Question: AATF etc. High CPU usage and temperatures

[burroughs]

I bought BGC, ATF, BCT and tFW today, I have already had AATF before; I cannot remember such issues before when I used to operate Win XP and single core CPUs, perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention, but have recently noticed that on my new Win 7 and Win8 laptops with dual core CPUs (not that I think the difference matters) - they both have NVidia graphic cards apart from the integrated ones - the temperatures rise quite rapidly and the difference reaches some 20 degrees when I start playing any of the titles mentioned above.

I have also noticed using the Speedfan software that the CPU usage is pretty high. Both things kind of puzzled me since I hadn't expected those games to be able to put my machines to the test. Apparently the measure values are still well within acceptable limit, but I feel a little uneasy about that. Is this a normal thing to happen? Should I try to apply some workarounds to be able to offset those occurrences - like compatibility modes perhaps ( I guess I have tried that with the AATF before to no avail)?

[Patrick Proctor]

burroughs,

First, thank you for purchasing our games. I hope you are enjoying them.

While these games are not that graphically intensive (in fact, they are a bit retro), they are very computationally intensive. This is not a hex-based boardgame port. These games use real terrain databases and complex siting and AI algorithms to replicate the real battlefield. In addition, the game scales itself to your system. So, the more powerful your computer, the more resources the game uses to improve the fidelity of the simulation. So, no matter how powerful your system, the games will attempt to max their computational capabilities.

That having been said, the games are completely safe to run on your system. They should not overheat your CPU. But if you are concerned, you can open task manager while the game is running and reduce the priority level of the game to "low." This will cause the game to "see" less of your resources and demand less from your system.

I hope this answers your questions. If you need more specific info, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Thanks. And enjoy the games!

[burroughs]

Yes, thank you, it's always a good feeling to be on the safe side. Actually, I feel kind of uneasy not to have been able to think better of it - I backtracked to some older games that are not reduced to fireworks display in hope to find something that has more than meets the eye yet I failed to recognize it. I think I'll decide in favour of Middle East and Korea then, too in that case, they're the only ones missing from my collection now.
Yes, at first glance I was disappointed with AATF years ago, the same situation as with Airborne Assault for instance - but then I realized what's really going on behind the scenes in there, so to speak and got back to it and some more of that, it with the other titles in mind here.

Thanks for the reply, I thought the support here as the forums business is low and dared to make a blistering comment a year ago, but I guess that way we all have made up for all of the previous deficiencies - if there were any.