Greg
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Posts posted by Greg
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Ah! I tried the new version last night and flew a cobra. Thought I must have bumped some control. I was bringing it in for a perfect landing when it suddenly flipped over!
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Just letting you know I ran Daemon Tools with WinXP and used to on my old Win98se system quite happily coexisting with OFP. Avon is right. These programs use the ASPI which is a kind of interface used to access CD drives and SCSI devices and can interfere with other such programs and even make Windows Explorer crash. BTW Adaptec just released V4.7 ASPI the other day which has W2k and WXP support. You may want to try this if your system is unstable.
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You would benefit from upgrading your CPU, graphics card and RAM, but the game should still be playable on you system. The P3-600 is your best part. Just for your interest, the game uses about 350mb while running and >500mb while saving games. <256mb would probably show up as frequent small pauses.
Sorry, use the lowest resolution 640x480x16, Your TNT2 m64 will slow significantly at higher res or color depth.
Enable W-Buffer. This will get rid of ugly artifacts while running in 16bit mode.
Always disable V-sync in your driver or game unless you have an option called 'tripple buffer'
I believe 'auto drop downs' are multi - textured overlays on the terrain that make it appear smoothly textured at near and far distances. The lower numbers will increase speed, but reduce image quality. Set this as low as possible (ie what ever you can live with visually).
Don't even think of shadows, but do leave cloudlets on, although heavy smoke is a killer, the blood and dirt effects are important for game play.
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You touched your texture quality settings lately? That is almost certainly your problem.
Get Display Properties up,
Settings -> Advanced -> Geforce(whatever) -> Additional Properties -> Direct3D Settings -> Mipmap level of detail
Must be set to 'Best image quality'.
This is because the text and HUD are not configured correctly (naughty developer) and the nVidia drivers are set to bias toward lower level textures too early. The mipmap detail level can give you a few % speed increase, but at significant image quality cost.
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Set your video card to the highest refresh rate your monitor can handle.
Use NvRefix if necessary, and make sure your Plug'n Play monitor is detected correctly lest it limit your range.
Rates over 100hz are almost flicker free even when seen from peripheral vision. (Turn head away from monitor but observe it, you will see the flicker is exagerated as areas away from center of eye 'update' less frequently than those directly in front)
Any side effects or drawbacks?
The only negative thing is a TINY decrease in video performance, which is not something you want to trade for the savings on eye strain.
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Sorry, ignore that paragraph about sound hardware, I must be blind. You have a sound blaster live which should do you fine!
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The 23.11 drivers DodgeME was refering to are for your Geforce2, not CPU. The game will benefit greatly from faster CPU and more ram (actually 384mb or real memory and at least 500mb virtual memory for max performance). I did play half the game on my P3-450 with 32mb Geforce2mx tho.
3Dmark2001 (http://www.madonion.com) will let you test stability in looping mode and performance with benchmark modes. Sandra (http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/sandra) will show you system info, perform benchmarks, and offer reasonable suggestions if you have obvious problems with your system. Both have freeware versions.
I don't have many more suggestions for you since you say windows and other apps run fine. I would suggest you check the stability of your sound hardware. I have experienced many stability problems with integrated sound chips. You may need to borrow or buy a PCI sound card to test this as some games will not start without DirectSound compatible hardware found. You can effectively disable sound hardware from both BIOS and windows device manager.
You may want to search for reviews and forum posts on hardware sites with your motherboard and chipset info, to see if other people are experiencing the same problems.
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Is OFP the only thing mis-behaving? Are only applications crashing, or is windows crashing as well? Certainly get rid of the old drivers, but they shouldn't be interfering, even if the files are lying around in the system folders.
Make sure windows itself can run stable indefinately (or at least for a few days) so you are confident hardware and drivers are not the problem.
I would recommend you test your system stability doing all the usual things:
o Disable any overclocking.
o Run scan disk with surface check.
o Restore bios defaults.
o Install the latest drivers for all devices. Motherboard, Video and Sound in particular.
o Is using Windows98, reinstall windows over the top of current (don't use repair option).
o ReInstall DirectX8.0 or 8.1, use DxDiag to check versions and running.
o Get rid of any 3rd party programs that supposedly boost system performance or provide fancy shortcuts or monitoring.
o Use free programs like 3DMark2001 and Sandra in looping test modes to run your computer. It should run for days without crashing.
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This is just my opinion, please don't bother using it for Nvidia Vs ATI arguments.
I am a software developer with access to more than 30 different video cards and numerous test systems.
1) You will save $ buying a Radeon compared to equivalent performance and featured GeForce. But.
2) Nvidia drivers are more stable across more hardware than any other.
3) As a gamer you only have the choice: Nvidia Geforce range (> Geforce2MX400) or ATI Radeon range (>7500). All others do not perform well enough to recommend.
4) A Stable system is worth more than performance increases or money saving.
So I recommend a Geforce2Ti (very budget US$80), Geforce3ti200 (budget performer US$150). You could wait for the Geforce4 series but you will have to wait, and be very aware of the misleading naming system.
Visit some hardware sites and read reviews about performance and compatibility, then start comparing prices.
This recent link may be of some use:Budge Comparison ATI vs nVidia
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Since no one has replied so far. I don't have Red hammer, but you may want to try installing the game on a friends computer, copy the files from yours over the top and see if you can run it on your friends computer using your CD. That way you can test the backup before destroying your copy.
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Since you have a Geforce3, fill rate at that resolution and color depth should be usable. You will only be running about 15% below optimal performance at that setting. However because the card is becoming fill rate bound at that setting, it cannot efficiently buffer more than 1 frame of triangle and state data.
Sailor has the best solution. Set the frames rendered ahead to 1 (or zero if you want). Unfortunately this will slightly decrease benchmarking performance, but 3DMark2001 is boring compared to OFP.
The other thing to check is that Vsynch is OFF. If you are using the Nvidia driver 23.11 you will have to use another tool like RivaTuner or NVMax because the display properties one does not work.
You can use lower res and lower color depth to avoid this issue, but all you are just avoiding the situation described in paragraph 1, not getting the most from your card. Remember you are experiencing frame/mouse lag, not a slow frame rate.
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Since you have a Geforce3, fill rate at that resolution and color depth should be usable. You will only be running about 15% below optimal performance at that setting. However because the card is becoming fill rate bound at that setting, it cannot efficiently buffer more than 1 frame of triangle and state data.
Sailor has the best solution. Set the frames rendered ahead to 1 (or zero if you want). Unfortunately this will slightly decrease benchmarking performance, but 3DMark2001 is boring compared to OFP.
The other thing to check is that Vsynch is OFF. If you are using the Nvidia driver 23.11 you will have to use another tool like RivaTuner or NVMax because the display properties one does not work.
You can use lower res and lower color depth to avoid this issue, but all you are just avoiding the situation described in paragraph 1, not getting the most from your card. Remember you are experiencing frame/mouse lag, not a slow frame rate.
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Why do you go upstairs? Almost all the window ledges are slightly too high to fire a rifle from
Fixing those building models would be even better than the dodgy collision detection. -
I was mainly talking about enemies shooting at me in enemy vehicles. I would like them to ignore me until I do something agressive or get too close to them.
I am sure in an earlier version I could drive by in trucks and jeeps without coming to grief unless I started firing, or running over soldiers etc.
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Just finished yet another mission where entering an enemy vehicle immediately draws attention and fire from all surounding enemies.
The UAZ was >100m from the nearest enemy in complete darkness. I crawled up beside it and entered the drivers seat. Every enemy within a few hundred meters immediately opened fire on me (naturally I died). Can't they for once think it is one of their own?
What are the criteria for using enemy vehicles where this doesn't happen? Sometimes I need to do some speedier sight seeing behind enemy lines
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Placebo, you're not contradicting at all, where trying to problem solve here and now it appears it's not nVidia, but perhaps Window XP instead. Perhaps Bassemoluff has the answer, turning off cursor shadow? I'll be trying this tonight.
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1. When vehicles appear they are still sometimes slightly above the ground (shooting them will make them drop). Sometimes they appear well above the ground but because they are moving they fall, bounce and occasionally roll over.
2. I have been repeatedly shot through long grass (the brown bushy kind) and/or some trees. These should block visibility.
3. Windows cursor visible if running at same settings as desktop. (May be nVidia's fault)
4. Orders issued are sometimes delayed and buffered up so they execute all at once after a pause. Eg. In tank you get Forward, Forward, Right, Forward, Stop, all at once after you got no response for a while.
5. As commander in tank, often the tank goes to 'move' to a locked target instead of firing at it. (Perhaps the target must be 'alive' to shoot at) Tank should always 'shoot' when cursor is on top of target, and always 'move' when cursor is clicked on other screen location. Only newer versions of the game have this anoying behavior.
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All people are achieving by hitting W-Buffer etc. is to reset the video driver or video init code within the game.
The problem occurs when the game is run with the same display settings as your windows desktop.
The bug is either with Nvidia 23.11 drivers or OFP, but I believe other people are seeing this in other games as well, so it appears to be the latest video drivers, not the game.
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I may have shot down the Hind in 'Steal the car' mission with a single clip from M16. It turned, nosed down and dropped like a rock below the trees. I didn't see smoke rising. Unfortunately I got shot while heading toward the wreckage to confirm. I doubt I shot it down since I used 4xLAWs on one earlier. Will try again soon.
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You will have to figure the best resolution for yourself. Your graphics card and system are quite good. Here's a few things to consider:
o You want to run at least 800x600 so you can read the text clearly.
o You will need to either run 32bit or 16bit with W-buffer to prevent really ugly visual glitches
o Rememer the game slows down the most when you are near particle smoke effects. Specifically looking through a tank gun sight with smoke near by (the screen is being overdrawn MANY times).
o Try getting rid of minor FX like shadows, but keep cloudlets as they are critical for gameplay.
o You can run 3rd party program like FRAPS to measure frame rate during play.
o Remember that other things like d3d settings with vsync and frames rendered ahead can impact playability.
Then it's up to your personal preference weather you like high-res crispness or smooth movement and gun sights...
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I use the -SAVEGAME all the time! It is great if you don't like repeating long drives in vehicles and want to get straight back to the action if things went wrong. It's nice to hear Suma confirm the cheat code and its behaviour. I have never seen the FADE message at any time. I think that if you do see it and you have got a legit copy you need to submit a bug report ASAP so they can fix any compatiblity problems with the copy protection method.
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Same here, but it was happening before 1.4. Not sure who's to blame since new versions of OFP, new graphics card for me and new nvidia drivers have all occured. Here are a few solutions:
1. After game starts, switch resolutions then switch back to the one you want, seems to 'reset' something and make the system cursor go away.
2. Don't run at the exact same resolution and color depth as your windows desktop. This is the easiest way to prevent it from occuring.
3. Some say be careful with mouse usage or cursor positon while OFP is loading. Haven't experimented with this.
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Played the first few tank missions in the campaign now. 'Fire' and 'move' behave differently. In the older versions you could lock and fire on just about anything dead or alive. Now if you lock even a live target and it gets killed while you are aiming, pressing fire immediately 'moves to...' even though the target is still locked. If I configure the controls and manually set the 'fire' control to Primary Mouse Button, it will fire at anything I want, but it STILL issues the 'move' command at the same time. This is all from the commander view BTW.
A note about bug(1) on my second post, it appears that even the smoke prevents objects behind from being displayed, even other smoke puffs. This has the effect of thick smoke showing transparent 'halos' that look right through the smoke. Looks a bit silly.
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Just remembered a few more things:
Refering to (5), I notice when vehicles spawn they appear some distance above the ground and drop onto it, only problem is they sometimes roll over or stick in the ground and look silly.
1) When looking through the window of the jeep, you can not see some objects as the window texture is apparently writting to the depth buffer and occluding distant objects.
2) One of the early campaign missions reports a missing file. Unfortunately I didn't write the name down and don't feel like restarting. Before starting the campaign, I reinstalled OFP (deleting remaining old files) and installed patches in order. I shouldn't be missing files. The missing file may have been a sound file.
Sorry about the vague report. I was hoping others playing the campaign might confirm these things so they can be fixed in the future.
Bis, m21 sniper rifle bug still here!
in TROUBLESHOOTING
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If Avon just means that the binoculars screw up the 'zoom' from the gun scope, then I have noticed this bug as well, but forgot to report it. Does appear to be a simple but annoying issue.