Dead bodies for all eras in PMTW! Thanks STAZI!

[PershsNhpios]

The PMTW forum is a backwater compared to our hall, and this fix for Pike & Musket is so highly prized that I think it can justifiably be advertised here.

In 2008 Nix provided the Dead_page coords for the late era for PMTW players to his great popularity, but the file is since lost and we were all thrown into the depths of despair.

Miraculously, a new member from Poland, Stazi, has posted in the thread this morning, providing us with a link to download his own Dead_Page coords file which provides bodies for ALL eras.

I think this is a wonderful gift and highly deserving of a seperate thread.

The link to the file is here.

You can read Stazi's post in the original thread with his comments and instructions here.

I'm sure you will all join me in thanking Stazi for the holy grail of PMTW patches, and especially if you love marching against the Ottomans as the Hapsburg monarch.

Thank you Stazi, and welcome to the Org!

[gollum]

Thank you indeed, and welcome

Now that's good news, P&M with bodies!

[Stazi]

The PMTW forum is a backwater compared to our hall, and this fix for Pike & Musket is so highly prized that I think it can justifiably be advertised here.

In 2008 Nix provided the Dead_page coords for the late era for PMTW players to his great popularity, but the file is since lost and we were all thrown into the depths of despair.

Miraculously, a new member from Poland, Stazi, has posted in the thread this morning, providing us with a link to download his own Dead_Page coords file which provides bodies for ALL eras.

I think this is a wonderful gift and highly deserving of a seperate thread.

The link to the file is here.

You can read Stazi's post in the original thread with his comments and instructions here.

I'm sure you will all join me in thanking Stazi for the holy grail of PMTW patches, and especially if you love marching against the Ottomans as the Hapsburg monarch.

Thank you Stazi, and welcome to the Org!

I've just found this thread and..wow...I'm really surprised. Thank you very much for the warm welcome. As you can see I'm not a new member. Just not posting too much.
And I think you slightly overestimate me. Today, I found some missing bodies in the early era. One unit but still. May be more too. Some unites have cluttering animations which I plan to fix. It may take some time cause I have to learn what's all about.
E.g. I don't fully understand how the image coords work. The dead256.tga has 256x256 pixels but some units' coords are even above 300!? I've read the tutorial on this forum but still don't get it. English is not my native language so it may cause a problem.

P.S. Could you tell what graphic cards do you use? My main pc has GF9600gt so I'm unable to run the battles at all. I've assembled my old Athlon XP + ATI 9800 128mb AGP but it's a little slow. I've been thinking about radeon 5750/5770 but I'm not sure if these cards can run MTW battles. Could you recommend any new ATI card (up to $200) which not makes battle loading takes ages?

[PershsNhpios]

Sorry for the mistake about your date of registration, Stazi, but you are most welcome all the same!

No it is hardly an overestimation as many PMTW players despair at being unable to find a fix for the missing dead bodies, and since the era and units are part of the greatest appeal PMTW has, those who enjoy it most are also most disappointed in missing this important aesthetic feature.

I think you will be highly appreciated for it and much more so if you continue to apply yourself to fixing graphical issues - that is most charitable of you. If there are PMTW players present, they will support you on this.

I am not experienced with modding or the mechanics of computers at all, but I think Gollum may be able to assist you with the modding, and I believe cegorach has been around somewhat recently so perhaps a PM or email to him would receive answers, and probably anyone here other than myself can assist you with choosing a good card.

I use a laptop with on-board graphics. The laptop is about five years old so I have no problem with graphics or loading.

Thank you for your efforts Stazi.

[gollum]

Gollum has not clue where graphical issues are concerned. There are however some members that do, most of which i have not seen in a while... The Blind King of Bohemia, Tyberious, Axalon. If i were you Stazi, i'd send a private message to the Blind King of bohemia, who might know something or direct you appropriately about the graphics related issues of MTW you are dealing with.

Here is his profile page:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/membe...ing-of-Bohemia

As far as the technical issues are concerned, i am hopeful that Caravel who is around might be able to help.

[caravel]

I've assembled my old Athlon XP + ATI 9800 128mb AGP but it's a little slow. I've been thinking about radeon 5750/5770 but I'm not sure if these cards can run MTW battles.

That old system should run the game perfectly. I had a Radeon 9800 and an Athlon XP 2400 for years and it was my main STW/MTW "gaming rig". The 9800 will be fine with Windows XP/2K and the old Catalyst 5.7 drivers.

[Stazi]

I'm working with MTW graphic now and I made some tests.
- normal 1vs1 battle takes about 90mb video ram and with 128 mb is ok.
- Battle with 3-4 armies hits the 128mb roof and fps drops rapidly. It depends how many different units/textures game has to load. Sometimes, if there are many units of the same type (same texture), 128mb may be still enough but in most situations it won't be. Game (AGP) can take some needed memory from the system but it's much slower type of memory.
- Yesterday I was testing dead bodies so I've made 4vs4 battle with as much different units as possible. The first time game refused to start the battle just saying "not enough video memory". I've added some more available memory to AGP and the battle started. First thought... what a nice slideshow. @10 fps when paused and 2-3 fps in action. Processor - full load, video memory used 270mb! The conclusion is simple - for comfortable play you need at least 256mb video card. During single player campaign you'll never see 4vs4 battle so 256mb card is enough. Better processor can help too.

The solution - I've borrowed Radeon X1800XT 512mb PCI-E (omega drivers) and installed in my current pc (core 2 duo 3GHz). Voila! Everything nice and smooth (45-60 fps in 4vs4 battle). No issues. Battles load instantly. Now I need to find and buy any used one. It won't cost too much I think.

[PershsNhpios]

Fine sleuth work, Stazi! Are you making all of your tests with the PMTW mod?

[Stazi]

yes. all tests from previous post are from MTW VI 2.01 with PMTW 1.5 (patched). I use old MTW version, not gold, eras or other new editions.

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

Re. gfx cards, last year I bought two (one as a backup) Radeon 9800XT (256MB) cards. P&MTW is stable when using them with the 4.11 Cats.

I play both campaign and battle 1024 x 768 max visual effects. Things can get a little bit juddery at huge settings when you've got full initial deployments tramping about the landscape. [2x512MB PC3200 in dual channel mode, 3GHz Athlon (old single core)]

Have to say, whilst P&MTW is more stable on the 9800XT than the Nvidia 6800GT it replaced (61.76 Detonators) the smoke and dust depiction by the latter is much more 'realistic' than the ATI card's. The billowing green-tinged smoke accompanying a volley of Arq fire was a beautiful thing (sigh).

Best regards
Victor

Sapere aude
Horace

[caravel]

The early cards can be hard to find - especially working ones. I remember scouring ebay and bidding on X700, X800 and X850 models and seeing prices go ridiculously high (£50+). I gave up after that. Some years later I tried to find PCI-E equivalents and had similar results (though there were less around).

[Stazi]

A little update for deadpage files. check here

[PershsNhpios]

Thanks Stazi! What is included in the update?

[Stazi]

It's an update because of some mistakes I made (wrong unit in high, some typos). The engine search the list until it find any incorrectness (DEADPAGE == UNIT_PROD) then stops even if all other entires are good. One typo in the first entry disable dead bodies for all units.