ArmA is just ... disappointing

[Danbri 0]

It was a little while ago since I played OFP, but I `m getting a STRONG deja vu´feeling when I play the singel missions. Arn´t some of them almost the same as in OFP or is it just my age spooking  

Your age : most OFP SP missions were better than ArmA's one

i didnt say there where better or worse, i just think that some of the missions are almost exactly the same, even the text that describes the missions is the same. exept for "blood, sweat...." which i find really good (when I´m able to play some that is).

I think I will actually play some OFP tonight. Its reallythat good that one can replay it after 6 years. Amazing that is!

[Taconic 0]

I've been MIA for a while, but I figured I'd chime in.

I bought OFP from Europe in July 2001. I played it to death for a couple of months. It was supremely buggy, but I understood that BIS was a small company and that the project was very ambitious. Besides, none of the bugs were show stoppers--just minor annoyances.

When OFP came to the US, I bought it here. Then I bought RH right after it came out. Finally, I bought Resistance on the day of its US release. I guess I even eventually developed a name for myself through modding (which was a lot of work, but a lot of fun.)

I've probably played OFP in a more sustained manner than any other game, and I have been playing games for a looong time. I absolutely love OFP. I think BIS is a great company and I will support anything that they do.

That's why it pains me to concede that Arma is, in its current state, a bit of a mess.

Like OFP, I bought AA the day it became available in the US. I installed it that night, but didn't really get a chance to play. Today is the first time I've been able to sit down and really play it.

Random crashes.

Broken cutscenes.

LoD/texture issues.

Poor performance (but I kind of expected this. I'm only running a GF 6600 on a dual 2.66GHz Xeon rig.)

I've updated drivers (including the TIR driver, just to be safe.) I've patched the game. I've done the normal troubleshooting business.

Based upon a lot of what I've read (which admitedly isn't a lot--I've been sort of estranged from the OFP world for about a year now,) the game still has quite a few issues.

I'm disappointed, but I can't say that I am surprised. I appreciate how much work went into it and I can only imagine the hassles BIS had when dealing with so many publishers. It seems the game was forced out the door too soon.

But I'm not mad at BIS. I have faith that eventually they'll get it right. If any of you that were around for the beginning of OFP, I'm sure you recall that v1.0 was not a terribly pretty sight. Yet 1.96 was rock solid and performed considerably better.

I'm just a bit disappointed. I've been dreaming of an OFP sequel since 2002 or so. It just looks like I'll have to wait for a few more patches to play it.

Back to OFP for the time being.

[ubernoob 0]

"Speeding up the Loading animations is for arcade-players" I agree on that and actually I´m okay with the AR´s reloading "process speed" where the empty clip is removed and new one is inserted.

What I really ment was that the player is unable to move while loading (sorry if I didn´t explain that clearly)

"Speeding up the reloading animation" process goes namely to reloading pistol...the pistol clip removing goes like the dude is in the firing range, I´m certain that a specop dude can load pistol faster than that (speed ejecting the whole clip and reloading fast new one)...there are good examples at Youtube...and yes those guys are pros and a regular Gomer Pyle isn´t that fast reloading a pistol but still...moan moan moan

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]What I really ment was that the player is unable to move while loading (sorry if I didn´t explain that clearly)

Worldwide consensus in military training tells you NOT to reload while on the move. It´s a no-go, neither at the range nor in combat.

[9mm 0]

Here's my contribution to this awful thread

1. Poorly researched units - there's no excuse for that in "the ultimate military simulation".

2. Poor SP experience, especially the main campaing - there's no excuse for that in the successor of Operation Flashpoint: The Cold War Crisis.

3. Well-known AI flaws - but... most of them occur mainly when units are just placed in the editor in unscripted situations. Their impact on the gameplay might be hugely reduced by a well desing mission.

As for perfomance probs, well, my rig was always few steps behind current standarts, so as long ArmA look ok to me, and works ok, I just don't care.

[Kevlar2007 1]

Army tells you lot of things in the training(mostly bullshit) but reality on battlefield is different there you do everything to survive.

What I think is to have a flexibility as I have it in reality to do what I want to do and not what is a consensus at military training.

In reality you can drop your weapon and run away in any situation and you can stop your reloading process when you want to and switch quickly to your side weapon. It should be done like this you can move slowly and reload and reloading on the move should take longer time then when you stop and reload. Also the must is that you must be able always to stop reloading process. You should drop your magazine on the ground if the reloading is not finished and clip is not inserted or something like that. That would be realistic simulation. What I also miss is knife as weapon.

[wika_woo 182]

What I also miss is knife as weapon.

Agreed, Someone should make a knife addon for arma..

I mean it will give "stealth" a whole new meaning, To arma..

[KDog35 0]

Guess I will put my complaint here. Arma is just way too laggy. Do I need to spend $2000.00 on a computer to run the game? I've got dual e6600, 2 gig ram, and a 256 ati card and the performance is very poor. My res is set on the very lowest, all other settings on low, and view distance on 800. I could handle all the other problems noted here, but not being able to control my aim because of lag just does it for me. When I bought OFP in 2002, my computer then was nothing special and the game ran fine. This game seems very cool, wish I could play it and enjoy some graphics and have some control over the mouse.

[chipper 0]

I wish I could bunny hop in ArmA

[Bunks 0]

Arma is just way too laggy. Do I need to spend $2000.00 on a computer to run the game? I've got dual e6600, 2 gig ram, and a 256 ati card and the performance is very poor. My res is set on the very lowest, all other settings on low, and view distance on 800. I could handle all the other problems noted here, but not being able to control my aim because of lag just does it for me.

Dude, its not the game its your system. Something is not working as it should. I have similar specs and run at 1600 x 1200 res and medium setting at 2500-3500 view distance and rarely go below 60 frames. And btw, I spent less than $700 on this rig a few weeks ago.

650iUltra Mobo       $94

e6420 Proc            $180

7900gs                $139

2gig Gskill 800 ram $99

600w PSU            $94

artic cooler          $34

Sata HD              $53

Total: Arma Goodness: Priceless!

As for Arma, well rather than list everything that has already been mentioned. My biggest issues are still:

1)Animations (slugish responses maks long duration play very taxing on the senses) Unlike OFP where 12 hours straight would leave you wanting more, Arma after 3 hours makes me feel like I need a vacation from gaming.

2)Keybinds-worse key setup in a game ever seen . So many keys are redundant and not needed or could be combined into one function while others need to be more specific. ie. The lock or zoom key...omg what were you thinking???

3)Lack of intense SUSTAINED firefights Mostly cause AI just drop and kill you with one shot when instead of ducking for cover like most AI in FPS games out today. VC2, farcry, even much older games had the illusion of an intelligent AI at times. OR at least make a dispersion effect like WGL had going. I dont understand how a company in 2007 cant best a group of modders that were made over 3 years ago.

4)AI in wooded areas and grass If this isnt corrected then to me the game has very little future when we get bored of fighting in desert terrain over and over again. I dont even bother playing or writing missions in dense vegitation areas unless its in aircraft or vehicles. Its pretty unrealistic (and sad) when your team chooses rather to cross an open field with no cover, just to avoid a wooded area due to the tactical disadvantage humans have against AI in them.

[vilas 473]

Quote[/b] ]650iUltra Mobo       $94

e6420 Proc            $180

7900gs                $139

2gig Gskill 800 ram $99

600w PSU            $94

artic cooler          $34

Sata HD              $53

NOT everyone live in US

here i Poland i had to pay 750 PLN for 7900 GS, which is 250 USD !

AMD X2 3800+ costed me another 220 USD

Asus M2N costed me 120 USD

SATA HD costed me 75 USD

for 2*1GB DDR Corsair i gave 800 PLN-270 USD !

in central or eastern europe we have prices bigger for 10-20 % than in west (and earnings 3 times less), west has bigger prices than US

for flat 19 inch LCD of Samsung 971P i had to pay 1600 PLN, which is about 500-550 USD !!!

so in one country THE SAME computer cost 1000 in other 1200,

in one country Police or goverment office worker earns 2000 USD in other 500 USD don't forget about it !

in my country there is mass protest because usual doctor about 400 USD, nurse has about 300 USD, and we have prices bigger than west europe !

ARMA works like it want, there was on that forum a topic, that on some "lower PC" it works better than on "high-ends"

some people are really really ANGRY because buying new PC for ARMA is months of hard saving money, i was so angry too, because my holiday saves went on PC and i get only lags, textures missing, ctd in middle of mission !

and i had so much of graphical problems

people from countries like my are very very angry, because if you spent a year-saved money and product doesn't work, you wanna kill somebody

[Bunks 0]

Well sorry for your limits Vilas, but he did say $$$$ so he was using US currency as an example. I can, if I wanted to, build a rig that would play Arma just fine for under $500 US. Its not about getting the best parts, it just takes doing your homework before buying/building a system. Arma has many faults. However, performance is not based on how much you spend but on how well you balance your system and what you put on it.

In a few months the Penryn/Wolfdale chips will be out and all the talk of poor performance will be old news when current tech becomes cheap. So hang in there.

[vilas 473]

homework ? i don't know, so what ? you have to be super informatician to know how to play game and choose PC ?

i go to the shop, the are giving me propsal and i will choose yes or not

i have:

XP SP2 system, some more freware AV and soft, i don't have heavy resources AV soft like Norton or other (honestly i see no difference in performance with AV ON or OFF)

AMD X2 3800 +

dual 1GB corsair extreme 675 MHz

MSI 7900 GS pasive cooling

HD of Caviar (quite fast in tests on this forum some months ago)

Asus M2N or M2NE Sli mainboard

so what is wrong with my PC, that after patch 1.05 i wanted to uninstal this *** off ?

before 1.05 performance was good (i mean 1.00, 1.02)

1.05 was horrible, after 20 minutes no textures at all !

since 1.07 there were many CTD and pulsing HDR like stoboscope lamp on disco < game was unplayable too

since 1.08 looks that is working somehow

so it is not PC- it is game "bad", because if version X works good, and after patch version X+1 works bad, and X+2 has CTD !

i have 1.08 now, my HDR problems seems to be fixed, but for so many month i was so furious about this

after 1.05 patch i had decrease in performance maybe for 40% in FPS !

this was insane !

if addonmaking was not my hobby, this DVD game disc probably would visit orbit

OFP was super, i love it still, in OFP i had no graphical problems at all, even when i had poor and cheap PC ~, my friend still play OFP with 800 Mhz Celeron !

in any other games on my PC and previous PC i haven't noticed any problems

so finishing - some patches only made game unplayble , for me 1.05-1.07 was time out of gaming, i even couldn't finish one mission for my addons, because game was CTD in middle of mission, after maybe 20 minutes from turning game ON

p.s.

and one more

i never said arma is shit, it has potential to be the best game in the world as OFP was for me for 6 years (OFP was revolution in games), but sometimes i think BIS treats this very expected software as "lets paint old car"

graphically ARMA environment looks beautyful , but this software should work , not CTD or loose textures after some time because of patching

in OFP i could play all night without any crash or problem

[ArmaVidz 0]

<span style='color:blue'>BUNKS, no disrespect but even if you are informed it doesn't matter what loadout you use with ArmA, you're still going to have problems and low FPS unless you are "lucky."</span>

Here are my newest system specs:

Athlon 64 6000+ X2 @ 3.0Ghz 2x1MB

eVGA Geforce 7950 GT KO Superclocked 512MB

2x1GB OCZ SLi DDR-800

WD Raptor 74GB 10K RPM 16MB Cache 5.2ms Seek

WD Raptor 36GB 10K RPM  8MB Cache 5.2ms Seek (2nd HD pagefile)

Asus M2N-Sli Deluxe

Creative Soundblaster Audigy2 ZS

OCZ GameXStream 600 Watt PSU

Newest Addition: 20" Acer LCD 1400x1050

Now I've tried everything from an Athlon64 4200+x2 to a 5200+X2, to a Ati X19000XTX 512MB to switching power PSU's.

Nothing, I mean nothing, will allow me to play ArmA with "High" everything, a 5000ft view distance and AA/AF at a decent resolution while maintaining a good FPS. Hah. Actually I can only play at about 3500ft view distance, at 1400x1050 with AA/AF off, terrain detail to Normal. Even at that, I get low FPS..like into the single digits.

Either an X1900XTX 512MB or a Geforce 7950 GT KO Superclocked should run this game just fine in combo with the other system specs.

Either the game was made with some sort of "super-non-mainstream" platform in mind i.e: server with 4GB's of RAM and multiple physical CPU's or there is optimization to be had. I vote, for the latter.

[Bunks 0]

Either an X1900XTX 512MB or a Geforce 7950 GT KO Superclocked should run this game just fine in combo with the other system specs.

Either the game was made with some sort of "super-non-mainstream" platform in mind i.e: server with 4GB's of RAM and multiple physical CPU's or there is optimization to be had. I vote, for the latter.

Since we are talking about what is disapointing with the game this does stay on topic I guess. But to answer the 1st part of this. You would think those cards should run the game fine, but not if the GPU was 3rd in the chain on performance.

As for the super-perfomance part, here's where I went the other way when building for Arma. I went with the simplest setup possible but with good and fast parts but not the always the top end. Here's why:

We tested 6 cards in the same computer and found at the same settings the 7800gt and the 7900gs did just as good as the 8800gts and the X1900xt. When a few settings were increased then the numbers favored the 8800 and the 7900gs. The 7950 had issues at different resolutions and details but thats another story but the cards were having little impact on overall perfomance outcomes.

So we went to memory and HD setups. Here we saw other variations in raw perfomance. Even OS changes made differences for some reason. SO yes the game is screwy. The game is very fickle, how well your bandwidth is between your NB and SB is just as much a factor as your processor speed and GPU. All of these are links in a chain. One is off or not performing as it should, and the whole thing falls apart like a house of cards.

My advice, dont look for the newest and fastest because the game wasnt designed with those things in mind. Ie SLI, dual core, Raid HD...ect. These will work with many other games, but for some reason are only more things that can screw up the whole systems perfomance if everything isnt working perfect. I went with a simple Mobo (650iUltra) and a solid chip (e6420), tight timing memory which I underclocked (gskill 4435-1T) and a basic (7900gs) with a raptor HD for my Arma game alone. Very cheap setup...I could have easily spent more. But the people I trusted told me what will and wont work so I took their advice, and they were right. I now play better than some super rigs with this low end system.

So simple answer, you bet, this game is screwed up in the optimization area. But it is getting better (for some at least).

on a side note- on one of the Overclocking forums I suggested that instead of running stress test software like Orthos to prove stability rates for CPU bragging rights, they use Arma instead because this game will find instability in a system faster than any of those stress testing programs.

[slingblade20000 0]

nice post bunks... But nobody will listen to what is the issue with Arma. Its kinda sad that everyone is still telling people they need the killer rig to run this game right when from day one when arma was released the answer was there.

I found that windows XP pro was the best for running this game, what other OS did you try?

[ArmaVidz 0]

Well I am glad to hear that you are running it amazingly with a "lower end" computer.

The CPU/Mem bandwidth with a 6000+X2 roughly rivals the same throughput as an FX-62 and sitting side by side, an M2N-SLi will actually outperform the 650i chipset in bandwidth benchmarks.

Furthermore, this 6000+ X2 outperforms the C2D6400 in most benchmarks from FEAR, to Unreal Tournament, to WinRAR operations. The OCZ DD-800 at 5-5-5-15 is SLi tested, but not being used in SLi (no 2nd PCI-E card). Regardless, the M2N has the same true dual x16 bandwidth as the 650i.

Try not to think price in my setup, because I do favors, and get this stuff cheap from suppliers. Needless to say the only "edge" per se a setup like you described has on mine, is the timing of the RAM.

Tighter timings make the system feel "snappier" and the 1T helps but to think that the NB/SB bandwidth is much better in a 650i compared to the M2N, and that it impacts performance on a grandeur scale just doesn't cut it.

<span style='color:blue'>You definitely don't need a super-high-end rig to run ArmA, but that's just the point. It doesn't matter what hardware you have, you still get crappy FPS. Which is what we're trying to fix by airing our crappy experiences.</span>

[1in1class 0]

well all in all i love it, but like the 360 view of an vehical would be nice in the 3rd person view. Instead of just side to side view, would like to see the hole vehical the Front of it, also the 3rd person view on units its just way to far away. 3rd person view for units should be closer like in OFP it realy brings out the units details and all in all that would be an nice thing to be done. Closer view for the units and an full 360 view for vehicals.

[KDog35 0]

Bunks, "my system is not working as it should", well follow up with some help. And speak in simple terms, some of us are not computer experts like yourself. I want to play the damn game with the computer I have, I'm not spending any more money. If 1500 dollars is not enough for a tower, then I'm re-installing OFP.

[vilas 473]

KDog35 - more funny, most of problems i had appeared with 1.05 patch, many of problems were fixed with 1.08

so it is not "bad PC" or "stupid user", it is engine !

if game works good on 1.02, works bad in 1.05 and CTD on 1.07 and now in 1.08 works good again, than it is not a matter of PC/User or marsians

somebody writes about knife or 360 degrees ?

i think more important is relistic materials properties

- you cannot kill in real M113 or BMP with M4, in this game circa 400 rounds make APC explode

- you won't kill real man by shooting in hand that holds pistol, in ARMA (as OFP yes)

- one steel sheet plate thick about 10 mm will stop 5.56 bullet, but will not stop 20 mm bullet, so in ARMA like in OFP still grenade can kill you thorugh the thick wall, man throw grenade on the other side of building and you are dead !

in real life you can destroy APC by 2 shots from large caliber/high energy rifle, by killing driver, gunner (like in WW2 there were AT rifles)

so BMP should be hurted by even 1000 5.56 bullets, but one bullet from 20 mm Bradley should kill driver or cargo man inside !

- vests, i wanna see man that is not dead after shot of 9 mm para to vest

in ARMA 1.02 there was for exaple mistake/bug, M9 bullet was stronger than MP5 or M4

of course it was fixed, but still damage properties of different materials are not shown in game, i know it is very hard to programmists, but They are very skilled profesionals, so i expect Them to do such things in future

BIS is very skilled team, they did OFP which was revolution in gaming, ARMA of course look beauty, looks super, but should be more realistic

maybe some kid of parameter for material should be done, like "passing hit border" or etc. parameter that decides which "hit" bullet can go through

in MOHAA, COD2 you can kill 2 man with one rifle bullet

in fight in Nothern Irland UK troops repoted some innocent civilians killed because strong bullet from L1A1 went through the brick wall and killed man inside building,

thats why all Police units are using MP5, to not harm anyone except target

real bullet goes through the target and can make dammage far more

i know that this can be too hard to do here in ARMA

but at least some more realistic passing through properties to the materials, if grenade falls on the other side of wall, it can't hurt me ! helmet , vest, wall stops fragments of grenade

[gazmen 0]

- you won't kill real man by shooting in hand that holds pistol, in ARMA (as OFP yes)

- one steel sheet plate thick about 10 mm will stop 5.56 bullet, but will not stop 20 mm bullet, so in ARMA like in OFP still grenade can kill you thorugh the thick wall, man throw grenade on the other side of building and you are dead !

in real life you can destroy APC by 2 shots from large caliber/high energy rifle, by killing driver, gunner (like in WW2 there were AT rifles)

so BMP should be hurted by even 1000 5.56 bullets, but one bullet from 20 mm Bradley should kill driver or cargo man inside !

BIS forget to add the material gestion... Like Project I.G.I, in that game you were able to shoot behind wood wall...

About shooting Armored APC driver & gunner with a Barret, its possible in real life, is not possible in ARMA but, Vilas do you know a game were it's possible to do that ?

I agree that the impact localisation is very bad and the gestion of impact to, also the falling corps is missing (they should have add GHOUL ENGINE III (S.O.F) & RAGDOLL)

[Bunks 0]

I found that windows XP pro was the best for running this game, what other OS did you try?

Tests were done on Win XP home and Win XP Professional. Vista was too early in develepment at that time and the game was V1.04 or 1.05 if memory serves. XP pro ran some test faster than home.

Arma Vidz- I guess you just didnt read my post. Like I said, I agree that the system is screwy, the testing showed that. Why did the 7950 get better frame rates at one higher resolution than most lower ones??? Questions like that came up all thru the testing. For example, my old x850xt ran the game better at 1440 resolution with shader details on low than any other setting or resolution. We knew this stuff going in. The reason why I am even bothering telling you this is because if you just accpet your belief that it takes a super rig to play this game, then you will never find the solution. Like I told you before, its not just the chipset, its the bells and whistles that your board has that only increases the chance of issues. Arma did better with simpler and older systems overall. Till they optimize these things, that just remains to be a fact.

Like KDog35, he seems to want to believe it takes a $2000 rig to play the game. Well, who am I to change his beliefs but it just isnt true. There are still people with great systems having problems just like he is. So spending cash wont fix the problem for sure. Im just correcting what he said for its lack of validity, not defending the game. Thats in the best interest of the consumer, not BIS.

Kdog- you want to bring your  PC to FLorida, I will be glad to help you. Other than that, the game depends on too many systems to identify from here. Do what I did with my older rig. Which was find the weakest part, replace or modify those parts, then test the results. I eneded up getting that rig from an average 21 FPS to up to 32 FPS in the same test by removing a sound car, adding a new HD, OC the CPU 8%, and by finding the best combonation of settings the card seemed to like. Which ended up being 1440 resolution. Why? who the hell knows. We know the game is not optimized, but it may not be for that $2000 rig you think will fix the problem either.

[vilas 473]

Gazmen, you know, for many reasons sometimes i feel that RTCW MOHAA COD is more realistic than OFP/ARMA (never grenade will hurt you through the wall)

what concerns this "Vilas do you know a game were it's possible to do that ?"

dear Gazmen, on the box of Polish ARMA version there is written (translating to english) "most realistic battlfield simulating system,made by OFP creators" and "total military realism basing on VBS technology used to train real soldiers" and "it is second generration engine , prized for realistic simulation, such technology is used by US army, US naval marines, Aurstralian troops" and things like "ARMA simulates many types of military equipement and vehicles" and etc.

imagine you go to the shop, you buy product, you wanna buy car which is low fuel using, man in shop sells you car which burn 20 liters/100 km, and he says "sir, why you complain, tank drinks 200 l /100 km ? "

or another comparision to make you clear, you met girl which says "i love you, i never had such nice boy, you are so nice" and when night is over, she wakes you and say "okay man, now 50 $ for last night,and hurry because i have to go to another client", what would be your reaction ? on the box there was written "love" not ... ? just as you cannot sell porno movie as love story

why the hell they wrote not true words in book and box

in many countirs advertisment which is lie is forbiden by the law, do you know what does it mean ?

this game on market was advertised as even more than VBS and for such product i payed, every lawyer will tell you that if you sell product as X , you cannot say leter, okay it is Y, but al least it is better than Z

it was not me who wrote this on box, but if somebody writes something, he must be responsible for what he wrotes, i don't know what is writtten on your box, i can only say what is on PL version :[

i could even give 50-100 EU instead of 25 for game if it is realistic, VBS is not for sale to the public (only armies as i heard) and costs a hell money

[dslyecxi 23]

Quote[/b] ]so in ARMA like in OFP still grenade can kill you thorugh the thick wall, man throw grenade on the other side of building and you are dead !

Wrong. Try this in 1.08 and tell me what happens.

Perhaps you should pay more attention to the changelogs in the future. The occlusion of explosions is VASTLY improved in 1.08 and you can (gasp!) use walls as real cover now.

I suppose you don't really care, though. I'm sure you can list all sorts of things that you don't like about ArmA, and whenever one of them is addressed, I get the feeling that it isn't going to count and you're just going to move on to a new complaint.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]I get the feeling that it isn't going to count and you're just going to move on to a new complaint.

He still keeps on talking about the HDR issues he had prior 1.08 as if they were not fixed today, so I guess he somewhat likes to live in the past for some reason.