The Carillon Nose (137th Infantry) - Campaign In Progress

[LongLeftFlank]

Thanks! Actually, I may outsource most of the scenario design to those who are willing after providing the map and historical situation.... you see, I haven't played the game itself very much so far. And Ramadi is calling....

[Sublime]

Unfortunately I have no experience making scenarios. I'll be willing to playtest tho! =)

[LongLeftFlank]

Well, further development of this project has now ground to a halt, at least in its current incarnation. I can no longer view my 2.6 x 2.8km map in 3d without crashing CMBN (it doesn't even give me OOM, just terminates).

Looks like gullies and steep-sided streambeds are the culprit; I am trying to render 2-3 meter deep irrigation ditches with ~30 degree sides, and the number of elevations I have to lock is ridiculous... nearly every square. I really wish BFC had kept the non-FOW "trench" terrain type in CMBN, as that was a useful way of rendering ditches and small depressions without so much clicking. The streambeds, railbeds and sunken lanes were critical features of the battlefield, allowing troops to advance and infiltrate unobserved.

I'm a little frustrated by all this, as I've put a LOT of time into research. Not sure what I'm going to do yet... I guess I'm going to have to leave my master map relatively devoid of details of any kind and start figuring out the submaps. Or shelve this frustrating project altogether and return to pooltable-flat Ramadi.

[sburke]

I'm a little frustrated by all this, as I've put a LOT of time into research. Not sure what I'm going to do yet... I guess I'm going to have to leave my master map relatively devoid of details of any kind and start figuring out the submaps. Or shelve this frustrating project altogether and return to pooltable-flat Ramadi.

Out of pure selfishness I vote for continuing with the submaps. Am really looking forward to this and know some of the frustration in doing a Huertgen map. I haven't started on the real details as I expect I will run into the same. As it stands I am just seeing how much of the terrain, roads and buildings I can get in before I can no longer view it. Broadsword and I ran into a problem playing as well. Had to decrease the size of the battle map and will try again.

[Boche]

Maybe wait till the next patch, see if they make any improvements to the engine and you can see the map agian.

[RockinHarry]

I´d suggest replacing any grass terrain with dirt or sand, to see if maps load in 3D again. Not for the final map, but to see if it´s also sort of texture load problem.

[LongLeftFlank]

Interesting! Have you tested removing grass? If it makes such a difference BFC should consider a toggle...

Of course that may only provide a temporary reprieve, sijce I'll invariably go a "gully too far" again

[Broadsword56]

+1 for making the master map just tiles and overall elevations, leaving the objects and detailed locked elevations for the submaps. This seems to be working well for us in the XIX Corps central AO. The latest hypothesis we're testing is that the "sweet spot" of submaps is something under 25,000 action squares -- where you can have a map big enough for battalion action, and realistic terrain and massive detail. The current La Nicollerie submap that sburke1959 and I are playing on has two sunken roads on it, each of which has a solid line of locked elevation tiles along a substantial section. Please don't give up, LLF! Get the simpler master map finished, and then you can be enjoying your submap battles that much sooner.

[RockinHarry]

Interesting! Have you tested removing grass? If it makes such a difference BFC should consider a toggle...

Of course that may only provide a temporary reprieve, sijce I'll invariably go a "gully too far" again

I tested removing/replacing grass with dirt/sand on various maps I could not load in 3D view of the editor. i.e I could not load GeorgeMc Huge rolling hills...map, prior to replacing half the maps ground tiles with sand. It destroyed the map, but it indicated that amount of grass is one reason that certain maps do not load on my system.

[LongLeftFlank]

Thanks for the info. BFC should definitely consider a "toggle grass" feature then.

It does seem though like it would be a hassle to go through and "repaint" various grasses, weeds etc. on all the submaps, especially since you're at risk for accidentally deleting other terrain types.

[Broadsword56]

I'd take the idea that tile types alone are causing the problem with a big grain of salt. A tile is a tile. Things like map size, number of object and object density, elevation changes and amount/density of hard-locked elevation points, and number of units would all seem to have far more significant effects on whether a map would load, IMHO. My PC is 4 years old, had a modest 4MB of RAM, and just a fairly ordinary video card for gaming (Nvidia 9800 something with 1GB VRAM). I had zero problems making the 4 x 4 km master map with all the roads and all tile types placed, including tons of tall grass, crops, etc. So maybe it's just a question of some machines handling the game differently than others. Maybe someday BFC will help us out with this issue.

[RockinHarry]

I'd take the idea that tile types alone are causing the problem with a big grain of salt. A tile is a tile. Things like map size, number of object and object density, elevation changes and amount/density of hard-locked elevation points, and number of units would all seem to have far more significant effects on whether a map would load, IMHO. My PC is 4 years old, had a modest 4MB of RAM, and just a fairly ordinary video card for gaming (Nvidia 9800 something with 1GB VRAM). I had zero problems making the 4 x 4 km master map with all the roads and all tile types placed, including tons of tall grass, crops, etc. So maybe it's just a question of some machines handling the game differently than others. Maybe someday BFC will help us out with this issue.

Interesting! I bought my computer 9 month ago (see sig below), but I just have 2 gigs of Ram and a 512 MB GA. What´s your OS?

Hopefully BFC provides some solution anytime soon, or at least gives a definite answer on hardware/OS/driver requirements that one can depend on.

Edit: No off course it´s not tile types alone. On another test map I could load a plain, even 4x4km grass map, but once I added 1 square km of forest to it....OOM.

[Broadsword56]

I run plain old Windows Vista Home Premium 32.

[sburke]

I went out and built one for the game..hey I was due anyway and the laptop motherboard fried right as I bought the game.

Running windows 7 64 bit

AMD Phenom II x4 965

ATI HD 5700 series 1gb mem

6gb Ram

And I just hit the wall in my Huertgen map as I added the trees...lots of trees. Friggin forest full of trees.

I edited the map to just have the forests outlined and can reopen the map now in 3d view. My map elevations vary from 200-460, pretty rugged terrain. I am gonna start back on adding buildings and see how far I can go continuing to work on the full 3.2x4 km map.

Interesting thing is the file size is no reflection of the map being rendered in 3d. I have larger versions of this same map that I can still open, but they don't have any trees.

My first graphics memory notification suggested turning off anti aliasing (already off) lowering my resolution (already at lowest) and setting 3d texture quality to fastest. I did that but it keeps returning to fast. However I was able to get to 93 percent on the 3d rendering before it crapped out (before that I could only get to about 60).

The actual battle maps would be a smaller piece of this, maybe about half. Still a pretty large map, but in doing so I would probably be eliminating a good portion of the Kall gorge. Kind of takes away the dramatic effect. Even then I think a battalion plus battle isn't going to perform well.

Still it is fun just to look at the map and see an actual 3d rendering pretty close to scale. Man I'd have hated to be a GI in the Huertgen. Normandy was probably a fond memory.

[c3k]

I'm wondering if this is a video memory issue rather than a RAM issue?

sburke has a 1GB card; would the map crash occur differently for a 2GB video card? I've got an old 8800GTX with 786MB of Ram (Or a number close to that.) I'm also running an H6870 w/1GB in another machine. Those are close enough that any rendering differences aren't noticeable to me.

Does anyone have a 2GB card AND a 1GB card? And is willing to test to see when they each crash?

(Note: my understanding of crossfire/SLI is that the video memory is not additive. Using 2 1GB cards in xfire/SLI does NOT equate to using a single 2GB card. The xfire/SLI usage duplicates the information written to each set of VRAM.)

[Erwin]

If you also run XP rather than Vista or Win 7 that would help. With the newer OS's one really needs 4+ GB Ram.

[LongLeftFlank]

One of the few detailed sections of my master map; the southernmost section of La Meauffe looking southeast across the rail line. In the background, the Le Carillon height is visible (although it won't be on any game submap.... grrr!)

[Battlefront.com]

Well, further development of this project has now ground to a halt, at least in its current incarnation. I can no longer view my 2.6 x 2.8km map in 3d without crashing CMBN (it doesn't even give me OOM, just terminates).

Hmmm... well, you certainly are pushing the game to it's limits. We like that, though Maybe you can make your map available to us (through a tester is best) and we figure out which limitation is nuking you. I do think it's likely VRAM.

Looks like gullies and steep-sided streambeds are the culprit; I am trying to render 2-3 meter deep irrigation ditches with ~30 degree sides, and the number of elevations I have to lock is ridiculous... nearly every square. I really wish BFC had kept the non-FOW "trench" terrain type in CMBN, as that was a useful way of rendering ditches and small depressions without so much clicking. The streambeds, railbeds and sunken lanes were critical features of the battlefield, allowing troops to advance and infiltrate unobserved.

Yes, but the irony here is that you would likely not have been able to load the map even earlier in the process. Or it would run at a couple FPS. The CM:SF type ditches were extremely taxing on the system, which is why we decided to pull them instead of keep them in. Talk to GeorgeMc about one of his maps he did for Marines where he had to remove a TON of them because the framerate hit was horrid.

I'm a little frustrated by all this, as I've put a LOT of time into research. Not sure what I'm going to do yet... I guess I'm going to have to leave my master map relatively devoid of details of any kind and start figuring out the submaps. Or shelve this frustrating project altogether and return to pooltable-flat Ramadi.

I think we can help figure out where you might avoid the load problem you experienced.

Toggling grass off is easy, though not desirable for most. Just dial down the Quality settings and grass (and other such things) don't draw except way up close. However, I can pretty much say for sure grass isn't causing the map to fail to load.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

Thanks for the observations, Steve. I got rid of the ditches (for now) and sure enough, the map now displays. I am just going to avoid the temptation to code any kind of terrain details on the master; all it will contain is the contours, watercourses, road net, placeholder buildings and the outlines of the hedgerows and forests.

Ideally, the carve-out battlemaps will have some additional space on them to support the omnipresent German artillery observers (and occasional SP gun)

Interestingly, I tried using the water tiles (which are locked to a single elevation) to create gullies and they don't seem to hit the memory nearly as badly -- they're just way too deep for my purposes (I want 2 meters deep, not 5-8).

As a general thought for future engine development; the tactical impacts of small depressions, defiles, gullies, drainage ditches, etc. are significant, even decisive -- Mother Earth after all provides far better cover than any above ground terrain feature. So it would be very useful indeed to find a way to let players "lay on" these features without distorting the basic terrain (contour) mesh and creating a concomitant LOS computation nightmare. I can definitely imagine and sympathize with the coding challenges however (same problem with adding any "subterranean" feature like cellars or "true" entrenchments)

I am happy to send the current map to anyone who PMs me with an email address.

[Broadsword56]

I am just going to avoid the temptation to code any kind of terrain details on the master; all it will contain is the contours, watercourses, road net, placeholder buildings and the outlines of the hedgerows and forests.

This definitely sounds like the best way to go, LLF. You'll find making mini-maps is a fun and remarkably fast process when you have your master already done to guide you. Here's another benefit: You'll only need to make mini-maps for areas where you actually end up fighting in your campaign. Saves a lot of time.

I certainly plan to use your map, so I can simulate the rest of the 35th ID's July offensive alongside the area I'm fighting through now in the La Nicollerie-Villiers-Fossard area. And

[once sburke1959 and I finish our current playtest of the La Nicollerie map and scenario, I'll post it on the repository for all the rest of you to enjoy.]

[handihoc]

LLF, I just pm'd you with email address.

[RockinHarry]

Toggling grass off is easy, though not desirable for most. Just dial down the Quality settings and grass (and other such things) don't draw except way up close. However, I can pretty much say for sure grass isn't causing the map to fail to load.

Steve

I do not quite get the grasp here. Does the quality setting with regard to LOD take "live" effect AFTER the map has been finally loaded in 3D? For me it appears that the game drops me with OOM during "preparation" of the map in memory (read data phase). Even setting Q to lowest everywhere did not help finish loading prcedure beyond "read data".

But replacing a whole lot of grass types with plain dirt and sand did help loading a map, although in this state it was unusable (except for desert war scenarios maybe).

Not that I really "need" push to the limit 4x4km, high density terrain maps, I can well get along with 2x2km maps, as long as no "normal" range (upto 1500m maybe) armored combat is to be expected.

[Wodin]

Next graphic card I'm going to get will have 2gig memory...1gig is starting to come to the end of it's lifespan...

[Childress]

Next graphic card I'm going to get will have 2gig memory...1gig is starting to come to the end of it's lifespan...

Dunno about that. I have have 6gb memory on my new machine and it still chokes on some of the more, uh, ambitious scenarios.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Dunno about that. I have have 6gb memory on my new machine and it still chokes on some of the more, uh, ambitious scenarios.

RAM or VRAM? He's talking about VRAM, I respectfully doubt very much that your video card has 6 GB VRAM . . .

For reference, my machine has I think 4 GB RAM and 1 GB VRAM. I haven't heard of a video card with higher than 2 GB VRAM.