Let me: one of the greatest delusions ever

[Kieme(ITA)]

Dear combat mission fans,
first of all I'd like to present myself, my name is Francesco Chiementin, I'm Italian and I've been a combat mission fan since the very first demo of CMBO (which was almost unknown at that time here in Italy).

I had great hopes for this new game so I did the pre-order and downloaded it.
Today I've been trying to play it without success:

-I've got many of the problems posted here by other people, my config:

AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual 3800+ at 2.1GHz (turned at 2.6)
1GB RAM Corsair 800MHz
ASUS 7900GTX 512mb VRAM
Windows XP home 32bit SP2

First of all my computer performed very slow with all options at maximum, with all options at medium it still performs very bad.

This is my very first delusion: with such configuration my computer is able to perform 100% with such games as Half Life2, Far Cry, Medieval 2 and so on.
I think that it's unacceptable to have such situation which is much more of a BETA version of a game instead a final one.
This game needs seriously to be optimized and actually it doesn't perform well enough on my system.

I'm a great estimator of battlefront.com staff and I can see they are already thinking about a second patch, but if you consider the game was released yesterday it's unacceptable to have such great problems.
Of course I can re-arrange game options, turn off AA and AF but this shouldn't be done because my system should be able to run the game at 100% as granted by suggested req and it does not.

Second, I experience one crash after the other (game freeze).

Third I've already seen so many bugs regarding:
-shadows
-object fusions/compenetrations (interactions)
-terrible IA (I've got enemy infantry spammed at 50meters side of my tanks in open terrain just in the very first game)
-voices overlapping and completely out of control
-LOD problems

This keeps me thinking about a BETA version.

I've tryed some tweaks on my system (the very first time a game requires me to work out of the ingame option menu), but after the second installation try the game seems to work even worst:

just after the ingame load I can see all objects changing AA and AF in great confusion. It doesn't work anymore and crashes again and again.
I'll try now to set in completely new video drivers (but still all the other games installed perform well at 100%!)


All of this regarding technical problems that shouldn't appear on a game bought yesterday for 50 dollars (and they never appeared in any game I ever bought)
So this lead to the statement: this game is still in BETA version, not the first one to appear on the market labeled as "complete" and it won't be the last but that's what it is now.


After such considerations I've been asking myself: what happened to all the good work which catacterized the past combat missions? What about the lessons learned thanks to those 3 past games? Why did you change interface this way? Why do I see so many worst situations such as:

-camera controls (it's a mess to do with keys, the only way to operate it is using mouse buttons but is't quite difficult and why is this o be different from the other RTS and similar games which have nowadays reached perfection in such controls?!)

-interface controls (you have to access different panels in low interface in order to give different orders via mouse or shortcuts, this means you need to move the cursor on the panel, select the right one, select the shortcut, move the cursor on the screen and click, while in old CMs you needed to press right on a unit select and press on screen)

-where is the square drag option with mouse to select multiple units?

-where are mouse options?

-why you can't move foreward time in turn based during a turn?

-why do you need to guess which are the possible solutions of a quick-battle set up otherwise you just get teleported to the main menu??

-why did you take off the possibility to choose single units (I understand the more realistic cut you gave to the game and I like it but why did you just cut off such option? couldn't you just leave it there?)

Maybe there will be more questions, for the time being I'd just like to be able to play the game and so I'll let you know of further problems and I'll try to explain them better.

I'm not asking my 50 dollars back, but if the game will keep performing like this I'd like to.
I'm very sorry for such drastical statements but this is due the great hopes and consideration I've always had for battlefront.com

For now I wish you good work and best regards,
Francesco

[rune]

1. Comparing CMSF to those games means nothing. CMSF is a opengl game, and those are dirextx. You are comparing apples and oranges. Did you try the fixes posted for KNOWN MICROSOFT and AMD bugs?

2. See above. I don't care about other directx games, how are you optimized for opengl games?

3.I don't care about other games. The mouse control works best for long distances with the mouse, and use the keyboard for fine tuning. Hold left click on the mouse or hold right click and try to move about.

4.This isn't CMBO. There are hotkeys you can click to go to the menus, and you can change the keys you would like.

5. You CAN left click while holding shift on the map, hold the click and select the group you want. It is there.

6. Have no idea what you mean for mouse options

7. You can move forward during a turn. The first part of a wego turn you cannot because you are watchign the actual turn being processed [The old blue bar in cmx1]. After the turn is done, you get the playback time, where, yep, you can go forward and back.

8. You don't, there isI think one missing hills map. Found on my beta copy, it may have mistakenly not been added into the release. Moon is looking at it now.

9. No. It wa a design decision. CMSF is a simulation first. No more cherry picking what you want, use the actual formations.

A lot of these are answered in the manual, read the full one not the 80 page one and see if more of your questions are answered. If not, be happy to try to answer any others you may have.

Rune

[ July 28, 2007, 07:10 AM: Message edited by: rune ]

[patrik pass]

mr rune,
this is not wery profi answer for kiemes letter.
i dont know nothing about directx and opengl. fact is, that todays visual standard of games is much higher than presented in shock force. if our expensive systems can smoothly run games with dense vegetations and high end graphics, why cant we run game with few soldiers in the desert? we are simple users and we want play your game, because we like CM. you SHOULD compare your game with other today games! and optimized!

[ASHBERY76]

Because the CPU is under so much under the hood calculation pressure compared to most RTS games.

[patrik pass]

mr ashbery76
i have Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
and 4gb ram
geforce 7900gto 512bm ram

do you think its not enough?
and to rune:
you didnt answered why is interface so impractical(switching between move/attack..etc modes) and then placing orders.

[Scareye]

there is definetely a problem between dual core and single core cpus.
i installed cmsf on my pc (amd x2 4600+,2gb,8600gt with 256mb) and i have all the problems which are mentioned in the others threads (e.g. freeze, bad performance etc.).
after i have patched it to 1.01 it was not better.

i have then installed it on my girlfriend's pc (amd 2800xp, 2gb, 6800xt with 512mb) and guess what...it runs very well...so i was able to play the trainings campaign...

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by patrik pass:
mr ashbery76
i have Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
and 4gb ram
geforce 7900gto 512bm ram

do you think its not enough?
and to rune:
you didnt answered why is interface so impractical(switching between move/attack..etc modes) and then placing orders.

Only one of those CPUs is actually being used to play the game, but otherwise it's fine.

In fact, my machine (C2D @ 2.13 Ghz, 7950 GT w/ 512) runs just fine with 4xAA, 4xAF and Improved or better Quality setting.

[rune]

Exactly, if you don't know anything about two completely different specifications, you cannot compare. One is apples and one is oranges. Each video card driver is supposed to have 2 sets of drivers, 1 for directx games, and 1 for opengl games. [See how the people with ati are having problems with the opengl due to the atioglxx.dll?] Telling me a directx game runs fine means the directx game runs, it does NOTHING to help me troubleshoot the other driver. Dense vegitation means NOTHING if you are seeing 100 feet, like most FPS. Here you can see 4 KMs.

As for the menu, it was changed because of the sheer amount of commands. There are slots for 36 commands. In order to keep them visual without taking up the entire column of the playable area. Look at the command size now stack 36 of them from top to bottom. You would cover a big chunk of screen. So command bars with HOT keys YOU can change was the solution.


Rune

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Originally posted by patrik pass:
mr ashbery76
i have Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
and 4gb ram
geforce 7900gto 512bm ram

do you think its not enough?

Assuming you're saying that you're also having trouble, it's not enough when something is actively interfering and preventing the game from being run smoothly.

There are documented problems with dual core PC's, which is something you should look into..

and to rune:
you didnt answered why is interface so impractical(switching between move/attack..etc modes) and then placing orders.

My advice? Learn to use the Hotkeys. They're an incredibly useful tool.

Usable from any menu at just the press of a button:
G - Target
B - Quick Move
H - Hide
N - Face

You can use T and Y keys to quickly switch between command menus and there are hotkeys for other commands as well.

While I think Rune's post was perhaps a bit aggressive, cut the man some slack. Do you think Battlefront has purposely made it so dual core systems struggle with their game? Of course not, and they're quite willing to help resolve the problem.

However there are certainly some interface and usability things that can, and I imagine will, be looked at.

[Dowarisch]

Rune, the issue is not about directx vs opengl but about the fact that a pc that runs every other game fine now suddenly has trouble with a program.

If someone can run 100 different games (Opengl and Directx) without problems and suddenly one game comes along that gives him issues then I will assume that this is not the user´s fault.