Barleyman Posted September 1, 2002 Share Posted September 1, 2002 Here's the problem: Demo runs like crap with Radeon 64 DDR, Radeon 7000 and Radeon 7500. CPUs from 1 to 1.4GHz. RAM from 256MB to 768MB. W2k, XP or Win98. Specific symptoms - Selecting any of YOUR units except for mortars and ATGs causes big slowdown in game framerate. Opening unit stats box causes huge slowdown. If you have unit selected when you hit "go", calculating turn file takes 20% longer. (55sec vs 45 sec on 1st turn). Selecting enemy units is no problem. Any other fix except to buy Nvidia? [ September 01, 2002, 01:40 PM: Message edited by: Barleyman ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted September 1, 2002 Share Posted September 1, 2002 Which specific drivers are you using ? I know some people have complained about the recent Catalysts in other forums. I don't know which ones are best myself since I haven't tested CMBB with the Radeons at this point. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barleyman Posted September 1, 2002 Author Share Posted September 1, 2002 Oh, I'm using latest leaked Catalyst drivers (6143) No reason to get excited, I already figured out a workaround: I figured it out. There's a bug in CMBB and/or Radeon's drivers. If you're experiencing extreme slowdowns, disable "Z-Mask" feature. Go grab a good Radeon tweaker. You'll find the setting under Direct3D stuff, right at the end. You might want to create a profile that runs every time you run CMBB demo. Turning Anti-aliasing on helps as well. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirtweasle Posted September 2, 2002 Share Posted September 2, 2002 Originally posted by Barleyman: Oh, I'm using latest leaked Catalyst drivers (6143) No reason to get excited, I already figured out a workaround: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I figured it out. There's a bug in CMBB and/or Radeon's drivers. If you're experiencing extreme slowdowns, disable "Z-Mask" feature. Go grab a good Radeon tweaker. You'll find the setting under Direct3D stuff, right at the end. You might want to create a profile that runs every time you run CMBB demo. Turning Anti-aliasing on helps as well.</font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John D Salt Posted September 2, 2002 Share Posted September 2, 2002 Originally posted by Barleyman: Oh, I'm using latest leaked Catalyst drivers (6143) No reason to get excited, I already figured out a workaround: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I figured it out. There's a bug in CMBB and/or Radeon's drivers. If you're experiencing extreme slowdowns, disable "Z-Mask" feature. Go grab a good Radeon tweaker. You'll find the setting under Direct3D stuff, right at the end. You might want to create a profile that runs every time you run CMBB demo. Turning Anti-aliasing on helps as well.</font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barleyman Posted September 2, 2002 Author Share Posted September 2, 2002 Originally posted by John D Salt: Unless there is more to disabling the Z-mask than toggling the appropriate tick-box at the end of the DirectX menu in the Rage tweaker, this does not work on my machine.Something's not working right Does your Tweaker & driver versions match? Latest tweaker (3.5) only works with Catalyst drivers. Rage3D Tweak is not the most intuitive apps out there, "ok" is not the same as "apply". Apply is what you do want. If the tick box has a red border, the setting is not present in registry. If the box is gray, it's set and "disabled". So, if you have a gray box, hit apply, close the display properties box and start cmbb.. And it's still broken, you have got something different. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted September 2, 2002 Share Posted September 2, 2002 When you hit 'Go' the video card isn't responsible for any slow down, its the memory and CPU since the turn calculation & AI plotting are done with those components. Barleyman's instructions on the Z-Mask should cover that issue. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trouserchili Posted September 2, 2002 Share Posted September 2, 2002 wow..thanks for the tips guys that little proggie got me up and running now running at 1024x768 with all details on...smooth as silk i actually CAN play this thing now 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barleyman Posted September 2, 2002 Author Share Posted September 2, 2002 Originally posted by Schrullenhaft: When you hit 'Go' the video card isn't responsible for any slow down, its the memory and CPU since the turn calculation & AI plotting are done with those components. Famous programmer's excuse: "But I never touched that module..!" I did some stopwatch testing and yelnia shows quite a bit of difference. 1st turn after setup without changing german positions, from pressing "GO" to the start of playback: Z-Mask on with unit selected: 55 seconds Z-Mask on with no unit selected: 45 seconds Z-Mask disabled: 25 seconds (1GHz Athlon blah blah) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted September 2, 2002 Share Posted September 2, 2002 Perhaps the video driver is 'stealing' a bit of extra face time with the CPU or it's eating up some extra memory. Of course you have to recalculate that exact turn with the exact same orders or the data is useless since there are a number of variables that affect the turn calculation. [ September 02, 2002, 03:34 AM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barleyman Posted September 2, 2002 Author Share Posted September 2, 2002 Originally posted by Schrullenhaft: Of course you have to recalculate that exact turn with the exact same orders or the data is useless since there are a number of variables that affect the turn calculation.Sure, I didn't touch the setup and CPU had scenario defaults. I didn't issue any orders before hitting "GO".. I repeated it twice with each variation, yielding results within 1 second.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John D Salt Posted September 2, 2002 Share Posted September 2, 2002 Originally posted by Barleyman: Something's not working right Does your Tweaker & driver versions match? Latest tweaker (3.5) only works with Catalyst drivers. Ok, that's fixed it. Downloading the latest driver from the (amazingly broken-looking in Opera) ATI support page at http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html and installing it makes the demo work as fast as CM:BO did. If only using an ordinary desktop PC to play games could be made as straightforward as Unix system administration was... All the best, John. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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