ARMA II Beta Builds Released: Latest version/build: 1.04.6xxxx

[Herbal Influence 10]

Driving is a lot better in the corners but for some reason they still turn 90desgrees into walls for no reason.

There was an empty field one side the road and the other was a wall and for no reason I could see the jeep turned straight into it.

I ran it again and this time it just made a slight turn but carried on.

This brought me to the thought:

Wow ! BIS does not only simulate a navigation system here (300 Euro) but also a complete steering of a vehicle at the same time (3000 Euro just for electronic hardware)! :)

[jasonnoguchi 11]

Re save/load crashes; http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/4719

Voted.

[suma 8]

Driving is a lot better in the corners but for some reason they still turn 90desgrees into walls for no reason.

There was an empty field one side the road and the other was a wall and for no reason I could see the jeep turned straight into it.

I ran it again and this time it just made a slight turn but carried on.

If you can post a mission showing this, or coordinates of location where this happens, we can debug it and hopefully fix it.

Edited December 22, 2009 by Suma
Quoted wrong post

[f2k sel 164]

I find convoys have a real problem just passing the small base out of Utes Airport.

Problem one is the entrance to the small base they sometimes try to turn around.

Problem two is just past the entrance by the tree vehicles sometimes turn right or left for no reason.

They will get through sometimes but it's hit and miss.

mission

http://www.sendspace.com/file/et3m8f

[_Hurricane 0]

Recently (with the latest betas) my game CTDs a lot with the ACCESS_VIOLATION error message.

It happens when playing large multiplayer missions, like Warfare BE.

The guys behind the ACE mod think they found the cause of it:

It happens when people having the latest beta are playing on a server that doesn't have the beta. When a person with an older beta joins, the crash occurs, mostly for multiple players at the same time. I have no evidence to confirm this, but I also don't have any against this theory..

An example of the error message:

=======================================================
-------------------------------------------------------
Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION at 0053A3A7
Version 1.04.61974
Fault address:  0053A3A7 01:001393A7 C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\beta\arma2.exe
file:     WarfareV2_050Lite (__CUR_MP)
world:    Chernarus
Prev. code bytes: 0F 5C D0 0F 28 C1 F3 0F 11 46 10 F3 0F 10 46 48
Fault code bytes: F3 0F 10 61 78 F3 0F 10 6F 04 F3 0F 59 C2 F3 0F

Registers:
EAX:263D048C EBX:00000000
ECX:00000000 EDX:00000165
ESI:14F48034 EDI:016DF6C0
CS:EIP:0023:0053A3A7
SS:ESP:002B:016DF678  EBP:016DF698
DS:002B  ES:002B  FS:0053  GS:002B
Flags:00010203
=======================================================
note: Minidump has been generated into the file C:\Users\Bart\AppData\Local\ArmA 2\arma2.mdmp

Full error report and minidump to be found here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/324169523/ArmA2Crash.rar.html

Edited December 22, 2009 by _Hurricane

[gabe_ruckus 5]

The horrible slowdown when viewing water is back with a vengeance!

It's just when water's in your visible field, you can be near a beach, and if a building's in the way, FPS returns to normal, but the second you move and see surf, it's instantly dropped to 12 fps, from 50-60 fps without.

[bluesteel 0]

The horrible slowdown when viewing water is back with a vengeance!

It's just when water's in your visible field, you can be near a beach, and if a building's in the way, FPS returns to normal, but the second you move and see surf, it's instantly dropped to 12 fps, from 50-60 fps without.

I tried to repro this, but failed. Can you provide us with a bit more information?

Where exactly (island/coordinates) did this occur? Which graphics settings do you use, do you see a difference if you change some settings around? And most importantly, what are your system specs? I think most interesting would be OS, graphics card and installed graphics drivers. Also try updating your graphics drivers, this sounds like something that could have been fixed on that front.

I tested this on both Utes and Chernarus, looking at the shoreline in different places did not affect my fps in any meaningful way. I'm using Win7 x64, Nvidia GTX 260 with drivers 195.81.

[Alex72 1]

Dont have the problem with "heavy water" either. It WAS heavy many patches back, but now its ok.

[lee_h._oswald 0]

The horrible slowdown when viewing water is back with a vengeance!

I can confirm this.

Flying over the new FDF island was impossible, only 6fps at many places.

I think it has something to do with the coastlines and the object detail settings.

MfG Lee

[bluesteel 0]

Still can't confirm the water problem. I changed object and terrain detail to max, and while the water looked a bit more "wavy", the framerate was still not affected - except being generally lower because of the higher detail settings.

An exact repro and system specs would be helpful to track this down...

[cm. 10]

I can confirm this.

Flying over the new FDF island was impossible, only 6fps at many places.

I think it has something to do with the coastlines and the object detail settings.

MfG Lee

That could be a map issue, try it over chern and get back to us.

[lee_h._oswald 0]

I'm pretty sure, it's the same FPS drop, I reported with beta 59928 at "Kamyshovo".

But I will test without any addons/island later today.

MfG Lee

[jw custom 56]

I have been able to narrow down the "wallhack" issue atleast with the concrete walls.

Here's a repro mission -> http://www.filefactory.com/file/a13f1b5/n/Wallhack.Chernarus.pbo

Usage: Press space and select regroup now watch your men comming through the wall.

The "wallhacks" happens with the walls that have an opening at the bottom but also with full walls if it has just a tiny opening/leak because of placement/terrain curve.

Edited December 22, 2009 by JW Custom

[fabrizio_t 58]

I have been able to narrow down the "wallhack" issue atleast with the concrete walls.

Here's a repro mission -> http://www.filefactory.com/file/a13f1b5/n/Wallhack.Chernarus.pbo

Usage: Press space and select regroup now watch your men comming through the wall.

The "wallhacks" happens with the walls that have an opening at the bottom but also with full walls if it has just a tiny opening/leak because placement/terrain curve.

Very useful.

[fabrizio_t 58]

Hi again,

I've run latest 61974 beta build side-to-side with old 60819 build for quite some time now and i finally came to a conclusion: AI infantry groups effectiveness in 60819 was still superior to current 61974 implementation. Beware, i am talking about performance for AI-led infantry groups.

Here is a couple of videos recorded in the exact same scenario, showing some similar footage for both builds:

60819 Build Footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yloITZaF3k

61974 Build Footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXXT83b3058

The scenario shows 9 BLUFOR units (100% skill) advancing towards and through a village attacking a 18 men garrison (50% skill). 2 mods are used: an accuracy mod and a posture mod (forcing units to crouch/go prone when needed). Both mods were intended to increase units survivability and to help better highlighting the differences in group behaviour.

If you look closely into the footage you will see how differently AI is acting.

Generally in 60819 build units movement is more predictable and human-alike, bounding-overwatch is quite better and all in all just staring at the footage is a pleasing experience. In 61974 groups movement looks quite artificial.

Also mission results are surprisingly quite different!

* with build 60819 BLUFOR wins, by losing 5 men and killing all the 18 opponents;

* with build 61974 BLUFOR loses, by losing 8 men and killing just 5 opponents;

Mileage can vary, but all in all performance is consistently better with build 60819 in my opinion. There are probably many reasons for the poor assaulting effectiveness of AI in build 61974, buth here are my 4 biggest concerns:

* Groups don't spread enough on terrain. They tend to overcrowd some places (normally in combat you can tipically see 5-6 men crowding 20-30m. ) and to block respective lines of fire. See 61974 youtube video, 1m12s-.By doing so they become very vulnerable to area fire, to explosives and to flanking maneuvers;

* Too many men in groups move at once, bounding overwatch is screwed. It seems to me that units are too worried about keeping firmly in formation and this leads to a lot of unneeded / undesired movements. A nasty side-effect is lack of units providing cover and suppressive fire in many circumstances. Again, check See 61974 youtube video, 1m12s-1m30s and compare with bounding overwatch shown in 60819 video.

* Units prefer running and "resting" into "blind" cover positions rather than advancing through bounding overwatch. Eg. they passively stack tightly behind houses/objects (sometimes then they just step in/out of cover without taking any shots). See 61974 youtube video, 3m33s. They didn't act this way in 60819. Probably the "take cover" routine has to be tweaked: we don't need 4-5 units waiting 1 minute behind the same house or fence, we need them to occupy different cover positions and to advance leapfrogging from cover to cover while being covered.

* Sometimes leader gets "confused" about the path to take, especially in urban environment. So entire groups get almost stuck in position for minutes: See 61974 youtube video, 3m00s-4m00s. By the time they move again enemies are ready to cut them into pieces.

I have no idea of what's the cause for this difference, but i think that just letting AI again not caring much about formation and giving back groups a chance to spread will help alot.

EDIT: Just a couple of things more about 61974:

1) The reason why bunching into cover behind a building is not a clever idea: entire group taken out;

2) Please fix this fence: AI is able to shoot through, but it still thinks it's a good cover, so it's easily shot in the back;

Edited December 22, 2009 by fabrizio_T

[Bouben 3]

Hi again,

I've run latest 61974 beta build side-to-side with old 60819 build for quite some time now and i finally came to a conclusion: AI infantry groups effectiveness in 60819 was still superior to current 61974 implementation. Beware, i am talking about performance for AI-led infantry groups.

Very interesting!

[suma 8]

I've run latest 61974 beta build side-to-side with old 60819 build for quite some time now and i finally came to a conclusion: AI infantry groups effectiveness in 60819 was still superior to current 61974 implementation.

There was one silly typo in the "60819 AI emulation" in 61292 which rendered it completely broken in some situations. This typo was fixed in 62003, which is present in the public final patch. Do not worry, the AI improvements and experiments are likely continue in 2010, therefore if you have some more repros regarding the 1.05 patch, feel free to post it here. I would rather prevent having them in a separate movement dedicated topic, though.

Edited December 22, 2009 by Suma

[jw custom 56]

Do not worry, the AI improvements and experiments are likely continue in 2010.

Oh i hope so because AI tend to shoot if friendlies is in the line of fire and medics/corpsmen spent half the war before actually giving medical attention in combat situations or if a enemy is spotted in the distance :p

I also think that auto combat feature has broken more than it has done good :)

[fabrizio_t 58]

There was one silly typo in the "60819 AI emulation" in 60819 which rendered it completely broken in some situations. This typo was fixed in 62003, which is present in the public final patch. Do not worry, the AI improvements and experiments are likely continue in 2010, therefore if you have some more repros regarding the 1.05 patch, feel free to post it here. I would rather prevent having them in a separate movement dedicated topic, though.

Thx Suma, nice to hear improvements will go on, looking forward to build 62003 for further testing.

I can't understand what you are saying with "There was one silly typo in the '60819 AI emulation' in 60819 which rendered it completely broken in some situations" though?

In which build was that typo ? I bet it was maybe in 60902?

Edited December 22, 2009 by fabrizio_T

[suma 8]

I can't understand what you are saying with "There was one silly typo in the '60819 AI emulation' in 60819 which rendered it completely broken in some situations" though?

In which build was that typo ? I bet it was maybe in 60902?

You are correct. Not 60819 - I meant 61292. Editing the post.

[fabrizio_t 58]

You are correct. Not 60819 - I meant 61292. Editing the post.

Thx again.

[Alex72 1]

BIS please check the coast line for next beta (or some beta down the line). I experience what some say "heavy lag at coast lines". After i installed 1.05 official i can clearly see this. And it seems to be when looking at the coast line itself and not out in the open sea.

Repro for best result:

-Place AH-1Z as FLYING out in the sea facing in land.

-Sit as gunner.

-Go optics (Numpad 0 or RMB) and look around at the coast line and around.

To me it lags much more when looking where the water meets land.

And this is in the 1.05 official, but here is where the work gets done for the next beta so i thaught it was appropriate to post here. :)

EDIT:

Tested both the latest beta and 1.05 official now from the ground. I dont know what BIS did to the pine (barr) trees but they make me stutter enormously in 1.05. They are now equally FPS sucking as the "yellow" trees. When i go into the latest beta patch the forests (barr) are completelly smooth. I cant see anything new on them in 1.05 so im guessing something went wrong in the official patch?

Please make them as smooth as they were in the latest beta - even the all barr islands made by the community that was ultra smooth to me are now painfully stuttery. I have sadly and for the first time ever reverted back from an official patch to a beta. Hope this will be sorted.

Not to mention when i see a barr forest plus the coast line together on the screen... The lag goes sky high. :(

Thank you.

Alex

Edited December 23, 2009 by Alex72

[Yapab 10]

Not to mention when i see a barr forest plus the coast line together on the screen... The lag goes sky high. :(

Thank you.

Alex

Can you please provide a picture of the offending tree and its location, what does the barr tree look like in ARMA2 1.05?

Yapa

[.kju 3244]

How about creating ticket at the CIT please.

[Alex72 1]

Yapab: Its not a single tree or a single location. Its all barr trees (pine, spruce) and all forests - small and big. They stutter the crap out of me compared to betas. I switch between them both back and forth and its like night and day - unfortunatelly. It saddens me big time. Utes for example. All places where trees are lumped together i get stutter. Change back to beta at the same places and its smooth as silk. That little hill by the Utes runway for example with all barr trees. But even smaller clusters of barr trees will have the same effect. Real weird and sad - for me at least.

Ticket coming.

Edited December 23, 2009 by Alex72