CMBB Demo Bug Thread

[MouseBert]

Originally posted by Webs:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />The effect that I believe your seeing is the same with props on planes that appear to reverse when they get up to speed.

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

No, not impressive at all. The only time you get that effect (which is called strobing, for reasons that will become clear) is when the environment is lit by electric light.

In daylight, you don't get that effect. Look at spoked hubcaps foe an example you're likely to find nearby. In daylight, they don't do that. At night, they do. Streetlights, like other electric lights, aren't actually on all the time. The oscillate very quickly between on and off, 60 times a second (in North America). Our eyes can't detect that.

Remember strobe lights in discos? Remember how they appeared to slow people so that everybody looked to be in slow motion even though everyone was still moving at real time? This electric oscillation does the same thing at a much faster rate. Depending on the speed of hubcap rotation, the spokes can look like they are moving forward, backward, or staying still. The same thing can happen when see a hubcap on TV or in the movies, becuase those media also strobe - at 24 times a second in the case of film.

</font>

[Forge]

Well, I don't know where to start with this.

I pulled down the demo and installed it and played the Tutorial mission. No problem. I then exited the game.

I came back a couple of hours later and started CMBB and as soon as the first screen comes up ("...click to start demo"), my mouse cursor is moving 1 mile-per-hour. It then takes me forever to get out of the game (i.e., finding the exit button at the button). *sigh* :-(

I've tried reinstalling twice and the bug doesn't go away.

Specs?

- AMD Athlon XP 1900+

- 1gb of DDR Ram

- Windows XP with all latest patches

- GeForce3 Ti500 running nVidia 28.32 reference drivers.

- Creative Labs Audigy Platinum External.

...and if you're wondering, I'm an avid gamer and play just about everything and have no software issues whatsoever. I'm currently playing on my PC without issue:

- Neverwinter Nights

- MechCommander 2

- MechWarrior 4

- Soldier of Fortune2

- Red Faction

- Ghost Recon: Desert Siege

- Battlefield 1942 mp demo

- Medieval: Total War

This is really bumming me out. :-(

[acrashb]

Big bug.

Takes 12 seconds for the "Loading 3D graphics" box to come up, then it takes at least (as in, I gave up waiting and came back later) 5 minutes for the actual game screen to arrive. When it arrives, the frame rate is maybe 1 frame per 3 seconds (based on the movement of the trees), the screen is a mess, and it is completely non-responsive to commands (including alt-Q and ESC). Oddly, the background sounds work fine.

Yelnia Stare. Have tried several resolutions (most recently 800*600) with the same results.

XP, Herc Prophet 4500 64MB, 933 Intel, 512MB RAM, Asus motherboard. System plays CMBO just fine, running about 45-55 fps. I'll try patching everything up.

[edit] put in some XP patches; herc is already at 'most recent' patch level. No change.

[ September 02, 2002, 01:29 PM: Message edited by: aaronb ]

[Doug Beman]

Originally posted by SenorBeef:

Oh, and if you're making a new waypoint, backspace won't clear it. You have to click to place it, then delete it. In CMBO, if I remember correctly, hitting backspace while placing a waypoint will 'negate' the command, like hitting X when placing a target will get rid of the targetting line.

Nope. Hit spacebar instead. That always cancels whatever order-mode (movement orders, LOS, etc)you have currently selected.

DjB

[WWB]

Originally posted by aaronb:

Big bug.

Takes 12 seconds for the "Loading 3D graphics" box to come up, then it takes at least (as in, I gave up waiting and came back later) 5 minutes for the actual game screen to arrive. When it arrives, the frame rate is maybe 1 frame per 3 seconds (based on the movement of the trees), the screen is a mess, and it is completely non-responsive to commands (including alt-Q and ESC). Oddly, the background sounds work fine.

Yelnia Stare. Have tried several resolutions (most recently 800*600) with the same results.

XP, Herc Prophet 4500 64MB, 933 Intel, 512MB RAM, Asus motherboard. System plays CMBO just fine, running about 45-55 fps. I'll try patching everything up.

[edit] put in some XP patches; herc is already at 'most recent' patch level. No change.

Try disabling the sound ingame and see what happens.

WWB

[Sitting Duck]

Originally posted by SenorBeef:

The mouse scroll areas on the screen are somewhat broken. I mean.. when you hold it to the top right, you turn right and move forward, right middle, you turn right, etc.

When the mouse is moved to the bottom left corner, it moves back and turns left properly. But when moved to the lower right corner, nothing happens - no screen movement.

The whole corner is dead, not just the very edge of the corner, and so "back" and "right" movements in the area also don't work right.

Also, the 'zones' that control which way you move seem to be slightly changed from CMBO.. if they were adjusted to match it would make my CMBO habits properly move the CMBB screen.

Mine seems to work ok (1600x1200 resolution)...I greatly prefer the mouse navigation of CM:BB to CM:BO.

[davedial]

Long .. Long time CM player (check the number out in the upper left there)

Been around computers about 30 years now.

Glitch in the programming.

Three times Citadel scenario started.

Three times Citadel scenario froze.

Nothing out of the ordinary done. Straight-forward battle. I don't even think I set a target.

First time: Turn 3

Second time: Turn 5

Third time: Turn 2

Total lockup. Esc crashes to desktop on two occassions. Third lockup was garbled video data that forced a complete cut of power and reboot.

Running:

Windows ME

Athlon XP 2200+

Epox 8K3A Motherboard

VIA KT333 Chipset

Corsair DDR 3000 RAM

GeForce 4600 video

Sound Blaster Live! audio

No virus protection

No background programs running of any kind

Just locked up, froze, malfunctioned to become Null and Void.

Not that big of a deal, personally.

Wanted to try and help the programmers for the main release.

Double D

[Scheer]

Originally posted by Vader's Jester:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by StellarRat:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by scorpius1001:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Pvt. Ryan:

This is a bit odd.

He looks like the un-invited vice-principal after he tangled with Ferris Bueller's rottweiler....</font>

[davedial]

Yeah

Maybe "Terminator SS"

All he needs is the sunglasses.

[acrashb]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by aaronb:

Big bug.

Takes 12 seconds for the "Loading 3D graphics" box to come up, [...]

XP, Herc Prophet 4500 64MB, 933 Intel, 512MB RAM, Asus motherboard.

Try disabling the sound ingame and see what happens.

WWB</font>

[jeffsmith]

Screen Font Corruption ?

the "R's" & "S's" are garbled / corrupted in chat

all other Fonts appear ok

Mac G4 450 576 Mb Ram

ATI Radeon 32 mb Vram

latest drivers

[ September 02, 2002, 07:06 PM: Message edited by: jeffsmith ]

[Schrullenhaft]

aaronb - are you using a 'profile' for your Direct3D settings ? What are your settings for Direct3D when running CMBB ? I've seen some 'external depth/stencil buffer' settings make CM crawl...

Forge - Does CMBO currently work on your computer ? Do you use any graphics mods on CMBO right now on that computer ? I'm not sure, but I believe a majority of the games you listed are OpenGL games and not DirectX games, which is a notable disparity (i.e. - you may be having DirectX problems that don't manifest themselves in OpenGL games).

davedial - Are you currenlty running CMBO on that particular computer ? Are you overclocking anything like the video card, CPU or system memory ? Have you adjusted voltages (I'm not sure of what the Epox 8K3A is capable of) on the system memory, AGP bus or the CPU ? Do you have any problems with sound - does it continue to play when you lock up ? Have you applied the VIA PCI Latency patch ?

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by SuperSulo:

I've tried the tutorial (ruskies) and Yelnia Stare (ger), and in Yelnia Stare I can't use a HQ as a spotter for the 50mm mortars? No "Area fire" comes up when I drag the target line around to a spot visible by the commanding HQ but not the mortar team. Works in the tutorial for the sovjets.

Is your HQ hiding? FAO's and commanders can't spot while they're hiding.

(sorry if this has already been answered - I got anotehr 5 pages of this thread to read!! )

[imported_Hiram Sedai]

I have one and it has nothing at all to do with crews!!

When I played with the horizon range thing - 1000M, 1500M etc, tanks started dissapearing and appearing in the movies. After three movies worth of this with me being unable to click on them, I saved my game and rebooted. No problem finishing.

[acrashb]

Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:

aaronb - are you using a 'profile' for your Direct3D settings ? What are your settings for Direct3D when running CMBB ? I've seen some 'external depth/stencil buffer' settings make CM crawl...

No profiles, the entire system is set to store the Z-buffer off the card (resolving the transparency issues of this card which you, I, and several others kicked around on the tech support thread a while ago). As mentioned, CMBO plays just fine.

Crawl might not be the right word - it's not playable, and I mean that in absolute terms rather than aesthetic ones. Waiting a full minute for the quit screen to come up... unable to rotate the view, select units, nothing. Just a bit of flickering.

[davedial]

Not overclocking anything for this particular game. I do, from time-to-time, see what she'll run to just for kicks. But not here.

I don't really know what the VIA Latency patch is. First I've heard of it. Have loaded the latest VIA 4in1's from the website. If that has the patch in it, and I would trust it would, then yes, I am patched.

It's not that big of a deal for me. It's just a demo and they aren't even taking pre-orders yet so nobody should be alarmed at what I'm experiencing.

I'm sure it's something minor they will have worked out by release.

DD

[davedial]

Oh .. I'm sorry .. I didn't address one of your questions. Didn't mean to be rude.

No .. I haven't run CMBO on this computer.

I uninstalled it about six months ago and haven't messed with it. Kinda fried on it.

If it would help for me to install it again and report the results, let me know.

I'd be happy to help.

DD

[MrSpkr]

dave - I had issues with CMBO using Windows ME. Mebbe that is the problem.

Windows ME is a hunk O junk. Upgrade to XP.

Steve

[Schrullenhaft]

aaronb - You're using just the 'Enable External Depth/Stencil Buffer Storing' setting and not the 'Loading' too, is that correct ?

On Win2K with the 15.0084 drivers and a P3-667 the Demo seems to perform fairly well (not great compared to a GeForce) with the 'stencil buffer storing'. I don't know if XP is that different from Win2K or not (they are different drivers). I ran some tests with a Kyro and XP months ago, but I haven't tried it lately (I have to reinstall it). Most of my previous examination had indicated that almost all issues were the same between each OS and the drivers. The current difference I'm finding is the 'DisableCopyBlt3D' setting seems to be necessary in Win9x/ME for each executable, while Win2K didn't seem to require this setting (proabably because it's universal, rather than application specific).

davedial - I suggest trying out CMBO and seeing if it has the same problems or not. You may need to graphically 'mod' it to possibly reproduce the issues you're seeing with CMBB.

The VIA Latency patch is something that a third party came up with to adjust the PCI Latency on a number of VIA chipsets. It often (but not always) helped with Creative sound cards that had audio problems where there may have been crackling audio to sound loops (sometimes to the point of locking up). I don't see the newest chipsets mentioned with the latest patch and I've also heard that the latest VIA 4-in-1's supposedly incorporate something equivalent, however I'm not sure on that.

Problem with most of these problems is that, with a couple of exceptions here (like the crew problem and the Yelnia casualty statistics), you're very likely to see them with the full version. So if you have problems now with the Demo, I'd guess that it would probably be better than a 95% chance that you'll have problems with the full version.

I wouldn't specifically accuse WinME of being the culprit here either. It may not be the 'zippiest' of the Microsoft OS's, but it shouldn't be that problematic for most games. XP on the other hand can be a bit more contentious, while it is a much better OS, people can have a large number of problems transitioning to it from a Win9x/ME OS if they're not fully prepared and know all the compatiblity issues with what they may have (not much of a problem if you have the latest hardware though).

[Pvt. Ryan]

Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:

Problem with most of these problems is that, with a couple of exceptions here (like the crew problem and the Yelnia casualty statistics), you're very likely to see them with the full version. So if you have problems now with the Demo, I'd guess that it would probably be better than a 95% chance that you'll have problems with the full version.

As far as the crew problem, Madmatt said he was able to duplicate the problem in the demo but that it did not happen in the full version. Hopefully that problem will go away for all of us when the full version is released. It is a quick way to exit the game though.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Mars:

Bases and Craters:

I play with bases turned on and have "missed" units in craters a couple of times because the entire base seems to be under ground. Is there some way to 'fix' this?

Me too. The only way I was able to select some units suffering from this was to use the '+' or '-' keys to cycle through the OB.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Scipio:

Here's another one - in citadel, when tanks fire with machine guns on the crew of a knocked out gun, it still make the sound of bullets on metal.

I noticed this too with inf squads. I found the effect slightly amusing as I imagined that Charles had decided to replicate the sound of bullets striking helmets!

Michael

[acrashb]

Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:

aaronb - You're using just the 'Enable External Depth/Stencil Buffer Storing' setting and not the 'Loading' too, is that correct ?

[...]

I'll try turning off the "loading" and see what happens - to both the demo and CMBO.

[acrashb]

Originally posted by aaronb:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Schrullenhaft:

aaronb - You're using just the 'Enable External Depth/Stencil Buffer Storing' setting and not the 'Loading' too, is that correct ?

[...]

I'll try turning off the "loading" and see what happens - to both the demo and CMBO.</font>

[ARRPEEGEE]

Just saw something odd...finished a game of Stare as Axis (vs.AI) and My casaulty list read: -1.

-1?

KIA, below it, was blank.

Perhaps it was because I rejoined the squads that were halved at start in the setup phase?