!!!AATF DEMO RELEASED!!!

[DeltaMike]

I downloaded the demo a few days ago, and have been really enjoying it so far!

However, the longer I play a scenario, the slower the game seems to get. This is especially noticable in the second scenario, which starts slowing down to the point of being unplayable once the reinforcements arrive, and inevitably crashes soon after.

I'm running a P4 1.7GHz with 1GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon screen card with 64MB of memory, so it seems my system should definitely be able to handle the game.

Has anything like this been happening to anyone else, and/or does anyone know what to do about it? I've tried pretty much all possible combinations of graphics settings, to no avail.

[Nicdain]

I still have problems with the demo, too, but I cannot even launch a scenario. The game freezes once I press the "Campaign Scenario" button. This happens on my desktop PC (3 ghz P4, 1 GB ram, NVIDIA Geforce 5200 Fx 128 mb). Instead, the demo runs fine on another machine, a laptop(3,2 ghz P4, 1 gb ram, ATI radeon 9700 128 mb).
I tried all the possible graphic settings, but without results, too.
I came to the hypotesis that it is a video card issue, even if I installed on both machines the latest drivers.

[Patrick Proctor]

Delta,

You are operating at the minimum system specs in video memory for the game (64MB). It sounds like you are running out of video memory.

I would suggest the following:
[*]Ensure that every unneccessary process is closed[*]Make sure the display is set to 16-bit color.[*]If the problem persists, try switching from "picture" icons to "NATO symbol" icons for vehicles. This uses much less video memory.

Let me know if this doesn't solve the problem. You can contact me at:

[email protected]

[Patrick Proctor]

Nicdain,

This sounds like the game is freezing while trying to open the HTML file containing the scenario selection pages. This suggests that the game may be locking up due to a firewall warning.

Please ensure that your firewall is set to allow, or at least silently (without warning window) block the demo. Otherwise, your computer will hang on a firewall blocker window that you cannot access.

Running the game in windowed mode might or might not allow you to break out of the game to close the window, if this is the problem.

[Patrick Proctor]

Sorry I didn't catch this before, but as I look back / this thread, I realize you are actually operating BELOW min system specs for AATF. The game requires a minimum of 128 MB of video memory. You are operating at 64. This is, no doubt, the source of your problems.

I'm sorry I didn't catch this before.

[Nicdain]

Dear Patrick,
after several attempts to solve the "freezing" problem of AATF demo on my desktop computer, I installed the demo on my notebook, where all went well! I couldn't wait to play (BTW I've just ordered the release version) and I definitely enjoyed the game. My compliments! A really good job.

But, as I always say, a machine (the PC) cannot have a leg up on an human being! So I started again trying to figure out what is wrong in the configuration of my PC that prevents AATF demo from running.

I changed almost all the available settings of the firewall (I also disabled it) and I updated all the video card drivers, but nothing changed.

Besides having different video cards (which seems to be irrelevant) the other difference between the desktop and the notebook PC is the antivirus. The notebook has Norton, while the desktop has Avast.

Another information, if it can be useful: the Windows event monitor application tells me that AATF is affected by an "application hang" (category 101), and as you said before, this happens while the app tries to open the html start page. The fact that I use Mozilla firefox as default browser (though I have IE6 installed), shouldn't be relevant, since TSATC demo doesn't show any problem opening the browser pages.

Forgive me if I am annoying you with this problem! I am going on looking for a solution, probably it is something stupid under my eyes but I cannot figure out now!

Best regards
Niccolo'

[Patrick Proctor]

Norton is notorious for interfering with perfectly innocent applications that try to save data to files. Have you tried shutting off Norton anti-virus and running the application.

Also, what time zone and language is your problem computer set to? perhaps there is some time zone issue that we did not spot during playtesting.