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

[kklownboy 43]

I'm playing with crosshair off since arma2 release.

I now also have a feeling for how to aim with the guns.

You just have to learn it.

MfG Lee

+1

And to think you could shoot from the hip with 300m down-field accuracy... its absolutely a cheat in my book. Now being able to bring up a ACOG ,PSO and not have the scope in the way for short range would be nice, and over the top sites from ACE will be great. And would be better if it was a added game feature to see over your scope. Beta 1.06.70000?

[bensdale 0]

Good job BI !!!

Pls fix the FPS drop of diverse trees and bushes in the next beta patch ;)

[Praelium 0]

Anyone else done some more testing on AI patch finding?

Yeah, I did a small test on one of the roads. I used civilian sedans and gave them Move waypoints with behavior as safe, and speed as limited, (unless otherwise noted).

- My first test had one car drive a short distance. There were no 90 degree turns, just a slight curve. AI worked well, and the driver stayed on his side of the road.

- Then, I sent a car going the opposite way, to see how they would react. Overall, it worked well, but wasn't perfect. Both cars stayed on their lane and didn't crash, but after passing, they did slow down for a second and slightly pull off the road.

- After that, I added a third car and grouped it with one of the existing cars, but this is where everything went wrong. The following car could NOT stay on the road at all. It may have been worse than the AI in the first Arma. NOTE: This may be fixed by setting formation to column.

- Next, I deleted the group and gave the third car the same waypoint as the others, but changed it's speed to one higher, (I don't remember what it's called ingame- for the test I'll call it medium). This also didn't work well, because the driver constantly sped up behind another car and then stopped for a few seconds. In the end, it seemed like it actually took him longer because he stopped.

- Finally, I gave the third car limited movement speed, and moved his waypoint further down the street, so he would have to pass the car in front of him when it stopped. In this test, everything worked well until the car in front of him stopped, and he had a lot of trouble passing.

Edited November 11, 2009 by Praelium

[Pauldarrington 9]

Im sorry to interrupt your little offtopic party but can you shut up about who fucking uses crosshairs, i just spent 10 minutes reading through 3 pages of a discussion that has got nothing to do with the BETA patches thread

[jw custom 56]

Im sorry to interrupt your little offtopic party but can you shut up about who fucking uses crosshairs, i just spent 10 minutes reading through 3 pages of a discussion that has got nothing to do with the BETA patches thread

You just continued it :eek:

[Guest]

Yeah, I did a small test on one of the roads. I used civilian sedans and gave them Move waypoints with behavior as safe, and speed as limited, (unless otherwise noted).

- My first test had one car drive a short distance. There were no 90 degree turns, just a slight curve. AI worked well, and the driver stayed on his side of the road.

- Then, I sent a car going the opposite way, to see how they would react. Overall, it worked well, but wasn't perfect. Both cars stayed on their lane and didn't crash, but after passing, they did slow down for a second and slightly pull off the road.

- After that, I added a third car and grouped it with one of the existing cars, but this is where everything went wrong. The following car could NOT stay on the road at all. It may have been worse than the AI in the first Arma. NOTE: This may be fixed by setting formation to column.

- Next, I deleted the group and gave the third car the same waypoint as the others, but changed it's speed to one higher, (I don't remember what it's called ingame- for the test I'll call it medium). This also didn't work well, because the driver constantly sped up behind another car and then stopped for a few seconds. In the end, it seemed like it actually took him longer because he stopped.

- Finally, I gave the third car limited movement speed, and moved his waypoint further down the street, so he would have to pass the car in front of him when it stopped. In this test, everything worked well until the car in front of him stopped, and he had a lot of trouble passing.

Yeah, overall the AI are absolutely fine at driving. But when you add an obstacle/vehicle to their path, they go nuts!

It seems they are just too sensetive to collision avoidance, they won't get anywhere near another car without totally stopping. And the dumbest thing about that, is i often see the AI speed up like nut cases and rear end another car.

Hopefully this can be sorted soon :)

[C-zom 10]

It looks like the changelog for 60091 got borked. :P The guy merged all the patch notes into one making it seem like this latest patch is hundreds of lines of changes and at the bottom it says 1.02 with nothing under it. Might wanna get that fixed...

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

Well damn, now the 1st line in my signature saddens me.

OT

I'm impressed, so lets get a full release. :)

[NeMeSiS 11]

EDIT: Please delete.

[jakerod 254]

I get this error when trying to start up the Beta Patch Shortcut (with nosplash): Error compiling pixel shader PSTreeAdv: 0

However, when starting CAA1 w/ Beta I do not get that problem and the game runs much better than before. So with the exception of that PSTree thing, Great Job!

[Richey79 10]

I get the pixel shader error too.

Time for 1.05, methinks.

Done all that, cheers Pufu, it's like breathing after all this time.

Edit - Mr. Moron here wants to apologise: I was typing -beta rather than -mod=beta. Cheers to Pufu and Jakerod. I guess familiarity breeds carelessness!

Edited November 13, 2009 by Richey79

[PuFu 4591]

I get this error when trying to start up the Beta Patch Shortcut (with nosplash): Error compiling pixel shader PSTreeAdv: 0

However, when starting CAA1 w/ Beta I do not get that problem and the game runs much better than before. So with the exception of that PSTree thing, Great Job!

It has been cover at least 50 times so far:

make sure

1. Target line: ~Drive~\~FOLDER(s)~\ArmA 2\beta\arma2.exe

2. MOD in use: -mod=beta

3. Start in: ~Drive~\~FOLDER(s)~\ArmA 2\

IE:

"F:\ArmA 2\beta\arma2.exe" -mod=beta

"F:\ArmA 2\"

[Alex72 1]

Please BIS also remember to re-zero the silent weapons before going 1.05. The Vintorez is zeroed to 5m for example. It shoots way above the zero even long range. The same with the other silenced weapons.

[KeyCat 131]

After taking a break and focusing on some other sims I today tested the latest beta build (60091) and see some good progress!

Now ghillie suit + tall grass starts to make sense, now you can get pretty darn close to a enemy AI if you (slow) crawl in tall grass, and even sneak past him if you keep some distance, as it should be.

I also tried a simple sniper testmission I use for regular tests and now if staying prone in the grass (with ghillie) the enemy AI (~250-300 m away) had hard time finding/locating you even after you killed a few of them. Trying the same thing but crouching/standing up instead and the enemy AI would quite easily spot you after you fired a few rounds and start to shoot back at you!

I also think the newly added grasslayer will have positive impact on P vs P games since you will be able to stay less visible over long distance if prone in grass.

Now the AI seems to know what "surpression" means and I had times where a MG HMWW surpressed me really good while I was behind a wall, good stuff! Haven't had time to do any other AI tests but it feels like they aren't really as shortsighted as before but could be placebo...

Steering a car/motorcycle using keyboard/mouse feels much better now and I can actually stay on the road now, lol.

Performancewise I lost a few FPS (build 59210 was best for me in that regard) but it feels smoother/better and with less "HD trashing" in cities and nice to hear the spatial startup/explosions sounds fixed as well!

Keep up the good work BIS, I'm sure the 1.05 (and beyond!) will be worth the wait!

/KC

Edited November 12, 2009 by KeyCat

[mr_centipede 31]

Does the AI affected by suppression as well? ie stay behind cover more, shoot less etc? I played a test mission on UTES with Nem_AI fix (ARMA2 1.02 config) and had a firefight at 450-500m away... very cool thing... I got suppress real good, but I dont know if the enemy AI were suppressed as well

[jakerod 254]

It has been cover at least 50 times so far:

make sure

1. Target line: ~Drive~\~FOLDER(s)~\ArmA 2\beta\arma2.exe

2. MOD in use: -mod=beta

3. Start in: ~Drive~\~FOLDER(s)~\ArmA 2\

IE:

"F:\ArmA 2\beta\arma2.exe" -mod=beta

"F:\ArmA 2\"

Thank you. Sorry about posting that. I did a search for the error and it came up empty.

[Alex72 1]

EDIT: Ok it takes immense amount of testing before you figure out exactlly what is causing things. I noticed that with the latest beta 60091 post processing set to LOW will make my game stutter when looking into the ground. This never happened before as i always had PP=LOW in my game successfully without any stutter/bad performance. But latest beta forces me to turn it off, and when i do - no stutter when looking at my feets.

So PP is made heavier i guess?

EDIT2: Did a Cipher game tonight to check if the AI is more aware when being in gunner slot. It is painful to see your gunner (Hummer M2) being shot at from very close range and still he doesnt even turn to look at the direction he getting shot from. Im inside the vehicle and i can hear clearly BANG BANG BANG and i hear the impacts on our car, but the gunner just looks the other way. Completely unaware of shots being fired.

So is the AI deaf when in outside gunner positions? They have awesome hearing in general, but vehicles seems to block their hearing. They should IMO be very "on edge", and turn to sounds being made - especially gun sounds. Hope this is looked into. :)

Alex

Edited November 12, 2009 by Alex72

[Mr.X 10]

Out of curiosity, what is being done to enhance performance in these latest betas? Reading through some of the posts here it seems that there are some improvements but it doesn't seem clear what the changes are. ARMA 2 craps on my comp; are there going to be any more optimization fixes before release?

[Alex72 1]

There are optimizations done even though they arent written out in the changelog. I think its mainly because it is betas and the changes are "tests" to see how it works for us. We test and try to report back - BIS reads and see what the majority thinks about it.

There is definatelly optimizations made as you can see. Many say cities runs smooth as silk now (not on my old pc however lol). From 1.04 official patch to beta v59210 my performance went up the roof. Awesome FPS was gained on my pc. With the latest ones there is great improvements to the game, but the performance went down a little on my pc.

But to your question: Yes, you already know they are improving performance. You only have to read some pages to see that. They just dont print out every small change they do in the changelog. When the official release comes it might be in there - maybe.

EDIT:

BTW, i also tested to add a convoy of cars and trucks... WOW! :) They actually made it all over the whole island and never overtook eachother etc. They sometimes drove outside the road, but it was those quick ones where they steered right back and was on the track again. Really good improvement BIS! I also tried to drive towards them from opposite way and then turned out more to the side real quick and let me drive past. Superb. :)

Edited November 12, 2009 by Alex72

[Scrub 0]

Alright, now we're talking improvements! Noticeably smoother performance. AI engagement style keeps me cautious, but at the same time is not weak, seems a good balance. Suppression (and of course flanking) in full effect! Very nice! will test more as time permits.

BTW: Alex, is your avatar Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner? (Great movie)

[^Th0mas^ 10]

Good to see BIS are working good on this game! I love it!

[jw custom 56]

BTW: Alex, is your avatar Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner? (Great movie)

Still one of my favourite movies :cool:

[^Th0mas^ 10]

Are there any improvments in AI flying helicopters and planes?

[=wfl= sgt bilko 10]

BTW: Alex, is your avatar Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner? (Great movie)

Looks like the end shot of the scene on the roof, were he does a long monologue, dies and the white pidgeon flies away.

Still one of my favourite movies :cool:

Indeed +1

[Guest]

EDIT: Ok it takes immense amount of testing before you figure out exactlly what is causing things. I noticed that with the latest beta 60091 post processing set to LOW will make my game stutter when looking into the ground. This never happened before as i always had PP=LOW in my game successfully without any stutter/bad performance. But latest beta forces me to turn it off, and when i do - no stutter when looking at my feets.

So PP is made heavier i guess?

EDIT2: Did a Cipher game tonight to check if the AI is more aware when being in gunner slot. It is painful to see your gunner (Hummer M2) being shot at from very close range and still he doesnt even turn to look at the direction he getting shot from. Im inside the vehicle and i can hear clearly BANG BANG BANG and i hear the impacts on our car, but the gunner just looks the other way. Completely unaware of shots being fired.

So is the AI deaf when in outside gunner positions? They have awesome hearing in general, but vehicles seems to block their hearing. They should IMO be very "on edge", and turn to sounds being made - especially gun sounds. Hope this is looked into. :)

Alex

Oh Snap! I did the cipher ,ission last night too, and the second me and my squady came under enemy fire, we both died. He was utterley useless.

Hope this can get fixed!