US Demo Released

[JasonH 0]

Well from what I can gather its a Vista/8800 problem system wide with everyone.

Runs alright but getting close to buildings and such result in everything going a 'bland' colour. As if all the textures have been stripped from everything and given just a simple colour.

[JasonH 0]

Performance is very much improved, I'm impressed.  

I do notice a general "softness" of objects and textures, but maybe its just me?

Nice job BIS, looking forward to U.S. release.  

Thats the bloom effect.

[Pierrot 0]

Should I uninstall the previous DEMO before installing this latest one?

[fideco 1]

i'm currently playing Arma (beta patch) and i don't see any improvement perfomance in US demo...

Moreover i notice a great mouse lag in aiming (too much mouse floating)

Not impressed.

Cheers

[jakerod 254]

Don't know if anyone has posted this or not or if it even matters but gamespot has it now.

Gamespot

Haven't downloaded it yet Im waiting for my new computer.

[450R 1]

Runs much better than the previous demo ... almost as good as OFP on this old machine. Seems much more polished as well.

[Stickler 0]

From a technical standpoint on my computer I think this thing has been optimized up the ass. I have a 3.2 ghz computer with a gig of ram and my graphics card is an ATI Radeon x500 or x800 and though all settings are to low, yet with a resolution of 1024x768,I can run it fairly smooth. My system is completely laughable, I was waiting for the U.S. release before starting any new hardware upgrades. judging from this demo ArmA may be playable on lower end computers. This may be a reason why everything looks like it's losing polish even on max settings.

[froggyluv 2136]

Message Deleted

[LoFFeN 0]

Downloading now.

I'm really hopeing that the performance is improved now. The previous MP Demo run at an average of 5-10 Fps at lowest settings, on my old rusty PC "Trashcan".  

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

Haven't gotten ArmA yet but I played the old 1.03 Final demo and now I played the new US demo and I must say it's improved!!! With everything more or less as high as possible (not post-processing effects nor Anti-Aliasing because I dispense having those at highest settings) I get smoooooth framerates!

Though somehow in the coop mode, I wonder, just how many OPFOR are there? Because I haven't won the new coop yet nor seen any coop team win it yet from "bird's eye view" ^^ - There are just too many of them!

As for the limited editor, the most useful thing about it is that it allows you to go out in a Humvee to explore the island, which I don't think is the full Sahrani island (or am I wrong?) - but you get to be the driver with a gunner as no. 1 - I shot him because he kept telling me to get back into the car whilst I wanted to explore on foot, and neither did he allow me to manually fire the gun, which is strangely different from OFP (where a gunner could aim but you could fire a weapon, IIRC) .

It seems that ArmA is getting there (to the point that I'll finally buy it)!

[TheVoodoo 0]

ok once more, im a vista user with a 8800gtx:

-) The cannot create system memory surface ist still present, may be a nvidia issue. you can workaround by adding the startupparameter arma.exe -maxmem=512

-) the binocular handling has been improved, no longer neverending animation for it. but i dont know if they have removed the animation completely that noone can see that you're watching through them, or if they have speed up the animation.

-) no new nvg improvements and no a10

-) mouseaiming feels laggy

-) imo a little noticeable performance boost.

-) same crappy audiofiles for weapons, but thx that for the final game is already the fdf_soundmod out.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Voodoo, are you getting a Playdough-like LOD problem with high or very high texture quality settings?

PS. Try setting your page file to 4GB to kill the "system texture" problem. Worked for me, so far.

[klavan 0]

My PC is pretty old, but the previous demo version ran much better than this newest version, I played it at normal settings now I can barely run it on low.

There's no way out: I have to spend some €.

Klavan

[mr_centipede 31]

what is pagefile and how do i change it? sorry, not very computer literate. and sorry for a bit of topic

[Shadow NX 1]

Tested the patch last night and liked it.

Overall it seemed like the performance was increased while loadtimes and texture popping was reduced a lot... for me at least.

Also it seemed like the Blackhawk in one of the demo missions was lot easier to fly now as it reacted very precise to my mouse movements.

I like the fact that so far every patch improved the game... again, for me at least.

[BroK3n 0]

Just tried the demo.

A few things that i can say have been improved:

- load times.

- Overall performance (better FPS and loading of textures)

- Post-processing on high brings my fps down by only 5fps.

- Didnt have any LOD bugs so far.

- All the goodies 1.05 Beta brought to us.

Things that annoy people which are still around:

- FPS drops when scoping into bushes. (thats understandable with some basic graphics rendering knowledge)

- Heavy rifle movements (they seem to be more heavy.)

- Same old sounds (doesnt matter, really)

- Loss of FPS when looking through ironsights. I had 60fps looking at the desert near Cayo and it dropped to 30fps looking through the M4 aimpoint. Why? I dont know.

Things that make me wonder why:

- My FPS goes about a steady 30fps everywhere.. whether looking down a street or in bushes. Is it capped at 30fps? When i look down at the ground i get about 40-50fps though.

- The demo loads up on my second monitor. Why?

- Why havent i had my dinner yet?

Overall a big improvement from the days of 1.02. The other guy said it doesnt surpass 1.04's performance. I beg to differ because 1.04 didnt give me faster loading times (loading Operation Sanitizationusdhuastion was like opening up desert island in OFP's editor) and i was still plagued by LOD bugs. But only untill i find out why I'm capped at 30fps will i say it surpasses 1.04's performance. Cos i got about 35-40 at that version.

[LoFFeN 0]

This Demo is much better than the last MP Demo that came out in December 2006.

I can now run it with many settings set at Normal and 1280x1024 Resolution. @Intel P4 3.4Ghz, 1.5GB DDR RAM, Geforce 6800GE "GT" & Windows XP SP2.

I'm getting some movement lag though, so aiming the weapon and flying choppers was f-in hard.

Cheers.

[stainer 0]

<s>I've managed to max out everything including view distance and I'm getting between 25-35 fps whereas before my view distance was at about 2000m and some settings turned down, giving me just 20-25fps.</s>

- Edit - Turns out the excellent performance was due to fog in the mission, but still I am getter much improved performance over other patches. Excellent job BIS!

[abs 2]

From reading the posts in here I seem to be the only one encountering this error. I'm getting a "ArmADemo.exe - Unable to Locate Component" error that reads, "This application has failed to start because d3dx9_30.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem" What does this mean? Thanks

*edited to add: This happens when I try to run ArmA, so far I haven't be able to since I get this error message*

If you already have DirectX 9c, and you still get that message, then you need to Google d3dx9_30.dll and then download the file. Once downloaded, put it into a directory that the system can find (i.e. is in the $PATH variable...C:\Windows\System32 works just fine) and then the game ought to work just fine.

Abs

[Bunks 0]

Sorry, but its just repackaged like it should have been in the first place. SP plays as I would have expected. If a single player version was added to the original, there wouldn't have been such a mass exodus from this game.

As for the multi player, I just did a frame counter average against the original demo and there is no difference in overall performance. ALthough, higher settings impact perfomance less than the original demo. Lod textures still popping in and out, weapon still feels slugish, but overall it has been tweaked in key areas that seem a bit better. Too bad this wasnt how it was released in the first place.

But I think I'll pass till the game is in the bargain bin when some modders finally fix this game the way it was meant to be. See ya all again in another 6 months.

[Animal-22 0]

Still waiting for Vista + 8800 results (Eric is having troubles, poor lad). Anyone?

I have a 8800GTS w/ 340MB and running on Vista. I experienced the same issues with texture loading you are, no doubt, referring to. While I cannot run the game on full max settings, I can now run it at mostly "normal" settings. I used to have to run it at all low settings in 1.05.

The demo is definitely an improvement over 1.05 in terms of graphical performance.

The mouse does seem to float more. I haven't tried tweaking the control settings yet, so maybe just tweaking the mouse sensitivity will fix it.

There are a few annoying bugs with missions but nothing serious. The core gameplay is still very solid.

The AI doesn't seem to be super-accurate anymore.

I have yet to CTD with the memory surface error yet, however, since running at all low settings in 1.05, I don't get it anymore either. But again, now I can run all normal settings and not get it. I think this is a combination issue of less-than-optimal drives from nVidia and ArmA itself. It seems like ArmA has stepped up it's end quite a bit, let's hope the next set of drivers from nVidia does the same.

[guerilla -MCY- 0]

i can even feel a stronge improvment over the 1.05 beta, the aim is not perferct but better, m249 has more recoil, you cannot zoom as much as before in blackhawk, fps is higher and more stable.

i also had this cannot create memory crash after the blackhawk singleplayer mission and this bug, which was gone after ctrl alt del:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v413/guerilla777777/bushbug.jpg

xp - duo6700 - GTX8800 etc..., playable on very high with 3000-5000m

all in all a good overhaul and the way to go.

[Ceriy 0]

Trying to launch the demo and get this message:

SecuROMâ„¢ has determined that a File/Reg Mon program is present is running in the background. Please close this program before you start the application.

http://www.securom.com/message.asp?m=module&c=5024

I don't have any emulation software or any virtual drives. What could be causing this problem?

Here is a list of all running processes:

[CameronMcDonald 146]

I have a 8800GTS w/ 340MB and running on Vista. I experienced the same issues with texture loading you are, no doubt, referring to. While I cannot run the game on full max settings, I can now run it at mostly "normal" settings. I used to have to run it at all low settings in 1.05.

I have yet to CTD with the memory surface error yet, however, since running at all low settings in 1.05, I don't get it anymore either. But again, now I can run all normal settings and not get it. I think this is a combination issue of less-than-optimal drives from nVidia and ArmA itself. It seems like ArmA has stepped up it's end quite a bit, let's hope the next set of drivers from nVidia does the same.

BIS is certainly upholding their end of the bargain, although there is no official Vista support, I dropped Suma a PM with my concerns. He states:

Quote[/b] ]We have already contacted them regarding this. The 8800 Vista drivers seems to be far from stable yet, but they seem to be working on them.

...which is good news, although:

Quote[/b] ]I have no ETA from them regarding when fix might be available.

I suppose we'll all know when one enchanted evening we all drop into Guru3D and find something along the lines of "Armed Assault LOD bug firmly and permanently squashed" on the next set of Vista 8800 drivers to show up.

Oh, and my settings are as follows:

2500, normal, normal, normal, normal, high, low, very high, low, high.

[SeppSchrot 0]

@Ceriy:

Hehe, the joys of Securom, now available as a demo.

I guess it's the task-explorer itself.