ARMA 2 DE 1.01 (final) Impressions - Post ALL Impressions/Videos/Screenies Here

[maddogx 13]

@dvolk

Would you mind posting your Arma2 gfx settings, preferably not as a screenshot (image hosting sites are not accessable for me right now). Arma2 gfx settings are pretty weird, but there are ways to optimize them for good fps and visual quality.

@HauptmannT

Yes, there is an optimization problem, but it's not as bad as you make it out to be. Actually, from what I can tell after several hours of tweaking the gfx settings, it's mostly down to unoptimized model LOD quality and a lack of normal Antialiasing. Check out my post here. I play at pretty good settings and the game looks beautiful. I only have to lower model quality and terrain detail, because it makes the a huge difference in performance - and guess what: the difference is not that noticable. If I set those to "Very High", the game is still playable overall, but the fps in large towns like Chernogorsk drops to around 15, which is unacceptable for me.

If it's not "a-okay" for you to set certain settings to low, even though the visual difference is negligable while fps-gain is huge, that's your problem.

Edited June 2, 2009 by MadDogX

[whisper 0]

@Whisper,

Running it is one thing, running it well at graphic settings (with a respective FPS) that one deems acceptable is entirely another. Playing at 1024x768 at medium settings may be a-okay for you, but not for me.

I think this is a fair assessment that maybe you are choosing to ignore; http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,685770/Armed-Assault-2-Graphics-card-benchmarks-and-visual-quality-compared/Practice/

LOL That's not my settings :D Don't try to make it like I'm playing at bad settings. (sorry, at work atm, can't check, but definitely not what you want to make it out).

your link tested on Vista...

Again, I talk about exageration. I'm not saying it's perfect, not at all (example, lack of FSAA, wtf??). It's not "unacceptable", "unplayable", "must be horrible to have correct perf", etc... either.

Edited June 2, 2009 by whisper

[HauptmannT 0]

:D

Well, I'll agree that it appears to be a step up on Arma, but it still looks like it needs some work. Either way it looks fun, and sooner or later I'll hopefully be enjoying it!

[Maddmatt 1]

Some of those whining about 'optimisation' need to stop worrying about e-peens and maybe lower the graphics a little bit below maximum so that their PCs can handle the game flawlessly ;)

Settings like 'object detail' being lowered to 'high' instead of 'very high' are not going to make the game look much different but can help with FPS.

Viewdistance also makes a very big performance difference. Face it, none of those games that you are comparing it to have a 10km map, never mind a viewdistance nearly that far.

Anyway, who knows, maybe we will get some performance boost in patches.

Edited June 2, 2009 by Maddmatt

[dvolk 10]

Some people that keep coming with other games comparison should once, just once, ask themselves this question : these other games, despite claiming large environnement, never, ever, come close to the scale provided by BI engine (FC2 view distance, please?). It's not like they don't seem to want to, as they claim for large environnement, but they don't do it.

Fallout 3 has comparable viewing distance to ArmA, and much better performance (Of course F3 is nowhere near as fun as ArmA)

Would you mind posting your Arma2 gfx settings,

resolution: 1650x1080

viewing distance: 2km

fillrate: 87%

shadows: high

post-processing: low

everything else on normal

Computer:

Q6600 at 2.6ghz

4850 with 1gb vram

4gb system ram

20/20mbit connection

running windows XP

This gives me around 20-40fps in the campaign. Of course if I run the small island (whatsitcalled) in the editor I get 60fps.

Singleplayer performance is OK as far as I'm concerned. They shouldn't waste their time on it. Better would be if they concentrated on fixing some of the critical bugs.

Critical bugs? Well the AI is broken to say the least and multiplayer performance seems to be very poor (even running on a fast connection and near servers). Fixing this would go a long way to making the game enjoyable again. These are quite puzzling issues because ArmA with patches is mostly fine in this regard and after all ArmA 2 isn't a radically new concept. One wonders where things went wrong...

[HauptmannT 0]

@MaddogX,

Again, whatever works for you may not work for me. I'm glad that game looks beautiful, for you. I know looking beautifully makes for great screen shots in those 200+ paged screen shot threads, but I don't care for it. I like running beautifully (looking beautifully and running beautifully are two different things, fyi). Try reading my posts and you'll find that I've already wrote this.. Good luck.

[ziiip 1]

Does the editor look like this for others too?

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/2707/editor.jpg

[Nihilistix 0]

New video up. News story that ran prior to NATO intervention in Chenerus documenting an ambush on the CDF by the ChDZK rebels.

Sorry to those who speak Russian as the video may not be as enjoyable due to the sound bytes I used.

[mr.g-c 6]

I agree that the Performance on the Chernarus Island is really bad.

While on Utes i get ~60FPS when im alone or with just 2,3 other guys, on Chernarus its already between 22FPS and 25FPS when i place myself there Alone.

Not to speak about when i go into large Cities....

Actually with the Streaming Terrain Technology this shouldn't happen, or at least not in this extreme Form (2.5x speed difference between the islands) and especially since my Viewdistance is only set to 1600m.....

[MehMan 0]

Fallout 3 has comparable viewing distance to ArmA, and much better performance

Oh no it doesnt.

[^Th0mas^ 10]

Have can people call this bad AI?

[ziiip 1]

Can someone watch the pic I just linked and tell me if their editor looks like that too? ^^

[usmc123 1]

Can someone watch the pic I just linked and tell me if their editor looks like that too? ^^

Something is wrong, my editor looks nothing like that. Unless you scrolled over to far or something, which I haven't tried.

[mant3z 1]

Have can people call this bad AI?

Yeah! It's badass AI

[maddogx 13]

@MaddogX,

Again, whatever works for you may not work for me. I'm glad that game looks beautiful, for you. I know looking beautifully makes for great screen shots in those 200+ paged screen shot threads, but I don't care for it. I like running beautifully (looking beautifully and running beautifully are two different things, fyi). Try reading my posts and you'll find that I've already wrote this.. Good luck.

Huh? Good luck with what? What the hell are you trying to argue? Dude, the game looks and runs great for me. Check the link I posted. With those settings I get pretty awesome visual quality along with stable performance.

I've read your most recent posts and I see you are mostly advocating performance optimization. And I totally agree with you - but I don't think it's as bad as many people are whining about. I have a high-end gfx card and can play with 2,5km view distance and ultra-high textures, shadows and AF - with good fps. Model quality and terrain on "Low" might sound bad, but the visual difference is really negligable, except that the grass isn't quite as dense as on "Normal". Whatever. All it really needs is a little bit more optimization and the addition of FSAA.

So, what are you expecting performance-wise? I have a high-end gfx card and can play with good fps on very high settings. How is that bad?

[Alphadelta 10]

The core gameplay has not been tinkered with.

Fantastic!! ArmA is about as good it gets when it comes to infantry simulators. I'm very happy to hear that ArmA II has not strayed far from the tracks laid-down by OFP and ArmA.

Cheers

[^Th0mas^ 10]

Yeah! It's badass AI

Indeed!

Btw, how is the flight AI ?? Helicopters and planes!

[Cheeseman 0]

Indeed!

Btw, how is the flight AI ?? Helicopters and planes!

The AI helicopters easily get shot down and at times don't engage the enemy while they have the chance, but the planes have much better AI and can hold a great fight.

[mr_centipede 31]

Indeed!

Btw, how is the flight AI ?? Helicopters and planes!

Flight AI unfortunately not as spectacular...

the good part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4-wH0A8U-8

and

the bad part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci1OQl8ORJY

btw, the videos are not mine, and I dont have ARMA2 yet. in all honesty, the video about the bad part I can close an eye about it because I would usually create my planes already airborne anyway. but for those flight-simmers, i think they would be unhappy about it.

Edited June 2, 2009 by Mr_Centipede

[Nicholas 5]

Flight AI unfortunately not as spectacular...

the good part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4-wH0A8U-8

and

the bad part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci1OQl8ORJY

btw, the videos are not mine, and I dont have ARMA2 yet. in all honesty, the video about the bad part I can close an eye about it because I would usually create my planes already airborne anyway. but for those flight-simmers, i think they would be unhappy about it.

Ahm, yes those are my videos :). They AI taxi system is not good. They can be OK once they get up in the air, although I'v had numerous problems when they go down into a valley, can't get back up quick enough, and crash into the trees. Still a pretty good game BTW, just need english patch cause i bought german version LOL I'v been testing the game for a while now, different variationes of things, and let peope lrequest if they wanna see anything in particular. I am working on a nice video of sunrise.sunset/the fog in the forrest. it will be sped up and will look nice :)

Edited June 2, 2009 by Nicholas

[nodunit 397]

Well it's good to see we can let the AI pilot our helicopters now without having the bouncy air ride. though ROFL at the jumping to death and falling from roof around 5:20. Nice that they called for a corpsman.

Rick_James5591 I saw something in the patch about V-22 can taxi, can it do so in helicopter mode or does it taxi in "fixed wing" mode?

[^Th0mas^ 10]

With the improved ground AI, they really need to fix the flight AI.

[Nicholas 5]

I guess I never did install the patch yet LOL, i got it downloaded but not installed. I think by "Taxi" mode for v-22 is when your flyign in hover mode, it is REALLY hard to turn it, so with the patch they must have made it easier to turn it and stuff, otherwise you cant really controll it well in hovermode.

[The-Tim 0]

Ok, my thoughts about the game, I'm playing the series since OFP.

And my first impression after 2 days of testing is pretty good.

Gameplay

I'm impressed on this part, the game feels way different then Arma, but in good way, it feels smoother, plays better. the movement of your character is improved, i like it :)

The AI is improved, but i still recognize the AI in their movements. However, they take more cover and will fire faster if you lean from a cover.

Graphics

they are better, nice envirrement, more realistic. In my opinion the Arma 1 environment was just a ofp environment with way better gfx. But the Arma 2 environment gives another impression on me, in the better way.

Less good point for the gfx is in my opinion the HDR/bloom and AA. the fill rate (this is full picture AA i suposse) can be very nice if turned up completely, but will take down performance just to hard. The advantage of the Fill rate is just not enough compared tot he performance lost, so i would like to see some normal AA patched in, if this is possible.

The HDR/bloom is just to much reflecting or somewhat if you put it on high or low. I now have it on high, because it covers the lack of AA a bit. but the sideffect of the glimming stuff, i don't like it :)

Performance

This is my system

Core 2 Duo E6850 at 3.6ghz

8800gtx

4GB DDR 800

Win XP SP3

I'm playing with everything on High (except terrain and object detail on low) Fillrate on 100%

VD on 2500

resolution: 1920x1200

First i found the performance bad (and i still miss the normal aa as said above), but i found out that object detail and terrain detail on low give you a giant boost, if i put them both on low i gain like 15 fps (20-25 --> 35-40)

Lowering fill rate also gives allot of fps boost, but it has way more impact on the gfx (it really looks bad with fillrate below 100) then lowering the detail.

Conclussion

I think BIS has done a nice job, the BIS games always has some bugs at start, but they get worked out. I accept the bugs because of the complexity and possibilities of the game. You can't compare it to other games, so it's normal the game has bugs on start. And BIS keeps supporting the community for years after the release, wich you can't say off all other devs/publishers.

[sabre4809 0]

Healing vid. More than one guy healing at a time, Long time to heal and it seems to be wound specific. Better anims aswell, no more generic hand moving 10 sec job.

Edited June 2, 2009 by SAbre4809