What hardware and operating system do you expect to use to play MWIF?

[DaveLeLacheur]

I use:
Operating system - Macintosh 9.x, but will doubtless update that to the present Mac OSX family.
Disk - 40 GB
Monitors - 14 inch color
Memory - Lots via virtual memory
Internet connection - High speed via Comcast

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Its been more than a decade since I looked at Apple's operating systems in any detail.

The Delphi 2005 development package I am using has extemsive support for Unix variations. Essentially, most of the source code can be recomplied for Unix with zero modifications. That's not to say it wouldn't take a lot of work, for there are always a lot of sticky little details. If I did a Unix version, would that be something you could run?

[AradoX]

Operating system: Windows XP Professionel
CPU: AMD 2500+
Main memory: 1 gb ram (dual 512)
Hard disk: 300gb, NTFS, SATA
Graphics card: PowerColor Radeon 9600 XT, 256 mb ram
Monitor: AOC 19" CRT (running 1280x1024 when the graphics card allows, otherwise 1024x768)
Internet connection: DSL
LAN connection: GigaBit

I'm going to buy a 19" widescreen TFT, when I find a good one. Then I will probably also need to upgrade the graphics card.

[Caranorn]

ORIGINAL: DaveLeLacheur

I use:
Operating system - Macintosh 9.x, but will doubtless update that to the present Mac OSX family.
Disk - 40 GB
Monitors - 14 inch color
Memory - Lots via virtual memory
Internet connection - High speed via Comcast

I don't think it'd be very realistic to have MWiF run on a Mac. On the other hand you might wish to look into emulation software (Virtual PC I expect wouldstill be the software to use). I was certainly running CWiF on my Mac that way (also the reason why I no longer have a copy of CWiF as that's the computer that had a nasty HD crash without sufficient backup).

Of course all will depend on what the tech specs for MWiF will be in the end, one of the reasons why I ended up buying a PC was that I couldn't run certain games under emulation (Matrix's Uncommon Valor was one of the first that would not run at all).

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: I'm not up to date on Macs, but I don't think a Mac could run anything prgrammed for Unix, it would require porting... If at some point a Mac version is considered I will be available to test it too as my old Mac is still mostly working (some continuing HD problems as I did not replace the old one).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Caranorn
I don't think it'd be very realistic to have MWiF run on a Mac. On the other hand you might wish to look into emulation software (Virtual PC I expect wouldstill be the software to use). I was certainly running CWiF on my Mac that way (also the reason why I no longer have a copy of CWiF as that's the computer that had a nasty HD crash without sufficient backup).

Of course all will depend on what the tech specs for MWiF will be in the end, one of the reasons why I ended up buying a PC was that I couldn't run certain games under emulation (Matrix's Uncommon Valor was one of the first that would not run at all).

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: I'm not up to date on Macs, but I don't think a Mac could run anything prgrammed for Unix, it would require porting... If at some point a Mac version is considered I will be available to test it too as my old Mac is still mostly working (some continuing HD problems as I did not replace the old one).

Ok, I learn as we go.

I didn't think Unix would be of much interest simply because it is mostly used for commercial applications and not recreational ones.

Making MWIF run on Macs under emulation might be doable. There is always the chance that some small technical detail (that is hard to track down and fix) will make it fail. But we could at least explore the possibility with minimal effort.

[Panzer76]

A64 3200
2 Gig RAM
ATI 800 XL 256 MB
19" CRT

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Was it slow only for rebasing aircraft? How about determining supply lines and connecting resources to factories?

It was slow with aircrafts who had a long range escpecially when extended say a B29A Superfortress with 12 in extended range it could rebase over friendly territory 12x2x3=72 Hexes, I think reason it was slow is that it did a brute force parsing of all hexes in range and what of those hexes that it could rebase to.

When you mention it the resource=>factory logic was totally broken, I had to override it with a gazillion of specific rules for it to work. It would have been much less timeconsuming for me just to individually for each resource specify the path it should take.

Just to let you know ...
I have looked into the source code for rebasing planes and have an improvement that should cut the time required to 1/100th or 1/1000th of what it was before. Chris agrees that it should work and thinks we can do something similar for other places where MWIF needs to do searches (e.g., determining supply lines and getting resources to factories).

[Froonp]

I have looked into the source code for rebasing planes and have an improvement that should cut the time required to 1/100th or 1/1000th of what it was before. Chris agrees that it should work and thinks we can do something similar for other places where MWIF needs to do searches (e.g., determining supply lines and getting resources to factories).

Good !!!
Give us the program now so we can see you were right [:D] [:D] [:D]

[jchastain]

Shucks. Depending on the eventual release date, the hardware I use might not have been invested yet. [:D]

[mlees]

Hehe.

That about sums up my situation as well. The beta version of CWiF ran fine on a pentium 400Mhz/Win NT/2Mg SVGA video card.

I presume most folks will have a MINIMUM of 256 Mg RAM, maybe more by the time this title hits the shelves. Unless there are serious 3D graphics, I doubt that a VooDoo 9000X_OMIGOD card is gonna be needed.

Then again, what do I know. War in the Pacific doesn't appear on the surface to be especially graphics intensive, but I have come to realise that a whole lot goes on "under the hood" that chews up memory fast.

Right now I have:
AMD-64 processor of some type (pentium 2Gig speed equivalent)
1 Gb RAM
Raydeon 9200 (512Mg video memory I believe) video card
30Gb of free hard drive space
Windows XP (NOT SP2...)
Broadband cable to internet

What'd I forget?

[Grotius]

OS: Windows XP Home
CPU: Intel P4/3GHz
Main memory: 2G RAM
Hard disk: 2x 10K-RPM SATA HDD in RAID 0 array
Display adapter: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128
Monitor: 21 inch Viewsonic CRT
Internet connection: DSL

[rtamesis]

I currently use Virtual PC 7.02 with Windows XP to play Matrix Games such as Flashpoint Germany and War in the Pacific on my Apple Powerbook, especially when I travel. Unfortunately, Gary Grigsby's World At War is unplayable unless you have tons of RAM and the latest, most powerful video card, which excludes even some desktop PCs and PC laptops. I hope that MWIF's requirements will be less demanding and allow it to work on vanilla Win XP under Virtual PC. By 2007, Apple will be using Intel processors in its Macs, so that should allow Windows under Virtual PC to have good performance.

Too bad MWIF couldn't be written in Java instead. That way, you'd be able to sell it to any platform that can run Java.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: rtamesis
I currently use Virtual PC 7.02 with Windows XP to play Matrix Games such as Flashpoint Germany and War in the Pacific on my Apple Powerbook, especially when I travel. Unfortunately, Gary Grigsby's World At War is unplayable unless you have tons of RAM and the latest, most powerful video card, which excludes even some desktop PCs and PC laptops. I hope that MWIF's requirements will be less demanding and allow it to work on vanilla Win XP under Virtual PC. By 2007, Apple will be using Intel processors in its Macs, so that should allow Windows under Virtual PC to have good performance.

Too bad MWIF couldn't be written in Java instead. That way, you'd be able to sell it to any platform that can run Java.

The version I inherited from Chris (CWIF) had over 100,000 lines of Pascal code. That struck me as a good head start on developing MWIF, so I went with Pascal instead of C++ (my preference). Actually one difficulty in writng MWIF in Java would be rendering the map and units on the screen. Other difficulties would be making System calls. Compared to Pascal and C++, Java is still a young language and my experience has been that people on the cutting edge of technology bleed a lot (ya wanna see the scars?).

I would be interested in how much memory (RAM) you have on your system, the speed of the CPU, the size of the screen display, and how much dedicated memory you have for the graphics card. That would help me understand, roughly, where your Powerbook fits within the range of other (Intel based) systems. I already have one person willing to play test MWIF (when it is presentable enough to be allowed to go visit others) on an Apple system running Windows under emulation. Would you be interested in doing that as well?

[rtamesis]

Microsoft Virtual PC 7.02 limits the total RAM assigned to the emulated PC to 512 Mb. Microsoft recommends that the total VRAM be set to to 4 Mb for best performance. According to Windows XP's Display control panel, the video card of this emulated PC is an S3 Trio32/64. No wonder why Greg Grigsby's World At War won't run in it at all in Microsoft's emulated PC hardware.

My Powerbook is an old 500 Mhz Power PC G3 Powerbook with Firewire whose processor has been upgraded to a 550 Mz G4 processor with 1 Gb of RAM and running Mac OS 10.4.2 Tiger. It has a 15 inch screen with a screen resolution of 1024 X 768 pixels. Despite it being 5 years old and slow compared to Apple's latest 1.6 Gz PowerPC G4 Powerbooks with screens up to 17 inches, it still runs Win XP under Virtual PC just fine. I set Win XP's screen resolution to 1024 X 768 most of the time. I'm hoping to buy a new Powerbook next year if Apple comes out with a PowerPC G5 Powerbook (unlikely) or a dual core G4 Powerbook. I do have a dual processor G4 desktop PowerMac that runs virtual PC faster than my Powerbook.

And yes, I would be interested in testing out MWIF in Win XP running in Virtual PC.

[rtamesis]

ORIGINAL: Caranorn

P.S.: I'm not up to date on Macs, but I don't think a Mac could run anything prgrammed for Unix, it would require porting... If at some point a Mac version is considered I will be available to test it too as my old Mac is still mostly working (some continuing HD problems as I did not replace the old one).

Mac OS X 10.4 is really the Mac GUI running on top of Darwin, a FreeBSD-based UNIX kernel. In fact, Mac OS X is now the most widely-sold UNIX-based operating system. And yes, it will run UNIX software in a Terminal application. See http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/unix/ for more info about it.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: rtamesis

ORIGINAL: Caranorn
P.S.: I'm not up to date on Macs, but I don't think a Mac could run anything prgrammed for Unix, it would require porting... If at some point a Mac version is considered I will be available to test it too as my old Mac is still mostly working (some continuing HD problems as I did not replace the old one).

Mac OS X 10.4 is really the Mac GUI running on top of Darwin, a FreeBSD-based UNIX kernel. In fact, Mac OS X is now the most widely-sold UNIX-based operating system. And yes, it will run UNIX software in a Terminal application. See http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/unix/ for more info about it.

Porting MWIF to Unix someday (not tomorrow) is a possiblity. The Borland package I am using to develop MWIF is Delphi (for Windows 32). It contains a parallel set of library routines for Unix. According to Borland, coverting the code from one to the other isn't too difficult - but I have never tried it. Let's see if MWIF runs ok under emulation; in which case the question will be mute.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: rtamesis

Microsoft Virtual PC 7.02 limits the total RAM assigned to the emulated PC to 512 Mb. Microsoft recommends that the total VRAM be set to to 4 Mb for best performance. According to Windows XP's Display control panel, the video card of this emulated PC is an S3 Trio32/64. No wonder why Greg Grigsby's World At War won't run in it at all in Microsoft's emulated PC hardware.

My Powerbook is an old 500 Mhz Power PC G3 Powerbook with Firewire whose processor has been upgraded to a 550 Mz G4 processor with 1 Gb of RAM and running Mac OS 10.4.2 Tiger. It has a 15 inch screen with a screen resolution of 1024 X 768 pixels. Despite it being 5 years old and slow compared to Apple's latest 1.6 Gz PowerPC G4 Powerbooks with screens up to 17 inches, it still runs Win XP under Virtual PC just fine. I set Win XP's screen resolution to 1024 X 768 most of the time. I'm hoping to buy a new Powerbook next year if Apple comes out with a PowerPC G5 Powerbook (unlikely) or a dual core G4 Powerbook. I do have a dual processor G4 desktop PowerMac that runs virtual PC faster than my Powerbook.

And yes, I would be interested in testing out MWIF in Win XP running in Virtual PC.

Thanks.

[amwild]

I have several PCs, all of which may end up being used to play MWIF, all on a gigabit network with a router link to cable (700k) internet:

OS: Windows 2003 Server
CPUs: Dual HT 800MHz FSB Xeon 3.6 GHz
RAM: 1GB
HDDs: 3x U320 15k RPM 36 GB HDDs in a RAID 5, 1x 150 GB IDE, 1x 18 GB U160 SCSI
Monitor: 19" CRT @ 1280x1024
Video card: 128 MB NVidia G-Force 6600 GT

OS: Windows 2000 Pro SP4
CPU: PIII 1 GHz
RAM: 512 MB
HDDs: 1x 18 GB U160 SCSI
Monitor: 19" CRT @ 1280x1024
Video card: NVidia G-Force

OS: Windows 2000 Pro SP4
CPU: HT P4 3.2 GHz
RAM: 1GB
HDDs: 2x U320 15k RPM 36 GB HDDs in a mirrored RAID, 1x U320 SCSI 15k RPM 36GB HDD, 1x 18 GB U160 SCSI
Monitor: 19" CRT @ 1280x1024 and 19" LCD @ 1280x1024, configured as a 2560x1024 screen spanning both monitors.
Video card: 256 MB NVidia G-Force FX 5900 Ultra

[YohanTM2]

My config is almost identical to yours. and I have a widescreen monitor.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

One risk in developing software is that the developer writes the code to run on his machine and it doesn't perform as well on for the person who buys it. I would appreciate it if you let me know the hardware and software you expect to use to play MWIF. Maybe then I can write it so it runs great on your machine too.

My own configuration is:
Operating system - Windows XP Professional
CPU - 2.52 GHz
Main memory - 1 GB RAM
Disk - 80 GB, (1/3 used)
Monitors - 19 inch flat and 21 inch CRT, both of which support 1280 by 1024 resolution, configured as one logical screen
Screen memory - 128 MB
Internet connection - DSL

[herwin]

I run CWIF on Virtual PC 7 on a Macintosh PowerBook. When the Intel-based PowerBooks come out, I'll either run it under VPC then or under Windows native. Java is probably too slow.