M1 Tank Platoon II

[Polak2]

Great insights and memories RG! Thanks.

Here is another great and revealing piece by Ssnake from SB1 manual on how is difficult to convey and simulate real "tanking" on PC :

PHYSICAL STRESS

You don’t have to do hard labor on your PC. A tank crew member has to do a lot of manual labor. Each round weighs about 25 kilograms, and there are 42 to load into a tank. The loader will jump in and out of the tank numerous times a day.

The whole crew will probably sleep only two to four hours a day for weeks. It stinks.

It’s loud inside a tank. You may not wash yourself for days, and then you get some ice cubes instead of a warm and comfortable shower. The rolling motion of the moving tank might cause nausea -- somebody’s barfing into a rubber boot, but the tank won’t stop. Boring routine for hours, days, even weeks.

Then an enemy attack, all of a sudden. And it’s over even before you fully realize that there was a threat to your life!

If you care to simulate the routine day of a tanker, here’s what you can do. (Take care to avoid all social contact, though, or you may find yourself under sedation in a rubber room.) Once you’re alone, stop washing for a couple of days19. Then start 19 OK, if it’s absolutely necessary, use a bowl of ice water. Shave yourself with a blade, but no foam! Use face paint afterward, and diesel fuel as a deodorant.

Exercise by repeatedly climbing some dressers in your bedroom. Fold yourself into a locker for a few hours, and then start weight-lifting your 17“ monitor. Avoid sleeping for more than three hours per day - in the locker, of course! Use duct tape and fix yourself to your seat.

[RetroGamer]

Originally Posted by Polak2

Great insights and memories RG! Thanks.

Here is another great and revealing piece by Ssnake from SB1 manual on how is difficult to convey and simulate real "tanking" on PC :

I do remember reading that as well. It’s very accurate. I think my experience would’ve been more enjoyable if my platoon and battalion as a whole had lived and trained together a little longer. Everything was rush, rush, rush….no sleep, constant field training.

I really did not know WTF I was doing at first which was horrifying. In retrospect, I should’ve gotten the whole platoon together and started troubleshooting the radios and intercoms. The same care we take of our desktop PCs nowadays should’ve been done on our electronic commo equipment back then. The stuff was always broken which infuriated me. I didn’t know enough about it at the time, unfortunately. Contact cleaner, reinforcing cables with heat shrink tubing or tape, maybe….anything to make that stuff more durable. A CVC helmet for example, had little tiny wires - like something from cheap Walmart headphones, connected to the mic. They were always broken or about to break. We should’ve re-wired and rebuilt all that stuff because commo is the key to coordination. I’m sure all the Army’s stuff is different now,

A gunner in a Bradley or Tank, or LAV could actually have some job satisfaction if everything works right. We did get very proficient right at the end. My Bradley crew and I ended up with an almost perfect score on one of those range qualifications. The tracking of moving targets and fire commands in M1TP2 is very accurate.

I also pulled the trigger on another Voodoo2 3Dfx card. It may or may not work in SLI mode with my existing card. I’ll find out. If it does, I’ll make some M1TP2 Fraps recordings of gameplay in SLI. If it just doesn’t work, oh well - I’ve taken it as far as I can.

The only way my 1999 era computer can communicate with the outside world is via CDs. I’m not sure it’s even capable of burning CDs, only reading them. I don’t think a USB thumb drive would work, either.

I may just end up putting the iPhone in front of the screen because I don’t know how I’d get the movie files off the thing and onto my laptop.

I’ll keep you posted.

[Polak2]

I don’t think a USB thumb drive would work, either.

In one of the early posts you said that usb joystick worked so you have USB ports probable in the back.

[RetroGamer]

Originally Posted by Polak2

In one of the early posts you said that usb joystick worked so you have USB ports probable in the back.

Absolutely correct. The ports are there but if I plugged a modern day 16 GB USB thumb drive in there, the fragile Win98 OS will probably give me a BSOD, LOL!!!

Maybe not…I might give it a shot.. Windows 98 is really unstable. It’s blue screened on me for just running DXDIAG. I noticed if I run a 3DMark benchmark after playing a 3D game, it sometimes locks up.

If I can get a USB drive to work, or be able to burn a CD, we might be in business.

[RetroGamer]

This afternoon, my second Voodoo2 card eBay purchase arrived. I eagerly plugged it in to test it and….nothing. It wasn’t even detected by the PC.

I tried a different PCI slot and the desktop PC wouldn’t even boot.

I then reinstalled it in the original slot that I’d tried the first time and it worked! The only explanation I have is that the card probably hadn’t been used in over 20 years and the capacitors or other parts just needed to charge and wake up a bit. I’m not sure.

I then connected and installed both Voodoo2cards in SLI mode and ran the 3DMark2000 benchmark, then 3DMark99 max and finally 3DMark2001. Guess what?

There was ZERO performance increase, LOl!!!!

The reported memory shows it’s double what it was and the voodoo display software shows the memory has doubled, but aside from that, there is no difference….I do find that a little funny even tho I’m a bit disappointed.

M1TP2 runs and looks great but it was great before the install.

Maybe I need to try different drivers.

Anyway - it was a fun experiment for M1TP2 and me.

UPDATE:

Further research indicates I am likely using the wrong drivers and wrong benchmark programs. For the purposes of getting the most out of M1TP2, I’m going to try different Voodoo2 drivers.

http://falconfly.3dfx.pl/voodoo2.htm

The game looks good now, it’s just the frame rate could be improved.

The jerkiness be improved by my installing one of the M1TP2 patches. Once I get this thing smoothed out, back to reports and hopefully media of gameplay!

[Polak2]

I remember I had 2 Voodoo cards and SLI. What I do not remember what happened to that computer and the other thing is which of the cards the video cord is attached to? It does not matter or it does matter?

[RetroGamer]

Originally Posted by Polak2

I remember I had 2 Voodoo cards and SLI. What I do not remember what happened to that computer and the other thing is which of the cards the video cord is attached to? It does not matter or it does matter?

Copy that. I missed that entire era of 3dfx. I was using computers but the games I was into weren’t 3D accelerated.

This is all new to me and I’m having a lot of fun with it. After some research, I came up with the photos below. I suspect it does matter how everything is connected.

I learned that if a program or benchmark isn’t written for 3dfx, SLI will make no difference. If it is, it’s fantastic! I replayed Star Wars Racer (the kids and I played that in 1999), and that game looks unbelievable!

M1TP2 looks great too. I think I’ve gotten it running the best I can. All that’s left is to install the game patches. One of them, I remember smooths out the CITV engagement function and makes it less jerky.







I’m working on getting Fraps and a USB drive working with this legacy rig. I might set up a dedicated YouTube channel just for M1TP2 gameplay. There are other videos out there but the demonstrators usually don’t really know how to play and it’s kind of annoying.

I gotta show everybody what this game can do!!!!