ARMA 2: OA beta build 82346

[carlostex 38]

New Beta is up:

ftp://downloads.bistudio.com/arma2.com/update/beta/ARMA2_OA_Build_82346.zip

   [82342]  Fixed: AI road vehicle avoidance improved. 
  [82295]  Fixed: PMC videos flashing (since 80298). 

Tried the AI improvement but AI still crashes against objects on the road. It is almost as the AI doens't see the obstacle uuntil it's too late. If i place the AI vehicle much closer to the object the AI will then avoid it.

Please keep working on it BIS.

[OMAC 254]

It is maddening when you are leading/commanding a column (as in BAF), and you see the dreaded "Away" notification on the icon of the vehicle following you (or soldiers for that matter). You look back and the following vehicle is meandering around avoiding an invisible obstacle in the road. ARRRGH. Gameplay is severely compromised.

AI driving and object avoidance are obviously very difficult things to program!

For AI drivers, is there a way to have them "ignore" all obstacles below a certain size, so that they can keep up with you and the commanding vehicle better? You would want AI-driven vehicles to sustain damage by running into objects, but there must be a way to improve following, and it appears that BIS is now working on it. :bounce3: Thank heavens. Go BIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[todayskiller 10]

Awesome, testing now...

Do we still use put in -malloc=3 or w/e?...my guess is we do?

[f2k sel 164]

Have to say vehicles seem much worse to me,they're even trying to avoid one small village by going around it.

They don't seem to be reversing as much just wondering off.

[W0lle 1050]

They seem to perform much better here, especially if two vehicles or groups of vehicles meet on a road. At least they are no more stuck, waiting forever to move on.

They seem to have some problems though when there are also roadside objects like trees or poles. If they meet inside villages they may get stuck too.

Have to say vehicles seem much worse to me,they're even trying to avoid one small village by going around it.

What village? Maybe provide a repro mission showing the behaviour? Would help the devs a lot. ;)

[f2k sel 164]

Mine are now getting stuck on walls.

Some routes they take with nothing changed between tests.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/37/wayward.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/543/offroad.jpg/

Demo

http://www.sendspace.com/file/fnlu86

Edited June 29, 2011 by F2k Sel

[W0lle 1050]

Changed waypoint settings and moved their positions a bit - no more such a big mess. Though 90° turns are always a problem, esp. with many vehicles.

The problem in your mission was that the first vehicle passed the intersection and then tried to get back on the road but the walls blocked his way and behind him the other vehicles are. After moving the WP before the intersection, he was able to turn around without hitting the walls. ;)

http://armaholic.com/wolle/stuff/Utes_convoy_beta2.utes.pbo

Edited June 29, 2011 by W0lle

[ast65 10]

Movement with many vehicles and traffic on road is much more fluid now.

error message in start screen changed to "no entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgVehicles/(name).tracksSpeed'" (was .turnCoeff before).

[PSYKO_nz 44]

im having a problem with vehicles and units losing there waypoint tracks, untill this beta i had no problems, now it comes up with config track errors AHHHHH

how do i fix this?

[f2k sel 164]

Thank W0lle I had the waypoints in those positions to start with but I may have forgotten to put them in safe mode. That seems to have much more effect than before.

On the main roads that are better, on tight corners I they're still a pain.It looks like they go a little to deep and then struggle to get back.

I also had a couple of error messages one in the Main screen something about CfgVehicles/(RHIB).tracksSpeed

Another was when running the simple convoy demo I wasn't using any scripting so it must have been a BIS script messing up.

Waypoints them selves still have a big impact on performance.

[Alwarren 2767]

I'm still getting crashes when starting missions that use addons. I can provide crash files unless someone else already did that - I saw this being mentioned on the previous thread as well.

[OMAC 254]

Some PMC animations (cutscenes #1 and #3, the ones with the strange coloration, smoothing, and fancy blending of frames) flicker worse than before, this time at a higher frequency. Most of the other cutscenes are fine, including #2. I haven't tested them all.

I played most of BAF Lancers mission, and AI driving object avoidance and following seem a little better. You know that burnt-out truck in the road just east of Feruz Abad? My AI driver had trouble navigating past it when I ordered him to. One time he kept moving in a circle near it.

No crashes, BAF feels real smooth and fast.

Edited June 30, 2011 by OMAC

[suma 8]

Some PMC animations (cutscenes #1 and #3, the ones with the strange coloration, smoothing, and fancy blending of frames) flicker worse than before, this time at a higher frequency. Most of the other cutscenes are fine, including #2. I haven't tested them all.

Can someone else confirm? I have tried the first four now and did not see any flashing in any of them.

[Derbysieger 11]

mhhh no flashing here ...

€: Why is the forum so unbelievable slow atm????

Edited June 30, 2011 by Derbysieger

[bxbx 0]

error message in start screen changed to "no entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgVehicles/(name).tracksSpeed'" (was .turnCoeff before).

I cannot reproduce it.

are you using "Launch Arma2 OA Beta Patch.lnk" to execute beta?

did you tried to clear beta folder and install it again?

can you send show me you whole cmdline - that you are using to execute beta.

[Muahaha 10]

The AI driving is superb in this beta, puts a convoy of humvee and trucks to a waypoint with several obstacle on the way, they seems to be smart enough to route through the obstacle and still maintain formation under "safe" mode. Will test further

[ast65 10]

I cannot reproduce it.

are you using "Launch Arma2 OA Beta Patch.lnk" to execute beta?

did you tried to clear beta folder and install it again?

can you send show me you whole cmdline - that you are using to execute beta.

Sry but I forgot to point out (did it in another post) that the error message only occurs when using multiple custom addons/mods so I think it´s some mod-incompatibility that´s causing it (gotta check ´em one by one :p).

I mentioned it nonetheless again because all betas after 79600 keep crashing sooner or later when using addons/mods.

With vanilla beta everything´s fine so far (except the flashing graphical artifacts which look as if the video memory clock was too high/ card getting too hot).

ps my commandline:

D:\Games\Bohemia Interactive\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" -mod=Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion -nosplash -ltcmalloc=3 -mod=@FDF;@NC;@TB;@RH;@T1O;@ex;@bb;@CBA;@FFAA;@WarFX;@JTD;@CWR2;@okt;@fall;@Li;@liU;@SOA;@SoV;@brg;@id

Edited June 30, 2011 by @ST

[Coffeecat 10]

Can someone else confirm? I have tried the first four now and did not see any flashing in any of them.

yes, also selfmade playback videos are flickering pretty weird constantly.

maybe it is gpu/driver related? im using Nvidia Gtx570.

latest drivers 275.33

[OrdeaL 10]

ps my commandline:

D:\Games\Bohemia Interactive\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" -mod=Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion -nosplash -ltcmalloc=3 -mod=@FDF;@NC;@TB;@RH;@T1O;@ex;@bb;@CBA;@FFAA;@WarFX;@JTD;@CWR2;@okt;@fall;@Li;@liU;@SOA;@SoV;@brg;@id

How come you put -ltcmalloc=3 i thought the command was just -malloc=3 or am i missing something?

Edited June 30, 2011 by OrdeaL

[NoRailgunner 0]

tested but now something changed

without any -malloc parameter CTD after 2 missions (BIS SP missions)

-malloc=2 after pressing game "Exit" > crash with "Reinforcment" message

-malloc=3 crash after mission selection and mission intro screen

-malloc=4 best perfomance no crash yet

other issues

- still those flashing artifacts/spikes are there (looks like something is wrong with the headgear/helmet)

- AI got stuck in open place on Takistan (mission: "Hike in the Hills") without any visible objects (rock, bush, building etc) close too this AI

- AI in vehicles are still confused on T-junctions and if other AIs/players or objects are on the roads

- weapons are still floating in the air beside units (visible with 3rd person view too)

[ast65 10]

How come you put -ltcmalloc=3 i thought the command was just -malloc=3 or am i missing something?

Nah, you´re not missing something;

I´m just a bit more specific since Suma wrote somewhere they changed the memory allocator from JEMalloc to TCMalloc for better threaded optimization (was introduced short before 1.59 came out).

[suma 8]

Nah, you´re not missing something;

I´m just a bit more specific since Suma wrote somewhere they changed the memory allocator from JEMalloc to TCMalloc for better threaded optimization (was introduced short before 1.59 came out).

No, you are not more specific. Computers do not understand what you mean, they just execute the instructions. The instruction you have provided is unknown to the computer and therefore ignored. The only accepted form is

-malloc=NUMBER_FROM_0_TO_4.

[ast65 10]

Well, ty good to know...really thought -ltcmalloc was a valid command (didn´t test with different numbers, though).

[OMAC 254]

Can someone else confirm? I have tried the first four now and did not see any flashing in any of them.

OK. When I tested this beta yesterday, I did NOT use -malloc=3 in the command line, as I thought that it would have been integrated since 82282. I added malloc=3 today, and, happily, PMC cutscenes 1, 3, and the second-to-last one (after PMC09 mission) all run PERFECTLY with no flashing at 60 fps. Yahoo!

There should have been instructions to add malloc to the command line for this beta, or, even better, have the shortcut to run the beta already have malloc added to the command line in it.

I do find that, in BAF Lancers, a following AI-driven vehicle does get held up at T intersections, but less so than before this beta. Most of the time they do make it through, even if "Away" is displayed for a while. I think they are more likely to get held up when passing through "urban" areas, especially where T intersections are present, as others have noted. A perfect way to test this beta is to run Lancers and count how much time "Away" is displayed for the following vehicle when there is no fighting, serious obstructions, or anything else that could substantially hinder the vehicle.

All too often, more so before this beta, if the two vehicles are stopped together and regrouped, and the lead vehicle takes off down the road at normal speed, the following vehicle doesn't keep up well and often gets lost, even if no obstructions or other vehicles are present on the road. This should NEVER happen IMHO.

[suma 8]

OK. When I tested this beta yesterday, I did NOT use -malloc=3 in the command line, as I thought that it would have been integrated since 82282. I added malloc=3 today, and, happily, PMC cutscenes 1, 3, and the second-to-last one (after PMC09 mission) all run PERFECTLY with no flashing at 60 fps. Yahoo!

Strange. With -malloc=0 I really get the flashing as well, but I do not get it with 82346 and no -malloc, which makes sense as with 82346 -malloc=3 IS the default (I have double checked it now, both in sources and in the debugger). Still, it is worth checking, it should not be flashing with any allocator, I will check it with -malloc=0 and hopefully fix it, but probably not today.

Edited June 30, 2011 by Suma