So ive spent more time tweaking than playing...

[=SEALZ= REt. Bruce 10]

There have been individuals i know with a Single GPU card that have done the rename thing and it works for them too. I do not know why or how it works..it just does.

[SemiFrank 10]

This game is MUCH more than the campaign. Play in the editor, load some custom maps, have fun.

In my opinion the 'product' is not broken. It just needs a few tweaks. Please continue to check for patches - we don't want to lose the members of this community that are having trouble.

However, a machine a few years old just won't cut it I'm afraid.

I didn't buy the game because i wanted to mess around with a map editor, my time is spare enough as it is.. I want to play the game, and c'mon, my machine is not *that* old. That is aside from the point, according to the minimum requirements, my machine should be fine; this is one of two things:

1. a lie

2. a problem

If it's a lie, i'm gone, so is my money on future titles

If it's a problem, i'd expect someone to take ownership and acknowledge it and let me know somethings being done. It's not too much to ask for $50

[NoRailgunner 0]

This game has high potential but it needs more bugfixes, tweaks and polish - done by BIS. Most people are waiting for the next patch and hope that many performance issues and gameplay bugs are fixed.

[Punisher5555 0]

This game is buggy.

It all depends on your hardware/software combination.

Some combinations get you 90% workable game.

Some combinations get you 0% working game.

It is hit or miss.

You just have to hope BIS fixes it for your combination in a future patch. That is all you can do.

Stop spending money on new rigs/upgrades because you think it will help in this game. It won't.

Stop spending time on "tweaks" because you think it will help in this game. It won't.

The game is buggy plain and simple.

Just hold tight until BIS gets the "major" patch out. If you cannot play at all I am sorry, but don't lose faith.

BIS is under major pressure to get this stuff fixed before OFP2 hits the market in October. Your patch should be out before then.

They know and understand they need to get this game/sim up to snuff before then so they can give Codemasters the finger and crush that game under their boot heels.

[ericodapinco 10]

Do you really think this game can be fixed.

Never seen such buggy bad performing software in my life.

The way hardware responses to this software is like it's been written for something that doesn't exist.

Maybe I've got to install a Czech version of windows to run it properly.

[i am haji 10]

I get 14-60 FPS, depending on where I am on the map, amazingly trees and grass has little to no effect on FPS. Settings everything on normal, pp=low, 1680x1050 screen and 1440x900 game.

Buildings are the killer, the texture load and stutter throws the frames, if they sorted buildings out, fixed the textures then all would see performance increases, probably.

EXACTLY! thank you!

[LibertyBull 2]

To add my 2 cents. My computer is almost exactly the recommended specs for Arma 1, and I cannot run it too well. To get over 30 FPS I need to have my viewdistance less than 1000, I normally just keep it 500. I also need to turn grass detail all the way down. And even then I can only get around 30 FPS running on Normal.

Also, I would wait to get the game for like a year after its released, thats the nature of arma.

I also hear steam produces buggy games? IDK about this personally just something I have heard.

Anyways, you have to remember the nature of this game, its a simulator. The AI and all the different variables that are running in any given mission takes a toll on the machine.

Anyways, why don't you just play Arma 1 while waiting for Arma 2 patches and stuff, arma 1 is decent compared to Arma 2, and with ACE mod its pretty fun. The good thing is your awesome machines could run it on veyr high, and its very stable and well patched.

---------- Post added at 12:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:48 AM ----------

Oh I also heard it doesn't play well with Vista.

[Malecite 10]

It makes total sense that the game wouldn't run well with "vista" the primary Microsoft platform for windows at the moment. Yes windows 7 is around the corner, but I just got 64 bit to work with my 8 gigs of Ram.

The fact that this title suffers from maldies that go beyond simple "bug fixes" is what truly angers me. Its not enough to say "oh well its your singular hardware configuration thats the problem", wait for a patch. Parts of the game are FUNDAMENTALLY broken. The mouse lag for instance, at first I spent about 4 hours reading posts on methods of removing this crippling "feature". This was then followed by a lag that is engendered primarily by venturing near buildings. I also found a mod to prevent it from happening and WAS BANNED from numerous servers. Not that I wanted to play on them, I was simply trying to test if any matter of option fiddling or graphics buggery would yield more than a stuttering 10FPS.

Previously I was able to run Crysis at near max settings at 60 FPS or higher, you cant honestly sit there and tell me the ARMA 2 engine is far advanced that it trumps Crysis's masturbatory visuals, after all the game was shit it just looked pretty. ARMA 2 looks like shit and well is shit as far as im concerned. The concepts and team work "sound" freaking fantastic, but its pretty hard to experience those concepts when your in a town going slower than a snail and the very earth around you warps and groans into 2 dimensional flickers, followed usually by a game crash.

The irony and hilarious nature of the "rename your ARMA 2 shortcut to Crysis.exe" makes me laugh so hard I am currently uninstalling this game in favor of me not punching holes in the wall. I am GIVING UP on this title until its patched I guess. But this will likley be the last BIS product I buy. Never before have I EVER invested such hopes and time into getting a piece of software to run, I sincerely hope I never have to again.

---------- Post added at 02:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:10 AM ----------

It makes total sense that the game wouldn't run well with "vista" the primary Microsoft platform for windows at the moment. Yes windows 7 is around the corner, but I just got 64 bit to work with my 8 gigs of Ram.

The fact that this title suffers from maldies that go beyond simple "bug fixes" is what truly angers me. Its not enough to say "oh well its your singular hardware configuration thats the problem", wait for a patch. Parts of the game are FUNDAMENTALLY broken. The mouse lag for instance, at first I spent about 4 hours reading posts on methods of removing this crippling "feature". This was then followed by a lag that is engendered primarily by venturing near buildings. I also found a mod to prevent it from happening and WAS BANNED from numerous servers. Not that I wanted to play on them, I was simply trying to test if any matter of option fiddling or graphics buggery would yield more than a stuttering 10FPS.

Previously I was able to run Crysis at near max settings at 60 FPS or higher, you cant honestly sit there and tell me the ARMA 2 engine is far advanced that it trumps Crysis's masturbatory visuals, after all the game was shit it just looked pretty. ARMA 2 looks like shit and well is shit as far as im concerned. The concepts and team work "sound" freaking fantastic, but its pretty hard to experience those concepts when your in a town going slower than a snail and the very earth around you warps and groans into 2 dimensional flickers, followed usually by a game crash.

The irony and hilarious nature of the "rename your ARMA 2 shortcut to Crysis.exe" makes me laugh so hard I am currently uninstalling this game in favor of me not punching holes in the wall. I am GIVING UP on this title until its patched I guess. But this will likley be the last BIS product I buy. Never before have I EVER invested such hopes and time into getting a piece of software to run, I sincerely hope I never have to again.

[wooly-back-jack 10]

bit of browser lag there matey? :p

[SemiFrank 10]

Anyways, why don't you just play Arma 1 while waiting for Arma 2 patches and stuff, arma 1 is decent compared to Arma 2, and with ACE mod its pretty fun. The good thing is your awesome machines could run it on veyr high, and its very stable and well patched.

Because I paid $50 for this game. I could also go for a surf, or drink a beer, or play my PS3, or do about a million other things more enjoyable than plunk at my machine hoping to find some mysterious setting that all of a sudden makes it playable.. the fact is.. i paid $50 for the game, if it wasn't ready for playing because it needed to be patched, or if we're waiting for some godlike war between this an OFP2 in october well then maybe they should have not released untill october. If I bought a car that was supposed to produce 38mpg and i took it home and got 12mpg instead, and the manufacturer didnt acknowledge a problem, id be pissed. then id go to the car forum and you'd suggest i ride the bus untill the mechanic shows up to fix my car..

compare this scenario to any other industry aside from gaming and it becomes a laugh.. even console gaming has higher standards than this....

[Bulldogs 10]

I love the car analogies :)

Not to sound anooying, but try to keep consoles out of the arguement, Console games are written for the console they work on, PC games are written for thousands of different configurations (hence why it's so hard to port to PC)

Arma 2 is below industry standards, as far as compatibility and bugs go. Not too far below, but below. All games are released with bugs and compatibility issues, as reference, the Crytek boards crashed when Crysis first came out because of compatibility issues and bugs, but that's a linear game that doesn't attempt half the stuff Arma 2 does.

That said, should you have to suffer.... no. Arma 2 was tested on thousands of systems before it was released, but there's always going to be some problems regardless. BIS rushed out 2 patches to fix the issues that were there on release, and it did fix a lot of issues, but the patches were rushed out without proper testing and they broke a few other things (new campaign issues and such), so am I annoyed that BIS isn't rushing out another patch.. not at all, but if I couldn't run the game like it's meant to be run then I would be annoyed, but I would understand why it's happening and wait patiently.

[JonasRC 10]

I don't think it was tested on thousands of systems.

I also have performance issues, but I've been around and know what to wait for.

I'd suggest BIS next time to send beta copies to a beta house and let them test with different machines, then they could work out most issues before release.

Btw, expect nothing as simple as BF2, this engine is far more superior.

[Dogtags 0]

This game is MUCH more than the campaign. Play in the editor, load some custom maps, have fun.

In my opinion the 'product' is not broken. It just needs a few tweaks. Please continue to check for patches - we don't want to lose the members of this community that are having trouble.

However, a machine a few years old just won't cut it I'm afraid.

"It just needs a few tweaks"

Are you friggin kidding me?

I am 100% behind the original post, every word is true and so is every frustration. I have spent weeks tweaking, reinstalling everything on my computer under the sun except the OS which I may add is an original full licensed XP with all patches applied.

I too drop in now every few days hoping my $50 has not been totally wasted however for me the initial excitement of the game has gone and that is now tainted and that is something you can never get back.

Saying to friends Ahh I remember the first time I booted up game blah, the graphics or the atmosphere or something blew me away, that is something big that is gone forever for me with ARMA2. No fond memories what so ever, no recomendations to friends no matter what they patch now.

I will play the game if it is fixed as I love simulations and there really is not much out there. Let's see if BIS come through in the end, sooner the better I feel, so many negative videos on youtube now.

This IS something BIS and all software companies should be mindful of.

Edited July 24, 2009 by Dogtags

[DarthElvis 0]

I've given up as well. Just like I did with Arma 1. Funny thing is I just started Arma 1 again and it runs good, it just looks dated. It looks like a 2-3 year old game. I actually dont think any patch fixed it, I think the fact that I've upgraded twice since Arma was new is the reason it runs better. My hardware became enough to run that pile of garbage.

Just think, when hardware catches up and we all have super computers to run this steaming pile of shit, we can enjoy a dated 2 year old game that looks like ass.

Good job BIS, heres one 'beta tester' thats telling everyone he knows and anyone I find considering buying this trash to stay very far away. Substandard production and foisting unfinished products on your customers should not be rewarded with any kind of loyalty. I made the mistake of buying your first unfinished, unoptimized heap of dung (Arma 1, I missed the fun and games with OFP). I foolishly thought you would have learned and bought Arma 2. Never again.

[maka12 10]

Malecite try the winxp trick after the arma2.exe , i tried it and game is now playable, not perfect and good as it should be, but ok, 10 times better than it was. its got somthing to do with the 8gb of ram i had, runs better with 3 or 4, very strange they need to sort it in a patch. but you should definetly try this, it helps alot, i can enjoy the game now. hope it works for you.... also if your amd try installing fusion gaming that helped alittle bit aswell...

Edited July 24, 2009 by maka12

[DarkBytes 10]

its also the irony of it all, Exactly the same thing happened with ARMA 1 .

If its the way they work with respect to this game I wish they would at least be open about i

game gets released , gets fixed 6 to 9 months later

[njmatrix 2]

I wouldn't call it a shoddy piece of crap. More along the lines of unrunnable,buggy beta test would be more to my understanding. BUT with that said I wouldn't get rid of that copy yet. Because ArmA only needed 15 patches to get it right so I would wait til they hit 12 or so with ArmA 2 before chucking in the towel. Til then do what I am doing and play something else. Play ArmA instead. It's like 10 bucks on amazon for the gold edition and like i said with the 15 patches it actually runs now.

[Joe_M. 10]

Hello.

First time purchasing a BIS product needless to say im less than impressed, now I could go ahead and swear pointlessly about the countless hours ive tried to actually get this shoddy piece of codding nightmare to run, instead im going to intelligently ask a question.

Is it now, or is it becoming, a general trend for software developers to release completely substandard products early for the sake of monetary gain?

If so, I believe this ARMA 2 to be a shining example of this kind of practice. At first when I booted up the title and managed to retreive around 11 - 15 FPS on a machine boasting an overclocked 3.6ghz Q6700 and gtx 295 I was slightly dismayed. After countless hours of reading the forums, guides, and trying every GPU NVIDIA tweak ive come across, im downright shocked. To date, ive gotten it to "run". I use that word loosely because it seems that my multiplayer experience becomes a choppy bloody nightmare when in any sort of situational combat. Add this to the numerous graphical glitches, CTD's, and other horrendous bugs, and youve got yourself a winner! Dont even get me started on the voice acting.... seriously guys?

This comes on the heels of purchasing "Tales of Valor" another wonderful example of the kind of ridiculous hyped up, over sold, kind of marketing that ultimately leads to consumers wasting their money.

I just read a post where a user actually intelligently, albeit fascetiously reccomended virutally space aged 16 core technology to run the game, and was immediately and visciously attacked/flamed. Am I to understand that the following of this Bohemia interactive studio defend this practice, rather ENDORSE a system where users purchase a title and simply wait for patches to make it playable? To be blunt im shocked. Im not one for perfection, but I certainly cant abide this kind of idiocy. Despite every red flag I red, every instinct that said "dont buy this title" I purchased it anyways as I LOVE the BF2 genre simulation combat. Im also a big fan of Company of Heroes, recently hilariously buggy patches ultimately annihlated the game play experience post Tales of Valor release. 5 months later patches restored THE ORIGINAL GAMEPLAY. I figured it was a phenomenon unique to Relic and their bumbling Q and A team.

What a dissapointment to learn that ive fallen, yet again, victim to what I can only assume to be an emerging policy in software development.

Release Now

Patch Later

I would offer my copy of the game, for free, to anyone who would have it. But ultimately I purchased it off steam and this is not possible.

I guess this is where you cue the followers to jump in and tell me to be patient and humble, awaiting the glorious patches to follow. Frankly you can keep your patches, this has been one of the most infuriating and disgusting pieces of software ive ever been tricked into purchasing. Part of me still hopes that patches WILL follow and I might actually see some of what the others are talking about. However this only serves to frustrate me further as it reminds me that I can only sit on my hands and wait as others, who paid the same dollar, enjoy the title I cannot.

Full Ack!!!

I have as well spent countless hours, trying to get that crap running...

In fact it is quite common, to release software before it is really finished. Most of the games are released, when there is a release candidate, that is working fine in most cases. But ArmA2 is pre-beta! BIS is ripping off their customers.

I will not buy a BIS game again. Never. I have learned my lesson.

[U-K Andy 10]

I too, am dissapointed with this game. Enough said.

Guess i now gotta wait for Ground Branch by Blackfoot Studio's...that is if it hasn't been cancelled.

[Snowwhite 10]

I can understand those who bought the gear to make this game run properly and can't even get smooth FPS.

As for the release then patch I think that is due to testing from us. No matter how many times you test software on different hardware there will always be some bugs, especialy with games like this (Arma, Gothic, Oblivion, Stalker, open world games) so its best to check user comments after the game has been released (at least I think that's the strategy)

Proper testing can be done with macs since there isn't a big variety in hardware like in windows.

If mac started to include games (im talking latest high end games) you would see the same thing happen on that front.

I'm running with far lower specs then most here but have had a very good time yesterday in MP (+3 hours or so straight)

The fact that most run without grass (and low View Distance) in MP games because of the AI sight is a nice welcome for us low end rigs.

Mind you that the game has bugs and can be anoying. As a matter of fact, my game was running ok (smooth but into low end when viewing red tress) until suddenly the connection chain icon popped up in red (probably a moment of disconnection) and after that the game paused every few frames so that it became unpossible for me to continue. Since I had a long session going I didnt mind it because I needed the break but I could have had other feelings about this in a different scenario.

I also experience the fire bug which is the first time I experience a huge bug like this and yesterday some of us noticed the flying tires bug so I'm at least glad I'm not alone and this will be fixed someday.

I still spend a lot more time playing then tweaking and all the other games I have installed are on hold so that says something about the game.

From what I've been seeying online (and all my testing with vid settings) I think if the red trees (and grass) would go the FPS would go up and more steady by a good amount.

Hopefully users won't start arguing about the dated GFX then since I play without grass and it still looks amazing, especialy the shadow/lightning engine and texture details.

Laters

Edited July 24, 2009 by Snowwhite

[Bulldogs 10]

I just need to add one thing to this thread. I've seen many posts of "This is the buggiest game ever realeased" and junk like that. I have just 1 word for you (in two parts)

Half-Life

That game when released was so extremely full of bugs that about 10% of the population of gamers could play it, 1 year later it'd been patched to all buggery and it still was the most buggy title to date.

What this has to do with troubleshooting.. Nothing, which is about the same as the rest most of this thread.

[SemiFrank 10]

Just to add: I have done plenty of troubleshooting: I've done 4 complete OS re-installs on 2 different hard drives to see if I it made any difference..

Windows 7, Vista 32 and XP SP3 - my performance is always the same.. I think the is a technical issue with CPU usage and this game.. whether I have the settings on the lowest or highest, I see no difference in FPS. That doesnt make sense.. scaling down the graphics shoudl increase FPS, even if only slightly.. that doesnt happen..

bleh.. so annoyed..

---------- Post added at 02:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:55 PM ----------

Half-Life

Maybe the MP was because I didn't touch that part of it, but the game itself ran on the minimum specs and the single player was playable from start to finish. I'm pretty sure i played through the entire game before the first patch was released and never encountered a single bug or perforamce issue.

[JimDiGritz 10]

I'm with the OP one this 100%

To be fair my system is showing it's age: Dual Core 6300 Oc'ed to 2.1Ghz, 2gb RAM and a 512Mb ATI Radeon 2600PRO running XP.

That said I get nice and smooth 30-40fps in Fallout3, Left 4 Dead, CoD4 at 1680x1050 with details generally set to Medium to High.

ARMA2 I get c.7fps. After messing about with new drivers and defragging and all the other tweaks I now get an astonishing 15fps average. This is at 1024x768 view distance of 700, no AA or shadows etc.

The graphics look about the same as the original OFP.

Of course I should upgrade my PC, but having read of people springing for brand new high spec PC's just to play this game only to get similar fps is just laughable.

I will wait for a series of patches.....

Jim

[ICE-Raver 10]

Despite occasional CTD's and laggy servers this game runs great for me ATM.

However it took major upgrade on my computer to get it to this point.

I started out with an AMD 5600 4 gigs of ram and a GTX 280.

Performance was dismal.

I upgraded to the rig in my sig and now I average a whopping 30 fps 25-35 usually.

1680 x 1050 16:10 WS

Texture-High

Video Memory-High

Anti-Aliasing-low

AF-Low

Terrain Normal

Objects Normal

Shadows OFF

Post Processing low

Edited July 24, 2009 by ICE-Raver

[wooly-back-jack 10]

thats probably because now your PC is so high spec it is just hiding the problems, so you aren't seeing them ...yet.

It's laughable to expect us all to go out and buy top spec PC parts to play a game.

I like to get a bit of usage from my PC.

I don't go out buying a new reg car everytime one comes out.