Military Operations | Support

 

How to solve an issue with Military Operations

  1. Make sure your Graphics card is supported. Check the following pages: NVidia, AMD. Intel (integrated) GPUs are not supported.
  2. The quickest way to resolve an issue is to first try the trouble-shooting FAQ.
  3. If that didn’t help you, check the forum. There is a good chance some one else encountered the issue and found a solution.
  4. The issue may very well be reported already. In that case you can find it in our Bug-tracker.

If you successfully fixed a problem that didn’t have a solution before, it would be great if you could help out and tell us and other users about it on the forum.


 

Trouble shooting FAQ

Before anything else, make sure you have all Windows updates and the latest video drivers installed.



Video drivers (which include OpenCL drivers) can be downloaded from NVidia or AMD depending on your graphics card’s model.
  • Make sure your graphics card is supported. Supported graphics cards: NVidia, AMD. Intel (integrated) GPUs are not supported.
  • Check if your system conforms to the minimal system specification.
  • Make sure you have the latest video drivers installed.
  • Try starting MilOps without any joystick or controllers connected to your system.
  • Make sure your system meets the minimum requirements
  • Close all other applications like your browser.
  • Make sure to run MilOps from a freshly started Windows session. Performance may be impaired when running from a “hibernate” or “sleep” Windows session.
  • Check the minimum system specifications.
  • Try selecting a lower video pre-set from the Main-menu -> Settings -> Video, after starting the application.
  • Make sure to close all other applications. Especially when they use the GPU. For example, your browser, Skype, Video players, etc.
  • If you have a system with both a dedicated and integrated GPU, make sure the dedicated GPU is active and selected for display. The AMD or NVidia control panel let’s you do this.
  • If you are running Windows 10, you may have to install video drivers manually because Windows 10 does not always update OpenCL drivers for you.
  • You may have encountered a crash. Every time the application runs, it generates a log,txt file containing any issues it encountered. Crashes are detected and should end up in our bug tracking automatically. Keep an eye on the forum and the bug-tracker for progress updates. If you are curious, this how to locate the log.txt file:
    1. In the Steam-client, go to your library
    2. Locate “Military Operations: Benchmark” in the list and right-click on it.
    3. Select “Properties” from the drop-down menu.
    4. Select the “LOCAL FILES” tab.
    5. Click “BROWSE LOCAL FILES”. An Explorer window opens.
    6. The log.txt file is located in the “Benchmark” folder.

MilOps Benchmark uses the content of MilOps the game, which is still in development. So we use placeholder models for several troops.
For example:

  • Infantry have a non-animating model
  • All tanks/panzers within an allegiance share the same model
  • Cavalry troops use the infantry model

The collection of correct models will grow over time.

Since both Metis Tech and MilOps are still in development, the final game will probably run smoother and may possibly have lower hardware requirements. All depends on how much we can optimise. The results from MilOps: Benchmark will help us do that.

Follow this link for the leader-board on Steam.

For your score to be added to the leader-board, make sure to:

  • Be logged in on Steam with the Steam-client
  • Set the Visual Quality in the Video Setting to “STANDARD”
  • Set the resolution to 1920 x 1080
  • Let the entire Benchmark run finish

If the score border on the results screen is greenish, it will be eligible for the leader-board. If the the border is reddish, it will not.

Your score may also not be in the top 200 entries. At the moment your score needs to be 3000 or up to appear in the top 200.

The Metis engine runs the game simulation on the GPU, not on the CPU like other games. So the video memory is used for both gameplay and rendering.
Because we actually fully simulate every single troop and unit, we need state data for every one of them. For our unit counts that amounts to a substantial part of the available memory.

MilOps is updated through Steam distribution. So just start your Steam-client and log-in. If you have MilOps installed and an update is available, Steam will automatically update your install.

If the update is only available on the “Beta-branch”, you need to switch to the Beta-branch like this:

  1. In your Steam-client, right-click on “Military Operations: Benchmark” in your library
  2. Select “properties” at the bottom of the pop-up menu
  3. Select the “BETAS” tab in the dialogue that opens
  4. Select “beta - Beta” from the list-box
  5. Force an update by exiting the client and restarting it. After the Steam update, the version in the MilOps “Credits” on the main menu screen, should now show the new version number.

After a while, bugfixes on the “Beta-branch” will be merged into the “Standard-branch”. When that happens you can switch back to the “Standard-branch”. We will always announce changes and updates in the community hub on Steam.

Benchmark and Conformance Tool

To test whether your system is capable of running MilOps, or Metis-tech based games in general, we created the “Military Operations: Benchmark”.
The Benchmark option performs a number performance profiling tests and displays the results which you can share with us to help improve the game. Sharing benchmark results is optional.

Besides testing your system, the Benchmark tool is a great way to get a glimpse of the possibilities of the “Military Operations” game. You can freely move around to any spot on the planet. At a number of locations troops are deployed and busy implementing orders. Some of them are in combat which you can watch up close. Unit icons can be interacted with to show OOB and status details. For a complete list of features, go to the Steam page.

The Benchmark tool can be installed from Steam for free.

Drivers and OpenCL

opencl_logoMilitary Operations is heavily depending on the GPU, so it is very important to have the latest video drivers installed!

Not every system will be able to run MilOps because it uses a professional GPU-compute solution called “OpenCL” (Open Compute Library). It enables MilOps to simulate it’s huge number of units.
All major graphics card vendors have support for OpenCL. They ship drivers with their video drivers, so if your graphics-card is capable, you don’t need to do anything beyond installing the latest drivers.

Although Intel has support for OpenCL, at this time there are no Intel graphics solutions capable of running Military Operations. We are closely watching new developments to make sure we support as many graphics-cards as possible, so be sure to hear about it on the forum and in the newsletter.


 

How to report a new issue

If you weren’t able to resolve your issue and you are sure it is not already listed in the Bug-tracker, you can report it in the bug-list on the forum. We will scan the Bug Report sub-forum and add a link to the Bug-tracking card on the Bug-tracker for any applicable list-post. That way you can subscribe to the card and follow progress. The same will happen if a reported issue on the forum is linked to an existing bug in the tracker.

How the Bug-tracker works

Trello Bug-tracker

On the Bug-tracking page, there are 4 lists. Each list contains cards. Every card represents an issue.
The lists are:

  • Candidates: here any new issues that were reported on the forum enter the Bug-tracker.
  • Todo: When an issue is selected for fixing, its card is moved from Candidates to Todo.
  • Doing: If a developer starts working on an issue he will move the card from Todo to Doing.
  • Done: If the developer has fixed the issue, the card is moved from Doing to Done.

Note that if an issue has been solved by a developer, it still has to be shipped in an update that will be distributed through steam, before you will get the fix.

You can follow the card by bookmarking its URL (share) and checking it now and then. If you have a Trello account (free), you can subscribe to a card to receive notifications every time the card changes. For example when the developer adds notes or when the card is moved to an other list.