Questions after playing the free version of Arma2

[lavenders2 1]

So after clocking about 35 hours into Arma2 free version I decided to go the full version of Arma2 plus Operation Arrowhead and have a few questions about them after getting a good feel for the game:

1. Is OA just the original Arma2 with more things?

2. Is the multiplayer for OA and Arma2 active in Australia?

3. Arma 2 free has the reduced texture quality. I have a solid fps on around medium-high (unless looking through binoculars sometimes, then it drops) but I have to wonder whether that fps will go down greatly once I get better textures. Is this the case, and if so, how bad is the drop?

4. How buggy is OA? I have heard good things but I know that when I played Arma 2 free it was buggy as hell

Thanks in advance for answers and I plan to get the game tomorrow so hopefully you can help me out!

[maddogx 13]

1. Is OA just the original Arma2 with more things?

2. Is the multiplayer for OA and Arma2 active in Australia?

3. Arma 2 free has the reduced texture quality. I have a solid fps on around medium-high (unless looking through binoculars sometimes, then it drops) but I have to wonder whether that fps will go down greatly once I get better textures. Is this the case, and if so, how bad is the drop?

4. How buggy is OA? I have heard good things but I know that when I played Arma 2 free it was buggy as hell

1. OA is not the original Arma2 - it is a "standalone expansion" with entirely new content. You can, however, combine it with an installation of the original Arma2, so that you can use all the content together. This is called "Combined Operations". (OA can also be combined with Arma2 Free. There's a thread about it somewhere here.)

2. Off the top of my head: AusArma.org

3. Very much depends on your hardware, so not easy to answer without further info.

4. With patch 1.60 and the latest beta, I think you'll be pleasently surprised. :)

[rye1 21]

2. Ausarma's teamspeak address is ts.ausarma.org:9987.

[lavenders2 1]

1. OA is not the original Arma2 - it is a "standalone expansion" with entirely new content. You can, however, combine it with an installation of the original Arma2, so that you can use all the content together. This is called "Combined Operations". (OA can also be combined with Arma2 Free. There's a thread about it somewhere here.)

2. Off the top of my head: AusArma.org

3. Very much depends on your hardware, so not easy to answer without further info.

4. With patch 1.60 and the latest beta, I think you'll be pleasently surprised. :)

Thanks! Good to see an active community and not so buggy game. I plan to buy combined operations anyway, so no worries.

About number 3, here are my specs:

Processor: AMD A6-3410MX APU with Radeon (HD) Graphics. It is a quad core at 1.6Ghz

RAM: 8Gb (7.48 usable)

Graphics card: Dual AMD Radeon HD 6520G. It has 1.563Gb of dedicated memory and 3.573gb of shared memory (This sounds amazing but I have a feeling it isn't really)

OS: Windows 7 home premium 64 bit

That is my laptop specs with a native resolution of 1366 x 768. To give you some benchmark on how well it runs on other games:

Modern Warfare 2 max settings (not hard to achieve)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution on max resolution possible, anti analiasing on max but texture, shadows and other settings on normal (texture quality on high). Runs at maybe 30fps and drops in big scenes.

Skyrim medium settings (Maybe high but that is pushing it. Not the best benchmarking game because it was optimized poorly)

If you need more info, just shout out.

[ArmAriffic 10]

So after clocking about 35 hours into Arma2 free version I decided to go the full version of Arma2 plus Operation Arrowhead and have a few questions about them after getting a good feel for the game:

1. Is OA just the original Arma2 with more things?

2. Is the multiplayer for OA and Arma2 active in Australia?

3. Arma 2 free has the reduced texture quality. I have a solid fps on around medium-high (unless looking through binoculars sometimes, then it drops) but I have to wonder whether that fps will go down greatly once I get better textures. Is this the case, and if so, how bad is the drop?

4. How buggy is OA? I have heard good things but I know that when I played Arma 2 free it was buggy as hell

Thanks in advance for answers and I plan to get the game tomorrow so hopefully you can help me out!

1. New island, new units, new missions\campaigns, other new things

2. Yeah pretty active

3. Probably not

4. Download 1.60 and you'll be right

[metalcraze 290]

The FPS drop won't be bad, but it will be noticeable - mostly in orange tree forests. Nothing gamebreaking though.

You may have to lower grass detail though (also known as ground quality setting), basically won't be able to render it at the same distance with the same FPS.

[Kindling 1]

Thanks! Good to see an active community and not so buggy game. I plan to buy combined operations anyway, so no worries.

About number 3, here are my specs:

Processor: AMD A6-3410MX APU with Radeon (HD) Graphics. It is a quad core at 1.6Ghz

RAM: 8Gb (7.48 usable)

Graphics card: Dual AMD Radeon HD 6520G. It has 1.563Gb of dedicated memory and 3.573gb of shared memory (This sounds amazing but I have a feeling it isn't really)

OS: Windows 7 home premium 64 bit

That is my laptop specs with a native resolution of 1366 x 768. To give you some benchmark on how well it runs on other games:

Modern Warfare 2 max settings (not hard to achieve)

Deus Ex: Human Revolution on max resolution possible, anti analiasing on max but texture, shadows and other settings on normal (texture quality on high). Runs at maybe 30fps and drops in big scenes.

Skyrim medium settings (Maybe high but that is pushing it. Not the best benchmarking game because it was optimized poorly)

If you need more info, just shout out.

The CPU is probably going to be your bottleneck - I think that graphics settings should be fine, but you should really be looking to upgrade that CPU if you're looking for this to last you into ARMA3 - many laptop CPUs are perfectly upgradable. You may have difficulty with battles in which there are large numbers of AI.

Another important factor is your hard disk - at the very least, you'll want SATA (not IDE!) and an SSD really helps. You've got quite a lot of RAM, though, so you may be able to make a ramdisk to store the most-accessed resources (your favourite islands, the character models etc.) as this really helps with your fps.

I think it'll be playable, but best to tweak things a bit to get some more juice out of your hardware.

EDIT: Larger (higher quality) textures require more VRAM (video memory, of which you have plenty) and - secondarily - a fast GPU. I wouldn't worry too much about the higher quality textures, I think your system should be fine with them.

[domokun 515]

About number 3, here are my specs:

Processor: AMD A6-3410MX APU with Radeon (HD) Graphics. It is a quad core at 1.6Ghz

RAM: 8Gb (7.48 usable)

Graphics card: Dual AMD Radeon HD 6520G. It has 1.563Gb of dedicated memory and 3.573gb of shared memory (This sounds amazing but I have a feeling it isn't really)

OS: Windows 7 home premium 64 bit

That is my laptop specs with a native resolution of 1366 x 768

Sorry but that CPU, although quad core, is FAR too slow (you need twice as fast). The same goes for your GFX card. Given the specs of your laptop I'd say that it was 1-2 years old. In which case the HDD will have a SATA interface (rather than an IDE one). Not that it really makes that much of an impact on performance (splindle speed is FAR more important).

However if you've been able to play A2Free then maybe you've got an exceptionally well-balanced laptop.

Here are a few settings that might help you achieve acceptable (<25 fps) framerates with such a meagre laptop.

So I'd buy CO, install it, patch it to 1.60, tweak it using these settings and then see how it plays before shelling out any hard-earned cash on upgrading your laptop. Apart from adding more RAM and/or replacing your HDD by an SSD (good advice btw), upgrading laptops generally isn't very cost effective.

[maturin 12]

3. Arma 2 free has the reduced texture quality. I have a solid fps on around medium-high (unless looking through binoculars sometimes, then it drops) but I have to wonder whether that fps will go down greatly once I get better textures. Is this the case, and if so, how bad is the drop?

You could always put the textures on low and go back to free quality. But unless your GPU is weak, textures are not the resource hog in this game.

[lavenders2 1]

Sorry but that CPU, although quad core, is FAR too slow (you need twice as fast). The same goes for your GFX card. Given the specs of your laptop I'd say that it was 1-2 years old. In which case the HDD will have a SATA interface (rather than an IDE one). Not that it really makes that much of an impact on performance (splindle speed is FAR more important).

However if you've been able to play A2Free then maybe you've got an exceptionally well-balanced laptop.

Here are a few settings that might help you achieve acceptable (<25 fps) framerates with such a meagre laptop.

So I'd buy CO, install it, patch it to 1.60, tweak it using these settings and then see how it plays before shelling out any hard-earned cash on upgrading your laptop. Apart from adding more RAM and/or replacing your HDD by an SSD (good advice btw), upgrading laptops generally isn't very cost effective.

Thanks for all the replies everyone!

Firstly, my laptop has no problems with Arma 2 free at all. When I play, I accept anything from 20+ fps, as that feels comfortable for me (30 is obviously better but I don't really care)

On medium settings ish (1024x768 resolution and 3d res with normal settings on everything and some things on high and very high like texture quality) the game runs at around 25fps. This is the fps I am used to using (I tend to play games on budget computers) and I don't have any problems with it.

On a higher resolution (1280 x 768) the game sometimes dips below 20, and I would consider that very hard to play, but not unplayble. And turning down the anti aliasing (usually on normal) to disabled usually results in an extra 10fps. I have been playing on 1280 x 768 on normal settings for the past 10 hours, and haven't minded. Games like Arma really only need 20-30fps to be playable, games like COD need more but COD is easier to run anyway

As a test, on a really low resolution (800 x 600) with most things on normal and some on high, it ran at nearly 60fps easily. So I will obviously be able to run the game, just maybe not as high as I would like.

I have no doubt at all that my computer will run Arma 2 with HD textures, I just have to wonder how much my fps will drop.

[Tonci87 163]

Well Arma can get very CPU hungry.

Your GPU should be just fine