Knaust Posted December 15, 2002 Share Posted December 15, 2002 To the Volga scenario was heavily debated previously. I have a P4 2,4 Ghz CPU...is there some possibility to burn the CPU playing this scenario?...It took more than 20 minutes for the AI to think the setup! Pardon if this is a silly question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manchildstein (ii) Posted December 15, 2002 Share Posted December 15, 2002 i don't know... but what i do know is that, i loaded that 'baby' into the scenario editor and recoiled in horror... what... 18,000 to 9,000 points?.... too much for my duron 1200 with its puny (128k?) "L2" cache... i doubt that it will burn out your cpu though... someone told me just the other day, that even when your cpu is 'idle,' that it's really not... that it is constantly 'polling' for new instructions... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulletRat Posted December 15, 2002 Share Posted December 15, 2002 A CPU would never burn out from "overwork" - the biggest enemy of a CPU is heat, and while working a CPU does accumulate a fair amount of heat as long as you have a decent fan/cooling system you shouldn't have any problems. My system is currently sitting on 59 degrees celcius - a little warm, but about standard for an Athlon Thunderbird. If you want to monitor your motherboard and CPU temps, I suggest installing Motherboard Monitor - an excellent little program designed for exactly that. http://mbm.livewiredev.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stug30 Posted December 15, 2002 Share Posted December 15, 2002 Originally posted by Knaust: To the Volga scenario was heavily debated previously. I have a P4 2,4 Ghz CPU...is there some possibility to burn the CPU playing this scenario?...It took more than 20 minutes for the AI to think the setup! Pardon if this is a silly question. Best bet is to just delete from your folder! I want to know who can run it, anyone out there? And why include it on the CD? [ December 15, 2002, 07:59 AM: Message edited by: Stug30 ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PantherG Posted December 15, 2002 Share Posted December 15, 2002 You can run it on an iBook! I just haven't tried it because it's a wee bit too big. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted December 16, 2002 Share Posted December 16, 2002 "To The Volga"? 18,000 points? I don't have it. Are you sure it's on the CD? I'd like to see if I can run it. Maybe I accidentally deleted it. EDIT: Oh, it's an operation. I found it. Treeburst155 out. [ December 16, 2002, 12:04 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desertor Posted December 16, 2002 Share Posted December 16, 2002 Hi Treeburst to the volga is not a battle, it is an operation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted December 16, 2002 Share Posted December 16, 2002 Yeah, that's a big 'un alright! I think it's playable on my XP 1900+/Ti4200, but giving orders would be tedious. I've spent a fair amount of time experimenting with big scenarios trying to find out exactly what slows them down. Here are some things I've learned: 1) Maps with heavy damage (lots of craters) are a major source of slowdowns. 2) Lots of units will slow things down. 3) Enlarging units to size 3 or 4 (Shift C) will slow things down considerably. Much to my surprise, going to low res textures for grass, buildings, and much more did not improve the speed of "jerky" scenarios with my 128MB Ti4200. Treeburst155 out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terrapin Posted December 16, 2002 Share Posted December 16, 2002 Originally posted by Treeburst155: Much to my surprise, going to low res textures for grass, buildings, and much more did not improve the speed of "jerky" scenarios with my 128MB Ti4200. CMBB is cpu-limited, so as long as you have a graphics card that can output the smoke, particle effects, etc, you can't improve it. I have the same card as you, and believe me, that card laughs at what it needs to do in CMBB. It's like a day-off for the vidcard. So turning off "fillrate" stuff like grass, etc. won't do anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terrapin Posted December 16, 2002 Share Posted December 16, 2002 I AM curious as to whether anyone has finished the Volga operation? Did the designer ever finish it himself? I find it hard to believe. Even people with a 2.4 ghz processor evidently show turns of over 15 minutes. That's 4 hours per battle just for the turns calculations alone, not including any movement on your part, set-up, etc. And there's like 6 battles or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zarquon Posted December 16, 2002 Share Posted December 16, 2002 I suppose Line-of-Sight calculations are mostly to blame for this. In a scenario with 30 units on each side the program must check a LOS 30x30x2=1800 times per second (if CM checks every second, maybe it's once every 0.5 secs, I don't know). With 100 units per side there's 100x100x2=20,000 checks to be made every second. In other words, it depends on the square number of units present. How many units are present in this operation (I've tried to play one turn and my 1200hp CPU took about 30 minutes for it)? Doubling CPU power wouldn't actually cut calculation speed by half because of other bottlenecks in the system (your monster CPU still took 20 min, you said). Hmmm. And I guess the LOS code cannot be improved much after about three years of CM development as it would be the first thing to tweak to increase program performance. Hmmm. The only thing that could make this one playable would be a pre-planned artillery strike on turn one that eliminated most of the enemy's units. Although I love big scenarios, I can't guess why this one was included. Perhaps the next engine will allow for an online connection to the BTS server farm where turns are calculated on 200 machines simultaneously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzer Leader Posted December 16, 2002 Share Posted December 16, 2002 The scenario designer of this one said that it was included because they had the tools to make it possible. They had accurate maps and accurate TO&Es for the operation, CPU power be damned! If it isn't possible to play (and it's not - maybe after 15 slo-o-ow turns of bloody combat it might be sped up) then go into the editor and take a virtual tour of the battlefield and the forces present. It's history, man! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Murray Posted December 17, 2002 Share Posted December 17, 2002 I haven't tried it. I've got a P4 2.0 GHz & I figured it would probably take weeks to play ( judging from what I've read here ) so I just chucked it out. Why bother with the frustration. I can always get it back later anyway if I want. Did the 21st Army Counter Attack operation ever get fixed? I heard that it had a bug in it that prevented you from completing it ( the computer would crash ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted December 17, 2002 Share Posted December 17, 2002 LOS calculations coupled with lots of movement orders, and maybe arty strikes, would surely slow down "crunch" time; but what about while giving orders? Why such a slow down there? In many large scenarios, the LOS/movement/etc. lines cannot keep up with the cursor very well, and more annoying is the jerky scrolling. I'm a fan of big scenarios, and crunch time doesn't bother me because I can do something else in the meantime; but jerky scrolling in the orders phase can be a real pain. Heck, in the Volga operation, there is a brief delay before the unit is even highlighted when clicked on. Why? Panzer Leader, Good point about the Volga scenario. Treeburst155 out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dschugaschwili Posted December 17, 2002 Share Posted December 17, 2002 Sounds like I should give it a try. I always wanted to bring my puny Duron700 / GeForce2GTS system to its knees. Dschugaschwili Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berlichtingen Posted December 17, 2002 Share Posted December 17, 2002 Originally posted by Panzer Leader: they had the tools to make it possible.Yep. I really didn't expect this one to make the CD. I'll let Rune explain why it did. The CMBB editor will allow you to create scenarios that can tax even the best machines. To answer another question... I'm part way through the 4th battle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Axe_ Posted December 17, 2002 Share Posted December 17, 2002 Originally posted by Berlichtingen: To answer another question... I'm part way through the 4th battle.Any chance of an AAR? Cheers, Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berlichtingen Posted December 17, 2002 Share Posted December 17, 2002 Originally posted by Axe2121: Any chance of an AAR?Good idea... wish I had thought of that when I started. At this point, my attack is so hopelessly disorganized that I haven't a clue of which units are where. My initial plan went out the window a long time ago. I would have had to write it as I went along. So, to answer your question... no Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellros Posted December 18, 2002 Share Posted December 18, 2002 Let's hijack that new Japanese supercomputer to run this Op. Wheeee! [ December 17, 2002, 05:02 PM: Message edited by: Ellros ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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