Juardis Posted November 2, 2001 Share Posted November 2, 2001 BTS, just wondering about system compatability testing. I know there are a bazillion combinations of PCs/Macs/OS's that you have to test CMBB with and I appreciate the pain and frustration that must be associated with this. But speaking for a minority of users out here, will the Voodoo5 card be used in the testing? I realize it's a 2 year old card and no longer made, but it's still a great card for CMBO (4x FSAA is simply awesome). As you know, there are some minor irritating glitches with it though that I was wondering if they were going to be addressed. Mainly, the garbled 2d text when escaping to the desktop then getting back into the game and the occasional screen white out when the video memory gets swamped. 1. Will these be fixed in CMBB? 2. Are you even going to test a V5 card for CMBB? 3. If not, I need to budget for a new card (prolly a GeForce 3), but that's expensive so I have to save now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted November 2, 2001 Share Posted November 2, 2001 Though I can't answer officially for BTS, this is what I assume their position on this would be: A Voodoo 5 will probably among the cards that get tested with CMBB. However the problems that most users have with these cards are probably not going to be worked-around within CMBB's code. The drivers themselves are the culrpit here. Trying to accomodate the deficiencies of the card's drivers isn't something that BTS wants to engage in. Attempting a 'compatible mode' for certain drivers may take way too long since huge chunks of code would most likely have to be changed. My impression is that the current problems you see with CMBO will still be present with CMBB. The default textures will be larger than CMBO's, which is part of the problem with the 'texture white-out' that you see. The '2D text garbling' may look slightly different in CMBB due to its different interface graphics, but you're most likely still going to see this problem since the core causes of this issue will remain the same between CMBO and CMBB (a 2D screen element fixed next to a 3D display window on the same screen). It's unfortunate that these cards will no longer see any driver updates, especially since they had a very nice FSAA implementation. NVidia bought out 3dfx solely to acquire their intellectual properties that were the subject of 3dfx's lawsuit against NVidia. A GeForce 3 would be a fairly nice (though expensive) replacement. It won't be perfect, as drivers are rarely perfect in one regard or another, but it would be a suitable and faster replacement (though the FSAA won't be as nice). Once the Radeon 7500 and 8500 drivers become stable and feature-set, it will be interesting to see if they offer all the feature-compatibility that you typically get with the NVidia cards (with a few of NVidia's driver problems aside). [ 11-02-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted November 2, 2001 Share Posted November 2, 2001 Sigh, the prospect of having to buy $300 worth of equipment (again) to run a $45 game gives me the shivers. Let's pray CMBB is both bug-free and not TOO power-hungry. Maybe the mod market will start catering to LOW-rez replacement grass and buildings! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juardis Posted November 2, 2001 Author Share Posted November 2, 2001 <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by MikeyD: Sigh, the prospect of having to buy $300 worth of equipment (again) to run a $45 game gives me the shivers. <hr></blockquote> Hehehe, well, considering that I haven't bought a game since CMBO came out, I figure I've saved at least $300. At least that's what I'll tell the wife As for coding around a driver bug, well, maybe than can be creative or something. Here's hoping anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pad152 Posted November 2, 2001 Share Posted November 2, 2001 Save your money, buy a new or used GForce256 or GForce2 card ($50-149). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted November 3, 2001 Share Posted November 3, 2001 Schrullenhaft, It was my impression that the Radeon series was unable to do fog in Combat Mission. Is this true? If so, it completely rules them out as a possible purchase for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted November 3, 2001 Share Posted November 3, 2001 Yes, the current Radeons do not provide fog-tables under DirectX to the extent that CM needs. ATI has 'promised' that they are going to do better driver support for the new Radeons. There will obviously have to be a wait-and-see attitude on this claim, but it is possible that ATI may finally include fog-table support under DirectX. However this may take awhile (if it does happen), especially considering that ATI and NVidia are in a bitter struggle to claim the 'fastest video card'. There will be quite a few driver releases for the new Radeons (R200 family; 7500 & 8500), but most of them will probably address all-too-obvious bugs and artificially inflating benchmark performance (ATI has already 'optimized' a driver to perform well under the Quake3 benchmarks). [ 11-02-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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