Top 15 Rows

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Patrice,

Thank you for posting this set of screen shots.

How much needs to be trimmed is still an open issue. I have 15 from the top as the maximum. Once I get the rest of the coastal bitmaps from Rob (USA, Central America, and 2 South America segments), I'll be able to do a precise count.

Now I like all the graphics for the map and will only trim it if there is a real benefit to do so, in terms of my development time and how the game plays (pagination could slow things down).

Remember, the whole purpose behind trimming the map is to reduce the program's demand for coastal bitmaps - which causes problems due to the Windows operating system's internal definition of memory resources.

From my point of view, I was delighted to discover that I might not need to write the pagination routine. For the last year and a half I had thought it would be essential and therefore had scheduled project time for the task. Since it is a pure overhead function and adds nothing to the game's playability or features, I find coding it uninteresting. It would be a tedious chore.

[trees]

I think anything north of The North Cape or south of the Cape of Good Hope could go. (Unless parts of Australia are farther south?) I can just about guarantee that Tierra Del Fuego would never be missed in a WWII simulation. Don't forget that people like to run their computers doing multiple things simultaneously these days, so the leaner MWiF can be the more people will enjoy the program.

[wfzimmerman]

I hope you don't have to trim the map! I like the global view.

If it is necessary to cut the map, I hope you don't have to lose any part of areas like Iceland that were in fact operational theatres. I would be less heartbroken about losing the soviet north.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Patrice,

Thank you for posting this set of screen shots.

How much needs to be trimmed is still an open issue. I have 15 from the top as the maximum. Once I get the rest of the coastal bitmaps from Rob (USA, Central America, and 2 South America segments), I'll be able to do a precise count.

Now I like all the graphics for the map and will only trim it if there is a real benefit to do so, in terms of my development time and how the game plays (pagination could slow things down).

Remember, the whole purpose behind trimming the map is to reduce the program's demand for coastal bitmaps - which causes problems due to the Windows operating system's internal definition of memory resources.

From my point of view, I was delighted to discover that I might not need to write the pagination routine. For the last year and a half I had thought it would be essential and therefore had scheduled project time for the task. Since it is a pure overhead function and adds nothing to the game's playability or features, I find coding it uninteresting. It would be a tedious chore.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: wfzimmerman
I hope you don't have to trim the map! I like the global view.

If it is necessary to cut the map, I hope you don't have to lose any part of areas like Iceland that were in fact operational theatres. I would be less heartbroken about losing the soviet north.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Patrice,

Thank you for posting this set of screen shots.

How much needs to be trimmed is still an open issue. I have 15 from the top as the maximum. Once I get the rest of the coastal bitmaps from Rob (USA, Central America, and 2 South America segments), I'll be able to do a precise count.

Now I like all the graphics for the map and will only trim it if there is a real benefit to do so, in terms of my development time and how the game plays (pagination could slow things down).

Remember, the whole purpose behind trimming the map is to reduce the program's demand for coastal bitmaps - which causes problems due to the Windows operating system's internal definition of memory resources.

From my point of view, I was delighted to discover that I might not need to write the pagination routine. For the last year and a half I had thought it would be essential and therefore had scheduled project time for the task. Since it is a pure overhead function and adds nothing to the game's playability or features, I find coding it uninteresting. It would be a tedious chore.

See Patrice's opening posts on this thread for exactly what is under consideration for being trimmed.

[Caranorn]

My only worry is Spitzbergen which apparently is withing the top 15 hexrows. But then again that island as far as I recall only served as a German weatherstation and had a garrison of less then 50 men. The allied search for said weatherstation (it was not known where they were located) was a bit more costly, but still well bellow the scope of WiF.

The fun anecdote, the poor buggers only got pulled off the island in 1946 or even later. Even then the allies were expecting some die hard nazis they'd have to pick off the island by assault. Instead they found a bunch of meteorologists performing various studies on the flaura and fauna now that the war was over.

P.S.: I'm not 100% certain they were stationned on Spitzbergen, it could have been some nearby island (rock).

[JagdFlanker]

this might 'complicate' things, but is it possible to cut off the 15 hexes from west of kara sea to east of greenland and 'diagonal' it up for the north atlantic/arctic ocean part? that would cut off all the unnecessary land up north but leave the north atlantic 'play' area (much of which i assume would be iced in the winter.) you could conceivably diagonal it up for the chukchi sea north of the bering strait as well, but that is likely iced/iceburged year round and there is nothing of value up there anyways.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Flanker Leader
this might 'complicate' things, but is it possible to cut off the 15 hexes from west of kara sea to east of greenland and 'diagonal' it up for the north atlantic/arctic ocean part? that would cut off all the unnecessary land up north but leave the north atlantic 'play' area (much of which i assume would be iced in the winter.) you could conceivably diagonal it up for the chukchi sea north of the bering strait as well, but that is likely iced/iceburged year round and there is nothing of value up there anyways.

I prefer simple solutions and only add complexity when there is substantial gain for doing so. I don't see the pay off here.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

I think it would be fine to drop these hexes as well as some in the south.  Even though Hitler claimed Antartica, the most Germany did was to drop spikes with swastikas into the ice with airplanes.
 
 

[Ullern]

I applaud this change (I think I suggested it already a year ago in an e-mail to Steve and Patrice of entirely different reasons)

[Froonp]

Steve wrote, in the maps of the USA thread :

We are now up to 4501 coastal bitmaps and the program runs fine. This means I will have to trim no more that 10 hex rows from the top of the map. Maybe fewer.

When you evaluate that you will (maybe) need to trim only the top 10 rows of the map (I'm happy that we went from 15 to 10 already), do you also account for the change that you (hopefully) made that has the units are no longer loaded as individual bitmaps, but as six 10x10 counters large bitmaps ?

I ask because, I'm still able to load the game with those 4500 coastal bitmaps, but I also have the (how many ?) hundreds units bitmaps that are loaded in my version of the playtest beta. Having those hundreds of units bitmaps not loaded (loaded instead in 6 large 10x10 bitmaps) in your copy, should make more room for more coastal bitmap to load, shouldn't it ?

Cheers !

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp
Steve wrote, in the maps of the USA thread :

We are now up to 4501 coastal bitmaps and the program runs fine. This means I will have to trim no more that 10 hex rows from the top of the map. Maybe fewer.

When you evaluate that you will (maybe) need to trim only the top 10 rows of the map (I'm happy that we went from 15 to 10 already), do you also account for the change that you (hopefully) made that has the units are no longer loaded as individual bitmaps, but as six 10x10 counters large bitmaps ?

I ask because, I'm still able to load the game with those 4500 coastal bitmaps, but I also have the (how many ?) hundreds units bitmaps that are loaded in my version of the playtest beta. Having those hundreds of units bitmaps not loaded (loaded instead in 6 large 10x10 bitmaps) in your copy, should make more room for more coastal bitmap to load, shouldn't it ?

Cheers !

Until the program fails, I can not easily assess the effect (if any) of restructuring the unit bitmaps from individual 96x96 pixel bitmaps into pages of 100 (960x960 pixel bitmaps). So that has not been measured yet.