The Mech Warrior Series in MiGMan's Museum




MechCommander2 Performance The game has an "auto-config" program which detects your hardware while displaying what look like broken texture maps - mmm... this could have been done with more polish - I thought the computer had crashed at first - and then selects graphics settings for the card. Now to back track a bit - when I first brought the game home I was still running a Geforce 2 MX and the game would not run at all in 3D accelerated mode. Most disappointing. So a warning is in order - make sure you can return the game if it doesn't run on your hardware. Betelgeuse on the newsgroups had the explanation as to why my Geforce 2 MX card wasn't recognised: "I had a similar problem with my Radeon 8500. It is related to a text file that stores all the graphic card IDs. If your card is not listed or the ID there doesn't correspond to the card then the game will run in software-only mode. To correct this you'll need to add the appropriate line to the file (I can't remember the file name, but it's in the root game directory). Unfortunately, I don't know what the proper ID is for your card." Anyway with the Hercules 3D Prophet III Titanium 500 installed the auto-config did it's mysterious work and the game launched. I say mysterious because the config prog had decided that I should run MechCommander 2 at 600 x 400 resolution with most of the graphical enhancements turned off! You're kidding!! My test system is not the top end - but is certainly above average - the Celeron 466 Mk II - and the Hercules 3D Prophet III Titanium 500 card means it is able to run everything I throw at it to max effect - everything except MechCommander 2! I mean, really.. this card has 64 MEG of DDR RAM, 59 million transistors.... ! 600 x 400! Anyway I ran the first couple of missions with the suggested settings then rebelled - I payed my money and I wanted to see the effects - the transparent water, ripple effects - smoke - detailed landscape textures. So back I went to the options screen and maxed everything out - well to 1024 x 768 and 32 bit colour anyway. The difference? Looks improved as expected. Frame rate? The same as it was using the low settings. That is to say - pretty smooth until you entered battle and then a slide show. I'm talking about 2 frames per second. Combined with a lag in response to keyboard strokes up up to 3 seconds. Not good.		The ripple effect I wanted to see! Laser battle Nice explosions This is exactly the same problem that manifested in MechCommander on the more complex battle segments. But - in those days I was running a Pentium 233MMX with NO graphics accelerators and I blamed the hardware - or lack thereof. Now it seems the problem is actually in the AI - the calculation of battle interactions - damage - hits and misses etc. All the calculations that Mech Warrior fans used to calculate with 10 sided dice and hefty rule books. Well the 10 sided dice are a bit lopsided in this engine. So this was a problem - a dilemma of classic proportions. Here I had a game which looked great and ran well except in the most critical phase - the battle! I gritted my teeth through 16 missions before the frustrations outweighed the rewards. There is one way to play MechCommander 2 and retain your sanity. Pretend it is a combination of real time strategy and a turn based game. Play in real-time during the scouting and "preparing for battle" stages. Then accept that you will have no control at all during the battle segments - just sit back and watch. Back to MechCommander 2



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