Hindsight 20/20?

[sfhand]

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

You're gonna have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the list, what kind of performance do you expect from this card?

[purpheart23]

On 3/2/2021 at 4:45 PM, AttorneyAtWar said:

You can dislike and criticize one aspect of a game but still enjoy it.

Crazy, I know.

Imagine being an adult eh? Cheers.

[Vacillator]

On 3/5/2021 at 7:27 AM, Guest Frustrated CM fan said:

However, your embarrassing attitude in this thread is a great example of why I hate this community behind Combat Mission so very much. 

I think I understand where you're coming from, but to be fair most of the discussion on the wider forum is friendly, positive and helpful.  Every now and then there are disagreements, misinterpretations, frustrations etc. but don't let that put you off. 

I hope that the general community you refer to can be spared from condemnation, as they really aren't that bad in my experience.

[chuckdyke]

On 3/7/2021 at 7:17 AM, Ryujin said:

"Don't compromise the game as a tactical simulator" is always an odd argument. Making the game look better isn't going to compromise it. Adding better performance, models, animation won't change how it works under the hood. 

The computer is only capable of so much. Better graphics like Call of Duty compromises the integrity of the game. If a unit doesn't have a contact icon, we don't shoot at it. God's view I don't use unless I have air support in the game.  Camera 3 depends on the location of the unit eg buildings elevated terrain. Tactical integrity depends on the users. If I know a game with the graphics of call of duty with the integrity as a tactical simulator, we will buy it. Replays doesn't compromise the integrity you must literally put yourself in the shoes of every individual. Private Jones spotted something. We need to know what transpired between Private Jones and his unit commander. So we know what the contact Icon is with the Company HQ 2 turns later. This game let you customize as you see fit. Happy gaming. 

[SgtHatred]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

The computer is only capable of so much. Better graphics like Call of Duty compromises the integrity of the game.

Total nonsense. You have no idea what you are talking about.

[Ryujin]

34 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

The computer is only capable of so much. Better graphics like Call of Duty compromises the integrity of the game. 

Yes, computers have limits, however there are different aspects to performance. Improving the visuals isn't zero sum. Shock Force 2 for example tends use maybe 10% cpu utilization and ~30-40% GPU (which seems a little high for what's on screen) on my 2700X/2060 super.  Even with CM not being on particularly modern or optimized tech, we aren't at any risk of maxing out what current PCs can do. While CMx2 didn't run particularly well when it came out, improvements in hardware have at least compensated for rough optimization. 

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

 God's view I don't use unless I have air support in the game.  Camera 3 depends on the location of the unit eg buildings elevated terrain. Tactical integrity depends on the users.

If tactical integrity depends on the users for you, then why are you worried about anything compromising it? That said if the tactical simulation only comes from the users, then it's not really a tactical simulator?

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

 If I know a game with the graphics of call of duty with the integrity as a tactical simulator, we will buy it. 

Something like ArmA3 with a bunch of real people and a radio simulation mod of teamspeak is probably a better simulation of the tactics aspect and "integrity". Just you, binoculars, radio, and topographical map to explain your orders to people in real time. And graphics. 

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

 Replays doesn't compromise the integrity you must literally put yourself in the shoes of every individual. Private Jones spotted something. We need to know what transpired between Private Jones and his unit commander. So we know what the contact Icon is with the Company HQ 2 turns later. This game let you customize as you see fit. Happy gaming. 

Putting yourself in the shoes of every individual is precisely what compromises it. If Private Jones spots something you as the CO/BN commander don't know that. You don't know what transpired between Private Jones and his squad leader. You only find out sometime later IF it gets reported to you up the chain of command. Hopefully it's reported accurately and it's not the third report of the same tank. Things like being able comb through the replay to know exactly what Private Jones sees as soon as he sees it for an instant, even if Jones isn't in contact with anyone and dies 10 seconds later dramatically changes the tactics you use. There's no uncertainty, no inertia, it's about as realistic as if the TO&E had laser rifles for the US in WW2.  

I like replays and I like that the game has customization, but those should be acknowledged as compromises. There's no reason to oppose changes to improve player experience solely on the basis of preserving a non-existent tactical purity. 

Also graphics wouldn't effect any of that under the hood calculation anyway. A lot of changes probably wouldn't even add meaningful CPU load.  

 

[chuckdyke]

3 hours ago, Ryujin said:

If tactical integrity depends on the users for you, then why are you worried about anything compromising it? That said if the tactical simulation only comes from the users, then it's not really a tactical simulator?

It is entirely up to you how you play the game. RTS on the lowest setting and you don't need Intel. The fresh contact of private Jones doesn't get passed on higher up when he dies. To make the game into a tactical simulator is a challenge for the individual player. Just playing on Iron doesn't stop you from 'Borg Spotting'. Between turns or by not selecting any units when it plays. The AI has the situational awareness of an ant and that's why you need to playback numerous times. I spot as private Jones the HQ of the enemy 10 seconds before he dies. Nothing stops you as a player to order a Helicopter Strike on the HQ. The moment you do that the game stops being a tactical simulator and becomes a PC game. At least tomorrow I play on Hotseat with an individual who shares my views.  

[chuckdyke]

3 hours ago, SgtHatred said:

Total nonsense. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Show me the game with the graphics of Call of Duty which could function as a military simulator. I would buy it tomorrow. 

[Ryujin]

15 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Show me the game with the graphics of Call of Duty which could function as a military simulator. I would buy it tomorrow. 

Arma3. VBS is the military version, but both are extremely similar. DCS also has some military contracts, the A-10C there is pretty much their same product for the air national guard. 

Usually military customers don't want to pay for graphics since they don't really care. But not because that's a limiting factor in simulation. There's nothing stopping you from making a simulation with good graphics. Scale might limit you, but that's not really a factor unique to simulations, but any large game. Military simulators aren't fundamentally different under the hood from CoD. They aren't made of magic. 

27 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

It is entirely up to you how you play the game. RTS on the lowest setting and you don't need Intel. The fresh contact of private Jones doesn't get passed on higher up when he dies. To make the game into a tactical simulator is a challenge for the individual player. Just playing on Iron doesn't stop you from 'Borg Spotting'. Between turns or by not selecting any units when it plays. The AI has the situational awareness of an ant and that's why you need to playback numerous times. I spot as private Jones the HQ of the enemy 10 seconds before he dies. Nothing stops you as a player to order a Helicopter Strike on the HQ. The moment you do that the game stops being a tactical simulator and becomes a PC game. At least tomorrow I play on Hotseat with an individual who shares my views.  

If the only thing making it a simulator is user rules and nothing about the software, then it follows if I did room clearing drills imposing realistic rules in CoD it is now a simulator? I think we found your military simulator with CoD graphics...

[chuckdyke]

2 minutes ago, Ryujin said:

If the only thing making it a simulator is user rules and nothing about the software, then it follows if I did room clearing drills imposing realistic rules in CoD it is now a simulator? I think we found your military simulator with CoD graphics...

Using Battalion level formations? There are no rooms in Combat Mission for house clearing cover and concealment is very much generic. The reason I bought Combat Mission it simulates Company and Battalion level engagements. Arma3 is at the most platoon level, I may have another look at the game. Got sick and tired of the sniper standing right up on the roof of a building, about 8 years ago. CM is not perfect but with micromanagement your units can behave realistically. Shooting a .357 magnum in Call of Duty. I can tell you it is not very realistic, I owned one for 20 years with a mouse you can't simulate any firearm realistically. Let's us not play silly buggers we can play up to battalion level engagements preferably against a human player. Hotseat is my preferred level of gameplay. Graphics comes last on my wish list. I like to see buildings with rooms and cellars than we must play on platoon level it with the present graphics.

[SgtHatred]

3 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Show me the game with the graphics of Call of Duty which could function as a military simulator. I would buy it tomorrow. 

• ARMA 3.  What it was originally designed to be. 
• Task Force Admiral : Coming out soon. Detailed pacific naval battles with lots of graphics.
• Sea Power Naval Combat in the Missile Age : beautiful graphics, simulates what the name says.
• DCS : Guaranteed far more CPU intensive than CM's combat sim while being far more graphically impressive.
  
  These are just a few off the top of my head. I don't know about ARMA, but the others have tiny dev teams (<10). None of them are as old as CMx2, but in comparison CMx2 really shows its age. CM is from a time when it was common for small teams to roll their own rendering engine. It's far more difficult for BFC to upgrade their presentation than another team that has adopted Unity or Unreal.

There is no technical reason why a game in 2021 doesn't run at 60fps. There is no technical reason why the game has Atari level shadows and really badly aliased fields, zig-zag roads and infantry that vibrate on action points.

The game is good enough to overcome these issues for most people, but they are valid criticisms. Pretending otherwise is silly.

6 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

The moment you do that the game stops being a tactical simulator and becomes a PC game. At least tomorrow I play on Hotseat with an individual who shares my views.  

No matter how much you want to pretend Combat Mission is a PC Game much more than it is a "tactical simulator". You can't just add personal restrictions to the way you play and then claim the game was made to play that way. If the game was meant to be played that way there would be a realism setting for it.

 

You can play the game the way you want. Just skip the replay phase if you want. I've played probably a 1000 hours of Combat Mission in the last few years, maybe 10hours in a single player campaign, and I've never played one of the pre-made scenarios. Beating the AI holds no interest for me.

[chuckdyke]

2 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

No matter how much you want to pretend Combat Mission is a PC Game much more than it is a "tactical simulator". You can't just add personal restrictions to the way you play and then claim the game was made to play that way. If the game was meant to be played that way there would be a realism setting for it.

 

First in RL infantry the closest Camera position is No1. You go in an AFV position No2 Go to the top floor of an apartment No3. HQ use a map Position No5 to No 9 to give orders to units with C2 connection. I don't claim the game has to be played this way. Me and my human opponent agree to it because we agreed the game as it comes falls short. You can also make a clickfest on No4 camera setting and ignore the C2. As long as you enjoy the game. 

[Thewood1]

This has to be one of the weirdest debates I've seen on this forum.

[Thewood1]

17 hours ago, sfhand said:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

You're gonna have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the list, what kind of performance do you expect from this card?

I actually can get decent performance on an Intel HD 620.  But the text is all smeared and almost unreadable.  In fact, I use Barkmann's Corner as my benchmark.  On my i9-10900k, 2080 Super (both desktop sets) laptop, I get 35 fps on level 2 locked on the panther.  When I switch to the Intel HD 620, I get 28.  Not a huge difference but the Intel gives very badly smeared text.  It shows that ultra-modern equipment does very little to improve CM's performance.

Regardless, if support people from BFC are telling players to not use Intel, they should be saying on the website somewhere.

[BletchleyGeek]

I am surprised you managed to boot the game on an Intel card. Maybe the smeared text has to do with having a post processing anti aliasing filter on? If you got to get the game up and running, you msy want to invest some time researching with Reshade to see if it is possible to rectify the issues you found.

Will not increase FPS but having CM while on the move sounds like a good outcome.

Edited March 10, 2021 by BletchleyGeek

[Thewood1]

No, its the same Intel issue they have had since CMBO.  Its the Intel drivers.  I have always been able to get it to run CM.  I've been playing CM a lot for 20 years.  I get a new laptop every year.  I consider myself a relative expert on how CM runs on all kinds of different configurations.  I have used various reshade kits.  None of them work to solve GPU issues with Intel.  

Again, because people have an issue understanding this, I play CM on nVdia cards, but I ways test on a new laptop to see if maybe the Intel GPU issue is fixed.  Its not an issue with Intel, I'm talking about, its BFC stating in tech support to not use Intel GPUs, yet no mention is made on the website.

[Lethaface]

16 minutes ago, Thewood1 said:

No, its the same Intel issue they have had since CMBO.  Its the Intel drivers.  I have always been able to get it to run CM.  I've been playing CM a lot for 20 years.  I get a new laptop every year.  I consider myself a relative expert on how CM runs on all kinds of different configurations.  I have used various reshade kits.  None of them work to solve GPU issues with Intel.  

Again, because people have an issue understanding this, I play CM on nVdia cards, but I ways test on a new laptop to see if maybe the Intel GPU issue is fixed.  Its not an issue with Intel, I'm talking about, its BFC stating in tech support to not use Intel GPUs, yet no mention is made on the website.

I'd expect them to mention that a dedicated GPU was required, but I thought to check after what you said. On the Shock Force website system requirements it says:

• 256 MB VRAM or better and must support 1024x768 or higher resolution in OpenGL***IMPORTANT*** Not all Intel integrated video cards will play the game. If that is your only video card try the demo before purchasing

So it is actually mentioned on the website, at least on CMSF2.

Overall though for any serious/3d gaming, you can usually presume that CPU integrated graphics will not perform in any way shape or form compared to dedicated GPUs. 

So I'd say it's nice if it runs, but to expect games to run on integrated graphic chips if a game producer doesn't specifically mention that they don't support integrated graphics chip, is quite a stretch imo.

[chuckdyke]

44 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

I'd expect them to mention that a dedicated GPU was required, but I thought to check after what you said. On the Shock Force website system requirements it says:

I went to the computershop I always visit. Here is the PC I bought 8 years ago and I want to run this Photo program and these games on my new PC. He fixed the old PC which I connect now to my TV and the New PC runs everything I asked for. I know next to nothing about 'gaming computers.' 16 Gig Ram and the games are installed on a 500 GB SSD drive. Give your specs to somebody who knows what he is doing. All my CM Games run smoothly. 

[Lethaface]

32 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

I went to the computershop I always visit. Here is the PC I bought 8 years ago and I want to run this Photo program and these games on my new PC. He fixed the old PC which I connect now to my TV and the New PC runs everything I asked for. I know next to nothing about 'gaming computers.' 16 Gig Ram and the games are installed on a 500 GB SSD drive. Give your specs to somebody who knows what he is doing. All my CM Games run smoothly. 

Thanks, but I build my own PCs and know what I'm doing

[Thewood1]

Lethaface, thanks for that.  I actually didn't even look.  Last time I looked a couple years ago, it wasn't there.  Its probably why they are more vocal about it on the support forums now.  Myself and a couple others called out maybe five years ago that there no mention of it.  Thats good to see.

[LogarithmicFriend]

[LogarithmicFriend]

every single time

[sfhand]

I looked at the CMBS page yesterday and saw the same Intel warning. I had the same smeared text results as you, which is how I discovered the need to switch from Intel integrated graphics to the dedicated graphics card.

That CM doesn't take full advantage of modern hardware is one of my laments. One of the things that would improve CMx2 performance, in my opinion, would be to implement x64 support for Windows and optimize code for multicore processors. Many times I have read that CM is CPU intensive and I believe it. Another thing I wonder about is the possibility of using the processing power of modern video cards (along the lines of Nvidia physx) to improve performance.

One of the questions for me is does BF invest in further upgrades to modernize the engine or do they move to a different engine? For a small company the massive amount of development time required to create a new engine is not a small investment. I am pretty sure, looking at the development history of the games, modifying the current engine is no small task either. Of course they can stay the course, which won't surprise me. Most if not all of us on this forum love the game warts and all.

[BletchleyGeek]

6 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

I have always been able to get it to run CM. 

Lucky you - every time I tried, I have got an obscure error message before the games boot about  lack of OpenGL support. The same machine runs DX11 games, very slowly, but not OpenGL ones. I guess the website disclaimer is for me.

[Thewood1]

Other small companies have done it or at least started down the path.  A company that is on a parallel path as BFC is Laminar Research with X-Plane.  They started the move to Vulcan a couple years ago.  Its been both good and bad.  They have opened up the sim to take advantage of new hardware capabilities.  But it was a difficult task.  My son and I were both on the beta.  He's a pilot and needed to stay current.  I gave up on all the issues they were having.  

It appears to me to be a generational thing.  The founder of Laminar just struggled getting out of the OpenGL world into Vulcan.  Old dogs/New tricks.  He resisted a very long time making the move.  But eventually he admitted the sim couldn't move forward even on current OpenGL.  I think BFC is going through the exact same thing.  It might require a new programming capability they don't have.