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Lower video resolution = more sound!


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I play CM on a Dell C600 laptop - 750MHz PIII, 256MB RAM, 8MB ATI Rage Mobility Pro. I've always used 1024x768, because that's the natural resolution of the LCD. But it chugs a bit sometimes, especially rotating the viewpoint when there's lots of textures to map in and out of the pitiful 8MB of video memory. So this morning I decided on a whim to delete my .prefs file and try 800x600.

Whoa. Suddenly I hear birdsong! And distant artillery! Something, somewhere (DirectX? CM?) had clearly been of the opinion that 1024x768 was maxing out my system, and hence it wasn't going to bother giving me ambient sound as well as graphics. But with a lower resolution it's happy to give me full sound (yes, I know about shift-I, and yes, I had always had it set to sound+ambient). It's a whole new gaming experience. And the lower resolution just means I'll be using viewpoint 3 instead of 4, for a more in-your-face battle experience smile.gif

So, if you're reading this post and thinking "birdsong - what birdsong?", try lowering your video resolution a notch...

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Originally posted by FriendlyFire:

I play CM on a Dell C600 laptop - 750MHz PIII, 256MB RAM, 8MB ATI Rage Mobility Pro.

I'll have to try that, but I have a million dollar question for you concerning another thing, because I have the same video card. Can you see fog? I can't, and I have not been able to find a "enable fog emulation table" setting anywhere, so I'm starting to think it's not even possible.

Your kindred spirit smile.gif

Nabla

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I can't speak to the lower res = more sound question but I do have a point about the ambient sound. I had it turned on from the very beginning of my CM playing. Then one day I turned it off and suddenly I began hearing the soldier's voices much better. With the ambient sound on I rarely heard someone shout "My leg" or "Move 'em out" or whatever. Now I hear them loud and clear. Being able to hear these is giving me a heads up about the enemy and other things.

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Originally posted by Subvet:

Wow, I was just trying to decide on my next video card, but that makes up my mind. No way am I buying a Radeon now. Thanks for the heads-up guys.

Good plan, also stay away from the VooDoo cards out there. They work just fine for most games, but....

1) They're out of business

2) There is an issue (at least on my machine) with the 3d-anti-aliasing that conflicts with CM.

If I had to buy my card again, or buy a new one, I would go with the NVidia geforce 2 or 3.

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Originally posted by Barticus:

Good plan, also stay away from the VooDoo cards out there. They work just fine for most games, but....

1) They're out of business

2) There is an issue (at least on my machine) with the 3d-anti-aliasing that conflicts with CM.

They may be out of business, but you can get killer deals on the cards now. Also, I tried the GEFORCE card and it locked up my Athlon on every game I tried while the Voodoo 5500 worked flawlessly. The only problem I have with the card and CM is that it scrambles my screen if I minimize while I'm playing, but works fine if I leave the game up until I'm done.

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Originally posted by Pascal DI FOLCO:

Nabla,

NO WAY to have fog on an ATI card, be it a Rage or Radeon, this crap doesn't support fog emulation table. Ask Schrullenhaft for detailed technical analysis smile.gif

I've a 32Mb Rage pro, never seen fog in CM, I am a poor sod frown.gif

I had an ATI 128 on a Mac G3 256MB (Now with Voodoo 5 5500). Fog - as well all transparencies like roof or smoke - have never been a problem. Actually beautifully rendered. All hi-res mods available and it looks like a Normandy picture.

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I have a voodoo 3 card and everything looks great, I get fog, transparencies, as far as I can tell every thing works great except for the gamma being turned all the way up when I switch back to CM. As far as I can tell I get full sound too.

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