The landscapes look kindof sparce from the screenshots...

[JohnCalvin]

Are most of the maps open terrain with few trees or buildings?

Also, how many units can be engaged in battle in this sim at one time?

[gunnersman]

Yes. The single missions I have played so far are open. There are many hills and trees but nothing too thick. There are enough to present obstacles and give the presentation of wooded areas and such. Engagements I have had so far seem to usually take place anywhere between 400 to 1200 meters (but can go farther). There is one single mission where a battle will be between 6 AFV against 8 AFV (not to give too much away). It's really fun! I have only played the single missions, of which there are 8 or so. I forget the exact number at the moment.

It is fun shooting the ATGM's too.

The more I learn, the more fun it is.

I hope they make a WW2 armor sim with this engine.

I hope this helps.

[Moon]

JohnCalvin, most of the stock maps have enough open areas to allow for interesting armor battles. But they do have forests as well as villages/cities, and fairly dense, too. And you can create heavily wooded or urban areas with the editor if you like.

One thing you have to keep in mind however is that even the most "open" maps from T72 are anything but billboard tables. The game engine is truly wonderful in providing a lot of details and realistically varied terrain. So when somebody means "open", it means that forests and buildings and all sorts of other things from telegraph poles to little bumps in the ground is there.

A few screenshots to illustrate what I mean.

Here is an "open" map. But when you look closely you'll notice a full-blown forest at the end of the valley as well as shrub on the slopes to the left and right. All of this terrain is part of the map, not some kind of static backdrop. Yes, the map is open, but it has dense brush and forest and other vegetation (just not across the entire 4qkm map).

Or take these two small villages:

While the terrain around them is fairly open no doubt with long grass and mostly brush, the detail and terrain density inside the village themselves is realistic and provides for anything but an empty map.

An example of heavy woods:

Terrain density and how many units can engage at the same time mainly depend on how good your hardware is. With the newest stuff out there (or visual settings reduced), you can easily run company sized engagements. With a medium system, you might start getting low framerates with more than 3 or 4 units close together (but luckily the ability to tweak the graphics settings is exhaustive).

Hope this helps!

Martin

[Brian Smith]

Ground is bumpy enough to find hull down spots and berms Moon?

[Mace]

There's plenty of hull down spots and berms on the Moon, Brian, you should know that!

btw I was going to email you but I've unfortunately lost your email addy.

Send me something so I can add you back to my address book and annoy you!

[Moon]

Brian, yes it is. The visual details are scaled back by the engine based on viewing distance, by the way, so what in some of the above shots looks to be flat, is in fact bumpy (and grassy) when you move a little closer.

Moreover, since the terrain is dynamically deformable, you can always shoot a few HE rounds into the ground to create craters... or use the digging blade available at some point in the campaign for the T72 to dig your own hull down position.

Martin

[JohnCalvin]

Thanks for the info guys. Mine is on the way to me as we "speak." Can't wait.

Those screen shots are great!

[Brian Smith]

Originally posted by Mace:

There's plenty of hull down spots and berms on the Moon, Brian, you should know that!

I didn't need to go hull-down when i was last there ya dropbear - i just had to hide from Aldrin!

[snakeeyes]

If I tried to run the game with the settings allowing for all of those graphics that Moon showed us my computer would start smoking and my framerate would drop to zero.

The only aspect of the game that I hate is the low framerates. I have a great video card but it really does not allow me to use all the functions and still play.

I wish that they had used a similar landscape engine as Operation Flashpoint... the landscape maps would have been smaller but more managable.

[ July 11, 2005, 03:49 PM: Message edited by: snakeeyes ]

[Battlefront.com]

I wish that they had used a similar landscape engine as Operation Flashpoint... the landscape maps would have been smaller but more managable.

And therein lies the rub... smaller, denser maps are generally not much fun with tanks. You need at least 1km for things to be interesting, but 4 or 5km for things to be really good. The FPS games out there can get away with only a couple hundred meters visible at any one time and still have a great game.

When we made CM this same problem faced us. Better details meant smaller maps. Smaller maps meant poorer gameplay. 9 years later and nothing has changed. The tradeoffs are still there, just everything overall is better. The kinds of maps T-72 has were impossible 9 years ago, for example.

BTW, processor speed is super important. You can have the best card on the market today, but unless it is plugged into a fairly current system the card's power will be held in check to some extent.

Steve

[snakeeyes]

Even with a Pentium IV?

[Madmatt]

One small visual tweak that I use to increase overall framerate is simply set the grass draw distance to 0 meters. Sure, the grass is cool looking but its a major framerate hog and I dont even miss it with it turned off.

Give it a shot and see how that works for you.

Another one is to reduce the cloud layer denstity to 8 levels or lower.

Madmatt

[Moon]

Yes. The minimum specs list I think a 1Ghz P4. The recommended specs are 2.8 Ghz P4 I think (they're listed in the game manual).

Myself, I have a 2Ghz P4 but a rather old ATI 9600 card, and the framrates remain in the low 10's with even the busiest maps in the campaign. Framerates seem to also be a little better on my Geforce for some reason (as are the water animations).

Martin

[gunnersman]

It depends on the clock speed. The P4 can have a clock speed anywhere from 1.3ghz up to 3.8ghz. And that depends on if it is the basic P4 chip or if it supports hpyerthreading technology.

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/pentium4/

which do you have?

Oh, and RAM helps too.

[Agua]

I've got a pretty much boss machine and it's still sluggish with all the bells and whistles on.

Rig: P4 3.0 800FSB with 2 Gigs of DDR-400 (2-2-2-4 Corsair), an FX5900 Ultra (250mb DDR), dual 120 Gig Baracuda SATA RAID-0, and an Asus P4800C Mobo. Hyperthreading is enabled. Latest video and audio drivers.