Hi guys, long time! MP question.

[5th SS Div Wiking]

It's been a few years since I last played. I recall having a long conversation with one of the devs (Steve?) about being able to play the campaign missions in MP. He said it was high on the list but didn't know how long, if ever, it would take. So the question is, has it been made possible? I have tried to find out by reading all the reviews out there but no joy. I've actually found conflicting stuff about TCP/IP being removed? I'm thinking about dropping the $105 for the full bundle.

TIA for any info.

[ASL Veteran]

Campaigns are single player only.  TCP/IP is present but there is no playback.

[5th SS Div Wiking]

Cheers ASL.

When you say "no playback" you mean MP is real-time only (no WEGO)?

Also, while stuff is coming back to me, how's the sync stability? We were having a lot of trouble with it, even with good PCs (both 2500k CPUs, 8gb RAM and a GTX680 and GTX 780 respectively, both on broadband). The further we got into large and long battles the more sync alerts we would get, until the game finally locked up and/or crashed. We got used to saving the game at every turn but once a file had been irredeemably corrupted it was game over. That was the main reason we gave up playing.

[A Canadian Cat]

H2H play for campaigns is the top of my feature wish list too.  I remind Steve as appropriate . The TCP/IP allows WEGO but it is WEGO with no play back.  I know, kinda sucky but better than not having it.  Honestly it does not get a lot of play time that I can see.  Recently a bunch of fixes went into the TCP/IP feature that made it playable for those that were.  If you get the game and run into trouble I am sure they will work to fix it just be aware that fixes take some time to actually reach the product you are working on.

The demo for Black Sea is based on the most recent code.  If TCP/IP is the most important thing for you I would recommend trying it in that demo (I am assuming here that it is available in the demo) and see if you are happy with it.  The released versions of the games are more up to date than the demos, by a long shot in some cases.

[5th SS Div Wiking]

 

Thanks Ian.

Ah, I can live without the playback. I assume real-time is possible via TCP/IP too. I've gone ahead and ordered the bundle but if we get the same sync issues once my brother has his bundle too and we try playing again there will be much loud cursing. At £150 for two copies of something that claims MP one expects full functionality (stable play, start to finish).

 

[Bud Backer]

I know it's not the same thing as playing "live" but please do try PBEM - with WEGO it's a lot of fun, and using Dropbox I've had rounds where I'm sending and receiving turns every few minutes. 

[5th SS Div Wiking]

Well, so far so good with the SP but lordy me, a big map and battle can still cause a fair bit of stutter! Would I be correct in thinking this game is still using only one core?! If it's not that it must be the insane amount of calculations going on. I wish to hell this level of detail could be incorporated into RO Darkest Hour.

Re the MP playback feature, was it that which was causing the old syncing issues? I have a vague memory Steve said it was connected.

Edited January 16, 2016 by 5th SS Div Wiking

[A Canadian Cat]

Well, so far so good with the SP but lordy me, a big map and battle can still cause a fair bit of stutter! Would I be correct in thinking this game is still using only one core?! If it's not that it must be the insane amount of calculations going on. I wish to hell this level of detail could be 

The short answer is yes it is using one core for the heavy lifting, and yes there are a nearly insane amount of calculations being done.

This recent thread was very infomative about why we are where we are, how much the issue are real and how much preceived and a few side links to strategies to help get smoother performace:  http://community.battlefront.com/topic/121564-is-fb-more-optimized-than-the-others/

Once you adjust your graphics card settings, your game graphics levels and stay away from map and force sizes that are to big for your machine you should be able to get better smoothness. What I don't know and has not been discussed is how running with TCP/IP effects performance. I suppose it would not be a surprise that the same machine can run a large scenario in a PBEM just fine but run into trouble when played via TCP/IP. I don't think anyone has the experience to say how much difference there is.

[5th SS Div Wiking]

Thanks Ian. Having read the link I can say I shouldn't complain. I'm running everything maxed out at 2560 x 1600 and the lag/stutter is no game-stopper. That's running the last battle on the list in "Battles" (2nd SS cutting off a salient, it's a two-hour jobbie). I've been having a blast with it all day, though I need to restart it after reading the manual and discovering group-selection of units is possible. Lol.

2500k at over 4ghz, GTX780 and 8gb RAM.

Edited January 16, 2016 by 5th SS Div Wiking