"The Citadel" Mission (US Campaign) is Unplayable due to Low FPS

[nposborn]

I'm getting less than a single frame per second due to the amount of units on the battlefield. Every graphics setting is the lowest it can possibly be and the game is set to high priority for my CPU. Additionally, shaders and shadows are disabled. My PC is able to run games like ARMA, why can't it run a much less graphically demanding game like Combat Mission? 

I'd really like to be able to play the game I purchased!  

 

[Arjuna.R]

6 hours ago, nposborn said:

 why can't it run a much less graphically demanding game like Combat Mission?

I can run that mission on a ten year-old i5. Perhaps BFC should update the recommended system requirements to convey that running a huge map with lots of units is not going to work on a weaker computer. It's nothing to do with 'less graphically demanding', software is more complicated than that. 

[George MC]

6 hours ago, nposborn said:

I'm getting less than a single frame per second due to the amount of units on the battlefield. Every graphics setting is the lowest it can possibly be and the game is set to high priority for my CPU. Additionally, shaders and shadows are disabled. My PC is able to run games like ARMA, why can't it run a much less graphically demanding game like Combat Mission? 

I'd really like to be able to play the game I purchased!  

 

Would be useful if you could post your PC specs please so folks can tailor advice and support to help get you up and running?

Or you could file a tech support ticket with BFC and ask them to help get you up and running?

https://community.battlefront.com/forum/114-cm2-general-tech-support/

Edited June 2, 2021 by George MC

[The_Capt]

Make sure your GPU is running CM and not an integrated graphics chip on the motherboard.  This makes a significant difference.  As GeorgeMC notes this may be worth a trouble ticket as The Citadel is probably the biggest battle in the game, especially on setup (once the zone is removed it should speed up) but in testing it runs at workable frame rates on computers over 5 years old.  So something is definitely going on here with your experience.

[Roter Stern]

11 hours ago, nposborn said:

My PC is able to run games like ARMA, why can't it run a much less graphically demanding game like Combat Mission? 

My opinion is that comparing those two and expecting correlated results is a mistake. The scenario in question has something to the tune of 1200+ soldiers and 320+ vehicles - is that something you'd ever see in ARMA? I might be wrong, but I'd wager that's an order of magnitude more than the largest ARMA scenario.

Point is - this is not a graphics issue - 3D rendering is not the issue, I'd expect your GPU to be below 20% utilization running CM. The issue is the sheer volume of CPU-heavy calculations each and every soldier and vehicle has to execute - each pair of eyes looking around, each gun sight taking aim, each bullet being fried - every single frame.

I do have some good news for you, though - there is a fix! 

I'm going to wager a guess and say you're attempting to run that scenario in Real-Time.... don't. Huge scenarios like that are not really meant to be run in RT - try turn-based.

You will notice that each 60-second "turn" takes about 5+min to calculate - that should tell you something. Once the turn is calculated, your FPS should be back up to your "normal" level, given the size of the map and number of units.

[waffelmann]

There is a scenario in campaign with 1200 soldiers and 320 vehicles???

 

Wow...this is absoltly not the regular size of the battles I play....

[chuckdyke]

22 minutes ago, Roter Stern said:

I'm going to wager a guess and say you're attempting to run that scenario in Real-Time.

We need a topic on this, apart from tiny engagements I can't see how you can manage medium to huge scenario in RTS. 

[Thewood1]

There is a sweet spot for CM-sized battles.  And its much less than 1200 soldiers and 300+ vehicles.  Kind of surprised to see that as a scenario included in the game.

[nposborn]

6 hours ago, George MC said:

Would be useful if you could post your PC specs please so folks can tailor advice and support to help get you up and running?

Or you could file a tech support ticket with BFC and ask them to help get you up and running?

https://community.battlefront.com/forum/114-cm2-general-tech-support/

Processor    AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor               3.40 GHz
Installed RAM    8.00 GB
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti
 

[Combatintman]

8 minutes ago, Thewood1 said:

There is a sweet spot for CM-sized battles.  And its much less than 1200 soldiers and 300+ vehicles.  Kind of surprised to see that as a scenario included in the game.

Why?  It worked in testing - 1200 soldiers for sure does not seem excessive.  A company is about 100-150 soldiers and a battalion 500-800 - chuck in attachments on both sides and I would see this as pretty normal for a realistic scenario where a company, the so-called sweet spot, is in defence.  I won't deny that it will challenging on certain platforms but this is not outwith realistic parameters.

[The_Capt]

6 minutes ago, Thewood1 said:

There is a sweet spot for CM-sized battles.  And its much less than 1200 soldiers and 300+ vehicles.  Kind of surprised to see that as a scenario included in the game.

Well all a matter of opinion and tastes to be honest.  But in this case the culminating battle of a Bn TF at the front end of Soviet bad-love in 1982 it kind of made sense to do a Main Body attack-defence (the Soviet attack on Alsfeld might be bigger actually).  Very good point on RTS vs Turn Based, either is available but would personally do turn-based just for ease of management.

As to a "sweet spot", well it is pretty much wherever those micro-drama's play out, the ones that really pull the player in, the ones they remember for some time afterwards, and that can happen in just about any sized battle.  Now there are sizes where there may be higher probability but don't discount the larger ones as in CMCW they tend to disaggregate into several micro-dramas all happening simultaneously and dynamically. 

Definitely not for everyone as the larger battles are a lot more work but the payoff can be epic

[nposborn]

Just to clear things up I'm playing the turn-based mode.  

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, nposborn said:

Processor    AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor               3.40 GHz
Installed RAM    8.00 GB
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti
 

Ok, I think it might be the RAM to be honest, the larger scenarios can be very demanding on RAM.  With this setup I would lean towards turn-based.  Frankly your system can bury mine on everything but RAM (7th Gen i7, GTX 1050 mobile), which I have 16 Gb onboard.  I just ran the first 15 mins of "The Citadel" in RT and it wasn't smooth as glass but definitely not what you are describing.  I encourage you to submit a ticket and see if the real techs can help you out.

[The_Capt]

Just now, nposborn said:

Just to clear things up I'm playing the turn-based mode.  

Ah, ok then something very odd is happening here...trouble ticket.

[Kevin2k]

44 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, I think it might be the RAM to be honest, the larger scenarios can be very demanding on RAM.  With this setup I would lean towards turn-based.  Frankly your system can bury mine on everything but RAM (7th Gen i7, GTX 1050 mobile), which I have 16 Gb onboard.  I just ran the first 15 mins of "The Citadel" in RT and it wasn't smooth as glass but definitely not what you are describing.  I encourage you to submit a ticket and see if the real techs can help you out.

Combat Mission games on Windows are 32-bit with LargeAddressAware flag set, so can claim a maximum 4GB normal system RAM.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Kevin2k said:

Combat Mission games on Windows are 32-bit with LargeAddressAware flag set, so can claim a maximum 4GB normal system RAM.

I think I know what about half those words mean,The Capt= Soldier (and amateur game dev trying to go semi-pro).  Really encourage OP to get a hold of the troubleshooting crew at support, they know what they are about.  And no one should miss out on The Citadel. 

[Thewood1]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Definitely not for everyone as the larger battles are a lot more work but the payoff can be epic

If you can run it effectively.  My point being that if you have a very large battle in mind, its probably not good to put it in a campaign where a new player won't know what the performance implications are until too late.

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, Thewood1 said:

If you can run it effectively.  My point being that if you have a very large battle in mind, its probably not good to put it in a campaign where a new player won't know what the performance implications are until too late.

Well we debated that one as well and discovered in testing that it was playable even on older machines (like mine).  So do we neuter the climax battle (that is also very realistic) risking player experience or risk players running into issues?  We have been out for over a month now and this is the first time it has come up, further based on the OPs rig, this is not a "below spec issue" (or even min spec) regardless.  

Always choices, choices....  

[Kevin2k]

55 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I think I know what about half those words mean,The Capt= Soldier (and amateur game dev trying to go semi-pro).  Really encourage OP to get a hold of the troubleshooting crew at support, they know what they are about.  And no one should miss out on The Citadel. 

No problem. I will rephrase a little: When there is 4GB of free memory, then that is all you can do for this game. So a system with like 6GB installed can cover that entirely: 2GB for Windows itself, 4GB for the game. Any more RAM will just remain unused, the game cannot access it. It is like that with all 32-bit windows applications.

Not that I care too much myself, since I meanly play small Quick-Battles.

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Kevin2k said:

No problem. I will rephrase a little: When there is 4GB of free memory, then that is all you can do for this game. So a system with like 6GB installed can cover that entirely: 2GB for Windows itself, 4GB for the game. Any more RAM will just remain unused, the game cannot access it. It is like that with all 32-bit windows applications.

Not that I care too much myself, since I meanly play small Quick-Battles.

Ah, ok but what happens when one has other stuff running (and everyone does), with more RAM does one not reduce the risk of other things eating into the 4Gb?  Honestly asking.

[Ultradave]

50 minutes ago, Thewood1 said:

If you can run it effectively.  My point being that if you have a very large battle in mind, its probably not good to put it in a campaign where a new player won't know what the performance implications are until too late.

It was playtested though, both in the 79 and 82 campaigns. I had no problem at all with it on my 2018MacBook Pro that does not have a GPU card, 8GB of RAM.
 

Dave 

[z1812]

17 hours ago, nposborn said:

I'm getting less than a single frame per second due to the amount of units on the battlefield. Every graphics setting is the lowest it can possibly be and the game is set to high priority for my CPU. Additionally, shaders and shadows are disabled. My PC is able to run games like ARMA, why can't it run a much less graphically demanding game like Combat Mission? 

I'd really like to be able to play the game I purchased!  

 

Hi nposborn,

I have tried this playing RT on my computer, specs below.
    Intel Core i5 3450 @ 3.10GHz    
    Ivy Bridge 22nm TechnologyRAM
    8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (11-11-11-28)
Motherboard
    ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. CM6330_CM6630_CM6730_CM6830 (LGA1155)    
Graphics
    MSI MAG341CQ (3440x1440@100Hz)
    2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti (ZOTAC International)

I had no problems. To tax my system more, I selected large groups of units together to move. Still no problem. I do have my games on an SSD and that does make a difference. As George MC said, post your specs. Without knowing them it is hard to give advice.

[Kevin2k]

58 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ah, ok but what happens when one has other stuff running (and everyone does), with more RAM does one not reduce the risk of other things eating into the 4Gb?  Honestly asking.

In principle that is how it works yes. But then it gets more difficult to come up with numbers about what is possible. I would guess the 6GB total I mentioned is fine unless you are doing something specific besides it: like having a Video streaming service active or working with very large images in Photoshop .

 

 

[nposborn]

 

3 hours ago, z1812 said:

As George MC said, post your specs. Without knowing them it is hard to give advice.

Are there other specs that are relevant? 

8 hours ago, nposborn said:

Processor    AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor               3.40 GHz
Installed RAM    8.00 GB
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti
 

[Blazing 88's]

I have not read through everything so I will ask. Is this a laptop? If it's a laptop make sure to disable the stock graphics card by overriding with Nvidia Control Panel setup.

Just a hunch, you have a different setup, but an Nvidia... my other rig, a Samsung i7 gaming laptop 17.3" (10 years old), has a stock Intel graphics card and an Nvidia card installed. If I didn't force the Nvidia Geforce to override the stock intel graphics, Combat Mission would chug at 1 fps.

 

Edited June 2, 2021 by Blazing 88's