Will furture CMx2 titles use the same grphx engine?

[drtechno]

How many more battles do I have in the campaign after street sweepers?

I ask because this is ridiculous. I really love Battlefront's CM products, but I just can't keep buying this stuff if it doesn't run. I am running 1.07 since I don't want to restart the campaign and I am on "Street Sweepers". This battle is essentially a slide show, 1 FPS. This is on a AMD X2 4800+, 2 gigs memory, 8800 ultra, XP SP2. What on earth is going on with the rendering engine? The game settings are 1024x768 with the textures and 3d models set on the lowest settings. AA/AF is disabled. Nvidia control panel settings to 'high performance' (the only game I have ever run into that I needed to do this). And STILL single digit FPS on this battle.

I ran into a thread stating something about the possibility of that the engine is defaulting to software rendering mode instead of OpenGL (I wont even ask why you guys decided to use a dying API, I'm sure theres a reason - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/opengl-directx,2019.html)

Anyway, anyone have any ideas? Is it really defaulting to software mode? How can I test it? Boot up XP in VGA mode?

[Sekra]

This should be moved into tech support section BUT. Have you tried disabling shadows ingame? IIRC there was something about the shadows not working very well on 8800's.. Its been a long time since I've read any tech support posts so not sure at all what the current status is.

Also the note about using opengl has been discussed many times in the tech support forums when cmsf was first launched over a year ago. if you're really interested you can look up those old posts. I'd only like to say that OpenGL is most definitely not a dying API, they've just got the OpenGL 3.0 specs decided.

Also if you have very old gfx drivers you should definitely update to the latest (and I suggest to use the newest Nvidia drivers instead of the card manufacturer).

[Scipio]

You can test the workload of the CPU with the key-combo Ctrl+Alt+Del. To check the workload of your GPU (graphic card), you need to download an additional tool called rivatuner. Just search with google for it, the tool is freeware, IIRC.

If CM is running in Softwaremode the GPU worload is low. IF CMSF is using the 3D acceleration of the hardware, the GPU workload is high and the CPU workload should be lower (I guess).

Updating the card driver is for shure the best 'first aid'.

[Battlefront.com]

I'm sorry you're still having problems with performance. It sucks to see anybody have problems that are outside of our direct control. I really don't know what to tell you because as far as I know you are the only one that has an issue quite like this. At least at this point as various driver updates and work arounds with seetings have ovecome the issues.

As you should know well by now, the 8800 series is pretty poorly supported by nVidia in general. Look at all the game specific fixes their drivers have had to support and how inconsistent the user experience has been with this specific card. There are literally dozens of different configurations of this card and that's the underlying cause of the problems in our opinion. It appears that nVidia is in agreement with our conclusions, judging by their own statements.

Hopefully someone can point out a workaround that you haven't tried yet that will work for you. There should be something out there available to you.

Now, as for the core CMx2 graphics engine changing... not a chance. Tossing out nearly two years' worth of work because a couple of people have hardware/software configurations that do not work correctly (i.e. it isn't our code per se) is obviously nothing we're even remotely interested in doing. Plus, we can pretty much be guaranteed that someone will have a problem with whatever new graphics engine we might come up with. That's the sad reality of video hardware support since the first days of video cards. It's very unlikely that it will change.

OpenGL is not dead, although it has been pronounced dead (like the Macintosh) for many years. Although DirectX has come a long way over the years, it is still has its fair share of problems and is still proprietary to Windows. That's a problem for us since we intend to release CMx2 for the Macintosh as soon as we are able to. Plus, OpenGL is more flexible from a programmer's standpoint, as I understand it, and therefore generally speaking a better environment for us to work in.

Version 1.08 may help, so might v1.10. The good news you are either on the last or second to last battle in the Campaign, so you're almost done!

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Oh great... while looking for that article about nVidia's plans to simplify its product line, I found out that they made a ton of bad chips. I checked, and my Mac Book Pro probably has one of them This caused nVidia to have first ever quarterly loss. This, in turn, crushed their stock value. That caused a class action lawsuit to be filed by shareholders, who apparently found out that nVidia knew about the problem for 8 months without telling potential investors. That's a big no-no.

Great news for us 8600/8000 owners

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Oh great... I'm now never, ever going to do a search on "nVida, problems" in Google again. It's a bad gift that just keeps on giving. Seems ATI and nVidia colluded to control prices for a long, long time. They just settled a couple of weeks ago. Grr....

Steve

[Meach]

Joy. Just what the consumers needed, price fixing on duff products. I am amazed M$ are not involved in some way.

[Sekra]

Steve, you gotta remember that AMD/ATI has finally gotten their **** together again and have managed to bring their chips to really compete against Nvidia again. Ever since AMD bought ATI the gfx company has been falling more and more behind Nvidia and thats why the market has been a bit skewed for a while now imo. And also the fact that the "kick ass" ATI card costs half that the corresponding Nvidia model, no wonder sales drop a bit after that. I remember a few weeks ago I was helping a friend buy a really cheap new gfx card and I ended up recommending nvidia 8400 since his old card was overheating and propably would die soon... one or two days after he had bought the new card there was the announcement of the faulty 8400/8600 chips that might overheat.. made me look like a real expert in his eyes..

[drtechno]

I'm sorry you're still having problems with performance. It sucks to see anybody have problems that are outside of our direct control. I really don't know what to tell you because as far as I know you are the only one that has an issue quite like this. At least at this point as various driver updates and work arounds with seetings have ovecome the issues.

As you should know well by now, the 8800 series is pretty poorly supported by nVidia in general. Look at all the game specific fixes their drivers have had to support and how inconsistent the user experience has been with this specific card. There are literally dozens of different configurations of this card and that's the underlying cause of the problems in our opinion. It appears that nVidia is in agreement with our conclusions, judging by their own statements.

Hopefully someone can point out a workaround that you haven't tried yet that will work for you. There should be something out there available to you.

Now, as for the core CMx2 graphics engine changing... not a chance. Tossing out nearly two years' worth of work because a couple of people have hardware/software configurations that do not work correctly (i.e. it isn't our code per se) is obviously nothing we're even remotely interested in doing. Plus, we can pretty much be guaranteed that someone will have a problem with whatever new graphics engine we might come up with. That's the sad reality of video hardware support since the first days of video cards. It's very unlikely that it will change.

OpenGL is not dead, although it has been pronounced dead (like the Macintosh) for many years. Although DirectX has come a long way over the years, it is still has its fair share of problems and is still proprietary to Windows. That's a problem for us since we intend to release CMx2 for the Macintosh as soon as we are able to. Plus, OpenGL is more flexible from a programmer's standpoint, as I understand it, and therefore generally speaking a better environment for us to work in.

Version 1.08 may help, so might v1.10. The good news you are either on the last or second to last battle in the Campaign, so you're almost done!

Steve

Thx for the reply Steve. So basically, the other video cards (9000 series/ATi) are not experiencing these problems ? (ie- are running well) Yea, my drivers are up to date for the 8800. I was under the (false I guess) impression that all the Nvidia cards were running poorly on CMx2. Sounds like its just me tho No worries then. I'm sure I'll be upgrading my video card soon, most likely before any CMx2 WW2 titles are released (what Im REALLY waiting for !!) so if its as simple as getting a new graphics card, then no worries.

Campaign just finished so I'll upgrade to 1.08 and see what happens. As you said, it may just be the 8800 tho, in which case its time for a new birthday present

[CogNative]

"nVidiai... made a ton of bad chips..."

Impacts the Mac Book Pro. Will check if my MBP is in the big no-no group. Since it is a "work" machine I should not be playing games but... don't ell anyone and I won't.

"Seems ATI and nVidia colluded to control prices for a long, long time."

"...price fixing on duff products..."

Maybe we should bail out nVidia & ATI as well?

700 Billion... just add a tad more for the video card vexing.

drtechno.. Good to hear you got your Campaign finished. This is supposed to be entertainment not work.

Cog