Engine 5 when?

[Bagpipe]

Sorry to be that guy, again but...

When is the engine update coming? Can we have an update or have I missed word on this?
I would really love to be able to enjoy the 3 CM titles that I own but they just do not play on modern hardware as discussed in depth in previous posts and DMs with the devs trying to work out why it doesn't (so let's not climb down that rabbit hole again lol).

I bought CW, love it but cant play larger scenarios due to it completely grinding to a halt at deployment phase.
I then bought SF2 and BS hoping that with them having been around longer they may have been optimized slightly better but the same issues are apparent, I mean come on it's no secret that the games do not perform anywhere near as well as they could/should right? So again, rabbit hole. bad. no. 

I just really wanna be able to enjoy all that I have paid for *stamps feet* and am really hoping it can come this side of Christmas please? *smile and fluttering eye lashes*
 

Thanks

[BFCElvis]

14 hours ago, Bagpipe said:

Sorry to be that guy, again but...

When is the engine update coming? Can we have an update or have I missed word on this?
I would really love to be able to enjoy the 3 CM titles that I own but they just do not play on modern hardware as discussed in depth in previous posts and DMs with the devs trying to work out why it doesn't (so let's not climb down that rabbit hole again lol).

I bought CW, love it but cant play larger scenarios due to it completely grinding to a halt at deployment phase.
I then bought SF2 and BS hoping that with them having been around longer they may have been optimized slightly better but the same issues are apparent, I mean come on it's no secret that the games do not perform anywhere near as well as they could/should right? So again, rabbit hole. bad. no. 

I just really wanna be able to enjoy all that I have paid for *stamps feet* and am really hoping it can come this side of Christmas please? *smile and fluttering eye lashes*
 

Thanks

I couldn't find any Help Desk tickets by searching your email address or name. I also didn't find any DMs in the past couple of years. You may want to open a ticket. I may be able to help.

 

https://battlefront.mojohelpdesk.com/

 

 

[PIATpunk]

Quote

this side of Christmas please? *smile and fluttering eye lashes*

you could always threaten them with playing the bagpipes if your deadline's not met.

[Vacillator]

14 hours ago, PIATpunk said:

you could always threaten them with playing the bagpipes if your deadline's not met.

.  I'm not Scottish but originally from just south of the border and I quite like the pipes.

15 hours ago, BFCElvis said:

the 3 CM titles that I own but they just do not play on modern hardware

I own all CM titles except the modern ones if they're what you own.  The ones I've got play okay on my 2023 bought laptop, which admittedly does have some pretty good components but they're probably not being taxed by CM most of the time.

[Bagpipe]

18 hours ago, BFCElvis said:

I couldn't find any Help Desk tickets by searching your email address or name. I also didn't find any DMs in the past couple of years. You may want to open a ticket. I may be able to help.

 

https://battlefront.mojohelpdesk.com/

 

 

You read this post I believe and we had a conversation via the forum messaging 1 year ago. Understandable if you have had to delete older messages to free up space.
But it did happen incase you are inferring it did not?
We talked at length about how the deployment zone texture was causing huuuge lag spikes when in view which becomes more and more apparent the larger the scenarios/deployment zones. Remember?
I can send you the convo if you like but we didn't get anywhere lol

 

EDIT: just checked again, November 22 2021 you replied by DM. So almost 2 years ago! wow time flies

Edited October 13, 2023 by Bagpipe

[Butschi]

Do you play on Steam? For some reason the Steam version is significantly slower. Btw. I don't think the other titles are better optimized. CMBS is slower on Steam, too. You usually don't notice it, though, because maps are smaller and less crowded.

[Thewood1]

I ran a small benchmark using Barkmann's Corner in CMBN on both Steam and BFC version.  Saw almost no difference with the same settings and POV.  I did this when CMBN first went to Steam.  I got between 35 and 45 FPS at max settings on both runs.  Laptop 3080 ti and an Intel 10980HK.

[Vacillator]

3 minutes ago, Thewood1 said:

Barkmann's Corner in CMBN

I really liked the re-worked version of that, great battle. 

Anyway I think Bagpipe was saying the issue was with CW and the other modern titles.  If that makes a difference...

[Bagpipe]

I have not bought any of the ww2 titles though I would like to. I think unit count is higher in those generally so figured it would be worse than the modern ones though I guess there are less sensors etc to compute and what not.

I have tried all the things to try and alleviate it but nothing helped. 
The performance in general is pretty poor with CM games, that I can live with given how it is basically running off some ancient necromancy knowledge that the devs possess but when it grinds to a slideshow, and I mean 1-3 fps if you are lucky at times, during deployment phase and occasionally when playing larger warsaw pact scenarios... it goes beyond reason.

I do not know if it is something to do with Ryzen CPUs or RTX GPUs...
I think the more modern ryzen CPUs can have issues if games are not written in a way that utilizes their boost clock function etc. (to put it really basically lol) but even at that a base clock of 3.4/3.6Ghz should be more than adequate for something like this, at least to prevent a slide show issue. Task manager regularly shows almost no utilization of the hardware when this occurs too which is usually quite telling.
I won't list the number of games I run perfectly fine, because that is tiresome for everybody and childish, but it is in the 100's and many are similar "kind" of games in terms of calculations and what not.

 

Anyway like I was saying, it would be awesome to know more about when to expect the engine update because I am sure there was talk around the announcement period that it would help to mesh with the modern set ups a little better.

[Thewood1]

4 hours ago, Bagpipe said:

ancient necromancy

I like that term.

[Artkin]

19 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

I ran a small benchmark using Barkmann's Corner in CMBN on both Steam and BFC version.  Saw almost no difference with the same settings and POV.  I did this when CMBN first went to Steam.  I got between 35 and 45 FPS at max settings on both runs.  Laptop 3080 ti and an Intel 10980HK.

I've noticed it on larger maps. Laggier camera and laggier gameplay too

[MikeyD]

The game engine does have an 'optimal' map size and force size (and tree density) to play on.
The 'bigger is better' crowd starts bumping into game (and CPU) limits if they go too far. Multiple battalions on a gargantuan forested map with dramatic terrain elevation changes is going to take an inevitable hit once the (individually tracked) bullets start flying. I don't have a problem with lagging because I will open a scenario, look at the forces in place, then say 'Nope' and quit out. I will happily play big maps and large force sizes but not THAT big. To use an analogy, its like badly overloading the flatbed of your pickup truck then complaining about the lack of acceleration and poor handling.

[Ultradave]

Redoubt from CW is the one scenario that really taxes my computer. On my old one, I couldn't do anything with the setup. Too painful to move the camera anywhere, if it would even move. However, the initial US setup is good enough to work with, and I started rmodifying once I was on turn 1 and the setup zones were gone. The Russians start far away so there is room and time to move units in game after the start. Is it perfect? No? Useable, yeah, pretty much. My new computer, a shiny new M2 MacBook Pro, handles even that beast well. 

I think Redoubt, with a huge setup zone, on a densely forested large hill, really pushed the limits. Dealing with it though, is worth the effort. 

Dave

[Vacillator]

7 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

a huge setup zone, on a densely forested large hill, really pushed the limits

So is it the trees or the size of zone, or both?  Dave, we've played a few big games before and we had no issues?

[Thewood1]

39 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

The game engine does have an 'optimal' map size and force size (and tree density) to play on.

 

18 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

I think Redoubt, with a huge setup zone, on a densely forested large hill, really pushed the limits. Dealing with it though, is worth the effort.

 

If people are building huge scenarios and then complaining, they get what they deserve.  But BFC needs to reign in scenario designers building large official scenarios that struggle on recommended specs.

Also, even on empty maps, CMXX is not exactly smooth in how it draws and behaves. 

[Grey_Fox]

2 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

 

 

If people are building huge scenarios and then complaining, they get what they deserve.  But BFC needs to reign in scenario designers building large official scenarios that struggle on recommended specs.

Also, even on empty maps, CMXX is not exactly smooth in how it draws and behaves. 

CM allows battalion-sized engagements. It's specifically designed for them in fact. The issue is that the game engine struggles with actually allowing people to fight on battalion-scale maps, especially in the modern game where units are more dispersed than ever before.

I've already spoken with Elvis in a related helpdesk ticket, and he indicated that BFC view larger map sizes as a high priority as so much of their current work is in modern warfare.

Edited October 14, 2023 by Grey_Fox

[Thewood1]

Built a test scenario of plain terrain and one Soviet mech battalion and one US mech battalion.  6km vs 3km map, which seems to be max map size.  No trees, no buildings, nothing but default grass.  Using my i13/4090 laptop at full performance settings.

Steam - 40 fps at start, around 30 on mass movement a couple turns in.

Non-Steam - about the same, with what seemed like a little more variability.

Thats also with no smoke and some dust.

I'm not seeing a big difference between Steam and non-steam in a VERY small sample.  But it again reflects that CM's performance plateaus with modern hardware.

In comparison, Steel Beasts civilian version hits and stays at 60 FPS at max settings with the same rig on a 10km x 10km map with more than a battalion on the board.  The SB scenario also has a lot of artillery and smoke happening. 

In fact, SB limits FPS to 60 so I have a lot of horse power left over.  I compare to SB because it is of similar scale, handles the graphics better in the 3D world, and has to render a lot more detail.  The main difference still seems to be CM depending on very old OpenGL libraries.  I have to assume moving off of those old OpenGL libraries is a priority for any significant upgrade for CM.

[Bagpipe]

Regarding larger scenarios/maps - Designing and selling a game that allows users to create something the game cannot handle is in itself a flawed game. That's my opinion on that matter anyway. Scenario designers are not to blame for using the tools provided to them fully.
 

The issue I face is usually at it's worst during deployment phase, trees and shaders on/off etc makes very little difference on my rig. Whether it is an issue with the repeated deployment zone texture, or if the code concerning deployment tiles is the issue, is not for me to say.
There seem to be a lot of "apologists" (I use that term gently ofc) tip toeing around the subject of performance in the CM games though, I mean sure the games are great and you want to see them succeed and when someone questions their quality you get defensive etc. I get that but it doesn't actually help the games/devs/publishers/us in the long run.
The conversation inevitably leads to people comparing specs etc when in reality a game of this scale should be easily run, individually computed bullets or no, on modern hardware, the facts are that the game does not properly utilize the hardware. Any quick analysis of your cpu/gpu/memory usage during a scenario will show you this. 

I feel pretty strongly about this one issue because I genuinely believe these titles would do massively better if it were rectified. Many, many potential new players try these games and hate the performance (performance vs. visuals) so pass on them when they don't realize what they are missing out on. You see conversation regularly about it on many social platforms etc.
So it feels like this endless loop of lack of dev resources to fix the issue which is then antagonized by a lack of sales to accrue more dev resources which is ultimately a death sentence. Which nobody wants.
 

I mean, I basically bought Cold War because I had money to burn and felt the pang of nostalgia from playing the original game way back in my childhood some time.
After that I bought a further two titles, knowing that they don't perform well, just to try and support the devs a bit hoping that somehow my extra £100 or whatever might actually help lol. 
 

I hope this doesn't read as me raining urine all over things, that's not my intention. I have great respect for the devs and the community.
I just think that maybe there needs to be more honest conversation about the issue and more pressure put on the devs/publishers to prioritize remedying the situation. 

[Kevin2k]

7 hours ago, Bagpipe said:

Regarding larger scenarios/maps - Designing and selling a game that allows users to create something the game cannot handle is in itself a flawed game. That's my opinion on that matter anyway. Scenario designers are not to blame for using the tools provided to them fully.

 

Be careful what you wish for. The result may be annoying limitations imposed on the editor. I have seen that happen before with another game.

As for the performance topic in general. I would need in-game debugging information: frame-rate, mode of frame-rate compensation, scene polygon count, logic cycles count. But unfortunately there is no such thing, so it is often just anecdotal.

 

 

 

[Ultradave]

On 10/14/2023 at 4:44 PM, Vacillator said:

So is it the trees or the size of zone, or both?  Dave, we've played a few big games before and we had no issues?

For me it's been specifically ones with very large setup zones, combined with dense forest. Large setup zones in open terrain don't seem to affect me much that I've noticed. Once the action starts though, I've not had issues, even with large scenarios. It may make a difference that I'm on a Mac and not a PC. Different graphics processing.

Dave

[Thewood1]

Probably the biggest issue for setting a hard limitation is the number of variables that play into performance.  Unfortunately, players will push limits and then complain that the game isn't optimized.  Its why we can't have nice things.  I don't think setting artificial limits ion scenario building s the right way to go.

With that said, official scenarios should have some kind of base performance on recommended specs or better.  But expectations should be set that CM2 runs on outdated graphics libraries that might cause problems with newer GPUs and drivers...as we have seen.

[Artkin]

Dude the only limitation is your computer. Enough nonsense. 

[Thewood1]

I thought it was your imagination.

[Andrew Kulin]

I do wish that in the set-up phase there was an option to turn the set-up zone shading on and off (like objectives shading in-game).  I find it makes it much harder to assess terrain for setting forces up. 

I have not noticed a performance hit though I may check on that next time I set up a game.

And I do hope that with Engine 5 that BFC spends the majority of effort in optimizing game for newer hardware (e.g., make use of multiple CPU threads).  I hate the draw distance limitations on trees for example on the larger maps as an example.  Have an option to specify draw distances for users to accommodate all types of computer capabilities.

[callada]

I like the CM visual style.  It's a bit clinical, but still detailed, and reflects the gruesome nature of what's being simulated.  It would be easier to convince people to play it if it could look something like it does when zoomed in (higher LOD meshes/textures) while maintaining performance.  At the least, I'm hoping for changes that keep the interface snappy even if the framerate drops in the rest of the world.

 

But, I also know how this stuff goes.  It's more or less impossible to get a sense for the amount of work involved in making changes like that from the outside.  It's probably a lot.  So, I will fantasize here on the forums instead.