Piecekeeper Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 From a geeks point of view: 60 FPS is always x10 times better than 30FPS! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 CMx1's performance must be kept in context with the hardware of the day. We developed CMx1 to run on a 16MB card (actually, we started with a 4MB target!). By the time the game came out most players had at least 32MB cards and CPUs that were running 2-4 times faster than the CPUs available during game development. Each year after that the CPU speed doubled again and cards went up by around the same rate. People playing CMx1 now with a computer made in the last few years are using something that is probably 20 times faster than what we slated as the "high end" back in 1999. Compare this to CM:SF. When the game came out people pretty much had the same rigs in use that we slated for the mid range. 3 years later how many of you are still using the same computers? Probably many, if not most. And if you bought a new computer today, and replaced one that was about 4-5 years old, is it 6-10 times faster? No. So what we have here is an apples and oranges comparison. CMBO was released for an average hardware base that pretty much everybody exceeded. With each passing year the demands from CMx1 did not increase, but the hardware running it increased its power by HUGE amounts. In contrast, CM:SF was released for hardware that was already pretty well taxed, people have not really upgraded significantly since then, and if they did their rigs aren't all that much faster (by comparison to early 2000s) than the systems they replaced. This is not to say that CMx2 is the peak of efficiency. It isn't. CM:BN improves over CM:SF, which itself improved on itself over the years. However, we're asking a TON more from your computer than any other game out there. We can make it better, for sure, but you're never going to be running a huge scenario consistently at 60fps with all the bells and whistles turned on no matter what rig you currently own. It's just not technically possible. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 But best I can recall, the laptop that I played CMBB and CMAK had some flavor of GeForce Go card, with 64mb memory, and I was able to play pretty darn large scenarios at an acceptable frame rate. Maybe not always highest detail and over 30fps, but I'm sure I never had the framerate drop to anything like 3fps, even in the largest scenarios. And I generally played with a lot of hi-res mods installed. So it must have been some sort of bottleneck particular to your setup. I can't even remember enough about the details of my own rig at the time to speculate any further. I believe you. That was the thing that made it so frustrating. Whatever it was, it seemed to pick me out for special treatment. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Remember that a PC is the sum of its parts. Many PCs appeared to have balls, but their subsystems were utter crap. Since a PC is only as good as its weakest link, many PCs that appeared to be good actually had significant bottlenecks. Because these subsystems aren't on spec sheets one could make a computer look just as fast as another, but in real world performance tests it would lag far behind a computer with apparently slower main components. This was one of the big scams of low cost computers, especially in the 1990s. Acer and Packard Bell were the worst offenders on the mass market when it came to this. I haven't used a car analogy in a long time, but I think it's time to dust one off One could be shown two looking identical cars, with roughly the same bodies, identical engines, and interior features. One might be 20% less than the other. So you look at it and say "hey, they're pretty much the same so I'll take the one that is 20% less". Only afterwards do you find out that the transmission consists of a leaver attached to a bit of plastic, tires that won't grip in anything other than a light rain, windshield wipers that are too weak to move snow off your windshield (i.e. you can't drive in snow), bearings that were made too loose so that driving at high speeds feels unsafe, etc. In life, generally you get what you pay for even if you don't understand where and how. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 The real reason for the car-in-snow analogy. Steve's in Maine and its been a loooooong winter. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Belenko Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 ....Acer and Packard Bell were the worst offenders on the mass market when it came to this.... Steve If I may correct a typo: That would be Packard H ell not Bell One of the happiest days of my life was tossing that junk in the garbage can (pre-recycling days) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 "a PC is the sum of its parts. Many PCs appeared to have balls, but their subsystems were utter crap. Since a PC is only as good as its weakest link, many PCs that appeared to be good actually had significant bottlenecks." Good point. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeatEtr Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 Speaking of hidden reasons why PC makers can get the price down for the mainstream customers, cheap power supply. Don't ever overlook the PSU, when it dies it can take the heart of the system with it, namely the CPU or motherboard. A cheap one can die as little as 2-3 yrs and end up making the customer have to go buy a new PC. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyrano Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 I took a risk and abandoned years of Dells for an IBuyPower rig. I regret nothing. What Steve said is absolutely true as my benchmarks now attest. May I PLEASE have CM:BN now? Thanks, Jim "Cyrano" :/7) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 Incidentally, this was one of Apple's biggest problems for many years. "Why should I pay $2000 for a Mac when I can buy this PC for $1000? Plus, the PC has electrolytes, which is what plants crave" Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 what plants crave Bizarre!...but so true. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gromit Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Speaking of hidden reasons why PC makers can get the price down for the mainstream customers, cheap power supply. Don't ever overlook the PSU, when it dies it can take the heart of the system with it, namely the CPU or motherboard. A cheap one can die as little as 2-3 yrs and end up making the customer have to go buy a new PC. It's not even so much the dying part really. Subpar power supplies are notorious for causing all sorts of weird behavior and of course blue screens of death. It can make someone with little experience chase their tail looking for the "problem", when it's the power supply all along. Not to mention shortening the life of the rest of the components. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeatEtr Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Incidentally, this was one of Apple's biggest problems for many years. "Why should I pay $2000 for a Mac when I can buy this PC for $1000? Plus, the PC has electrolytes, which is what plants crave" Steve "You mean like outta the toilet?" Haha, that movie is pure genius! I just posted a clip of the time masheen part somewhere around here. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StormyThoughts Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Hi all I am a big fan of CM series since the very beginning. Back then in my country there was no free market, so I had to buy this game from a doggy looking Russian guy at the bazaar (I have the retail copies now ). I would like to gear up for this game and a few pointers would most appreciated. Now I have a laptop with 2 core 2,5mhz processor and Radeon 3870 CS. I have played the 'going to town' demo mission (1920x1200, best, no shadows) and got 16-20fps playing game with elevation 4-5. Recently I went to fix my little cousin's rig. I have done a fresh install of Win7 x64, and installed the demo, same scenario. I was shocked to see that with AMD 925 x4 and Radeon 5970 there was no performance difference at all, and game still lagged. So, could You please advise what should I get to run this game @30fps most of the times. Cheers Luke 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNAFU Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Remember that a PC is the sum of its parts. Many PCs appeared to have balls, but their subsystems were utter crap. Since a PC is only as good as its weakest link, many PCs that appeared to be good actually had significant bottlenecks. Because these subsystems aren't on spec sheets one could make a computer look just as fast as another, but in real world performance tests it would lag far behind a computer with apparently slower main components. This was one of the big scams of low cost computers, especially in the 1990s. Steve Spot on. That's the main reason when people bring a stock, store-shelf system to me and ask to put in a honking video card, I try to talk them out of it. For one thing, they'd typically need a new power supply and--more important--the motherboards chipset usually isn't capable of allowing the system to be a good gaming rig. The moral is, If you want a good gaming rig, buy a real one or build it yourself! :-) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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