Is FB more optimized than the others?

[riptides]

All these fancy new machines do is mask poor programming techniques with the newbies who try to code.

ROTFL

 

[CarlWAW]

How it is possible that someone with a modern desktop computer can have performance problems with CM engine 3?
I have a medium range gaming notebook only (Acer VN7-791G; GTX 960M) and I can play at highest settings big maps with several batallions without any performance problems.

I am very pleased with CM's performance which I find very well suited for mobile computing. No need for an energy wasting desktop-monster from the stone age of computing.

[Battlefront.com]

That is definitely one thing that happens!  An entry level programmer making a 2D game doesn't have to worry about performance pretty much at all.  10 years ago that was not the case and 20 years ago you had to be REALLY good to make things work smoothly.  3D is similar.  A beginning programmer can make a pretty good 3D game (very limited, of course) very quickly using UNITY which 5 years ago would have taken a seasoned programmer many times longer to make.

The primary problem with the improvements in technology is that to get the most out of them you have to do significant re-engineering of existing products.  Any Mac guys that remember the transition from x68 to PPC will remember that sometimes an existing app ran SLOWER on the vastly faster hardware because either the MacOS wasn't optimized yet or the program used some sort of routine that didn't do as well with the new architecture.  Not to mention all the stuff that stopped working because programmers had to employ unsanctioned tricks to get optimal speed.s  However, once the OS was optimized and programs updated/redone... yeah, pretty sweet gains!

Which is the problem we have with CM.  We can not afford to constantly reinvest in the game engine to the extent necessary to keep up with the march of technology.  Or more accurately, we can't do that AND keep making new games at the same time.  Which is why we have the strategy to slowly improve the game engine while also making new games up until the point where we think it's time to break completely with the old and start fresh again.  That's what we did with CMx1 by breaking and going with CMx2 when it was clear CMx1 was at the end of its lifespan.  Fortunately CMx2 is not nearly at the end of its lifespan, though at some point it will and you'll get new tactical games with CMx3.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

How it is possible that someone with a modern desktop computer can have performance problems with CM engine 3?
I have a medium range gaming notebook only (Acer VN7-791G; GTX 960M) and I can play at highest settings big maps with several batallions without any performance problems.

I am very pleased with CM's performance which I find very well suited for mobile computing. No need for an energy wasting desktop-monster from the stone age of computing.

Thanks.  I think this once again emphasizes the point that it comes down to specific hardware/software combos on the end user's side of things, perhaps influenced by what card settings are being used at the time.  Since we don't have tons of money to hire teams of programmers to tweak things for specific combos, some people are going to be less better off than others.  "User error" in managing settings can make this even worse, taking a surprisingly mediocre performance on a good rig and knocking it down to inferior.

Too many variables

I use CM on a 5 year old Mac laptop and performance is pretty good.  Not fantastic, but given the age of my computer and the fact it was middle of the road even 5 years ago... I've got no complaints.  It plays better than large CMBO games played on my hardware at the time.  There was a couple of scenarios which I couldn't get more than a single frame per second.  I am not kidding you.

Steve

Edited January 8, 2016 by Battlefront.com

[weapon2010]

That is definitely one thing that happens!  An entry level programmer making a 2D game doesn't have to worry about performance pretty much at all.  10 years ago that was not the case and 20 years ago you had to be REALLY good to make things work smoothly.  3D is similar.  A beginning programmer can make a pretty good 3D game (very limited, of course) very quickly using UNITY which 5 years ago would have taken a seasoned programmer many times longer to make.

The primary problem with the improvements in technology is that to get the most out of them you have to do significant re-engineering of existing products.  Any Mac guys that remember the transition from x68 to PPC will remember that sometimes an existing app ran SLOWER on the vastly faster hardware because either the MacOS wasn't optimized yet or the program used some sort of routine that didn't do as well with the new architecture.  Not to mention all the stuff that stopped working because programmers had to employ unsanctioned tricks to get optimal speed.s  However, once the OS was optimized and programs updated/redone... yeah, pretty sweet gains!

Which is the problem we have with CM.  We can not afford to constantly reinvest in the game engine to the extent necessary to keep up with the march of technology.  Or more accurately, we can't do that AND keep making new games at the same time.  Which is why we have the strategy to slowly improve the game engine while also making new games up until the point where we think it's time to break completely with the old and start fresh again.  That's what we did with CMx1 by breaking and going with CMx2 when it was clear CMx1 was at the end of its lifespan.  Fortunately CMx2 is not nearly at the end of its lifespan, though at some point it will and you'll get new tactical games with CMx3.

Steve

Steve,

 Is there anyway to forecast the lifespan of CMx2?and when CMx3 might begin?

[Battlefront.com]

Steve,

 Is there anyway to forecast the lifespan of CMx2?and when CMx3 might begin?

Unless someone does something really bad, like drops support for OpenGL, we think CMx2 will be around for at least the next couple of years.  While CMx3 will not be as wildly different from CMx2 as CMx2 was from CMx1, the two will not be the same.  Our plan, therefore, is for CMx2 and CMx3 to live side by side for a period of time until CMx2's engine is truly at the end of its lifespan.  At which point new CMx2 content will freeze and everything shifted to CMx3.  Existing CMx2 products will continue to be sold until (like Mac CMx1) they no longer run at all.  CMx1 has been on sale for 15+ years now, so hopefully CMx2 will be available for another 5-10 years.

Steve

[weta_nz]

Wow - this just occurred to me, i started playing cmbo demo in my mid twenties and i might still be playing a version of Combat Mission when i'm in my fifties! Pretty amazing the longevity of this game created by Steve and co. Thanks guys - looking forward to cmfb in the near future and more to come in the long term!!

Edited January 8, 2016 by weta_nz

[weapon2010]

 No offense to CMx1, played it for years and loved it,But I moved on as soon as CMx2 was available, why do people still buy CMx1 when CMx2 is available?I understand the "old guard" is  still playing CMx1. Do some customers play both?  

[BarbaricCo]

In game, especially 3D game development, it is almost always important to squeeze every bit of power from current hardware. Because we all want more enemies, particles and things moving on large maps at 30 fps at least.  But it's the never ending race. For example, it was quite engineering achievement to have reasonably complex, Unity made, 2D game running smooth on iPhone 3G 4-5 years ago. And as the small developer teams can't keep up we see revival of retro graphics, blocky 3D, pixelated 2D etc., back to simple catchy mechanics gaming.

Of course we don't want CM to take this route and go back to CC 2D style even if BF can probably make it better than ever  .

Being on Unity camp for years, as much as great it is, I can't recommend that route, especially for game with longer life span. At some time, Microsoft or Apple will make strategic shift and you will be left with many things not working, or the developers of that great plugin will not support it anymore.
OpenGL will be around for at least 10 years, but for CMX3 it must be taken into consideration all of the Metal, DirectX, Vulkan fragmentation going on.

In my opinion, ignored or not, even CMX2 can look spectacular with few shader tweaks. And investing a little bit more in that department, enlarging some textures and normal mapping all objects can bring CM to a higher graphic level. After all, every modern game is extensively using them. 
Don't know what can be done with infantry "cartoony running stalemate" animations? Probably some playback speed changing and better tweening would help a lot. In Unity that would be easy .

Btw I’m glad BF choose OpenGL route cause I can now perfectly enjoy it on iMac 2011 with ATI 9600 at 1920x1080 px. Just bring the models and textures details one step down to “better”. And there are for sure, lot of the calculations going on in CM that are simply ignored or cheated in other games.
There are problems on larger maps with unreasonable amount of trees, or if camera is looking to group of vehicles that are producing sound even if camera can't see them (they are behind the hill ?). But I think that's the Apple drivers problem because I noticed it in some other games as well.

Keep on
Cheers

[Macisle]

Oh, I have that beat!  I'm using an old Dell PS2 mouse on my Mac.  Cost?  Technically something, but in effect $0   Even the PS2 to USB adapter was free because it came with the Dell.

That said, the right mouse click is getting a bit fussy.  Not long before it will have to go into a hole in the ground.

Steve

Hot air under the buttons, baby!

Seriously, this thread has caused me to realize how often I need to do that and how well it works. 3-8 times a day. It fixes my fussy RMB, losing the lock on mouse drags, and getting double-clicks when I am only only clicking once to select. It also helps with click-lag (I think -- not sure on that, but definitely on the others).

Usually, the effect lasts about 30 minutes, but YMMV and it make take a couple of applications. Mostly, I need it for CM and Photoshop, but also general computer/app usage on occasion as well.

I know it sounds a bit crazy and wouldn't work with every mouse, but it does work on mine and I got the idea from a thread on Logitech mouse issues.

I think I'll dub it "The Minnie Maneuver."

There's no static at aaaaaalll...

[Hister]

I don't think draw distances are affected by capping.  The adjustment code is weighted towards what 30fps being the best possible speed, with anything over that considered extra.  If 30fps does seem to shorten the draw distance maybe it can be set for 31fps.  That might make a difference if this is in fact an issue.

Steve

Draw distances are affected on my rig when capping the FPS - I just made a test.

Used the same ingame option settings and went into the same saved game, used the same screen capture point from the same level height but first time used the "Half refresh rate for Vertical Synch" (30 FPS cap) in my Nvidia panel and then went with the "Use the 3D application setting". 

 

With the 30 FPS cap the drawing distance was shorter then without it. Attaching photos below. 

 

Ingame option settings (remained the same throughout the test):

 

Drawing distance with Half refresh rate for Vertical Synch (30 FPS cap):

 

Drawing distance without the half refresh rate (ie FPS not capped):

 

Comparing the two screenshots you can see the drawing distance before the terrain switches to low resolution textures is quite shorter when you cap FPS to 30. The plus is though that the game is stuttering less and is more responsive to mouse commands (going up and down the height levels is particularly less responsive when the game is not capped) . 

 

How do I set the FPS to 31 in order to avoid shorter drawing distances? I have Nvidia card. 

 

Edited January 9, 2016 by Hister

[Kieme(ITA)]

Thanks for sharing, the difference is evident. It's also know as the "blur line" for some people around,.

[Hister]

Thanks for sharing, the difference is evident. It's also know as the "blur line" for some people around,.

Yeah, the blur line is what I was referring to. Hope Steve was actually talking about the blur line and not something else. 

[BarbaricCo]

Thanks for sharing, the difference is evident. It's also know as the "blur line" for some people around,.

In my tests, at least on Mac OSX, blur line is dependent on memory footprint. Try to quit other applications or restart the computer. It should help.

Another, already proposed, solution is if BF enable usage of larger mini ground textures.

[Kieme(ITA)]

I changed the resolution of almost all mini textures in order to reduce the blur line transition impact with my terrain mods. Yet the line is still there if I look carefully. Besides, some elements in game such as the roads and railroads use an authomatic scaling that is not moddable.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Kieme(ITA)

[stikkypixie]

Does anyone have a link to the optimization guide for AMD/ATI video cards? I searched but could not find them.

[CarlWAW]

@Hister
You can set it with Nvidia Inspector.

[Hister]

@Hister
You can set it with Nvidia Inspector.

Ok, will try, thanx.

[RockinHarry]

I changed the resolution of almost all mini textures in order to reduce the blur line transition impact with my terrain mods. Yet the line is still there if I look carefully. Besides, some elements in game such as the roads and railroads use an authomatic scaling that is not moddable.

I´vs also tinkered with various terrain and model texture sizes and figured that having as much as possible in HD is generally not a good idea, particularly when mix & matching various size formats. For blending purposes, oftentimes AA and other settings need to be increased in quality with suffering FPS rates. I´m now going rather the opposite way by reducing some the stock games texture sizes, where I find large resolutions do little with regard to smooth and coherent looking maps.

I´m also interested in the impact on performance for normal maps in the game. Is there a noticable difference for the generic shading routine, when it deals with objects having a normal map or not? With shader enabled, bot types of objects get shaded, but which type is faster (not considering quality)?

[Battlefront.com]

Thanks for sharing, the difference is evident. It's also know as the "blur line" for some people around,.

There are a number of factors that determine where that is and I don't think it's necessarily directly linked to capping the FPS.  However, now that I think of it that could have an impact depending on other factors.  Unfortunately for you guys, I am not a programmer and I only have a superficial understanding of the technical details as they have been explained to me or experienced over the years.

In my tests, at least on Mac OSX, blur line is dependent on memory footprint. Try to quit other applications or restart the computer. It should help.

Another, already proposed, solution is if BF enable usage of larger mini ground textures.

We did look into doing the pre rendering of ground textures to make larger ones.  Unfortunately the last time we had the hood (bonnet for you wacky non North American native English speakers ;)) up and were tinkering with the engine we found that was going to be a tricky thing to implement.  Not impossible, for sure, but at the time it was considered too risky for the amount of time we had available to us.  This is the sort of thing that usually comes with a ripple effect of unintended consequences which have to be addressed before it can be released.  Unintended consequences generally mean lots of time we don't have.

Steve

[sburke]

 that usually comes with a ripple effect of unintended consequences which have to be addressed before it can be released.  Unintended consequences generally mean lots of time we don't have.

Steve

Like unexpected children, childcare facilities, and educational fees...all from a great night out and a few drinks......

[AstroCat]

How it is possible that someone with a modern desktop computer can have performance problems with CM engine 3?
I have a medium range gaming notebook only (Acer VN7-791G; GTX 960M) and I can play at highest settings big maps with several batallions without any performance problems.

I am very pleased with CM's performance which I find very well suited for mobile computing. No need for an energy wasting desktop-monster from the stone age of computing.

I'm sorry but I don't believe you unless you consider 5-10fps good performance. And I hardly consider a 980GTX ti card from the stone age. I have done massive testing with all kinds of setups and configurations over the course of years so I'm not buying it.

Now you might be happy with super low frame rates and that's cool but saying your not having any performance problems is an opinion. Since I consider 30fps a minimum goal for this game I'd say I am getting consistent performance problems since day 1 of the CMx2 release no what computer setup I've used including desktops, laptops and all kinds of different cpu's, motherboards, etc... They ALL had inadequate performance, every single setup under all conditions and settings.

I'm all for getting solid performance because I really like the games going all the way back to CMBO but it's just not happening.

Edited January 10, 2016 by AstroCat

[A Canadian Cat]

I'm sorry but I don't believe you unless you consider 5-10fps good performance. And I hardly consider a 980GTX ti card from the stone age. 

Why The Face? The people saying that they have good performance are not seeing those kind of low frame rates. I don't measurebate but when I do run a frame rate counter it does not drop below 20 and mostly stays at 30. And the camera pans smoothly. And I play plenty of big scenarios.

[Battlefront.com]

I'm sorry but I don't believe you unless you consider 5-10fps good performance.

You do know you just made that up, right?  Nobody said they are getting those sorts of framerates and certainly nobody said they are happy with that sort of poor performance.  Quite the opposite.

Now you might be happy with super low frame rates and that's cool but saying your not having any performance problems is an opinion. Since I consider 30fps a minimum goal for this game I'd say I am getting consistent performance problems since day 1 of the CMx2 release no what computer setup I've used including desktops, laptops and all kinds of different cpu's, motherboards, etc... They ALL had inadequate performance, every single setup under all conditions and settings.

Not buying it.  Sorry.  Way too many people are getting quite good performance (even above 30fps) even with full settings on and big scenarios.  I simply do not believe that you could be going through multiple computers with multiple different components with all kinds of different settings and yet somehow manage to always pick some sort of combo that never gets a consistent 30fps.

I'm all for getting solid performance because I really like the games going all the way back to CMBO but it's just not happening.

And I'm all for customers not making stuff up, but in this case that's just not happening either.

I have said a large number of times in a large number of ways in this thread that is entirely possible some people might have poor (below 20fps) performance at times or perhaps even most of the time under some circumstances.  I've also explained why, which clearly shows I am not in denial about performance shortcomings or the reasons for them.  Therefore, I do not doubt for a second that you are experiencing performance less than what you want it to be.  Not consistently getting 30fps+ with all settings set to high?  That I believe.  Getting worse than that performance on a particular system with particular settings?  That I also believe.  But I also don't believe you when you say you have never been able to get consistent 30fps no matter what on multiple systems/combos/settings.

Steve

Edited January 10, 2016 by Battlefront.com

[Vanir Ausf B]

I don't measurebate

Sure you don't