ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead, version 1.55 - Patch released.

[mrcash2009 0]

Personally for now, as much as I love BIS work and how things have been, im holding off purchasing new DLC until I see some moving forward patches and updates to sort 1.55 issues.

Sorry to say it but, that's just where I stand on it.

Having said all that, looking forward to betas and updates and will continue to help with feeding back anything I can, if I can.

Edited November 21, 2010 by mrcash2009

[fruity_rudy 16]

Guys, seriously i'm pissed like ^1000 , but that's no reason to argue, yell at each other or Say "Bis has to do this, bis has to do that..."

They do know about this problem, i bet on my mother's grave that they are sweating blood. As soon as they got new stuff for us to test, we will do and give em feedback.

It is a bit annoying, and it makes some ppl angry, but they are just a small dev-studio without millions of $ budget.

My suggestion is, just let em figure out, let us stfu..i think they know now that we want a solution and that we are not in the best mood.

No need for 10 more guys to tell "i have probs, i'm so angry, i have pee in my pants..."

Word

[mrcash2009 0]

No need for 10 more guys to tell "i have probs, i'm so angry, i have pee in my pants..."

Well, as long as they provide system specs to help norrow the problem and machine types :)

[dga 12]

Makes me sad, that most of you guys having problems with the Patch.

Steam auto-installed it for me and I booted ARMA up, expecting some bad experiences.

Well... for me, the game works better than ever before.

I have a very decent machine (Quad 3.2, 2 nvidia gfx SLI and so on) but I always had that laggy feeling in ARMA and at all it was not THAT fun to play it, as it could be when its smooth.

But I always thought, thats ARMA and it will never be any better... it is now.

Well... since the Patch the Game is SMOOTH for me. It's as smooth as any other game.

Just rocked out 5 Missions in a row. Usually I got sick of it after 1.

Just wanted to share that, to let you (or the devs) know, that the update works for some. And for me it works PERFECT

Only tested Singleplayer for now and I have NO MODS installed.

[Evil_Echo 11]

What does this mean, 'deal with it locally ".... ?

It would be nice if a developer from BIS would make a statement here.

Until this is fixed I will just play something else. The game ArmA2>OA has become unplayable for me and many of my friends. Thanks BIS.

I play OFP / ArmA etc since 2004 but maybe it is finally time to drop this game. Tired of all this patch business and Beta and other things ....

BTW> I also find it extremely amusing to suggest to patch back to 1.54 when many servers are already patched to 1.55.

Dwarden has made statements here and elsewhere. That's good enough.

'Deal with it locally' == either roll back to 1.54 if you can or muddle on with 1.55 as best you can. You make the decision for your own machine - hence it's local.

There is nothing amusing about the suggestion. If you do roll back, it probably means you are not going to access public servers unless they too roll back. So you play SP for a while, nothing wrong with that.

Let's just keep the postings focused on technical issues and not about our emotions. BIS knows we are not happy already, nothing more is served by continuing to state the obvious.

[Rovka 14]

Two things can be done to avoid such problems, requiring you the end-user to have enough harddrive space available.. If practicable, how about trying to backup your important ArmA 2 folders yourself? You know Data folder etc. All the basics needed to run the game..

On the long term the feasable solution should come from BI's behalf, being an option in the update process, to select patch-up or patch-down! Patches might grow in size, but atleast there IS a backup-sytem, unlike the situation the latest patch has brought to many people..

Yet again, failures are to be part of mankind, and never forget those people at BI also have to sleep, eat, and go to the toilet, just like the rest of us all need to do. They ain't robots, able to work 24h a day. So I do agree with what somebody/some people said before.

Oh and for the record, whilst I do not know if it should be mentioned here;

My specs:

System: Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3.

Computer: Intel Core 2 CPU

6400 @ 2.13GHz.

3,00 GB RAM.

Kind of low system to run ArmA 2 on, but it's what the package recommended for lowest/medium specs as far as I can tell. Normally ran smooth, until I overcrowd the map with lots of pixels to kill. Yet the latest patch messed it up badly though...

[old_painless 182]

A simple system that can help reverting to older patches (from the old Falcon4 days with many patches to keep track of) is this:

1. Keep an unpatched version of Arma2 in a separate folder, eg. Arma2_noPatch. You construct this by installing from DVD and then copying the entire Arma2 folder into this folder. You then have two identical folders, Arma2 and Arma2_noPatch. The registry points toward Arma2.
   
2. Now patch the Arma2 folder to, say, 1.55 and enjoy the game.
   
3. When the next patch comes out, the main thing with this procedure is to rename your Arma2 folder into whatever the version is at the time.
   
4. Eg. rename the Arma2 folder into Arma2_155. Then make an empty folder named Arma2 and copy the contents of Arma2_noPatch into this folder. Now patch Arma2 with the new patch.
   
5. Now, if you don't like the new patch, just delete the Arma2 folder, make a new one and copy the contents of Arma2_155 into it. Voila, you're back to 1.55
   

Hope this may be of some use. Note that as Arma2 resides not only in the Arma2 folder, you might have to maintain copies of the user data folders (profiles and stuff) as well to be really on the safe side. But they should be up- and downwards compatible.

-OP

Edited November 22, 2010 by Old_Painless

[mrcash2009 0]

Good tip.

Thing for me though, I made a duplicate files into a Arma2 backup before I applied the 1.55 patch, OA was ok 1.08 Arma2 had a corruption error and BAF. So I had half patched combined ops, So i then realised I could switch back, so I removed and deleted all files to the updated A2 folder and then moved the old pre patch files back into the folder (so I didn't have to move around massive mod folders too) I ran and tested to make sure it was all ok and back to showing 1.54 and tested a mission and it was back to normal.

I then patched that again with a fresh download of 1.55 from a different server, and then 1.55 / A2 & BAF all then failed with same corruption error ..!? Which makes no sense as that was the 1.54/1.07/1.0BAF backup ... so even when I had that backup plan the patch would not have it at all for me, in the end it was complete removal and reinstall. I tried 3 differnet downloads of the 1.55 patch and they weren't corrupt in anyway.

Very odd becuase I have other games I do exact same thing as you mention, always works like a charm ... becuase why wouldn't it when its just registry pointing to folder and a quick move of files pre patch, but I was thwarted at all levels with this one, oddest patching session I have had.

All working now though.

Edited November 23, 2010 by mrcash2009

[old_painless 182]

I don't know really, could be a lot of stuff. This method is usually pretty safe, as you are aware. Only thing I can think of is if your 1.54 install had issues that didn't show during your game-tests, but that conflicted with the 1.55 patch.

Other issues would be pure speculation, but something along the lines of admin rights, read-only user folders, antivirus running etc.

Your post made me consider to keeping the addons in folders outside of the Arma2 main folder. To keep this method simpler. If I ever get around to it (I will if I start having problems)

Cheers,

OP

[mrcash2009 0]

Yes it was very odd indeed, left me scratching my head for sure. Although, that's my example and case, the actual advice is spot on, always the best way if you can afford the drive space for the duplicate.

[Binkowski 26]

so, i received some crazy error when running this patch. so i kept hitting ignore. and it worked.

[Raafatah64 0]

iam reinstalling arrowhead through steam but i dont want it to update it how can i disable the update i went to dont automaticly update this game if i put it on the game installing prgress will be paused is there any other way to disable the auto updates thanx

[Heatseeker 0]

1.55 completely broke OA, i even thought about sticking to 1.54 until the next final..

1.55:

-Performance degradation over time.

-Buildings and world objects switching on and off (depending on camera position) after some play time.

-Black "receiving" screen restarting the graphics.

-Lod problems and slowdowns.

-exThreads=3 seems to fix the above problems, im still testing but so far OA 1.55 final + -exThreads=3 seems the same as 1.54, maybe even a little better..

I havent tried the 2 betas released after 1.55, can anyone with a dual core cpu confirm this?

[Dwarden 1124]

heatseeker then you should try 76067 ;)

[Heatseeker 0]

heatseeker then you should try 76067 ;)

I read the beta threads but people were still reporting the same problems 'introduced' in 1.55.

Still having LOD issues and heavy stuttering when turning around. But as with previous builds -exThreads=3 fixes it for me.

To test this I've simply used editor placed grenadier and empty humvee in Staroye, Chernarus. When I run and drive around the town about 4 minutes the stuttering starts. Using FLUSH command removes the issue for half a minute or so.

And are still using -exThreads=3 to make the game (OA/CO) playable again.

[1in1class 0]

Yha 1.55 did an bad number on OA all around, i went back to 1.54 by reinstalling OA. Now i got an issue with my Russian units being mixed up with Takistan units. I did not test that out when i updated to 1.55 patch so i dont know if its my fault for going back to 1.54 or not, i still got 1.08 for ArmA 2 and 1.01 for BAF and the Russian units show up in ArmA 2 though. Iv said this on some post befor but most people dont have this issue as i think its cause i went back to 1.54 and got the new patches for ArmA 2 and BAF going. Realy dont think ill be touching that 1.55 patch or any of the beta patches till LOD's are fixe and what not. Should not have to go and touch your CFG file or do this -exThreads=3 and so on... to get OA or ArmA 2 playing right, patches should fix issues and not take you back 10 steps as the back of the box gots the specs for the system Requirements to run this game.

[Heatseeker 0]

Yha 1.55 did an bad number on OA all around, i went back to 1.54 by reinstalling OA. Now i got an issue with my Russian units being mixed up with Takistan units. I did not test that out when i updated to 1.55 patch so i dont know if its my fault for going back to 1.54 or not, i still got 1.08 for ArmA 2 and 1.01 for BAF and the Russian units show up in ArmA 2 though. Iv said this on some post befor but most people dont have this issue as i think its cause i went back to 1.54 and got the new patches for ArmA 2 and BAF going. Realy dont think ill be touching that 1.55 patch or any of the beta patches till LOD's are fixe and what not. Should not have to go and touch your CFG file or do this -exThreads=3 and so on... to get OA or ArmA 2 playing right, patches should fix issues and not take you back 10 steps as the back of the box gots the specs for the system Requirements to run this game.

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma2:_Startup_Parameters#exThreads

In build 76122 and newer the default for dualcores will be changed to -exThreads=3 based on user feedback.

"C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead\arma2oa.exe" -nosplash -skipintro -exThreads=3

All you had to do mate :butbut: ...

[1in1class 0]

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma2:_Startup_Parameters#exThreads

"C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead\arma2oa.exe" -nosplash -skipintro -exThreads=3

All you had to do mate :butbut: ...

My issue is that i got mixed Takistan units in with my Russian units. On the other part this -exThreads=3 and doing stuff to the CFG should not be done on the user's part just to get the game playing. This game has its system Requirements on the back of the box. If you meat them specs you should be able to play the game for what it is. All should be moveing forward with patches not steps back as 1.55 did. But i think my issue with the mixed units is because of me going back to patch 1.54, but i dont know that cause i never test it in 1.55.

[Steakslim 1]

wow calm down. BIS fucked up with 1.55, we get it. exThreads has been around since at least two patches back as a test to allocate processes to multicore processors, and to see which one works best with different core amounts which did improve the performance a great deal in it's implementation. Beta testing is a wonderful thing btw. SURELY during this time of CRISIS you can compromise yourself and use exThreads for a while till the next patch will come out which will probably be soon as it is with the new DLC.

[1in1class 0]

wow calm down. BIS fucked up with 1.55, we get it. exThreads has been around since at least two patches back as a test to allocate processes to multicore processors, and to see which one works best with different core amounts which did improve the performance a great deal in it's implementation. Beta testing is a wonderful thing btw. SURELY during this time of CRISIS you can compromise yourself and use exThreads for a while till the next patch will come out which will probably be soon as it is with the new DLC.

Naw see its not that BIS just "f" up, see you gots this a little twisted here. Beta testing is an good thing as it helps out for the game and im all for that as i can see that you do too. Haveing to do things out side of that is the issue, you gots to do alot more then just meat the system requirements to just get the game at an playable pace ex; CFG -exThreads. SURELY you can compromise with that right! Yes there is ways to get better performance OC one of them and so on..... just its a little to much just to get the game going as haveing to mess with the CFG and the -exThreads and so on... with that part! In all words Patch befor DLC! This probably patch you talk about probably will not be with the DLC. Iv seen an post befor ill find it for ya about the patches to come.

Here your probably patch info http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=109932&page=11

Edited November 27, 2010 by 1in1class

[Steakslim 1]

I'm not sure I understand the grammar in your last post. You basically just repeated what I posted and then in some way told me I'm wrong and reposted what I quoted from you again. The requirements are to just run the game, not optimally on higher settings, just to run it, even the recommended requirements that are there do not guarantee you can run the game with godlike smoothness. Despite what's written on the box, the last patch breaks this and for now that "compromise" is that you will have to use exThreads commands to help smooth things out till they fix it (which I guess they are making exThreads=3 default for dual cores now anyways). You'll just have to make do.

Out of curiosity, are you saying you've had other tremendous issues before 1.55? Because I have not had any severe performance issues with the earlier OA patches (will not get into old ArmA2 patches since 1.04 was the last time I remember having any problems and even then a large portion of my issues was Vista related and ArmA2 had a horrid launch as it is so it's no secret of those issues, everyone had them). Also everyone in this forum modifies the target line in their shortcut in some way or another unless you completely avoid addons, no-splash settings, or game launchers (which do the work for yah) entirely. Putting in a small piece of input isn't going to kill you. You don't even need to mess with the cfg really unless you are trying access some parameter that isn't reachable by the game's settings menu, which there is now only a few, and those few have a negligible effect.

The DLC patch wil still have some fixes, and if there will have to be a wait for most of the remaining issues to be clipped by 1.57 I suppose it'll only be another month of waiting.

Anywho to sum up my response with your complaint is "Tough Titty", the circumstances call for using exThreads, you'll live. Not like other games haven't had the need to resort to similar shit in the past and present. I swear my stint in customer service has made me bitter against people complaining about having to do the smallest thing for themselves.

[1in1class 0]

@Steakslim

In an easy way you dont put out DLC why the game is having bad issue. Fix the issues like the LOD's wich is an big part on for the 1.55 patch first and so on.. take it how you will as most of your bs talk is just that. This is not an small thing, its an issue as the community has spoke about it and its very well know. Like iv said look at the back of the ArmA 2 box/ OA box and its got the minimum and recommended system requirements. If you meat them requirements you should be able to play the game for what it is, you should not have to do things to the CFG or exThreads to make the game work. Lol you had to through out the grammar card hahahh you on some bs.

[andromedagalaxe 10]

Wondering if anyone else got the same problem as me ....

patch updated Arma 2 and OA, but British Forces did not update, so now I have incompatible versions.

Has this been common and is there a fix?

[1in1class 0]

Wondering if anyone else got the same problem as me ....

patch updated Arma 2 and OA, but British Forces did not update, so now I have incompatible versions.

Has this been common and is there a fix?

Do you have it on steam? I know that the DLC BAF patch is all wrapped up in one with the 1.55 patch dl.

[Steakslim 1]

@Steakslim

In an easy way you dont put out DLC why the game is having bad issue. Fix the issues like the LOD's wich is an big part on for the 1.55 patch first and so on.. take it how you will as most of your bs talk is just that. This is not an small thing, its an issue as the community has spoke about it and its very well know. Like iv said look at the back of the ArmA 2 box/ OA box and its got the minimum and recommended system requirements. If you meat them requirements you should be able to play the game for what it is, you should not have to do things to the CFG or exThreads to make the game work. Lol you had to through out the grammar card hahahh you on some bs.

I'm not insulting your grammar as I do not know what country you reside in, I was pointing out that is is difficult to understand what you are trying to say at times. I also think we are misunderstanding each other. I'm berating you on your inability to accept for the time being that extra steps will have to be taken to get decent performance out of the game till the 1.55 issues are sorted out in the upcoming patches. I'm not saying that there are no issues in 1.55, that would be a deep stage of denial that I'd be in if that was the case (as I am also having issues with the current patch), but again, I'm biding my time with alternative solutions until BIS fixes this, I don't need BIS to hold my hand tell me it's going to be okay till that happens.

It's not like they're all out with their asses buried in the snow recording fart sounds for an upcoming Abominable Snowman expansion while ignoring the current issues. And again you repeat the same thing two times in a row now so I'm not gonna bother rebutting.