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NEWS
"That was what things looked like when Tim Palmer lost his fourth tank. He was fired at from a range at which even the Panzer III’s 50 mm shells arrived in a fairly spent state. But the fire from this enemy Panzer was hellishly accurate. Palmer stood in the turret with his radio operator and watched the Panzers approaching, stopping, firing, when a projectile penetrated the wall of the turret with a metallic clang and lodged there. The radio operator dropped down into the vehicle out of sheer fright. The next round pierced the portal armor and also stuck fast just in front of the poor fellow. This so horrified the driver that he jumped out and ran mindlessly into the desert. A third hit jammed the gun." - from the CMAK Companion, Chapter 30, "The Point of Pain"
"As the firing tapered off, the Germans stared in awe at the scene before them, the burning American tanks almost seeming to have been lined up to have their picture taken. Wolff recalled how his battalion commander, “laughing like a boy, went from company to company asking us and himself too: ‘Did you ever see anything like it? Did you ever see anything like it?’”…“I can still see the long line of fires in front of which our tanks cruised up and down, their engines humming, calm yet proud after a good day’s work,” he recalled." - from the CMAK Companion, Chapter 71, "Proud After A Good Day's Work".
"It all went according to plan. There was a massive expenditure of ammunition on suspected enemy positions. Medium machine-guns kept up continuous pressure and tanks were interspersed with the infantry. There was a smoke-screen to cover the last and most dangerous stretch. The infantry plodded remorselessly on with bayonets fixed for the final assault across the river. The Germans held their fire until the Durhams were within some fifty yards, more or less point-blank range, then mowed the leading platoons down." - from the CMAK Companion, Chapter 88, "It All Went According To Plan".
"The Matildas proved to be an awesome tool. The 24-ton monster, conceived only for infantry support and with its two 87 hp engines actually rather underpowered, advancing in leisurely but apparently unstoppable fashion, had a devastating effect on the Italians. Their brave gunners, some of them still equipped with wooden-wheeled guns from the First World War, kept on firing their shells at the juggernauts until they were within a few meters’ range, only to see them bounce off and disappear into the sky as small glowing dots of light." - from the CMAK Companion, Chapter 4, "Twenty Acres of Officers"
"Silently the Maoris rose. Dyer saw them as a scattered band of dark figures under the trees… with knees bent, and leaning to the right they slowly advanced firing at the hip. They did not haka, for this was not rehearsed. Instead there rose from their throats a deep shout ‘Ah! Ah! Ah!’ as they advanced firing. Then the cartridges in their magazines being exhausted, they broke into a run with bayonets levelled and their shouts rising as they went…The air whistled and cracked with bullets. Men went down but they still charged. And the pride of the German army turned and fled." - from the CMAK Companion, Chapter 14, "Thinly Armoured Preamulators".
"We came over that crest 16 abreast and roared down the slope flat out, the wind catching the trailers of dust behind and flaunting them like banners of doom to the eyes of the watchers on the Trigh. We were all caught up in the exhilaration of that first charge. In a few seconds I could see the consternation in the enemy ranks translating itself into violent motion. There was the initial moment of immobility and shock, and then the whole line of vehicles broke and scattered wildly to the north and north-east. Every now and again a vehicle would pull up while its occupants disgorged on to sand and ran or fell flat." - from the CMAK Companion, Chapter 28, "Where the Dickens have you been?".
"But as the Italians attacked, the British got in the all-important first shot, their guns ripping through the Italian armor, turning M13s into burning coffins, wrecking eight. Before the stunned Italians could return fire, the British had withdrawn down the slope, to repeat the example, destroying seven more tanks with no loss. The Italians opened up with artillery and committed their reserves, as did the British. " - from the CMAK Companion, Chapter 7, "The Battery Commander, his Batman, and a Cook". |
As with any issue, please be sure to review the
Troubleshooting Section of the game manual and the dedicated Combat
Mission Tech Support Forum
Problem: CMAK disc is inserted in CD-Rom drive but game does not autorun/auto install. Cause/Solution: You may have the autorun feature disabled on your CD Drive. In order to launch the install click on your My Computer shortcut on your desktop then Right Click on the icon for your CD Drive. Select EXPLORE and a window with the CMAK CD's contents will be displayed. Double click on the Setup.exe file to launch the installer. You can alternatively first copy the full Setup.exe to your hard drive and then launch it which will install the game but you will need to remember to then delete the Setup.exe file once the game is installed and working. Copying the Setup.exe to your computer before running it can speed up the install process. Be aware that some CD drives can take nearly ten minutes to fully scan the CD before you will be able to open up the contents. See the next entry for this issue. Problem: Computer or CD Drive seems to hang/freeze when trying to launch the game installer. Cause/Solution: Some CD/DVD Drives can have problems reading and accessing a disc with as much data (over 650 megs) as the CMAK disc. While it may appear that your computer has frozen it may be that the CD/DVD drive is trying to read the full CD's contents. This can sometimes take upwards of 10 minutes for the drive to finish. If it seems like your computer is frozen when the CD is accessed the first time, be patient, give it about 10 minutes and see if the system does not unfreeze and proceed as normal. After the CD/DVD drive finally completes scanning the game disc it may or may not autorun the installer. If it does not, see above Cause/Solution entry in order to manually launch the installer. Problem: Setup halts part way through the install process. May indicate a problem reading a specific file or resource. Cause/Solution #1: Could be a dirty or scratched CD. Use some rubbing alcohol and dilute it with water (about a capful total) Dip a cotton swab or Q-tip into the solution and then gently rub the soaked swab across the shiny surface of the CD. Be sure to work any area that show smudges or scratches. Let the CD air dry. Reinsert the CD and try to reinstall. You can also use any aftermarket CD Cleaning kit or cleaning system to do the above. Cause/Solution #2: Some DVD and CD drives can have a problem reading a CD that is as full as the CMAK one (almost 100% full). Try copying the entire "Setup.exe" file from the CD to your hard drive first and then running the install from the hard drive. Cause/Solution #3: Try and put the CMAK disc in a different CD drive if your system has more than one and then launch the installer.
Install Issues (Mac): Problem: Install doesn't give any completion message but seems to halt and when game is launched a "OpenPlayLib wasn't found" error message appears. Cause/Solution #1: CMAK requires at least 2 gigabytes of space on the hard drive in order to be installed. The error message indicates that the entire install did not complete properly. Ensure you have at least 2 gigabytes of space free and then re-launch the install. Cause/Solution #2: If you are sure you have adequate space and it seems the full game did install but it is still reporting the error above you can manually re-install the game. First create a icon on your desktop called "CMAK", now drag the three installer files from the CD (Data 2C, Data 2H, Data 3) into that new folder. Run each file, one at a time (2C first, the 2H then 3), that you placed into your CMAK folder. Once you have done that for all three files, try and relaunch the game. Note: Dragging and dropping the files from CD to hard drive can take a very long time on some older Mac's (Over 2 hours). Please be patient during the copying phase. Problem: Setup halts part way through the install process. May indicate a problem reading a specific file or resource. Cause/Solution #1: Could be a dirty or scratched CD. Use some rubbing alcohol and dilute it with water (about a capful total) Dip a cotton swab or Q-tip into the solution and then gently rub the soaked swab across the shiny surface of the CD. Be sure to work any area that show smudges or scratches. Let the CD air dry. Reinsert the CD and try to reinstall. You can also use any aftermarket CD Cleaning kit or cleaning system to do the above. Cause/Solution #2: Try and put the CMAK disc in a different CD drive if your system has more than one and then launch the installer. General Issues (PC): Problem: Game reports that CD needs to be inserted in order to load the game. Cause/Solution 1: The CD does have to be inserted into the CD Drive in order to launch the game. Once the game has loaded the CD can be removed. Cause/Solution 2: Make sure that Windows is not trying to launch the game in Compatibility Mode. Right click on the shortcut used to launch the game, select the Compatibility tab at the top, make sure no boxes are checked on the Compatibility Properties page. Problem: Game reports that CD needs to be inserted in order to load the game but CD is in the CD drive. I have Windows XP/2000. Cause/Solution: Windows may have enabled "Compatibility Mode" for CMAK. This can occur if you upgrade to XP/2000 from an earlier OS of if you turned it on manually. To check this, please right click on the shortcut that points to CMAK. Select Properties and on the next page select the Compatibility tab. Now make sure none of the boxes are checked on that page. Click Apply or OK to close the window and then re-launch the game. Problem: When game is launched it reports that a resolution of at least 800x600 is required in order to run but my desktop is set to 800x600 (or higher) already. Cause/Solution #1: Whatever video card you have is not properly identifying itself and as such the game does not know what video resolutions it can support. You should reinstall the latest video drivers available for your video card and also reinstall/upgrade your version of DirectX. Before you reinstall your video drivers, be sure to first Uninstall them. For Nvidia video cards using Detonator drivers, you may want to also use one of the following utilities that help remove old drivers. NFR (Nasty File Remover) or Detonator Destroyer are both available from http://www.guru3d.com and were designed to help in removing old nVidia driver files which are notoriously bad about properly uninstalling themselves. You can download the newest version of DirectX (currently 9.0c) directly from Microsoft here: Microsoft DirectX 9.0c Download Page Problem: Sound in game used to work but is now silent. Cause/Solution: The sound in the game can be toggled between ON, ON+Ambient and OFF. These settings are toggled via the Shift-S keystroke. Problem: When mouse is moved across the screen it leaves a trail of corrupted graphics. Cursor itself may also appear as a white block. Cause/Solution: That is usually caused by running with Custom Mouse cursors or having a Windows Theme Packs installed. Make sure that you are only using the Standard Windows Default Mouse cursor and disable or uninstall any custom mouse animations and effects that may have been loaded with a Theme pack. You may also want to upgrade your mouse drivers as applicable. Check with the manufacturers website for updated mouse drivers. Problem: When game is launched an Unhandled Exception: c0000005 at address: 0053d978 & 005419e5 (can also be some other addresses but they always start with c0000005) error occurs. Cause/Solution: At some point a DirectX component file has become corrupted or is no longer correctly functioning. In order to resolve this issue you should re-install DirectX. Recommend the latest version, which is now DirectX 9.0a and can be obtained directly from Microsoft at the following URL:
Problem: When viewing a turn in the Action Phase, the timer jumps to the end of the turn or displays random numbers. Action on screen may or may not be affected. Cause/Solution #1: Make sure you are not running and Instant Messenger software in the background. Programs like MS Messenger and AIM can cause this to occur. Cause/Solution #2: Some older Dell computers had a problem correctly computing their Windows "UPTIME". This causes the game to loose its timing and corrupt the action playback. Contact Dell for an updated Bios which should fix this problem General Issues (Mac): Problem: Game reports that CD needs to be inserted in order to load the game. Cause/Solution: The CD does have to be inserted into the CD Drive in order to launch the game. Once the game has loaded the CD can be removed. Problem: I have OS-X installed and CMAK won't run. Cause/Solution: CMAK does not support OS-X in either native or classic mode. In order to play you will need to setup your Mac to dual boot with a dedicated 9.x bootable partition and play the game from there. Problem: I have a Mac with a Radeon video card installed (8500, Mobility 9000, 9000 Pro) and I am getting what looks like psychedelic graphics displayed when playing the game. Cause/Solution: ATI has just released a Hotfix software update that resolves this issue. The file can be found here: http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4380.html Problem: Sound in game used to work but is now silent. Cause/Solution: The sound in the game can be toggled between ON, ON+Ambient and OFF. These settings are toggled via the Shift-S keystroke. Video
Issues- Nvidia cards Problem: Game seems to lock up or display a black screen immediately after game is loaded, you may hear the intro music or sound still. Video card is a Nvidia (GeForce, GeForce 2,3, 4 or newer FX card) and you have newer drivers (41.09 or higher) installed for it. Cause/Solution #1: The problem is with the video drivers. They have a problem properly initializing the screen graphics when Anti-Aliasing is enabled. Turn off Full Screen Anti-aliasing for your video card. This can be done via the video cards display properties panel. Cause/Solution #2: Minimize CMAK by pressing Alt-Tab and then re-maximize it by clicking on its icon on the Task bar. The display should properly refresh and everything should be visible again. If it does not, you can click the mouse buttons a few times, your system may seem to freeze for a few seconds or it may even beep one time (Windows Application error beep) but after about 20 seconds the screen may properly re-appear. Cause/Solution #3: Since those drivers will not correctly work when Anti-Aliasing is enabled you maybe able to install older video drivers which will work fine and allow you to use Anti-Aliasing. Cause/Solution #4: See the Problem entry below for another possible fix. Problem: Game seems to lock up or display a black screen immediately after game is loaded, you may hear the intro music or sound still. Game may also display a black screen when minimizing and maximizing back in. Cause/Solution: This issue on some Windows XP systems has also been traced to the installation of a Microsoft Hotfix from their Windows Update service. If none of the above solutions are working for you, you may want to try and uninstall Windows Hotfix #328310 (also called MS02-071: Flaw in Windows WM_TIMER Message Handling Can Enable Privilege Elevation). Depending on how your system has been configured you may or may not be able to remove that hotfix. Check the Add/Remove Programs list accessed via the Control Panel. If you see it listed,( it should be listed under "Windows XP Hotfix (SP2) Q328310"), remove it and see if the problem continues. UPDATE: There is a new Windows XP Update accessible from the Windows Update website that apparently resolves the problem with the #328310 Hotfix. We recommend you download that new update first before trying anything else. Problem: All in game text and scenario list appears blank. Cause/Solution #1: The problem is with the video drivers. They have a problem properly initializing the screen graphics when Anti-Aliasing is enabled. Turn off Full Screen Anti-aliasing for your video card. This can be done via the video cards display properties panel. Cause/Solution #2: Minimize CMAK by pressing Alt-Tab and then re-maximize it by clicking on its icon on the Task bar. The display should properly refresh and everything should be visible again. Problem: In game text is corrupt or colored improperly. I have a GeForce FX5200 video card. Cause/Solution: This seems to be isolated to the FX5200 series cards and is a bug in the Nvidia drivers. You can use Alt-Tab to minimize and then maximize the game to get the text to appear normally but you can only use the Alt-Tab solution once per game session. If you Alt-Tab out and back in a second time the problem will reoccur and will persist until you reboot. UPDATE: Recent Nvidia drivers seem to have fixed this issue. Problem: In game textures/graphics seem to have a black or miscolored border around them. Video card is a Nvidia FX series (5200, 5600, 5800, 5900). Cause/Solution: This seems to be a bug in the recent Nvidia drivers and occurs with the Nvidia FX series video cards when you frequently task switch in and out and of the game. You can use Alt-Tab to minimize and then maximize the game to get the graphics to appear correct. Problem: When game launches a message appears saying that the game needs to run in a minimum screen size of 800x600. Cause/Solution: This is normally related to the video drivers and the refresh rate setting. See the next Problem entry for the complete solution. Problem: When game launches the monitor goes black and reports a error message that says "scan frequency out of range" or similar message. Monitor may also display graphics which seem very distorted and duplicated repeatedly across the screen. Cause/Solution #1: The game will launch in the same resolution and refresh rate that your desktop is set to but Windows can sometimes report those settings incorrectly. Check in Windows Hardware/Device Manager that your monitor is not listed as "Default Monitor". If it is, check with your monitor manufacturer for specific drivers. Windows should list your monitor with the correct make and model, if it does not, Windows will not be able to access all the refresh rates and resolutions your monitor supports. Cause/Solution #2: With the later versions of Detonator Drivers you should be able to manually assign a refresh rate for any chosen desktop resolution. Click on Start>Settings>Control Panel>Display, then click the Settings tab and press the Advanced button. Now click on the "GeForce" or similarly named tab. Find the "Refresh Rate Overrides Settings", and click the "Override refresh rates" bullet point. Now scan the list for your chosen desktop screen resolution and make sure a check is placed in the "16bit" column. It can have checksmarks in the 8bit column and 32bit as well if you choose. CM only runs in 16bit. In the Refresh Rate column, select the current entry (most likely it will say "Default") and choose a low refresh rate, like 60Hz. Click OK twice to close the control panel. Now try and relaunch the game. You can go back and raise the refresh rate up a little at a time until you reach your monitors' maximum setting. Cause/Solution #3: If you have a GeForce video card download and install the NVRefreshTool utility which will allow you to customize the refresh rate for any resolution and bit depth (Note:CMAK always runs in 16 bit color mode). Try setting your desktop resolution to 60Hz and then launch the game. You can experiment with raising the refresh rate higher until you reach the limit of your monitor. In general, the higher the refresh rate the less the screen will appear to "flicker". Check with your monitor manufactures to locate the monitors highest support refresh rate by resolution. You can download the NVRefreshTool utility from this webpage: http://www.guru3d.com Problem: My game is playing very slow and I have a Nvidia card (GeForce-GeForce 4 or FX) in my computer. Cause/Solution: This seems to be a bug introduced in some Nvidia drivers released after version 41.09. Nvidia has recently released a new driver version (52.16) which fixes the slowdown issue. Download the new 52.16 drivers from Nvidia's webpage located at www.nvidia.com NVIDIA DRIVERS (40.72 and newer) AND FULL SCREEN ANTI-ALIASING (FSAA) With all Nvidia drivers released after version 30.87 there has been a persistent bug which has caused issues in the game when Anti-Aliasing was enabled. The most common problem reported is invisible text in all 2D portions of the game interface including all game menu's but you may also encounter a issue where the entire screen is all black. There are several current workarounds for this problem. A). If you wish to use these new drivers (current version 52.16) AND also have FSAA enabled you can minimize (alt-Tab) and then maximize the game. That should make the hidden text reappear. If the screen started off completely black and you alt-tabbed in and out and the screen was still black, move the mouse around the screen and click it several times. Your mouse may appear to freeze, when it does, click the mouse button several more times, you may hear a Windows error beep at this point, after about 15-20 more seconds the game screen should re-appear properly (This work-around tested with a FX 5600 Ultra). B). If you disable FSAA with these drivers you should not have any problems with in-game text. C). The older driver releases (30.82 and 30.87) were both stable, high performing and did not have this FSAA bug. Those drivers can be found below. Note: Those drivers will not work with the FX series of cards. You should be able to find those drivers listed above either at Nvidia's website at http://www.nvidia.com or at Guru3d which is located here: http://www.guru3d.com Video
Issues- ATI cards Problem: Game seems to lock up or display a black screen immediately after game is loaded, you may hear the intro music or sound still. Video card is a Radeon card. Cause/Solution #1: The problem is with the video drivers. They have a problem properly initializing the screen graphics when Anti-Aliasing is enabled. Turn off Full Screen Anti-aliasing for your video card. This can be done via the video cards display properties panel. Cause/Solution #2: Minimize CMAK by pressing Alt-Tab and then re-maximize it by clicking on its icon on the Task bar. The display should properly refresh and everything should be visible again. Cause/Solution #3: See the Problem entry below for another possible fix. Problem: Game seems to lock up or display a black screen immediately after game is loaded, you may hear the intro music or sound still. Game may also display a black screen when minimizing and maximizing back in. Cause/Solution: This issue on some Windows XP systems has also been traced to the installation of a Microsoft Hotfix from their Windows Update service. If none of the above solutions are working for you, you may want to try and uninstall Windows Hotfix #328310 (also called MS02-071: Flaw in Windows WM_TIMER Message Handling Can Enable Privilege Elevation). Depending on how your system has been configured you may or may not be able to remove that hotfix. Check the Add/Remove Programs list accessed via the Control Panel. If you see it listed,( it should be listed under "Windows XP Hotfix (SP2) Q328310"), remove it and see if the problem continues. UPDATE: There is a new Windows XP Update accessible from the Windows Update website that apparently resolves the problem with the #328310 Hotfix. We recommend you download that new update first before trying anything else. Problem: All in game text and scenario list appears blank. Cause/Solution #1: The problem is with the video drivers. They have a problem properly initializing the screen graphics when Anti-Aliasing is enabled. Turn off Full Screen Anti-aliasing for your video card. This can be done via the video cards display properties panel. Cause/Solution #2: Minimize CMAK by pressing Alt-Tab and then re-maximize it by clicking on its icon on the Task bar. The display should properly refresh and everything should be visible again. Problem: I have a ATI Radeon card but I can not see any fog graphics on my PC with Windows installed. Cause/Solution: This is a problem with the drivers that ATI makes for Windows based systems. For some reason they have decided to not support "fog table emulation" which is needed to show the fog graphics in CMAK. Problem: Text in-game is unreadable (yellow on white) on a Radeon card when Anti-Aliasing is turned on. Cause/Solution #1: This seems to be a persistent bug with the ATI drivers and anti-aliasing and we usually advise to not use AA while playing however a workaround has been provided by a member of our forum which you may wish to try out. Download this file http://www.battlefront.com/misc/Radeon_text_fix.zip and follow the directions in the readme.txt to replace 3 small files in your CMAK\BMP folder which may resolve this problem. Cause/Solution #2: Disable Anti-Aliasing in your drivers control panel. To do that, set the AA level to x0 or select Application Preference which does the same thing. Problem: I have a Radeon 9000 video card and while editing map elevations in the scenario editor changed elevation numbers do not display. Cause/Solution: Alt-Tab out and back in to the game. The proper elevation numbers should now be displayed. Problem: When game launches the monitor goes black and reports a error message that says "scan frequency out of range" or similar message. Monitor may also display graphics which seem very distorted and duplicated repeatedly across the screen. Cause/Solution #1: The game will launch in the same resolution and refresh rate that your desktop is set to but Windows can sometimes report those settings incorrectly. Check in Windows Hardware/Device Manager that your monitor is not listed as "Default Monitor". If it is, check with your monitor manufacturer for specific drivers. Windows should list your monitor with the correct make and model, if it does not, Windows will not be able to access all the refresh rates and resolutions your monitor supports. RADEON VIDEO CARDS AND SLUGGISH GAME PERFORMANCE If you have a Radeon
video card and are noticing sluggish or stuttering game performance
you may want to try and disable the Z-Mask setting on your card.
Many people have reported substantial performance improvements when
they disabled the Z-Mask. This is a setting that is accessible using
a Radeon Tweak Program which you can find here: Video Issues- SiS Chipset's SiS VIDEO CARDS/CHIPSETS The current drivers available for your chipset/motherboard via the Microsoft Windows Updater page should allow the 540, 650, 730 and 740 based SiS chipsets to work. Note: The drivers currently hosted on the SiS page seem to be of an older build than the Microsoft ones and as such may not work. Since many people were having difficulty locating these Microsoft drivers, we are now hosting them on our website. You can locate the file from the this link:
Download and extract that file to a temp folder on your computer and erad the included "install.txt" file to see how to install them. Please note:
Battlefront.com takes no responsibility for the use of those video drivers. Video Issues- Kyro Chipset's Problem: Video Card uses the Kyro or Kyro II Chipset (ex: Hercules Prophet 4500) and text and graphics in-game are blurry or corrupted. Cause/Solution: You will need to add a entry to the registry to clear up the corruption. Launch the Regedit program and locate the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PowerVR\ You will need to
add the following entry to that key. NOTE: You must make sure that you enter that entry with the EXACT name of the game executable. If you for some reason have renamed your game .exe to be "CMAK.exe" for example that registry entry should look like this: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\PowerVR\KYRO\Game
Settings\D3D\CMAK.exe] "DisableCopyBlt3D"="1" Note: If you are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with manually editing entries in your registry you can contact support@battlefront.com and we will send you a .reg file which can automatically add that entry to your registry for you. Battlefront.com takes no responsibility for any damage that may occur due to editing your registry. Problem: Video Card uses the Kyro or Kyro II Chipset and some solid objects appear transparent when viewed in front of other transparent objects. Cause/Solution: You can do the following at the expense of some performance loss. Go to Control Panel then click Display Control Panel and then the Settings tab. Click the Advanced button then click the 3D Optimization tab then click the Direct3D tab (default). Under the Control Full-Scene Anti-Aliasing make sure the setting 'Application specified anti-aliasing' is selected. Check mark the 'Enable External Depth/Stencil Buffer' and under that check the 'Enable External Depth/Stencil Buffer Storing'. You may also need to disable Full Screen Anti-Aliasing if graphic corruption persists. You might want to view this thread from the Tech Support forum for a discussion on this issue: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=003746 If none of the above resolves your problem or if your specific issue it is not covered then please login to the Tech Support forum and search through the extensive list of posts as you may very well find info on it there. If you wish to post a message seeking assistance to the Tech Support forum please be sure to include as much information about the problem AND you system as you can so we can assist you quickly and efficiently. Thank you.
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