CPU load

[jhpanther]

Hi Peter,
Thanks for the best squad level game. I have played the first Kursk campaign and noticed different things that might help you improving game response time. Despite only a few enemy units on the map, moving my own units took a lot of time for each hex moved. The only thing I can see could be a part of the program loops going through every move, was that there was much abandoned enemy equipment on the map. If I am right, a solution could be to remove enemy equipment when a hex is occupied by an opponent. Also something I wondered about, was the long time it could take to shift phase to for example own advance phase. What does the game do during that shift to take so long ? Why does one hex move (own move phase) when a unit out of enemy sight is moving take so long at the end of the scenario (much longer than at the beginning) with only few enemy units on the map ?

[Peter Fisla]

Hi jhpanther,

First of all thank you for your kind words. Line of sight processing takes a bit of time on large maps because it's being calculated/processed per pixel level and the stuff like hindrance, levels of elevation needs to be accounted for. Yes abandoned equipment is part of the challenge but I don't want to remove this feature from the game. Also every time you move a unit I need to check for line of sight because the game maps are dynamic. Meaning any user can create their own, and the LOS and FOW then needs to account for this. I cannot simply add this information into the map file, so I need to do whole bunch of processing during run time. If I would have made the maps static (example close combat maps, separate graphics file and separate LOS file), I could tweak the processing for each map and make it run faster. Perhaps I should have built pre-compiled LOS map as well every time you make changes to a scenario map file. There is always a compromise, no matter which design I choose. I'm currently working on UPDATE6 trying to optimize my code as much as possible. I wanted to build as much of a complete sandbox environment as possible.

[Rosseau]

I often wonder how the creaky Combat Mission 2 engine does it? CMBN I have updated only to V2 and it plays fine, and there is so much going on in that game graphic-wise as well. Also, such a huge variety of units to plop down on large maps than I would ever want to command at once. Yet no lag.

I prefer the true TB mode of TotH, and it may be that the granularity of the hidden programing is much greater. After all, how would a player really know how "accurate" the LOS calculations are in CM games? Well, they seem accurate enough for the pretty demanding and knowledgeable fan base they have.

I do notice that doing something even slightly stupid gets you killed pretty quick in TotH. I cannot say the same for CM, even with the replay feature.

In HPS Tigers Unleashed there is a feature that limits LOS to speed up the game. I rarely set it longer than 2,500 yards. Not having a lot of experience with TotH, I wonder the affect of setting path quality lower and no FOW? Obviously, that would be unacceptable to many, but it "should" speed up the game? Just ramblin'...

[Peter Fisla]

ORIGINAL: Rosseau

I often wonder how the creaky Combat Mission 2 engine does it? CMBN I have updated only to V2 and it plays fine, and there is so much going on in that game graphic-wise as well. Also, such a huge variety of units to plop down on large maps than I would ever want to command at once. Yet no lag.

I prefer the true TB mode of TotH, and it may be that the granularity of the hidden programming is much greater. After all, how would a player really know how "accurate" the LOS calculations are in CM games? Well, they seem accurate enough for the pretty demanding and knowledgeable fan base they have.

Well, a 3D engines like Unreal or Combat Mission, checking Line of sight trough 3D space is much, much faster assuming you have the right hardware (and you do need a good video card, not a problem for the past few years). There are no mathematically simulating mountains and other terrain features, as they are either physically there or not. And I'm sure their LOS processing is much more efficient than mine

I'm already working on TotH 3D using Unreal engine. With Unreal engine, I just don't have to worry about reinventing the wheel - I can just focus on game rules and let Unreal (a team of engineers/developers) work on engines features and improvements.

TotH, it's played in 2D and therefore mountains and other terrain features like blind hexes behind a building that block LOS have to be simulated/calculated using my formulas which are obviously not as fast as Unreal engine line of sight formulas.

ORIGINAL: Rosseau
I do notice that doing something even slightly stupid gets you killed pretty quick in TotH. I cannot say the same for CM, even with the replay feature.

In HPS Tigers Unleashed there is a feature that limits LOS to speed up the game. I rarely set it longer than 2,500 yards. Not having a lot of experience with TotH, I wonder the affect of setting path quality lower and no FOW? Obviously, that would be unacceptable to many, but it "should" speed up the game? Just ramblin'...

Yes, reducing FOW or playing on smaller maps in TotH speeds up game-play as FOW and LOS gets calculated much faster regardless of complexity of the terrain.

[Rosseau]

Well, I randomly chose Rico's Help Spain to play, which is a large scenario. Hotseat with Path and Fog off. Having a pretty good time playing it actually, and delays are near zero.