ArmA Public Beta Patch 1.05.5143

[dirtylarrygb 0]

Tested it with my UK hardcopy version of ArmA.

P4 D950 3.4Ghz

4GB Kingston RAM

Club3D ATI Radeon X1900XTX 512MB PCIe

Soundblaster Audigy 2

Asus P5WDG2-WS

WinXP Pro 32bit SP2

all latest drivers

Pretty much all functions as advertised as far as I can tell, but one thing is noticable for me... and not in a good way.

My FPS have dropped by about 10-13 FPS with this beta patch. (Didn't change around settings, just left them at what I use all the time and find acceptable. Most things set to "normal", VD set to 5000m.)

Welcome to the better drop the VD distance club.

everything maxed vd 1200, i drop a few bits and stable 30fps at 10k. Found post process nees to be low for stable 10k on an 8800.

For most rifle fighting 1k is fine. Soon as i get in a chopper though straight upto 10k now for me.

I also most want ask for an auto vd feature so you see non flying and flying vd.

Texture issues have gone, i followed some advice in another thread and turned of windows paging. Seems to help!

[4 IN 1 0]

I was walking through the hell, continuously blaming the HW and drivers of my new rig, but with this build 5143 ArmA runs now over HOURS! stable.

It seems that I have to send a  big SORRY to the 2 HW shops COMPULAND and MIX computer, which send my GPU after GPU and took back the "old" 8800er without moaning about the broken packages. I will pay at least for the parcel costs since they were very cooperative.

I was bothering ASUS support as well as GAINWARD baggin for help.

Now I see 1.05 and 1.05+ side by side, I installed the complete 4GB RAM back as well as the FW800 card which I blamed.

1.05 crashes, 1.05+ runs like hell.

I am afraid you still misunderstand the nature of problems like this. Game running on a computer is actually very complex system, with a lot of this which may be wrong. Sometimes a small change in any part of the system can cause the system working / not working without any obvious reason.

With a game like ArmA the whole system is running near the borders of possible in many areas (address space, bus bandwidth, CPU power, GPU power). Any behaviour of the system which even slightly is out of specification can lead to seeming random instability.

The major change we did in this beta patch is we reduced virtual address space usage, which makes the whole system more forgiving to errors other system components may have in this area. While this is a useful workaround and it may be a solution for you now, this still does not mean your system is error free - once it will become stressed in this area again, it may break down again.

We know of other users experiencing problems similar to your caused by insufficient power supplies, malfunctioning motherboard chip-sets, broken hard drive DMA, overheating CPUs or GPUs  - and every time it is the same story "my system is stable because it runs  game XXX , YYY and ZZZ fine". The problem is because workload of ArmA is somewhat different from other games, the game is sensitive to problems in the system configuration which other games can happily live with.

so its really ArmA scaled game which caused ArmA scaled problem?

[dirtylarrygb 0]

I was walking through the hell, continuously blaming the HW and drivers of my new rig, but with this build 5143 ArmA runs now over HOURS! stable.

It seems that I have to send a big SORRY to the 2 HW shops COMPULAND and MIX computer, which send my GPU after GPU and took back the "old" 8800er without moaning about the broken packages. I will pay at least for the parcel costs since they were very cooperative.

I was bothering ASUS support as well as GAINWARD baggin for help.

Now I see 1.05 and 1.05+ side by side, I installed the complete 4GB RAM back as well as the FW800 card which I blamed.

1.05 crashes, 1.05+ runs like hell.

I am afraid you still misunderstand the nature of problems like this. Game running on a computer is actually very complex system, with a lot of this which may be wrong. Sometimes a small change in any part of the system can cause the system working / not working without any obvious reason.

With a game like ArmA the whole system is running near the borders of possible in many areas (address space, bus bandwidth, CPU power, GPU power). Any behaviour of the system which even slightly is out of specification can lead to seeming random instability.

The major change we did in this beta patch is we reduced virtual address space usage, which makes the whole system more forgiving to errors other system components may have in this area. While this is a useful workaround and it may be a solution for you now, this still does not mean your system is error free - once it will become stressed in this area again, it may break down again.

We know of other users experiencing problems similar to your caused by insufficient power supplies, malfunctioning motherboard chip-sets, broken hard drive DMA, overheating CPUs or GPUs - and every time it is the same story "my system is stable because it runs game XXX , YYY and ZZZ fine". The problem is because workload of ArmA is somewhat different from other games, the game is sensitive to problems in the system configuration which other games can happily live with.

Yep Suma you have it in one.

Only Supreme Commander can push a system like ARMA, both games push the very technical limits of even the very best most expensive hardware.

Even the mighty 8800 GTX 626/1000 starts to stutter everything maxed at 10k VD! Turning off post process solves that though

The sad thing about the fog being lifted, is it's going to lead to alot of people moaning the game has poor performance because they start maxing all settings at 1600+ res and expect 100 FPS.

If you max Supreme Commander at HD res and fight a large AI force on a large map even the very fastest PC's stutter down to 3FPS.

ARMA joins the exclusive club of only next years hardware might run it in MAX settings at 2000+ res :}.

Current members Sup' Commander and ARMA, Alan Wake and Crysis are about to apply for membership!

Oblivion was in the club last year it took the 8800 card to allow max settings at high res.

[INNOCENT&CLUELESS 0]

Hi Suma

I can not judge the changes, I can just report the way to the final happiness.

I could be that your game was always utilizing OS/drivers/HH/middleware correctly and now you somehow adapted to odd behavior of other components to solve it.

And I agree that it is very complex since many components are involved.

Angry makes me only the fact that this issue could be detected much earlier by a proper test lab (of course BI can not have all possible combinations in the world).

It is not only BI/ArmA, half of the game planet is fighting with this.

The best BI could do is publishing the test equipment you use where ArmA runs without problems as a guidance for HW purchasing and SW/OS selection.

If your SW application is so demanding, do it like the big players:

Only give a kind of warranty if users using white listed HW and OS and drivers that you tested, else...you can´t promise.

I guess the approach to install onto a hopeless OCed rig ArmA like any other game does not work. So pleace define and test some Reference systems.

As a quick solution for those which still have problems - any chance you publish what you have in the dev-lab right now?

I will do here:

1 x 768MB EVGA GeForce 8800GTX DDR3 PCIe

1 x Intel Core 2 Duo (Conroe) E6700 2660MHz S775 4MB Box

2 x Kit 2x1024MB Corsair DDR2 800MHz PC2-6400 CL4

1 x Asus STRIKER EXTREME S775 NF680I-SL

1 x 320GB Seagate ST3320620NS Barracuda 7200 16MB Cache

1 x ATX Big Thermaltake Mozart TX VE1000SWA mit Fenster silber(o

1 x Thermaltake Toughpower 850 Watt

1 x Logitech G15 Keyboard

OS: XP SP2 all online patches installed except Genuine check

GPU driver: Forceware 101.02

VD: 10km

Quality: all at HIGH

FPS: continuously over 40 with random sharp drops to 20 if lots of FX

Tested on BerZerk maps MP online

3,5 hours stable with 1.05+, 1.05 crashed after few minutes

[eJay 1]

Really good attempt to optimize ArmA  

3800 +, 1 GB RAM, 7900 GS iwth latest drivers and...

http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/notworthy.gif' alt='notworthy.gif'>

[The_Nebula 0]

YAY!! New Icons!! w00t.. :P The old ones sucked..

Testing it now..

[Abbe 0]

Sorry BIS, the patch seems to lower my performance...

Pentium 3.4 EE s.478

x1950Pro AGP CCC 7.3

1.5Gb RAM

Lost a couple of fps, no changes to the options as to unpatched version...

But lots of bugs fixed!

/Abbe

[JFK 0]

everything in max details (without post process), DV on 3 km, run smoothly

Well its nice to have ~40 fps on top of a hill, without any vegetation. Go to a wood with a lot of grass zoom in your M4 scope and watch your fps counter. Or enter the editor, place a heli near a town and fly over it. Tell me what fps u got, using your settings on MAX, except pp.

I had to lower my shader settings, to get the frames needed if i want to increase view distance to 1500. I even screwed terrain and object detail down to normal. No problem, game still looks beautiful, and i have to confirm patch makes it run much better. Nice work BIS, go on that way!!!  

[Jezz 0]

My problem is that in 1.05 i suffered very little of the texture bug but now i suffer it alot, not missing texture but always very low resolution textures right up until you are only 2 or 3m away

2x Xeon 2.4ghz

4096 DDR-II

7800GTS+ 512DDR

creative audigy

250gb samsung hd

700w jeantech storm psu

XP 64 fully up to date

[Mr_Tea 0]

XP 64 fully up to date

That looks to be you`re problem.

I use 7600GS 512MB RAM, Audigy2 and an AthlonXP 3200+ with Win2K SP3, and don`t get this error.

[Scrub 0]

Just sound oddities as previously reported.  

1.05 ran solid for hours on my machine, beta runs solid and faster - with increased details.

AMD 4400x2

Asus a8 premium SLI

6800gs

audigy 2zs

WD 400gb drive

2gb OCZ ddr 400

HW labs are a neat thing, but require a hefty team (or take forever) and cost a ton all by themselves.  Even then the number of possible configurations and MFG spec. tolerances that could weaken a system would be hell to ID.

Spite is creeping into our forums again...  

Edit: Just reverified that 8800s have had issues from before their launch.  Google '8800 problems' and you get many issues, from non spec capacitors and production processes to This (and yes, I do know it is not the most trusted e-mag on the planet, but google those issues, and just see the plethora o' info)

Edit 2: My bad, it was a wrong resistor that messed up a cap, they must have been making a timer. Oh well, the point is in any complex device there are upstream dependancies.

[MamiyaOtaru 1]

Quote[/b] ]5137  - Fixed: Explosions no longer cause any objects flying high.

Was watching opfor and bluefor go at it and someone flew up in the air.  Tried a mission with me (with AT) and a friendly.  Shooting him with AT sent him rocketing into the air just as it always did.  Maybe I started the wrong execuatable?  Doubt it though.. I'll check later.

Anyone else still seeing this?

[Shadow NX 1]

I think they mean that for example when you put Satchels under a tank and blow it up that he doesnt fly few kilometers high anymore

[Mr_Tea 0]

OPFOR infantry ignores the AH-1Z completely, if you nail them they run around and seek the enemy but the Cobra did not get one shot.

Edit:

For the explosions, they shoot at least soldiers sky high.

Yesterday i played around in the editor, on of my teammates engaged enemys with the M136. That enemy was flying nearly 100 meters high.

[4 IN 1 0]

Just sound oddities as previously reported.  

1.05 ran solid for hours on my machine, beta runs solid and faster - with increased details.

AMD 4400x2

Asus a8 premium SLI

6800gs

audigy 2zs

WD 400gb drive

2gb OCZ ddr 400

HW labs are a neat thing, but require a hefty team (or take forever) and cost a ton all by themselves.  Even then the number of possible configurations and MFG spec. tolerances that could weaken a system would be hell to ID.

Spite is creeping into our forums again...  

Edit: Just reverified that 8800s have had issues from before their launch.  Google '8800 problems' and you get many issues, from non spec capacitors and production processes to This (and yes, I do know it is not the most trusted e-mag on the planet, but google those issues, and just see the plethora o' info)  

Edit 2: My bad, it was a wrong resistor that messed up a cap, they must have been making a timer.  Oh well, the point is in any complex device there are upstream dependancies.

new HW tence to have such kind of problems, someone form this log of product could get a outstanding perforemce, while product from another logs would simply be crap, so to get a perfectly good first of its kind new config HW is all by chance, i am very lucky to get one that works

[vilas 474]

one friend in Poland told me that after 1.05 + patch they have better performance

i am in office now

i hope you BIS made that

because after patching from 1.02 to 1.05 my performance lowered horrible

i had in 1.02 PL all on highest and after 1.05 i couldn't run game

now i have all on LOW (while people with cheap computers had increased performance)

i hope this patch 1.05 + will solve this problem as my friend said, i will test it in home and write smthing tommorow

AMD X2 3800 , Nvidia 7900 256, 2*1GB corsair extreme ddr2 675 mhz

if this game will run smooth on at least "high" details i will say thanx, but not untill i see it

[Skaven 0]

After some hours of playing I really see no difference in performance I've tried ARMA Mark before upgrading and I have exactely the same scores now.

My options are all set to Normal/High and the shadows disabled since they toaste me 15 to 25 fps from low to high which gives me mouse lag when turning. Withouht shadows I play at 60fps like before and inside towns I play between the 40 and 60 fps depending on the Island.

My specs are: Intel® Dual-Core E6600, 2GB Team Elite Memory, X1950XT and an Audigy X-FI

[inferno7312 0]

Sorry BIS, the patch seems to lower my performance...

Pentium 3.4 EE s.478

x1950Pro AGP CCC 7.3

1.5Gb RAM

Lost a couple of fps, no changes to the options as to unpatched version...

But lots of bugs fixed!

/Abbe

same as me machine

p4 3.8

1.5G 7800Gt

still lost fps, compare 1.05, no any change about view distance.

Bug is still there, helicopter still can not engage infantry correctly! AI car still can not cross the bridge smoothly.

anyway, anything , I say again anything changed on my machine!

[deevius 0]

Maruk if you're reading this... just got to say thanks for sending the 3 new Activation keys for the Sprocket thing so quickly   cheers mate

So the beta patch seems to be a step in the right direction, it appears i am getting better performance now - trees aren't causing so much lag. I also noticed shadows appear to be a bit softer than before? might be a reason for the small increase in FPS

I still get quite a lot lag when lots of vehicles/units are on the screen at once but admittedly my system is rather old

and still the VERY annoying texture loading bug is still present, though doesn't seem to be as bad as before

but overall I am liking the improvements so far.

things are looking good for ArmA

----------

my specs:

AMD 2800+

1 GB Ram

X800 Pro AGP 256mb Videocard

110gb Sata harddrive

im planning on upgrading soon, AGP sucks the big one

[dwringer 45]

well, after climbing to the top of pico de perez with an m107, and setting the view distance to 4,500m (well, normally I can only go to 1500-2500m depending on foliage, to crank out as many fps as i can), i must say that this patch is the greatest thing to happen to arma to date.. at least for 8800 users.. i had no IDEA the fog bug was as severe as all that, but the difference is really like night and day. what i used to think were "distant" mountains and peaks, it turns out, ain't squat compared to the REAL horizon

[eJay 1]

everything in max details (without post process), DV on 3 km, run smoothly

Well its nice to have ~40 fps on top of a hill, without any vegetation. Go to a wood with a lot of grass zoom in your M4 scope and watch your fps counter. Or enter the editor, place a heli near a town and fly over it. Tell me what fps u got, using your settings on MAX, except pp.

I had to lower my shader settings, to get the frames needed if i want to increase view distance to 1500. I even screwed terrain and object detail down to normal. No problem, game still looks beautiful, and i have to confirm patch makes it run much better. Nice work BIS, go on that way!!!  

Well in 1.05 in this same place, same details i have 20 fps, so even if there is no woods, game is moother

[jantenner 0]

patch is good, game seems to run smoother

[Nixer6 0]

I don't see anything that BI could do here, as that's a Publisher problem.

That you need to use an activation for each patch might be not the smartest solution but you need to sort that with Metaboli, they sold you the game, not BI.

Sorry sir, but that is, IMHO, a lame answer. We didn't pick the publishers for specific geogphical area..BI did!

I'll pass on the beta...this activation thing is a pain in the butt and, as usual, only effects us poor suckers who paid for our game.

[BHack 0]

Vertical centering in the helos was a bad idea. The old system worked better. Other than that, patch seems good.

[pickled14 0]

Tracers are still visible for rifles/sniper why after all these patches they can't fix a core issue of the UI having a selection to enable or disable the tracers is baffling.