Anyone having issues with large scale battles?

[GhostRider3/3]

Say I'm just checking but I think that Regimental size battles on a large map is pretty much out of the questions... My computer is great, graphics card, memory etc, but whenever I create a master piece... LOL BF just cant handle it...

I know they fixed the memory leak, which was awesome, but I just dont think you can have the large scale battles like in CMAK, and CMBB.

My only resolution I can see, would be to still create, said masterpiece, but make it so that the equipment and troops are extremely seperated via the reinforcement option, its a work around I think, but for now I guess I cant have two Battalions attacking an enemy battalion at the same time...not to mention all the support pieces as well.

Anyways anyone else? I am suprised that the game does not support Regimental game play. Still not complaining.. its a great game, and am looking forward to the future installments...

Semper Fi.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Are you getting out of memory crashes or does your computer just chug? They are working on improving memory management. I'm hopeful that we can at least do battalion + sized battles on 2x2 km maps.

[GhostRider3/3]

Are you getting out of memory crashes or does your computer just chug? They are working on improving memory management. I'm hopeful that we can at least do battalion + sized battles on 2x2 km maps.

The game just sort of timed out... CM Normandy stopped working. The 1st minute worked, then just timed out. I checked the memory, it was ok. the map is about 1600m by 1680m and there is aproximately a German btn + strength, and US forces are equal if not a little more, although I have 2 companies of Para joining in at about 10minutes as reinforcements.

I am going to change and make most of the US forces as reinforcements.... although that sort of defeats the purpose of a two prong attack at the same time.

I have no idea why it locks up in big battles, this never happend playing Shock Force, or the old BF games such as CMAK, and CMBB. The graphics for example are not as detailed as say... Empire (total War, or Shogun) My computer handles such games very well. I think its just the data crunching or something with CM Normandy.

[roadiemullet]

Can I ask, what setting do you have your graphics at? I have a fairly decent machine (about 2 years old) and anything approaching battalion size is hammering the frame rate right down. Its sort of weird how the graphics work with the draw distance thing, like up close the graphics are really good but when that draw distance falls back it looks worse than cm1 IMO lol.

For the most part it doesn't matter as I play wego so anything interesting happening gets close attention and the ugly low res stuff in the distance is out of frame. For you RT players though, how do you cope with big battles without the battlefield morphing into Mega Drive style 3d (hoho ok maybe a bit harsh)?

[GhostRider3/3]

Can I ask, what setting do you have your graphics at? I have a fairly decent machine (about 2 years old) and anything approaching battalion size is hammering the frame rate right down. Its sort of weird how the graphics work with the draw distance thing, like up close the graphics are really good but when that draw distance falls back it looks worse than cm1 IMO lol.

For the most part it doesn't matter as I play wego so anything interesting happening gets close attention and the ugly low res stuff in the distance is out of frame. For you RT players though, how do you cope with big battles without the battlefield morphing into Mega Drive style 3d (hoho ok maybe a bit harsh)?

My graphics are set at pretty much High...Max really. But I dont think the graphics are the issue. I think it is the game number crunching so many units and what they are going to do at the same time. So if you have like a total of 12-15 company sized units on the field, I think it is for some reason overloading the game BRAIN if you will.

I play other games that are way harder on graphics then anything battle front has to offer and there are no issues at all. When there was a 'Memory leak" it only happend on large maps or huge battles, usually created by oneself. All the campaigns and battles that Normandy came with ran fine, even long campaigns, but the battle size and maps were not battalion strength. This makes me wonder at all, if BF tested Battalion vs Battalion on a map scale of greater then 1500 X 1500 plus, and then tested it with alot of buildings, Trees and possible rain.

I would strongly suggest that before they come out with a beautiful addition to this game, they fully test Battalion size battles. Thats one battalion vs another.....

[Michael Emrys]

My graphics are set at pretty much High...Max really. But I dont think the graphics are the issue. I think it is the game number crunching so many units and what they are going to do at the same time. So if you have like a total of 12-15 company sized units on the field, I think it is for some reason overloading the game BRAIN if you will.

That's pretty much the answer. With 1:1 representation, especially with every round being tracked, there is a lot of work for the processor to do.

I play other games that are way harder on graphics then anything battle front has to offer and there are no issues at all. When there was a 'Memory leak" it only happend on large maps or huge battles, usually created by oneself. All the campaigns and battles that Normandy came with ran fine, even long campaigns, but the battle size and maps were not battalion strength. This makes me wonder at all, if BF tested Battalion vs Battalion on a map scale of greater then 1500 X 1500 plus, and then tested it with alot of buildings, Trees and possible rain.

I would strongly suggest that before they come out with a beautiful addition to this game, they fully test Battalion size battles. Thats one battalion vs another.....

Steve has explicitly stated that CM2 was not designed to easily handle games where much more than a company on each side was being represented. I don't expect that to change very soon.

Michael

[sburke]

That's pretty much the answer. With 1:1 representation, especially with every round being tracked, there is a lot of work for the processor to do.

Steve has explicitly stated that CM2 was not designed to easily handle games where much more than a company on each side was being represented. I don't expect that to change very soon.

Michael

Am playing Die Ammis Kommen in a pbem game right now. I don't know what force the Germans have, but the Americans have a reinforced battalion and it seems to be running fine. Not sure of the exact map dimensions but it is pretty good size. (Really nice map btw).

I think this is one of those where the answer is gonna be - "depends". I don't know what my opponent has for a rig, but we both seem to be able to handle it. I would be checking prior to trying to start anything of this size to make sure both have a computer with the oomph factor.

[Childress]

Just traded in my old desktop for a much zippier laptop. Equivalent graphics cards but the laptop has 3X more memory and more processing speed. I couldn't load 'Fire Brigade' on the former machine and and that as well as 'Huzzar' on the latter.

I have installed a bunch of graphics mods. Maybe a factor?

[GhostRider3/3]

Am playing Die Ammis Kommen in a pbem game right now. I don't know what force the Germans have, but the Americans have a reinforced battalion and it seems to be running fine. Not sure of the exact map dimensions but it is pretty good size. (Really nice map btw).

I think this is one of those where the answer is gonna be - "depends". I don't know what my opponent has for a rig, but we both seem to be able to handle it. I would be checking prior to trying to start anything of this size to make sure both have a computer with the oomph factor.

I think your right... 'Depends" I just got done playing a battle of my own. Size of each for was over a battalion... Lots of Trees, open ground. total tanks was somewhere arouond 80. Battalion size min on each side, however I did have to change up when they all came in. Map size was 1680x1650. However that being said... was shock force a CM2? because I had no difficulty with large scale battles, on my older machine... the one I have now is only a year old, and I have updated the graphics to pretty much play anything out on the PC right now.

New Battle is a German defense, and again I have over Battalion size on each side. however Iam changing the US to come in at different times to see if this helps the break down of TMI..... LOL Too much Information! to process.

THE GAME IS TOO Beautiful to only run with 1 company at a time... LOL Were talking Normandy here...

thanks again BF, for an excellent game. Maybe in the next rendition we can check things on a larger scale... however if built right, I am not having Huge issues at Battalion size, its just how the battle is designed I think.

Cheers.

[Erwin]

IIRC laptop graphics cards (those with "M" after the number) are slower than the equivalent desktop graphics card.

Fire Brigade may have other issues. I could load the initial scenario just fine. But, after doing set-up and saving, I could never load it again.

Per the quote above that CM2 is designed for company-sized battles, that's why CM1 isn't going to disappear any time soon.

[George MC]

IIRC laptop graphics cards (those with "M" after the number) are slower than the equivalent desktop graphics card.

Fire Brigade may have other issues. I could load the initial scenario just fine. But, after doing set-up and saving, I could never load it again.

Per the quote above that CM2 is designed for company-sized battles, that's why CM1 isn't going to disappear any time soon.

Worth mentioning I don't think the issue is the scenario. Fire Brigade fires up and is playable just fine on my rig and it's not state of the art. I know BFC are looking into the issues around this as one theory is could be hardware related. But don't quote me

[RockinHarry]

I can´t watch n load large maps (4x4km) in the editor, even without having any units onmap. An interesting find was that once I removed half of the maps "grass" and replaced it with "sand" tiles, I could load it in 3D finally. So obviously it´s the many grass textures or objects, causing some my problems.

[winkelried]

I have no idea why it locks up in big battles, this never happend playing Shock Force, or the old BF games such as CMAK, and CMBB.

In CMSF you rarely had maps in an European environment. Usually lots of open space. Not so many graphical objects.

I can´t watch n load large maps (4x4km) in the editor, even without having any units onmap. An interesting find was that once I removed half of the maps "grass" and replaced it with "sand" tiles, I could load it in 3D finally. So obviously it´s the many grass textures or objects, causing some my problems.

I think that this is one of the issues. I design large maps and scenarios - and it's always about fiddling with map size and force size. The largest scenario I was able to run up to now was a 2.8x2.8 rather complex map with 1 Inf Bn, 1 reinforced Panzeraufklärungs Bn (lots of vehicles) against a mixed and reinforced US Cavalry/Infantry Task force (4 Coys).

In my 415th Infantry campaign the first battle runs on a 3.2x2.2 km map with 3 infantry + 2 heavy coys on US and a reinforced Inf Bn on German side. Anything bigger produced out of memory errors.

BTW I use wego on a laptop. No issues with frame rate.

[GhostRider3/3]

I can´t watch n load large maps (4x4km) in the editor, even without having any units onmap. An interesting find was that once I removed half of the maps "grass" and replaced it with "sand" tiles, I could load it in 3D finally. So obviously it´s the many grass textures or objects, causing some my problems.

Interesting...

well I know I dont have a hardware issue, so my guess is.... is that its the programming and how it crunches the numbers in CM2. However again, I had some huge battles with Shock Force... is that not CM2?

Anyways I did a work around I think....with large battles. (Need to make them Reinforcements with good entrance spacing)

Map size is 1680x1650-----Map has 1 town, and 2 villages, Trees, and many hedgerows. Lots of tall grass in some areas.

Germans have equivelant of 1 full battalion of troops and 1 company of tanks.

Germans also have a company of ATG

US forces have the following. 1 Battalion of tanks... albeit coming in at various times so it does not puke out.

US Forces have 1 Battalion aprox of Troops again coming in at various times. + a Company of Gliderborne infantry.

Whew!! So far soo good turn 8 and no issues... we will see what happnes in 35 minutes when most of the units will be on board.

[MikeyD]

Hedgerows tend to be a killer for me. A combination of increased graphis card load and LOS calculations. Just recently I found to a scenario I couldn't recall playing before. I clicked on it, waited a VERY long time for the map to open. Then when I saw how many forces were on the map I quit out without even starting. Bigger is not necessarily better. You can drive CM like its a sportscar or you can drive it like its a dumptruck. Sportscar is more fun.

[YankeeDog]

Worth mentioning that CMx1 wasn't originally designed to play battles above battalion-size either. Players ended up pushing CMx2 battles to sizes far larger than when BFC's original conception of what the game was designed to depict, and it's a testament to the quality of the CMx1 game that it can actually be used to play regimental-sized battles, even if this is actually almost a factor of magnitude larger (in terms of # of units) than what it was originally designed for.

And when the really large, reinforced battalion or larger CMx1 scenarios first came out, it took a top of the line computer (of the time) to play them. I can remember which a benchmark of how good your CMx1 gaming rig was whether your not you had enough horsepower to play Rune's To the Volga CMBB scenario, without having to wait ten minutes for each turn to calculated and the framerate dropping so low that things turned into a slideshow (if your computer didn't simply give up and crash to desktop, which is what To the Volga did for me the first time I tried it; I had to upgrade to make it playable).

At any rate, I'm sure people will continue to push the limits of the CMx2 engine in the same way. Today's state of the art, maximum horsepower gaming rig will be next year's mid-grade or budget gaming rig, and throwing full regiments at each other on 4kmx4km maps will be possible for a progressively larger percentage of CMBN players as state-of-the art for computers advances, and players upgrade their hardware.

[Erwin]

MikeyD: Am curious why there is no control to reduce/eliminate undergrowth like there was for CM1. Not just for tech issues, but often it's hard to see one's units in the dense shrubbery etc.

[winkelried]

At any rate, I'm sure people will continue to push the limits of the CMx2 engine in the same way. Today's state of the art, maximum horsepower gaming rig will be next year's mid-grade or budget gaming rig, and throwing full regiments at each other on 4kmx4km maps will be possible for a progressively larger percentage of CMBN players as state-of-the art for computers advances, and players upgrade their hardware.

I fully agree - and as soon as we have a 64-bit version for Windows a few problems might go away.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

MikeyD: .... it's hard to see one's units in the dense shrubbery etc.

The Knights of Ni demand more shrubberies!

Regards

KR

[shocker28]

The thing I don't understand about all Battlefront games is that they are all 32 bit single threaded programs. When 64 bit os and dual cpus have been available to the masses since at least 2005.

Why are they still not writing their games to take advantage of well... Not even the latest technologies. Seeing how these games are completely processor heavy not graphically why do they not get with the times and write multi threaded games or even able to take advantage of physics cards. Although i know the later is mainly used for drafting programs etc. It still would make sense for a game like this that runs so many calculations.

I'm guessing we will have to wait til cmx3 for this to possibly happen and until then this game will continue to be handicapped by its out dated code. To run new games my next PC will have a multi core processor and I will not buy a slower dualcore or hahaha a single core processor. Just to play this game. Its a bit ridiculous to think anyone would sacrifice having the latest and greatest in technologies just to step back and be able to play this but not have the balls to run every other new game and program coming out thats mulithreaded and 64 bit.

Love the game but cmon guys get with the times 57 Chevy's are cool but they're not daily drivers if you get what I mean.

[c3k]

My 64bit OS, multi-core computers run multi-threaded 64 bit applications very well. They even run single thread 32 bit applications very well.

My 32 bit OS single-core computer would have some, um, "difficulty" with a 64 bit application coded for multiple cores.

That is the short answer...

[shocker28]

I don't understand what your point is... This is technology we are talking about and for the long run it would behoove Battlefront to code their games for the future not for obsolete technology. Next your gonna tell me your tandy 480 runs math blaster great but 64 bit programs is a no go.... No s&$% do tell

[Erwin]

Of course there is the question of what is the point of programming for computers that will be standard issue in 4 or 5 years when the current game technology itself will be obsolete by then.

Ideally, a commercial co wants to program for systems that the vast majority of their customers have right now or will have within 12 months.

[Pak40]

My 64bit OS, multi-core computers run multi-threaded 64 bit applications very well. They even run single thread 32 bit applications very well.

My 32 bit OS single-core computer would have some, um, "difficulty" with a 64 bit application coded for multiple cores.

That is the short answer...

The better answer is for people with outdated machines to quit holding us back!

But seriously, there are a lot of PC games that have come out in the last year or two that are not optimized for multi core processors and probably even more that are not optimized for 64 bit. ARMA II was one of them.

[Battlefront.com]

I don't understand what your point is... This is technology we are talking about and for the long run it would behoove Battlefront to code their games for the future not for obsolete technology.

It wasn't obsolete when we coded the game engine. In fact, 64 bit was still a pipe dream for most users at the time and very few had multicore computers at home. Now, if coding for 64 bit or multi cores wasn't massively time consuming to do and support, especially when Microsoft was having a lot of problems with it, then we would obviously have done two versions so we could support the majority of gamers at the time and have something waiting for them when they upgraded. But it doesn't work that way.

In short... do we wish we had code that worked fully optimized on multi core systems with 64 bit OSes? You bet! Do we regret the decisions we made back in 2004 that makes this still impractical to do in 2011? Nope, not at all. Why not? Because of the tiny requirement of staying in business in order to get this far. A fairly inconvenient requirement, admittedly, but one that many other companies are still struggling with.

We will eventually support muli-core and 64 bit, but not until we completely rewrite the game engine. And that is not happening any time soon. Instead we're working on other things we can do to improve the game experience between now and then.

Steve