Not Buying CM2 because .....

[Scipio]

A pal of me is unable to run CM on W2000 with his new Hercules 3D Prophet 4000 card, even with the latest drivers.

He will return the card - not his CM disk.

[Patgod]

well, the demo works with my XP/Geforce 3 combo.

if game.runs=for.patgod

then thread.poster=llama

[Linda WarChest]

I did the right thing and uninstalled CM1.

It may be a driver problem, but XP beta has been out for several months and XP oem for a month so BTS has to accept some of the responsibility for this crime !

I will not be buying CM2 until I know for a fact the problem has been resolved.

Trust me, more posts like this are going to fill up this webboard as more pissed off people start posting !

Regards,

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Doug Williams:

Schrullenhaft,

What you say is true, and good advice, but don't err on the side of thinking it's a minor problem. I found it very annoying. Enough to ruin my enjoyment of the game and make me uninstall XP.<hr></blockquote>

[Doug Williams]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I did the right thing and uninstalled CM1.

<hr></blockquote>

:eek:

Gasp! Unthinkable!

Seriously,

I'm sure this issue will eventually be addressed. Hopefully soon.

[Triumvir]

I'm running a 1.4 Athlon with XP and a GeForce3. I have the same problems as I did with Win2K and a GeForce 1; the white text is, as others have said, rendered transparent. But the quick fix for this is to Alt-Tab bounce back to CM; and this has never failed to fix the problem for me.

[Doug Beman]

Linda, if every software developer constantly went back into their games to update them to current OS/vid driver standards, NO company would ever release a new game. ID would still be on the phone with a Microsoft DirectX programmer or their friendly NVIDIA contact, trying to get Quake1 to run under XP.

DjB

[MyNameW]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Linda WarChest:

You may not be aware that CM1 will not run under WindowsXP if you have a Nividia GeForce Video card.

To the best of my knowledge BTS never posted any notice on the Internet or by email that this is the case. In other words, those of us with this configuration cannot play CM1 and are left to run around the Internet like chickens with their heads cut-off trying to find out what the heck is wrong with our systems.

I will not buy CM2 until the CM1 problem is resolved ! I already have one version of CM I cannot use, why do I need two ?

Regards,

Linda<hr></blockquote>

Not buying XP because ...

[Herr Kruger]

Linda is being unreasonable... hands down! I doubt there will be many posts, unless you are the one making them...

[themaltese]

I still can't believe all this fuss over the irrelevant relationship between a game that's not out yet, an OS that's only just recently been released, and one of many video cards! Linda, either make your computer dual bootable with XP and 98; scrap you vid-card and get another one; or just use an older computer with just 98 installed on it for games and a newer computer for work. It's not any single entity's particular fault that you can't run certain software on certain OSs -- it's the nature of the rapid advance of technology. Before upgrading to a new OS or going out to buy a new computer, ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?" When you answer that first, you'll be a lot happier. I do this every day before going out to ride one of my motorcycles. If I want comfort for long distance or to hang out with a Harley crowd, I ride my Harley. But if want to enjoy a fast, knee dragging ride through back road curves or race at the track, my Kawasaki ZX-7 is the weapon of choice. Relate this to your CM problem and hopefully you can see that uninstalling CM because it doesn't go with XP is as ridiculous as me selling my ZX-7 because I can't take long trips on it! Everything has a purpose. I chose to dual boot enable my system with Win98 only because I wanted to be able to play games on my computer. I've got a ton of older stuff that just won't work on 2000 (and more than likely on XP), but it's mostly games!

[Pud]

XP? Some seem to think this is the Win95/98 of the next few years. Sorry but with all its spyware encased within it and other concerns, XP will be about as popular as ME (wheres my garlic!). Any real serious PC user wont touch it with a barg pole. CM not being compatable with 2000, now thats a concern, but as its a problem that MS should look into not the game developers since a LARGE portion of games fail to run under 2000 (and XP so it would seem), I have yet to see any game recommend you should be using win2000.

Just my $3.45 (taking into account US$/AU$ exchange rate)

[Lars]

Linda, unless you are planning to tie into a NT network, why on earth did you buy XP? There is nothing there worth the upgrade price. This is going to be Microsoft's biggest flop ever.

Get your money back, reinstall Win98, and live a happy life.

[The Commissar]

Whats wrong with Win 98? All you OS nuts, take it easy and treat an OS like a new game. In this industry where "release now, patch later" syndrome makes a constant appearence, you've got to wait and see before pruchasing anything. Ask people who have it what they think. Read reviews. Look into any possible conflicts with your current setup.

Don't blame the publishers of a game that came out years ago. Its not their fault. CM1 will NOT be patched, Linda, because BTS is working on CM2. However, if this is truly recognized as a problem that is not fixed by Evilsoft or NVIDIA, then BTS will attempt to make a patch.

[Doug Beman]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Remember BTS is just two professionals, a bald guy, and a dog.<hr></blockquote>

And a Weasel!

DjB

[Schrullenhaft]

Here's what I recommened to those who are using NVidia GeForce-series cards and Windows 2000 or Windows XP:

1) Install the 21.81 or higher driver (or possibly the 7.xx or earlier drivers).

2) Turn ON FSAA. Select the 'manual' setting for the FSAA and set it to either 2X, 4X or Quincux (whatever's available other than OFF). FSAA will slow down the performance and/or limit the resolutions you can run at depending on the amount of memory and which GeForce card you have.

3) When you launch CM you may get the 'corrupted' screen where you can't read the scenario listings. Hit the ESC key, which will minimize CM. Now click on the 'Combat Mission' listed on the Task Bar and CM will remaximize. This should clear up the white transparencies that made the text impossible to read. You should now be able to proceed to the 3D screen with no problems.

4) I've seen a situation where if you have FSAA enabled that once you move in the 3D battlefield you get an endlessly repeating effect of the textures, etc. I can't remember if this was solely limited to Win9x/ME or Win2K/XP. Again, an ESC to the desktop and back clears this problem up for the rest of the CM session (it will occur again once you reload CM).

5) In game there is a possibility that the 2D info areas at the bottom of the screen may be corrupt where the white text and graphics are flashing and/or partially invisible. If the FSAA setting didn't fix this (or you're running a TNT-series card), then you may need to install an interface mod like Deanco's, which reduces the amount of white in these screens.

6) Once you finish the game or exit to save, you may run into the screen turning completely black or some other form of corruption. Perform the ESC sequence listed above and you should normally get a legible screen again. Sometimes this doesn't work or it may take several retries to finally work at this point.

Some people have told me that the above still hasn't worked for them, to which I don't have an exact answer. It's not a perfect solution, but it is an issue that is caused by a deficiency in the Nvidia drivers and not CMBO. While other video cards have problems with Win2K/XP (because it is harder to support device drivers in these OS's), but they won't have the exact same problem as the Nvidias. There are other cards that don't experience this problem.

BTS is a small company and CMBO has a small market compared to most of the retail games on the market. Nvidia has been made aware of this problem (and some specific Mac-oriented problems with Nvidia drivers), but there is no clue as to whether Nvidia will fix this, and if so, when. Nvidia has to prioritize what they're going to fix in the drivers. The issue that CM is running into is most likely considered small in comparision to issues experienced by games with much larger sales (alas, that is the state of the industry - numbers make a difference) and I can only assume that problems with Quake3 or beating the performance of a Radeon 8500 in benchmarks are going to take priority over a white transparency problem under DirectX.

BTS has run into problems with Nvidia drivers in the past. Many users will remember problems when enabling FSAA in drivers 8.x and later. It worked fine in older drivers, but Nvidia decided that they needed to speed up the FSAA routines to remain competitive. Well these 'optimizations' caused problems with CMBO. This was such a problem for some people that they thought BTS should fix this problem because they 'couldn't run CMBO anymore', even though the old drivers worked fine with FSAA enabled and FSAA could be disabled with no problems whatsoever in CM. Eventually Nvidia addressed most of the FSAA problems with the 14.xx and newer drivers (21.81 really brought the fix much closer to home than the 14.xx series though). It's great that Nvidia is constantly tweaking their drivers trying to fix problems and improve performance. They've set an industry benchmark by doing that. However at the same time many gamers get a hold of these 'unreleased' drivers and complain about what it does to the game and that the game developer's should fix the problem because 'it only occurs in their game'. Admittedly 21.81 is an official driver, but there were other official drivers before it that had FSAA problems in CM.

What I'm trying to say is that driver development is in a constant state of flux, with an optimization here a fix there. It's a constant balancing act (and users get to experience this by having access to all of the 'unofficial' drivers from Nvidia). To have a game developer try to accomodate a particular shortcoming with a driver (even for a popular piece of hardware) can often be a huge undertaking. Anything from large chunks of code being redone or completely changing a game because the level at where the problem exists may not be superficial from a code standpoint. Then if the driver is actually fixed - all of your efforts have been in vain.

If drivers were perfect, then the ones you get on the CD with the hardware would be all that you would need. If Microsoft made perfect OS's they wouldn't need Service Packs.

[gunnergoz]

YARNTBWXP!

Yet Another Reason Not to Buy WinXP! Osama Bin Gates strikes again...

And Linda...Godspeed, don't let the virtual door hit you on the ass on your way out.

[Doug Williams]

Guys,

Don't berate Linda for her concerns. She has one of the most popular video card chipsets on the market, and XP, despite what some people have said in this thread, will dominate the OS scene for the home user for the next few years. W98 is long in the tooth and on it's way out. XP has gotten universally positive reviews from every gaming web site, paper gaming magazine, and mainstream PC magazine that I have read (and I read a bunch).

BTS should be, and I bet they are, concerned about this problem. Especially given the fact that CMBB, which uses the same engine, is due to be released this year.

Dual boots are a good idea. I will eventually do that myself if the problem isn't resolved with a new driver or patch. You may laugh, but I actually have five computers set up and working, including everything from an XT, a 386, a 486, a Pentium 233, and a PIII 866. I own a bunch of games, dating back to the early 1980's, and I can still run them all on one system or another. I built them all myself, except for the XT.

But I digress...ESCing to the desktop didn't fix the problem for me. I never tried Alt-Tab. I wish I had.

Linda is right, if a little over dramatic. This problem needs to be dealt with, either by Nvidia or BTS, or people will be complaining.

[Tanaka]

... Sorry guys, but after reading through this topic, I'm curious, why do I "need" Windows XP ? Is it less system hog ? Will run DirectX based games faster ? What will it do that I already don't have in my "old" OS (Windows 98)... Thank you, I really would appreciate an answer.

[Joe Shaw]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>It may be a driver problem, but XP beta has been out for several months and XP oem for a month so BTS has to accept some of the responsibility for this crime !<hr></blockquote> Oh my, this CRIME? Well lads, there goes CM2, BTS will be behind bars in no time since they've deliberately perpetrated THIS CRIME.

Stephen and Charles, with unbridled ambition,

Created this EVIL, called Combat Mission.

Joe

[Doug Williams]

Tanaka,

XP, because it's based on the W2K kernel instead of the W9X kernel, is much more stable than W9X/ME. What this means is no more "blue screen of death" reboots. It's also more networking friendly. It has built in zip support, so you don't need Winzip. It's media player can play DVDs, so you don't need 3rd party software for that. You can read all about it on the web...

[Triumvir]

XP is a great OS. Much much better than 98, or [shudder] 95. I used W2K when it first came out, and that itself was a _huge_ leap over 98. The stability of 2K has to be seen to be believed; I can't even use 98 anymore.

XP is so much easier and more stable -- and since I program for a living, is fully Win32, meaning that I can use it to program and play with -- that I'd sooner cut up my cable modem than go back to any of the 9x family.

Course, when CM comes out under Linux...

[Splinty]

I run with an Nvidia GeForce 2 MX and Win 2000 Pro,and although I do experience the problem a quick alt-tab restores the white to the screen. A bit of an inconvineince, but nothing to 'cause too much stress. The only time it's an issue at all is when it's time to read the AAR and the alt-tab fixes it right up.

[Iron Chef Sakai]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Linda WarChest:

I did the right thing and uninstalled CM1.

It may be a driver problem, but XP beta has been out for several months and XP oem for a month so BTS has to accept some of the responsibility for this crime !

I will not be buying CM2 until I know for a fact the problem has been resolved.

Trust me, more posts like this are going to fill up this webboard as more pissed off people start posting !

Regards,

hi Linda, to my knowledge, this is not bts's fault, i will list why and i can see how other posts would get you defensive. alot of games are having problems running on Windows XP, this is common for a new operating system. here is the good news. all you have to do is wiat for a windows update, wich if you have not done yet, try it, to do it, simply click on start then, if it's like 98se, you should see windows update tab on the top of the start menu., click non it and it will take you though step by step and install the critical updates. 2, bts may even beat windows to a patch to make the game playable to you. i can see how your frustrated but this is a common occurence with newly released operating systems. i can understand ho it would be frustrating to you, but don;t blame the game company because the oe your using forgot to make some adjustm,ents for games, wich i'm sure they will add very soon, if anything your complaint should be with microsoft, and i happen to like microsofts products, their a good companyu and release update regularly for their operating systems, so try not to worry about, when you get up and running post on the opponoent finder, it's alot more fun playing humans. just be patient, and in the future, unless necessary, never go with an operating system that is b=rand spanking new, there are always problems and yes they get fixed, i've updated my windows 98se many times, the game runs fine on all configurations that were available during the time of the games release. bts could not write code for the game ot be played on an operating system that did not exist, it would be impossible. it would be like trying to communicate with a dog that might be a gold fish that you arent quite sure where it's from or where to find it, so you pick up the phone and ask questions to someoen you don't know who does'nt know what your talking about and then hangs up on you. thats how insane your argument is with bts, just try and be patient and everyhting will be fine

<hr></blockquote>

[Iron Chef Sakai]

i was not trying to be rude linda, but that is the truth

[Iron Chef Sakai]

also go to nvidia.com once in awhile, they do drver updates as well on a failry regular basis, try and check about once a month, i have a Pentium3 700, nvidia geforce2 64mb, 256mb of ram, and the game runs perfect, just wiat a couple weeks for the new dirver updates

[Foobar]

The great thing about WinXP from what I hear, is that you dont even OWN the copy you buy! Its like renting a service from Windows, where they take over soveriegnty of your computer. Remove 3 pieces of hardware, and the os shuts down. You will not be able to get it to run again until you call their tech staff? the hell???

My brother had a winXP machine that he left connected to the internet, but unattended. MS pinged his computer and tried to gain access 12 times in one hour.

I never believed all the crap about them before now. But now that they make os's that wont work with CM I know its all true. The wankers.