Ideal computer for CMBN

[Reiter]

Hi all,

Just wondering, what would be ideal computer for playing CMX2 games? What makes CM games so demanding on hardware? Seriously, look my signature. With that hardware, I play all max, but still it gives me about 15 fps. How about you, how smoothly your CM runs and what settings you use?

 

[Bulletpoint]

It's a topic that keeps getting asked, because most people are getting quite poor performance, despite powerful hardware. Try doing a forum search and reading the discussions, that will give you a good start.

My belief is that to get the best performance from CM, you'd need a stationary computer with a CPU that has few cores but is able to turn up clockspeed a lot. Then you add a big fat cooler to it and overclock it as much as possible.

This cheap CPU is probably perfect, because it will overclock a lot, but you'd need to spend money on good cooling:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-b81-cheap-overclocking,3888.html

 

Edited March 9, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[Pak40]

Reiter,

I compared the graphics quality between max and the next lowest setting (I forget what it's called). Anyway, I couldn't tell the difference in quality, but there was a noticeable difference in FPS on larger maps with lots of units. It seems a lot smoother to me and since there's no visible difference in graphics quality, I've kept the settings there.

[Thewood1]

Another huge factor for set ups is shadows.  On my set ups, shadows look blocky, even at high settings.  So I keep them off.  Its a 25% boost on my latest rig from shutting them off.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Thewood1

[Reiter]

Thank you for the replies,

Interesting that graphics quality will not change dramatically when set almost lowest, I have to try that. One thing that I (maybe) remember, is that terrain draw distance is lowered with lower settings, this makes visuals more ugly, but rises fps. I would not take shadows off, because they give more realistic feel to the game -even when they are buggy/blocky. Is CMx2 engine so off limits that devs can´t program multi core support? When Shock Force came, there was already multi core cpu´s on the market, been for years. Why did not take advantage of that? Also, I think optimization, ahem, what optimization?

 

[Bulletpoint]

Thank you for the replies,

Interesting that graphics quality will not change dramatically when set almost lowest, I have to try that. One thing that I (maybe) remember, is that terrain draw distance is lowered with lower settings, this makes visuals more ugly, but rises fps. I would not take shadows off, because they give more realistic feel to the game -even when they are buggy/blocky. Is CMx2 engine so off limits that devs can´t program multi core support? When Shock Force came, there was already multi core cpu´s on the market, been for years. Why did not take advantage of that? Also, I think optimization, ahem, what optimization?

 

Graphics stay the same when you look at tanks and soldiers really up close, but lower detail settings mean that stuff farther from the camera will lose detail. I also have a quite powerful computer, but I prefer to keep detail setting to "improved", which is just one notch higher than "balanced". Shadows and shaders I keep on, as I find them very important for the graphics, and also because they don't seem to impact my performance too much.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[Pak40]

Thank you for the replies,

Interesting that graphics quality will not change dramatically when set almost lowest, I have to try that. One thing that I (maybe) remember, is that terrain draw distance is lowered with lower settings, this makes visuals more ugly, but rises fps. I would not take shadows off, because they give more realistic feel to the game -even when they are buggy/blocky. Is CMx2 engine so off limits that devs can´t program multi core support? When Shock Force came, there was already multi core cpu´s on the market, been for years. Why did not take advantage of that? Also, I think optimization, ahem, what optimization?

 

When Shock Force(CMx2) began development, multi-core processors were in their infancy. By the time Shock Force was released multi-core processors were more mainstream but the code for CMx2 was already written. CMx2 would have to be completely re-written to allow for them. Steve has stated other reasons in recent posts explaining that there wouldn't be that much to gain from using multi-cores. 

[user1000]

I think there are people here running still  XP with the game fine.

[Thewood1]

I don't think its XP vs Win10 as the main issue.  Its that CM doesn't take advantage of the power in new OSs, CPUs, and graphics cards.  I have have always wondered how much of that is driven by sticking with OpenGL.  Let's face it, nVidia, AMD, and Intel pay lip service to OpenGL.  Its been that way for years.  And its because none to few people use it for gaming anymore.  I think the last non-CM game I played that supported OpenGL fully was IL2.  And even then, you had to choose OpenGL vs DirectX to play.  The OpenGL implementation eventually became unsupported.  

My last XP machine bit the dust three years ago.  And it struggled with CM then.  But it ran almost as well as my modern (semi) A10.  Now my i7 laptop plays CM fairly well but is nowhere near what I would call smooth.  At one time, I had two A8 machines, one with XP and one with Win8.  The Win8 machine actually ran CMSF a little faster than the XP machine.  So OS has very little to do with it.

Its BFCs call to stick with OpenGL and the engine they have built, but I wouldn't recommend anyone get an upgraded system just to play CM.  Its most likely not worth the money.  Just turn down the graphic settings in game.

[aleader]

You don't need to break the bank, that's for sure.  I recently upgraded to a very cheap and modest system: 

Pentium G3258, ASRock H81M DGS 2.0, 8GB RAM, ASUS Strix GTX 950, Win 7

I play on 1680x1050 (22" Samsung monitor that I kept), Best Quality, and use a profile in the Nvidia control panel: 8X AA, 16X Anisotropic, etc.  I'm very happy with the performance in the CMx2 games I own (CMBN, CMBS).  I get between 20-30fps in Huge maps that I couldn't hope to run on my laptop (A6 3410MX, Radeon HD 6755G2).  O/C the CPU to 4.2GHz didn't make much of a difference, although it gave me another 10fps in ARMA 3.  It seems the Nvidia card does make a big difference in how the game plays, which I might finally have to concede is due to AMD's crap drivers.

[Thewood1]

That is one thing I would always recommend...nVidia if all else is equal.

[c3k]

I don't think its XP vs Win10 as the main issue.  Its that CM doesn't take advantage of the power in new OSs, CPUs, and graphics cards.  I have have always wondered how much of that is driven by sticking with OpenGL.  Let's face it, nVidia, AMD, and Intel pay lip service to OpenGL.  Its been that way for years.  And its because none to few people use it for gaming anymore.  I think the last non-CM game I played that supported OpenGL fully was IL2.  And even then, you had to choose OpenGL vs DirectX to play.  The OpenGL implementation eventually became unsupported.  

My last XP machine bit the dust three years ago.  And it struggled with CM then.  But it ran almost as well as my modern (semi) A10.  Now my i7 laptop plays CM fairly well but is nowhere near what I would call smooth.  At one time, I had two A8 machines, one with XP and one with Win8.  The Win8 machine actually ran CMSF a little faster than the XP machine.  So OS has very little to do with it.

Its BFCs call to stick with OpenGL and the engine they have built, but I wouldn't recommend anyone get an upgraded system just to play CM.  Its most likely not worth the money.  Just turn down the graphic settings in game.

This is a very good precis. BFC has stated, many times, why they use OpenGL. Nvidia and AMD say they support OpenGL. They lie. Their cards do run OpenGL, but not as well as they should/could. Having said that, BFC's OpenGL runs better on Nvidia than on AMD. Otherwise, it seems that CM is most sensitive to cpu speed.

As others have mentioned, dropping the quality of the models in-game makes a significant improvement in fps/smoothness with minimal impact on appearance.

[WallysWorld]

Graphics stay the same when you look at tanks and soldiers really up close, but lower detail settings mean that stuff farther from the camera will lose detail. I also have a quite powerful computer, but I prefer to keep detail setting to "improved", which is just one notch higher than "balanced". Shadows and shaders I keep on, as I find them very important for the graphics, and also because they don't seem to impact my performance too much.

Same with myself. With my old i7-920 overclocked to 4 GHz along with a GTX 970, I leave the detail setting to Improved most of the time and only drop down to Balanced for very big maps. Shadows and shaders are on as well. I also limit the fps to 30 using Adaptive Sync which does cause that blur line to show up on some maps, but otherwise my fps would drop down to the very low 20's.

[Thewood1]

Part of my point is hope BFC will eventually stop using OpenGL.  Its obvious, and has been since early 2000's that it was going to eventually die.  BFC has fought the good fight, but blaming the card companies for not support a standard few people are developing on is just yelling into the wind.

[A Canadian Cat]

The discussion about support for Open GL is more about facing the facts and recognizing that NVida has done better than AMD not trying to get the card manufacturers to change.  I seriously doubt that BFC spends their days trying to get the video card manufacturers to change their direction.  As for stopping the use of OpenGL don't forget two things: Mac support and rewrite time.  I am sure there is a plan / research / thought experiments around what platform / engine to move to next but they also have to balance that with actually putting out more content to keep the money flowing in.  None of us should be expecting CM to stop using Open GL any time soon.  And the fact of that governs what we can expect in terms of performance from the computers we buy.

[Thewood1]

Another part of the point is the Mac/iOS market.  iPad obviously isn't in the plans any more.  And the iOS PC market is still very small and even smaller as a gaming platform.  

[Reiter]

How much info there is regarding CMx3 engine? OpenGL still? It was little whattafu-- when I discovered that in CMx2, there is not even flames implemented correctly. No wonder my Kraut could bot barbeque the soviet building, even after torching it several minutes. It is a little miss when introducing flametrhtowers but there are no flames.

I will change my settings to improved, when play next time. Thanks for the tip, guys. How about AA? I believe not many uses it.

[SgtHatred]

It's a topic that keeps getting asked, because most people are getting quite poor performance, despite powerful hardware. Try doing a forum search and reading the discussions, that will give you a good start.

My belief is that to get the best performance from CM, you'd need a stationary computer with a CPU that has few cores but is able to turn up clockspeed a lot. Then you add a big fat cooler to it and overclock it as much as possible.

This cheap CPU is probably perfect, because it will overclock a lot, but you'd need to spend money on good cooling:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-b81-cheap-overclocking,3888.html

Why would anyone ever buy the most budget cpu intel offers for desktops? That thing is horrible. For budgets, a 4xxx or 6xxx i3 is a much better choice.

As for everything else, CMx2's problem is not that it uses OpenGL, and not that Nvidia and AMD's implementation of OpenGL is lacking. The problem is that CMx2 was written poorly. It's a consequence of rolling your own when you lack the resources to do so very well.

Edited March 11, 2016 by SgtHatred

[Bulletpoint]

Why would anyone ever buy the most budget cpu intel offers for desktops? That thing is horrible.

My belief is that to get the best performance from CM, you'd need a computer with a CPU that has few cores but is able to turn up clockspeed a lot. Then you add a big fat cooler to it and overclock it as much as possible.

[SgtHatred]

 

My belief is that to get the best performance from CM, you'd need a computer with a CPU that has few cores but is able to turn up clockspeed a lot. Then you add a big fat cooler to it and overclock it as much as possible.

Yeah, but even overclocked that thing doesn't approach the single thread performance than an i3 4xxx, even overclocked. The only advantage is price, which wasn't really what we are looking for here.

It is also possible to overclock locked 6xxx cpus now.

Not that it will help. My 6700k approaches 5ghz and I still don't have great CM2x performance in large matches.

Edited March 11, 2016 by SgtHatred

[Bulletpoint]

Yeah, but even overclocked that thing doesn't approach the single thread performance than an i3 4xxx, even overclocked. The only advantage is price, which wasn't really what we are looking for here.

You might be right, but apparently that CPU works fine for CM, so if you're not going to get more performance from a better CPU, why pay more? (if we say we're building this computer ONLY to play CM of course). As @aleader said:

 

You don't need to break the bank, that's for sure.  I recently upgraded to a very cheap and modest system: 

Pentium G3258, ASRock H81M DGS 2.0, 8GB RAM, ASUS Strix GTX 950, Win 7

I play on 1680x1050 (22" Samsung monitor that I kept), Best Quality, and use a profile in the Nvidia control panel: 8X AA, 16X Anisotropic, etc.  I'm very happy with the performance in the CMx2 games I own (CMBN, CMBS).  I get between 20-30fps in Huge maps that I couldn't hope to run on my laptop

[Bulletpoint]

How about AA? I believe not many uses it.

I keep AA on in the game settings, it doesn't really cause me any performance hit - I believe it's because like shadows and shaders, these are all effects done by the GPU, and whatever keeps performance back is likely on the CPU side of things.

[womble]

As for everything else, CMx2's problem is ...that CMx2 was written poorly.

So, the engine driving the most accurate, precise and detailed simulation of WW2 and near-future combined arms combat at the platoon-to-brigade scale is written poorly because it doesn't scale FPS with processor price? When instead of increasing FPS, it's increased map size and unit count potential (y'know, like people have asked for) as rig power increases. And yet is still usable with lower tier machines.

"Written poorly" is a massive assertion that you simply don't have the data to back up. "Written to fulfil expectations other than yours" is more accurate.

Your name is apt.

Edited March 11, 2016 by womble

[Thewood1]

Written poorly is poor term.  Written for the processing capabilities for 2004 might be more accurate.  Most likely leaves it lacking on being optimized for anything past a pentium CPU.  If all you play is CM, then a low-end CPU with a high single core clock speed is more than adequate.  If you need more than that for other things, well, set your expectations appropriately.

[Bulletpoint]

I've been doing some close looks at the game, trying to figure out what might be holding back performance. This list is just my findings, for what they are worth, I'm no expert and not trying to teach BattleFront to "suck eggs"

The soldier models seem like they are well optimised, they don't use an excessive amount of polygons compared to the detail, as far as I can see.

The tank models also mostly seem like they are sensibly designed, apart from having modeled interiors (but I love that!). Some polygons could be saved by removing the modeled interiors, at least for lower detail levels.

The Sherman tank is using a huge amount of polygons for its rails over the engine. Each of these rails is fully modelled in 3D, which gives the effect of being able to peer through them into the engine. I love detail, but this part could be replaced by a texture with transparent slits to save polygons, at least on less than the highest detail settings.

Trees are composed of many planes of polygons with leaf textures. They scale down some of the detail with distance, so that seems ok to me.

Hedgerows however seem like a big performance killer, as they are also made from many polygons with leaf textures, but they don't seem to scale at all with distance. At least not in my testing. Making lower detail versions to use for distant hedgerows might help performance.

Generally, it doesn't seem to me like there are too many polygons in the game for even modern mid-range GPUs to handle. But if the CPU is involved too much in the render process, it could be bottlenecking performance, if the processor has to manually tell the GPU what to do for each and every polygon, instead of sending "batches". Also, it could be that the engine might be optimised to better "cull" polygons that are hidden behind other polygons, so they don't need to be rendered.