. I agree the game should be accessible to low-end hardware users. Too many games these days seem like they are being designed for P-XXIII 5 bizillion GHz machines. It's refreshing to see a new game that doesn't force you to invest $1500 in computer upgrades just so you can play a $50 game! BTW, I am not a high-end user. Although I have a V3 2000, my processor is only a K-6 200. My brother still has a P-90 with NO 3D card--but a brand new house! Hmmm, I wonder if there is a connection there? ------------------ Not THE Charles from BTS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisPick Posted November 24, 1999 Share Posted November 24, 1999 TnT2 Ultra w 32MB or (second machine) 2xVoodoo2 12MB in SLI mode... Makes you sick huh? And I am one of those sick geeks saving up my 600bucks for a quad processor Voodoo 5 board with 128MB of VRAM! Will that be enough for CM2??? =) ------------------ Chris Pick chris@chris-and-donna.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
risc Posted November 24, 1999 Share Posted November 24, 1999 Currently I have: P3 500Mhz Diamond V770 TNT2 Ultra (32MB) 256MB Ram Next year I will probably buy GeForce 256 with 64MB DDRAM. I agree that CM should support lower-end machines but it would be nice if we through some command line switches could get out of CM more for those which more power. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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