Arma feedback thread - based on 1.09

[funkee 0]

no, I used "Launch Arma Beta Patch" shortcut (created after patching), and arma.exe from beta folder. so all new/old bugs that I was writing about are actually.

[wolfbite 8]

i havent read through the rest of the thread so forgive me.

First may i say.... AWESOME update. the whole game is running a lot better and smoother for me. Although sniper scopes are still really laggy. A.I seems better but im not sure if thats whats stopping them from mounting my truck on the delivery boy mission. Cant wait till the official release is out cheers

[rowdied 44]

I have the same thing happening to me as funkee with the "Good birds don't fly away from this game, I have only myself to blame", and it occured while playing Evo red on Lan with 3 different computers. And yes I have 3 legit copies( 1- metaboli, 2- UK release, 3- US release). Come to think of it, could it be because I'm using one of the copies as a server connected to by the three? I hope not , it never happened before this. I've installed 1.09 according to the readme and know it works cause I get no errors.

On a side note and on topic, I'm also having lod bugs and slow texture loading the longer I play the game and it seems worse the longer I play and I've tried all the suggestions on how to eliminate this from low to high settings.

Sys specs: Amd FX60 oc'd @ 2.8 , 2 gigs corsair ram, win xp 32 sp2, palit 8800gt 1 gig ram @ stock speeds. I just upgraded from the ati 1900xtx 512 ram and it ram smooth as butter with less slowdowns and lag with 1.08. I really hope they find a way to fix the texture loading problems as this just kills the game for me but other than the texture problems, fantastic game BIS.

[bugkill 7]

How can I install the patch if my game is not in the default C:\program files directory? The patch won't install and I could use some help.

[W0lle 1050]

I also don't have the game installed to the default directory but never had problems applying the patch.

When the installer asks for the location of the game, type in the location and click OK. That worked all the time for me.

[TurokEvolution 0]

Good Job to all Bis developers but there are 2 thing that BIS can do..

1)Hotfix to enable the Sli or Crossfire Mode in order to have some improvments with 2 video cards

2)Correct this BUG..

The URL of image is:

http://img187.imageshack.us/my.php?....vw0.jpg

As you can be seen the photo the hand of the soldier it doesn't correctly grasp the m-203, but it crosses the M4+m203 in the middle, and from when the game has gone out the developers has never realized patch for this bug...

Please Bis developers correct this bug so that with the exit of the patch 1.09...    

Happy New Year for all people that have made and have change this game to the First War Simulation int the world with OPF

[Daniel 0]

There is no way to prevent this, other than removing all LoDs (and thus either crippling performance or making the foliage look crap).

Here's a way to prevent it:  Make the LODs look similar instead of very, very different.

Amen to that? I don't get how some LODs can change colour so much. And there's still that annoying tree shaped like a perfect cross at the right distance. Does look a little weird.

[bugkill 7]

I also don't have the game installed to the default directory but never had problems applying the patch.

When the installer asks for the location of the game, type in the location and click OK. That worked all the time for me.

That's just it, it never asked for the location. It extracts and then it tells me that it cannot find the game on the computer. I found someone with the same problem in the troubleshooting forum and he had to re-install the game and updates, which is what I'm doing now.

[Placebo 29]

It does sound like your installation is a little broken, the patch should read the location of ArmA from the windows registry so if it's not in there it's not going to find it.

[max power 21]

I think maybe some audio ranges might be less than they were before. By that, I mean that I think that some things are harder to hear at a distance than they previously were. I did some tests and I think that the helicopters in the title animations, like the one where the racs are standing around some bluefor m113s, and the one where some soldier is standing in the foreground against a field of green, were harder to hear than they used to be. I don't know if this is new for 1.09, though. It's been a while since I just sat around watching title animations.

I'm experiencing some trouble hearing distant gunfire during firefights, like past 300m, but I think that might be a number of voices issue. I can't be certain.

[feersum.endjinn 6]

Some of the VOIP issues are hard to repro. We've been looking for reliable ways to repro some things (ie: static chat, broken-up chat, not being able to hear specific people) for a bit and haven't figured it out yet. Bear in mind too that this is a public beta for a reason - the sheer number of people involved can find issues that smaller groups cannot, due to the number of man-hours available. If you find repro for any of the VOIP issues, post them - they'll be addressed.

It doesn't seem to be hardware issue because we've had people with wildly different hardware all having the same issues. Common theme is that longer you stay in server and more people join and leave server, more likely it is that your VOIP will break down. Long running missions where people come and go constantly like Evolution are best way to reproduce the bug.

In many ways it resembles old "missing weapon sounds" bug that was in ArmA's release version.

[XaRaBaS 0]

Negative:

1) The use of bazookas have overly simplified, the first when shoot to a far target we to be good calculate the trajectory of the rocket which tended to swing after a tot, now instead be perfectly straight line and is fast as lightning..

Now seems made of plastic, weighs less a M16 rifle..

2) try to shoot with AK in the night .... the effect seems excessive flame

[Heatseeker 0]

I've spent some more time trying out 1.09b.

[*]Movement is more fluid, found it much easier to react to enemy fire, switching weapons is still a bit slow but overall its much better, combined with the tweaked a.i. and improved recoils the game feels more balanced and fluid.

[*]Vehicle explosion blast radius was exagerated before but in 1.09 its like its not even there anymore.

[*]Voip/von is of very low quality and unreliable.

[*]The new tree lods improve performance over distance but in that case (low detail lods) i never had much of a problem, the trees only reduce performance in their highest lod (when we zoom in on them). The loss in visual quality is huge now and this setting isnt even adjustable in the graphics options.

[*]The grass fix is perfect.

[*]New death animations are nice.

[*]Noticed some problems hitting with the M249 over the distance, felt like shooting 50% blanks or something, can confirm the slow fire rate on the SVD.

Hope more people will try 1.09b, it brings many improvements but some things arent there yet .

[ArMoGaDoN 0]

@TurokEvolution: The SLI/Crossfire mode is more down to your setup and the driver's profiles (or lack of) than the game itself. I have xfire working here, with arma.exe renamed to FEAR.exe or sam2.exe, check the posts in other theads.

There is little that the devs can do to resolve these issues, they are driver setup and hardware related.

[KeyCat 131]

There is no way to prevent this, other than removing all LoDs (and thus either crippling performance or making the foliage look crap).

Here's a way to prevent it:  Make the LODs look similar instead of very, very different.

Agree, the main reason the plant/tree morphing is such noticable is due to very different LOD shapes and sometimes colors/shades too.

Since it happens everytime you zoom in with right mouse button (which I personally do alot) it can become quite annoying.

Instead of switching vegetation LOD's on all zoom levels as well as the distance maybe it would be possible to only switch the vegetation LOD's on higher zoom levels (i.e when looking thru scoped weapons/optics) and distance? In other words, no vegetation LOD switching when zooming in using right mouse button or putting up your iron sight.

I don't know if it's even possible to do the above but if it is maybe that would help making the plant/tree morphing issue less annoying?

/KC

[baddo 0]

Well I was thinking about the too visual LOD switching problem too. I was thinking maybe it would be possible to switch it off completely when the player is zooming with a weapon? If you zoom only a little bit, such as it is with most weapons, and not by miles, and you have limited area visible to you, then would it hurt performance much if the LOD switching would be completely off when zooming?

An alternative to this would be have much more level-of-details, to make the change from one LOD to the next so small it wouldn't be noticed. But this doesn't sound practical and would probably be much more work (and would increase the size of the models and total effect could be just too much) than to just switch the LOD switching off when zooming.

[dslyecxi 23]

It doesn't seem to be hardware issue because we've had people with wildly different hardware all having the same issues. Common theme is that longer you stay in server and more people join and leave server, more likely it is that your VOIP will break down. Long running missions where people come and go constantly like Evolution are best way to reproduce the bug.

In many ways it resembles old "missing weapon sounds" bug that was in ArmA's release version.

Thanks for the info, but let me clarify.

Reproducing the VOIP issues isn't terribly hard. You can simply play the game with a good chunk of people and over time you will experience each aspect of the VOIP bugs. The problem, and what I'm looking for, is finding a 100% reliable way to reproduce any given bug on-demand. We know that there are specific types of bugs. What we don't know are the best ways to repro them, which tend to lead to speedy fixes. Unfortunately it needs to be more detailed and reliable than "play for x-many minutes with x-many players JIP'ing over the course of it".

[Trapper 0]

Another point about the tree LODs is playability. Just like the clumsy infantry controls before, I'm getting the feeling that the creative workers are missing pratical playing problems.

The morphing is more than just ugly: It tires the eyes and kills the fun when you're camping and scan a wide wooded area for enemies. First you're distracted by new "movements" everywhere as soon as you zoom in on a possible target, then the obscureness turns out totaly different when you switch to the scope view and the full LOD's show up in the line of sight.

A new bug regarding the chat channels:

It happened more then once to me, that I was bound to the group chat channel in server lobbies until I joined the game.

I would say the global channel (+user tag! is a must have for the lobby, as it provides the most simple way of contact for foreign players.

[KeyCat 131]

Just had chance to a brief test with 1.09 Beta so no real MP, AI or VoIP tests so I save my comments on that for later.

Regarding FPS I had a slight increase on the counter in a static FPS test but flying heli feels a bit more "stuttery" (i.e less smooth) for me, hard to explain. Anyway here are the FPS numbers for comparsion...

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

ArmA 1.08

            Norm     Zoom1    Zoom2  

---------------------------------------

Test_1   28         29          34

Test_2   32         31          35

ArmA 1.09 Beta

            Norm      Zoom1     Zoom2  

----------------------------------------

Test_1    34         34          37

Test_2    34         33          36

Other observations from my brief 1.09 Beta test...

+ Like the new grass in north, it's shorter and nicer looking

+ Finally a readable compass!

+ The faster AT/RPG turn handling

+ The increased FFAR velocity

+ Option to turn DeathMessages and NetStats OFF

+ All new scripting stuff

- Sometimes only one FFAR leaves the rail in AH-6

- More noticable LOD switching on trees (plant/tree morphing)

System specification:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 @ stock 3.0 GHz

Gigabyte P35-DQ6 with 2 GB DDR2-1066 RAM

Realtek High Definition Audio System (driver version R1.81)

GeForce 7950 GT 512 MB with nVidia driver version 94.24

Windows XP Pro SP 2 and DirectX 9.0c

ArmA settings:

Resolution: 1280 x 960

View Distance: 2400 m

Terrain detail: Very High

Objects detail: High

Texture detail: Very High

Shading detail: Very High

Postprocess effect: Low

Anisotropic filtering: Normal

Shadow detail: Very High

Anitaliasing: Normal

Blood: High

ArmA startup parameters:

D:\Games\Armed Assault\Beta\arma.exe -mod=beta -nosplash -profiles=d:\games\armeda~1\

/KC

[dslyecxi 23]

A new bug regarding the chat channels:

It happened more then once to me, that I was bound to the group chat channel in server lobbies until I joined the game.

I would say the global channel (+user tag! is a must have for the lobby, as it provides the most simple way of contact for foreign players.

This is not a bug. When dead or in the lobby, players speak over the "group" channel. All dead players (which is what everyone in the lobby technically is) will be talking on group, which shows up as green.

[mandoble 1]

Infinite command loop bug still here. Quite easy to reproduce:

1 - Open Rahmadi map

2 - Add a BLUFOR basic squad there, set the player as the Team Leader (corporal)

3 - Add a DISMISSED waypoint to the BLUFOR group close to its starting position in SAFE mode.

4 - Add a GUARD Wp 10m away of the DISMISSED Wp.

5 - Add a flying enemy Ka50 away of the view range of the BLUFOR group.

6 - Add a MOVE waypoint to the Ka50 near the BLUFOR group.

Wait until the Kamo arrives and then proceed to the guard point, then the squad leader will start the infinite command loop.

This is an example mission.sqm:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

version=11;

class Mission

{

addOns[]=

{

"cacharacters",

"CAAir",

"desert"

};

addOnsAuto[]=

{

"cacharacters",

"CAAir",

"desert"

};

randomSeed=10192387;

class Intel

{

startWeather=0.100000;

forecastWeather=0.300000;

year=2007;

month=6;

day=7;

hour=8;

};

class Groups

{

items=2;

class Item0

{

side="WEST";

class Vehicles

{

items=9;

class Item0

{

position[]={2556.732422,13.860000,2952.091309};

azimut=90.000000;

id=0;

side="WEST";

vehicle="SquadleaderW";

leader=1;

rank="SERGEANT";

skill=0.466667;

};

class Item1

{

position[]={2551.732422,13.860000,2949.091309};

azimut=90.000000;

id=1;

side="WEST";

vehicle="TeamLeaderW";

player="PLAYER COMMANDER";

rank="CORPORAL";

skill=0.333333;

};

class Item2

{

position[]={2551.732422,13.860000,2947.091309};

azimut=90.000000;

id=2;

side="WEST";

vehicle="SoldierWG";

skill=0.200000;

};

class Item3

{

position[]={2551.732422,13.860000,2945.091309};

azimut=90.000000;

id=3;

side="WEST";

vehicle="SoldierWAR";

skill=0.200000;

};

class Item4

{

position[]={2551.732422,13.860000,2943.091309};

azimut=90.000000;

id=4;

side="WEST";

vehicle="SoldierWAT";

skill=0.200000;

};

class Item5

{

position[]={2551.732422,13.860000,2941.091309};

azimut=90.000000;

id=5;

side="WEST";

vehicle="TeamLeaderW";

rank="CORPORAL";

skill=0.333333;

};

class Item6

{

position[]={2551.732422,13.860000,2939.091309};

azimut=90.000000;

id=6;

side="WEST";

vehicle="SoldierWG";

skill=0.200000;

};

class Item7

{

position[]={2551.732422,13.860000,2937.091309};

azimut=90.000000;

id=7;

side="WEST";

vehicle="SoldierWAR";

skill=0.200000;

};

class Item8

{

position[]={2551.732422,13.860000,2935.091309};

azimut=90.000000;

id=8;

side="WEST";

vehicle="SoldierWSniper";

skill=0.200000;

};

};

class Waypoints

{

items=2;

class Item0

{

position[]={2562.400391,13.860000,2952.079590};

type="DISMISS";

combat="SAFE";

class Effects

{

};

showWP="NEVER";

};

class Item1

{

position[]={2586.520264,13.860000,2948.799072};

type="GUARD";

class Effects

{

};

showWP="NEVER";

};

};

};

class Item1

{

side="EAST";

class Vehicles

{

items=1;

class Item0

{

position[]={4898.519043,0.377875,2936.857910};

azimut=270.000000;

special="FLY";

id=9;

side="EAST";

vehicle="KA50";

leader=1;

rank="CORPORAL";

skill=0.333333;

};

};

class Waypoints

{

items=1;

class Item0

{

position[]={2370.777832,15.154328,2879.234619};

class Effects

{

};

showWP="NEVER";

};

};

};

};

};

class Intro

{

addOns[]=

{

"desert"

};

addOnsAuto[]=

{

"desert"

};

randomSeed=10817539;

class Intel

{

startWeather=0.100000;

forecastWeather=0.300000;

year=2007;

month=6;

day=7;

hour=8;

};

};

class OutroWin

{

addOns[]=

{

"desert"

};

addOnsAuto[]=

{

"desert"

};

randomSeed=16371715;

class Intel

{

startWeather=0.100000;

forecastWeather=0.300000;

year=2007;

month=6;

day=7;

hour=8;

};

};

class OutroLoose

{

addOns[]=

{

"desert"

};

addOnsAuto[]=

{

"desert"

};

randomSeed=8615427;

class Intel

{

startWeather=0.100000;

forecastWeather=0.300000;

year=2007;

month=6;

day=7;

hour=8;

};

};

[DaSquade 0]

BIS should somehow include a LOD switching controle imho. I suppose the slower lod switching was introduced for those with lower spec systems and they might have some increase in FPS.

I'm running a (by now dys) a mid system but i don't notice much visual increase if frames. I don't run a frame count program or anything....you can 'feel' if it runs better or not.

1.09 versus 1.08 is a big decrease in visual quality imho. Like said, it simply doesn't play smooth if every time you turn the LODs of all stuff starts from low detail up to what it can and must be depending on your system. In most case it is just way to visual.

I'm not taking about trees etc...buildings and units etc are effected aswell here.

TEST: Go to South Sahrani airport and stand near the intrence of the hangars. Turn and BAMM...it has low res textures, 'closed' doors...few (mili)secs later...highest lod. That is simply a big NO imho, especially compaired to 1.08 or lower.

I understand BIS is trying to give us extra performence, but please not in this way and don't let lower systems effect our (mid-high) systems suffer because of this.

I'm finally happy the fog bug is fixed....now this .

AFAIK BIS told they could gain performence in the tree department (shaders?), but why did BIS alter the rest.

I feel they should go back to 1.08 and only adjust slower LOD switching to the trees, if that is the only way to fix the performence.

Maybe we should be using more desert maps (less vegitation and more preformence) or BIS should bring out a bigger desert map .

Like said, the VOIP is imho a big joke . I tested it a few times in MP envirement. Maybe it is peoples sound settings or something else, but i often wish they didn't spend their presious development time in this.

-> What does it bring more then TS can't do?

TS is still imho much better. Quality and user friendly. Performence wize?

The only extra it brings imho is the animated mouths, but lets be honest...who cares. I rather had had other animated things...like a STAND-UP/CRUNCH AT shooting position ( i really miss that from VBS1....patch update by the way).

Anyway, beta i know, but if this is one of the last patches (afaik) i really hope FINAL 1.09 brings some extra changes then current beta (fixes of changes + some extras).

Good luck BIS.

[dslyecxi 23]

Like said, the VOIP is imho a big joke . I tested it a few times in MP envirement. Maybe it is peoples sound settings or something else, but i often wish they didn't spend their presious development time in this.

-> What does it bring more then TS can't do?

TS is still imho much better. Quality and user friendly. Performence wize?

The only extra it brings imho is the animated mouths, but lets be honest...who cares.

Even in its currently not-quite-finished state, the ArmA VOIP has added an enormous amount of potential to our (ShackTac) MP already. I can't imagine how someone can use the Direct Speaking VOIP in-game and still think that Teamspeak somehow offers the same abilities.

My only guess is that you play gametypes where VOIP wouldn't matter to begin with, or with small playercounts where TS suffices. In-game VOIP is a huge boon when you're dealing with a playercount of above, say, 25 or so. It is still quite significant even at lower playercounts, as it generally simplifies things when compared to TS. TS is a good thing to use as well (we use both, each for different things), don't get me wrong, but to say that it offers the same functionality as the in-game VOIP is simply wrong.

[PuFu 4600]

A new bug regarding the chat channels:

It happened more then once to me, that I was bound to the group chat channel in server lobbies until I joined the game.

I would say the global channel (+user tag! is a must have for the lobby, as it provides the most simple way of contact for foreign players.

This is not a bug. When dead or in the lobby, players speak over the "group" channel. All dead players (which is what everyone in the lobby technically is) will be talking on group, which shows up as green.

Well, i noticed that as well. But even if that is there on purpose, it's still bad for gameplay.

I.E.: After a mission is finished and i have a bunch of guy on the server, some might not be on TS. I usually ask for miss requests. Now it's impossible to what they want, as i need to be in their same squad.

This is not user friendly at all. I think global chat in the lobby and when everyone is waiting the admin to choose a missions is best way to go.

About the VoIP: It is just as expected: Lots of talk for something that is completely useless at this point.

Yes, some can try to reproduce the bugs, but the best way would be to have a look into how the bandwidth is allocated to each player, and why (this is the reason if you ask me) after connecting/disconnecting users, the amount of bandwidth for Voip F***s off.

Agreed about what was said so far about the LODs, it gives some smoothness to me and about +2-3 FPS, but in the same time it looks ugly, it's distracting and it doesn't worth it.

[PuFu 4600]

Like said, the VOIP is imho a big joke . I tested it a few times in MP envirement. Maybe it is peoples sound settings or something else, but i often wish they didn't spend their presious development time in this.

-> What does it bring more then TS can't do?

TS is still imho much better. Quality and user friendly. Performence wize?

The only extra it brings imho is the animated mouths, but lets be honest...who cares.

Even in its currently not-quite-finished state, the ArmA VOIP has added an enormous amount of potential to our (ShackTac) MP already. I can't imagine how someone can use the Direct Speaking VOIP in-game and still think that Teamspeak somehow offers the same abilities.

My only guess is that you play gametypes where VOIP wouldn't matter to begin with, or with small playercounts where TS suffices. In-game VOIP is a huge boon when you're dealing with a playercount of above, say, 25 or so. It is still quite significant even at lower playercounts, as it generally simplifies things when compared to TS. TS is a good thing to use as well (we use both, each for different things), don't get me wrong, but to say that it offers the same functionality as the in-game VOIP is simply wrong.

It might be good for a locked server, and event night (like we have in KH). You don't experience the same amount of ppl connecting/disconnecting as a normal pub server do.

And it's not that the TS offers the same abilities, i think no one really thinks that, BUT it doesn't bugs off!!! So everyone (including me) will prefer to use TS and be able to communicate without breaks rather than use the ingame VoIP and, when needed, going back to typing.

The correct way to put this is: to say that TS offers the same functionality as the possible working in-game VOIP is simply wrong.