ARMA 2: OA beta build 81423

[c0nse-0n3r 19]

hmm... I think i'll wait patiently for a more "stable" beta (oxymoron)

I can confirm, I get less performance by a few fps 2-5 than the non beta patch. Also last beta that worked fine for me with minor bugs was 79600, all beta patches after that had mayor graphical bugs and soldiers freezing with a few instability issues. This one fixed most of the graphic bugs but I still get the enemy soldier freezing and never dying.

:cool: still running 79600 to this date since the last few betas gave me some troubles

79600 beta is where ive noticed best FPS and minimum glitches, that's what sold me on using beta patches

[AnimalMother92 10]

Performance was smooth but I got a CTD after a short time. Report sent..

[Dwarden 1125]

Performance was smooth but I got a CTD after a short time. Report sent..

thx, keep them coming

[pandur 10]

If you're the driver/commander of a vehicle sooner or later all your subordinates around you align to the direction the gunner is watching. Happens after a few minutes, especially after enemy contact. (If you have an AI gunner who is scanning the area, that means constant moving of your subordinates instead of fighting.)

Could you please look into that matter? This bug is as old as Arma2 itself and makes me...

[Hanzu 10]

thx, keep them coming

Bug category 1:

Sent crash files for 8 Out of memory errors. As said in the previous beta this one also first slows down to 1-5 FPS and then rans out of memory and crashes. This should not be happen even with maximum video settings with i7-2600K+GTX570+8GB RAM+SSD+Win7 64-bit (1680x1050 resolution).

Bug category 2:

I can also verify AT Specialists, stationary machinegunners and women all die to standing position.

Found some non-reported bugs that have been there probably from the release of Arma2. Feel free to use these screenshots if you want to make CIT tickets from them instead of me. Here they are

Bug category 3:

If you are on using UAV, keeping map on and decide to save there, next time you load that save you have map unit icons all over your normal view and terrain is grey scale. After using binoculars once. Grey scale is gone, but unit icons stay until UAV is destroyed or you turn around and re-enter its control panel.

Manhattan mission related and because of that

-tagged:

Bug category 4:

Dr Sova & co will always be lynched even without trees which I cut with APC already in the mission start. Also drove some vehicles to places where CDF military police spawns - hoping that would prevent the whole event and save Dr Sova. CDF Pavel Vitek spawns inside any vehicle that is driven to his spawn spot. He amazingly survives beeing inside vehicle graphics, but dies when you move that vehicle again. Also the corpse of lyched Dr Sova spawns inside any vehicle that is driven over fallen tree. And that is not all... also CDF UAZ will spawn over and inside vehicles that were brought there when I still assumed they actully drive that UAZ there from somewhere. If you happen to find the lyched and 3 members of CDF military police on site. You will still get radio message from Swordsman 1 and Cooper is acting like the is all new information to him.

I would fix above by atleast adding a tree so wide that no APC can run it over. There are big trees like that in southeastern part of Chernarus map.

Bug category 5:

When using UAV and zooming out your map you will notice two friendly units are positioned outside normal gaming area. Looks like a mission designer forgot to place them in action area.

Manhattan marine misplacement bug 1 At top left corner of map at GPS COORS 000003

Manhattan marine misplacement bug 2 At top left corner of map at GPS COORS 000003

Manhattan marine misplacement bug 3 At top left corner of map at GPS COORS 000003

I didn't fly UAV to this location to see what unit this second one is, but when placed in sea, it very likely is not in right place.

Edited May 29, 2011 by Hanzu

[SaOk 112]

I am still getting some skips in switchmove animations (taken from orginal ArmA2 campaign cutscenes). About once in 5-10 tryes, the launched animation skips half of the animation showing later part of it. The bug came with 80955.

Happens at least for these two animations:

ActsPercMstpSnonWpstDnon_sceneBardakPistol01
ActsPercMstpSnonWpstDnon_sceneBardakRifle01

[jakerod 254]

@hanzu- the three things outside the normal operations area are probably there intentionally. They probably either get spawned in later or are there because their presence is required for radio chatter and by putting them outside the AO they are safe and will not die or be found by the player.

[Hanzu 10]

@hanzu- the three things outside the normal operations area are probably there intentionally. They probably either get spawned in later or are there because their presence is required for radio chatter and by putting them outside the AO they are safe and will not die or be found by the player.

The three things? I think I mentioned just two. Anyway I had already made CIT report for one before your reply so figuring out if it is a bug or not will now (with or without us) be part of the process by CIT moderators and some devs who also serve as moderators there.

However even if your theory might turn out true. I still wonder why...

Why hide some friendly infantry in sea (bottom left corner of the map) and one friendly soldier in land (top left corner of the map)? Why would the designer choose 2 separate places if they are for spawn purposes.

I don't remember any part in Manhattan mission where US Marine would spawn. The only part where I know enemy spawns in Manhattan is three CDF Police with UAZ and 2 lynched corpses (Dr Sova & co.)

I also can't undestand why they would need those for radio chatter, because there are 30 something US soldiers in FOB Manhattan which could be used for radio chatter.

Also why would some friendly soldier have to be hided from player. If you di stupid things like kill friendly soldier your team will eventually kill you.

[jakerod 254]

The three things? I think I mentioned just two. Anyway I had already made CIT report for one before your reply so figuring out if it is a bug or not will now (with or without us) be part of the process by CIT moderators and some devs who also serve as moderators there.

However even if your theory might turn out true. I still wonder why...

Why hide some friendly infantry in sea (bottom left corner of the map) and one friendly soldier in land (top left corner of the map)? Why would the designer choose 2 separate places if they are for spawn purposes.

I don't remember any part in Manhattan mission where US Marine would spawn. The only part where I know enemy spawns in Manhattan is three CDF Police with UAZ and 2 lynched corpses (Dr Sova & co.)

I also can't undestand why they would need those for radio chatter, because there are 30 something US soldiers in FOB Manhattan which could be used for radio chatter.

Also why would some friendly soldier have to be hided from player. If you di stupid things like kill friendly soldier your team will eventually kill you.

My final comment on the matter since it is mostly offtopic: You put them there so that nothing can accidently kill them. The player won't accidentally run over them or shoot them and they won't get caught in unplanned cross-fire. There are any number of reasons it might be required. I don't feel like looking through tall the scripts right now though.

EDIT: I looked at the copy that I have in the editor and there is actually nothing there. No markers, no men or anything like that. The ones near Cherno and on the island are there but not the one in the upper left or lower left. I can't explain it then I guess.

Edited June 2, 2011 by Jakerod

[fruity_rudy 16]

How it should be in A2OA (imho):

+ AI only switch to pistols/handgun if the ammo from the primary weapon is depleted

+ AI with MG's, sniper rifles only switch to pistols/handguns if they are in buildings or very close to an enemy ~20m.

+ action menu command for players so he can order his AI to switch to another weapon (more priority - to avoid AI switching back or going nuts)

i would appreciate that too

[FanBF2 13]

Yes, I agree. :D

[Baron von Beer 0]

Action menu weapon switch would be VERY nice. How many times I've had a few troops, knowing there is a tank coming but I can't have them ready with their RPG/LAW... :)

I seem to recall this existing in OFP, maybe it was from a mod?

[MoS 0]

I have to confirm the FPS issue.

I never had any problems before but now after 10 minutes of play (in MP) FPS stay at exactly 5 as if VSync would force a 5 FPS limit. It stays that way until I either restart or CTD...

Normally I have about 25-30 fps.

[Examiner2 10]

Was playing on United Operations today after updating the beta via six and had three CTD's with "out of memory" error. Tried playing with the maxmem init line enabled as well and no difference. Textures become low res, and framerate drops to 1-3 fps before crashing a minute or two later.

[kremator 1065]

Getting Out of Memory errors with this build.

[ziiip 1]

Please change the game so that vehicles with "this setdamage 1" command in their init line spawn as wreck and not explode on start!:protest:

[Hanzu 10]

Getting Out of Memory errors with this build.

After playing multiple hours (about 20 hours) with this build, I declare it way too unstable even for test playing.

I can only play about 10-15 minutes before it first slows down a lot and then crashes to Out of memory errors.

No matter if you are not running any mods it still crashes.

No matter if you have visibilitity set 500 or 10000 it still crashes.

No matter if you have 8GB RAM with Win7 64-bit is still crashes.

No matter if you have i7 2600K, SSD and GTX570 it still crashes.

SHIFT NumpadMINUS flush will not stop slow down when FPS slowdown starts, but if I ESC-Suspend and then come back game is back full FPS again next 10 minutes. So imagine how many times in I have suspended during 20 hours of playing if I have to do it every 10 minutes.

I can't undestand why these kind of betas are released if for next beta we have wait so long, because unstability prevents us all testing things we are supposed to test and report and makes us use non-beta patches or older betas. How can we test new fixes if game is more unstable like ever.

I wonder if it is worth of making Arma2 CIT reports or anymore assuming most of the programmers are now working most of their working time on Arma3 development?

I still got about 10 crashfiles I for this build I have not emailed to Dwarden, because I already provided 8 crashfiles. Is there any estimation many crashfiles must be mailed before reason for out of memory is found?

I have had enough of this beta and I'm going back to 79600 which is still good beta and works stable enough with same hardware and settings.

[ast65 10]

I have had enough of this beta and I'm going back to 79600 which is still good beta and works stable enough with same hardware and settings.

only way to go atm :o

[maruk 80]

The problem here is that such problem is very difficult to fix.

Mostly because we failed to reproduce it at all.

Your theory about programmers working on A3 instead of this is not correct, the problem is that reproducing and fixing this issue is simply very hard.

After playing multiple hours (about 20 hours) with this build, I declare it way too unstable even for test playing.

I can only play about 10-15 minutes before it first slows down a lot and then crashes to Out of memory errors.

I can't undestand why these kind of betas are released if for next beta we have wait so long, because unstability prevents us all testing things we are supposed to test and report and makes us use non-beta patches or older betas. How can we test new fixes if game is more unstable like ever.

I wonder if it is worth of making Arma2 CIT reports or anymore assuming most of the programmers are now working most of their working time on Arma3 development?

[suma 8]

I can only play about 10-15 minutes before it first slows down a lot and then crashes to Out of memory errors.

I confirm we are aware of the problem, it has been reported by many users and there is no way we could deny it. Unfortunately I was unable to reproduce it consistently so far and the underlying cause is still unclear, the changes done in meantime were very extensive and I have no idea which of them went wrong, which makes resolving it quite difficult (the only resolution I can imagine is complete rollback to 79600).

If I would be able to reproduce the issue within 10-15 minutes of playing, I think I would have some point to start and fixing it properly would be likely.

Could you write me more about how you are testing?

• What is your installation - Arrowhead only, Arma 2 only, or Combined Ops?
  
• Do you still see the issue with no custom mods and addons installed?
  

[kremator 1065]

Although there is a good many fixes in this version, I too will be rolling back to 79600. I do notice that the RAM spikes up and down with the new beta (until you alt tab out and back again) if that helps anyone. Still crashes though !

[Hanzu 10]

Could you write me more about how you are testing?

• What is your installation - Arrowhead only, Arma 2 only, or Combined Ops?
  
• Do you still see the issue with no custom mods and addons installed?
  

Arma2 + Arma2 Operation Arrowhead + Arma2 REINFORCEMENTS are installed. All installed from their DVDs.

C drive (SSD) has pretty much 19GB free space. I have not touched pagefile settings. No maxmem settings either.

No mods. (I have never installed or used any custom mods in my system. I'm strictly dedicated in playing official missions cooperatively in multiplayer (or sometimes when waiting others to join - alone in multiplayer) and without mods. So I'm 100% sure this issue has nothing to do with mods.)

Intel i7 2600K

Asus P8P67 Deluxe

Gainward GTX570 Phantom (3 fans)

OCZ Vertex 2 90GB SSD

CoolerMaster HAF X 924 case (5 big fans) [i'm sure this is not heat issue]

Win7 64-bit Ultimate SP1

Xfire and Fraps (latest registered version) are running in the background. But neither one is recording. I only use Fraps for screenshots, previously it has not created problems for me. Microsoft Security Essentials for antivirus.

I do not suspect gamesaving is reason for out of memory crashes since it happens even before savegame is used for once.

But it might be boosted and/or related to Chernarus map, since I play that map a lot.

I also keep launching the game from "Launch Arma2 OA Beta Patch"-icon since launching beta with "ARMA 2 REINFORCEMENTS"-icon is not possible.

Here is my command line: "C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" -mod=Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion -nosplash -skipIntro

Actually is there any benefit launching non-beta game from Arma2 REINFORCEMENTS-icon, since it looks like it brings me to same place as launching from ARMA 2 Combined Operations-icon?

To reproduce:

I think I saw someone else saying it happens in multiplayer, like it happens for me so try hosting missions like Manhattan or Bitter Chill alone and drive around. Eventually game will crash before 10-20 minutes have passed. I have also seen 2 posts saying they got out of memory in editor.

I have about 18 crashdumps for those out of memory errors with this build, so maybe we could calculate average running time from there.

Also if you have AMD+ATI and can't reproduce, try reproing with Intel+nVidia preferably (GTX500 series) setup.

Not sure what I should set for Video Memory in settings for 1280MB GTX570. usually I have it set to Default and when I tried Very High it seemed to crash even faster (just a feeling maybe).

Any more questions? I'm happy to help if I can. If CIT ticket helps I can do that too later tonight.

Other people who got out of memory errors tell us in what mission or map you got them and could you please post system specs and tell if you were playing SP or MP and using savegames or not? Anyone with AMD+ATI have out of memory errors with this build?

Also Maruk, Suma, Dwarden I must apologize for suspecting we are just left alone with this issue due Arma3. Should have known better.

Edited June 7, 2011 by Hanzu

[ginger mcale 11]

I just monitored the RAM usage of the game while playing warfare (MP) with the current beta build. As soon the game took more then 2GB ram, the FPS went down, LOD of some objects switched to low and 1 minute later the game crashed with out of memory. Maybe a hint into the right direction? > 2 gb ram usage

If i want to reproduce the problem somehow, the fastest way for me at the moment is to join a Warfare match in MP, set the view distance in the mission to maximum, play 10 minutes or so > out of memory crash.

Intel 2500k

4 GB

Radeon 6950

Intel SSD (OS and game running from it)

Win7 64b

---------- Post added at 18:38 ---------- Previous post was at 18:09 ----------

Tested it again, Gossamer Warfare, Chernarus, MP, game became laggy after arma2oa.exe*32 was using more then 2 GB ram, looked like when it became more then 2048 MB, crashed 1 minute or so later with our of memory error.

---------- Post added at 18:58 ---------- Previous post was at 18:38 ----------

Tested it again, online, Gossamer Warfare, Chernarus, FPS went down when game used more then 2048 MB of RAM, crashed a minute or so later. Say me you can reproduce it. ^^

Edited June 7, 2011 by Ginger McAle

[celery 8]

It seems that soldiers wielding rocket launchers get stuck when they die:

[maddogx 13]

I'll be having a few goes with the new beta over the next few days, just to see if I can produce a crash. Just played through the "Harvest Red" mission from the Arma2 campaign, no crashes so far.