Let's talk about framerate...

[Bogdan]

Hello there,

I wonder myself about the framerate of CMBO and CMBB. Recently (please look this thread ), I’ve done a downsampling of lots of BMP files in CMBB (ground textures, paths, rail tracks, trees…) except units and vehicules pictures. Visually, the game just don’t change, but it’s now possible to scan the map more easely (word ?), and the framerate is higher than at the beginning, when I installed the game from the CD.

When downsampling, I looked at the size of BMP files in CMBO and tried to make the same in CMBB (128x128 pixels for ground textures, etc…). Now I can say that a lot of CMBB textures got the same size as their CMBB counterparts. In other words : BO and BB are in High-resolution (in CMBO's terms)

But (Yes, there’s a « but »… ), even if the size of most of textures are equals (I repeat : ground, trees, houses, road…), CMBO is faster than CMBB. I compared performances looking at equivalent maps (1000 x 1000 meters or so) in the editor (without units) : CMBO is still fast and more pleasant to manipulate.

Of course, I did this comparison on the same computer :

1.7 Ghz PIV

256 Mo Ram

ATI Radeon mobility (no fog, yes, I know… )

30 Gigs

XP home

So my question is simple : imagine you’ve got two games (BO & BB) with textures completely equivalents (size, colour depht…), will theses two games have the same framerate ?

Cheers

[karch]

I'd say no, at least one thing you have to worry about is higher polygon count for all the models. vehicles and people. This may slow down the frame rate some.

just my 1/2 cent to ponder..

[Bogdan]

Hello !

Yes, sure that the number of polygons for each vehicles proportionally decrease framerate of the game. Looking at the BMP folders (both CMBO and CMBB), it's obvious that each tank or other armored stuff require lots of textures. Just compare a Pz IVG "BMP files package" in both games...

Recently, I have downloaded FRAPS (go there if you don't know that very nice tool) and start testing CMBO and CMBB. In CMBO, whatever the unit you choose (infantry, tanks, guns...), my FPS rate is always between 40 and 45. It decrease to 36-39 with rain. Visually, the result is sweet and don't decrease with the number of units or the map's size (this only affects the computation time).

In CMBB, that's not so pretty. I have noticed that framerates fluctuate with the type of unit you choose :

</font>

• Infantry : 8 fps</font>
• AT guns : 10 fps</font>
• vehicles : 12 fps
  </font>

And if you deselect everything, the fps value is approx. 10. How can that be explained ? And why the computer affects differents fps and not an average one. Will I be obliged to try a downsampling of the infantry uniform textures in order to increase the framerate ?

Last thing, the screen resolution of CMBB is the same as in CMBO : 1024 x 768 pixels. Will framerate considerably increase if I change it to 800 x 600 pixels ?

Opinions are welcome !

PS : Using a 1024 x 768 pixels resolution with CMBO, which part of the screen will be "captured" with the movie cpature function of FRAPS ? Corner of the screen, center ?)

Tnaks for your help and "Joyeux Noël" !

[Bogdan]

Tnaks for your help and "Joyeux Noël" !

Oops, sorry ! "Tnaks" is not a french nor an english word... except "Tnak tnak tnak tnakin' on the heaven's door..."

Cheers.

[WWB]

Back in the beta days when we had a framerate counter (and a slightly slower game due to debug code) I noticed something. So long as it stayed above 7 or 8 FPS it CM was quite smooth, with no noticeable lag. Lower than that and it became an issue. Of course, then there was the .5 FPS one got with To the Volga . . .

Moral of the story: don't try to squeeze too many framerates, the point of diminishing returns is quite low.

WWB

[Schrullenhaft]

What Wyatt has said makes sense. CM is not an FPS. The framerates you can get with an FPS should be higher since there is a much more limited horizon to render compared to CM. The 'rules' for good performance in an FPS don't exactly apply to CM. If you can get over 10fps then you're doing OK. You can get it a bit higher, but it doesn't necessarily make the game more 'playable'. With the amount of objects to be rendered in CM framerates aren't going to be consistent and you still may get some very noticeable 'stutter'. This is due to the various view angles and the amount of objects that have to be rendered with just slight changes/rotations to the view (which you get very little of in FPS games).

So I wouldn't make a whole lot of fuss about framerates in CM. There can be times where you'll get up to 60 frames or more, but you may still get stutter, which is what most people will notice and can be unavoidable due to hardware speed. Other times you may be running under 10 fps, but the game can still look and play fairly smooth.

[Bogdan]

Hello there !

Schrullenhaft said :

So I wouldn't make a whole lot of fuss about framerates in CM. There can be times where you'll get up to 60 frames or more, but you may still get stutter, which is what most people will notice and can be unavoidable due to hardware speed. Other times you may be running under 10 fps, but the game can still look and play fairly smooth.

I totally agree with you : with an average framerate of 10-12, CMBB is smooth and nice to play. I only wonder myself why its framerate is so low, compared to CMBO. I clearly understand that BB requires more polygons to be rendered, but is that the answer ?

I can admit that but then, a "2000 CMBO battle" is still faster than a "600 points CMBB" one... Do you see ? You have understood that I'm not whining about the graphical rendering of the game (which is wonderfull), but just trying to know why such a difference between to games based on the same engine !

Bye !

(Psssst !! Schrullenhaft !! Just tell me how do you get 60 and more ! Oh Com'on...! )

[WWB]

I can push things past 60 on my Athalon2000+/Geforce 4 Ti4400 combo in some battles.

Why is CMBB slower: there are gads more polygons. You have many more per vehicle, per infantry model. You have doodads. Every texture is hi-res. Lots more going on can really bog the older, slower cards even if it hardly gives the monsters a hiccup.

WWB

[peckham]

Hey, those of you with an ATI Mobility Radeon (like Bogdan) should make absolutely certain they've downloaded Rage 3D Tweak from www.rage3d.com and disabled Z Mask! This literally involves installing, rebooting, then going in and enabling it, hitting apply, then disabling it and hitting apply again. It nearly tripled my frame rate.

Matt