Patch 69645 - changes under the hood

[suma 8]

New beta patch 69645 may appear not huge based on the change list, but it contains very significant changes under the hood.

As the changes were made to the engine core, including the core memory allocator, extensive testing is badly needed.

Download at http://www.arma2.com/beta-patch.php or directly from ARMA2_Build_69645.zip, feedback welcome.

Edited April 23, 2010 by Suma
Added direct link

[suma 8]

Please, post only real feedback here, not general oohs and wows (off course with the exception of oohs and wows based on your testing). While it can be pleasing to read them for a while, it is hard to find the real information between them.

I have delete a few initials oohs and wows, I hope those who have posted them will not be offended. ;)

Enjoy. :)

[KeyCat 131]

[68694] Reduced parallax map artifacts on sloped terrain.

Haven't had time to try it yet but THANK YOU for looking into this little annoyance!

Now lets see if we can do some AI testing this weekend :)

/KC

[Alex72 1]

Initial test: Me alone with a hummer driving fast and me just walking/turning around. Testing initial stutter level on loading textures and models.

Result: More initial stutter than previous beta build. Feels like it "tries" to load textures/models but fails and thus tries and tries and tries until i go further and really load them up closer. Before it felt like it loads everything and when done - stutter is gone. Now i get the feeling it has a hard time loading far away textures and keep them.

This is just my first experience. Will test more ofcourse but nice to see if anyone else noticed this or if im alone. Please test to sit in a car and drive it forward and stop - back up stop etc. To me the stutter never stops like previous versions. It should load textures etc to start smothen the gameplay, but it doesnt happen kind of. Keeps stuttering.

Tested all on HIGH, and also all on NORMAL. Nvidia GTX275 (197.45).

UPDATE: Initially i had a lot of stutter but after playing for almost an hour now it feels better. Cant say what this is other than the game has had time to load a lot of things into my memory. Going through a village feels pretty good now. More testing...

Edited April 23, 2010 by Alex72

[SaOk 112]

Everything seemed to work great first, but after a cutscene in my sp mission the ground suddently disapeared when I turned on NVGoggles. I havent had that bug never before.

http://img156.imageshack.us/i/arma22010042317292652.jpg/

http://img263.imageshack.us/i/arma22010042317291918.jpg/

http://img401.imageshack.us/i/arma22010042317285384.jpg/

http://img263.imageshack.us/i/arma22010042317282794.jpg/

http://img340.imageshack.us/i/arma22010042317281595.jpg/

My comp: Q6600, 4Gb memory, HD4890, Vista 64bit, Ati drivers 10.2.

The game was played without any custom addons and mods. Only this beta was enabled.

Btw. Also the nation flag markers seems to be gone.

Update: The bug is there even in the editor. Its not related to NVGoggles, time or my mission. And I only get it on Chernarus - Utes works fine.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/5254/arma22010042317580928.jpg

Edited April 23, 2010 by SaOk

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Hmmm. Immediately, the patch does seem to be a lot smoother, with less stuttering. Especially when turning your head. But after a chopper flight from airport to Rog area, I started to get some nasty blueish/whiteish ground textures. I figured it was just my GT8800 gfx card not being able to cope or something. I had 3000m visibility, but about only 350m actual visibility due to fog. But when I arrived, the problem persisted. It will go on and off depending on where I look. Sideways affect. Up or down (by 1 pixel) affect. Zooming in and out affect. Standing/proning, it is good during the change, bad again when the transition has ended. It appears that I'm able to look right through the polygon underneath me.

Note that this was while running ACE and an addon to exchange the clutter with lower grass. Will test further later.

Edit: Yeah, saoks images describes it well. Including that weird vertical texture stretch in his second image.

Edited April 23, 2010 by CarlGustaffa

[thr0tt 12]

Can I suggest just running vanilla and the benchmarks included in the last official patch. Running it with other mods / clutter removal / loads of tweaks is just not the best test as it could be anything.

[rellikki 7]

I also got the disappearing ground glitch. Happened during the official benchmark test mission. No other addOns used.

[Capt Caveman 0]

just run the beta and get 3-5 fps increase on ingame benchmarks..seems more stable but will give it thrashing tonite!!

[Fox '09 14]

gives an error "your version is 1.04.." when I have EW campaign, the game shows 1.05 in game and in the multiplayer browser.. hmm

I am running the steam version though..

edit:

ah, deleting the (already existing) beta folder fixed it

edit2:

it runs great, can't tell if there are missing textures (as shown above) or my graphics card is just artifacting... but it still runs 40+ FPS in most places, 60 in the dense forest.. compared to around 30-40 for everything.

on custom maps I do notice the texture is "removed" if I aim/zoom sometimes. Cherno runs fine though.

Edited April 23, 2010 by Fox '09

[[frl]myke 14]

Not sure if this belongs here inside...

Topic: new scripting command "hideObject"

Issue: Hard to say as it is not clearly described whats the purpose of it is. But i'll write what i've seen and devs might see if it works as inteded or not:

Object hidden = BRDM(ATGM)

Initline: this hideObject true

Result: the visual representation is "gone". In the AH-1 Radar, the red targetdot is still visible, also the onscreen dot which shows the object being right outside the monitor edges (situational awareness indicator?). Also engine noises aswell as dust effects (i can "see" the BRDM moving, following the dusttrack).

I'm not able to lock on AGM-114 Hellfire nor AIM-9X Sidewinder, which i think is intended.

[pauliesss 2]

I don´t see any improvement, for me it seems the same.

[Cultivator 0]

Hey Suma,

I also noticed a bug, while flying and looking arround. (White ground textures) Yes, i used addons in the video, but i also tested it without addons and got the same result. With the regular 1.5 final-patch i have no problems.

Here ist the video...

Hardeware: Dualcore Intel E6850 3GH, ATI HD 4870 (1 Gb), 3 GB DDR2

OK... will continue testing now... ;)

Regards Culti

Edit: Its the same bug, which was reported by saok, didn´t noticed his last screenshot... ;/

Edited April 23, 2010 by Cultivator

[sprayer_faust 0]

I have also spotted this anomaly... It was at 065087.

[mosh 0]

disappearing ground glitch

no addon used

overall much more stutter

just playing default singleplayer mission (the first one)

[Alex72 1]

White ground same here. And i have more stuttering compared to earlier builds. No addons.

Link: LARGE IMAGE

[Beagle 684]

Very good performance here very nice touch with the team calling out reloading or grenades. Much better NV performance and I love the new way the Laserdesignator works now with visible Laserspot. Better texture loading and no more blurry textures an near objects. Stuttering in flight or fast driving is gone, as well when looking around fast.

A.I. is much more responsive even in danger mode.

Edited April 23, 2010 by Beagle

[Zipper5 74]

It seems that the flag markers have disappeared. You get errors about them even when playing the official missions. I took these at the starts of Trial by Fire and Counterattack (I wasn't using any mods at all):

Haven't encountered the disappearing ground bug yet, though. Performance-wise - can't say yet, will do some more testing.

[W0lle 1050]

I also have that white ground issue now, haven't noticed any increased performance yet.

GTX 280 (driver 196.21)

Edited April 23, 2010 by W0lle

[MavericK96 0]

About the same performance for me, and sadly it does not fix the Default video memory crash. :(

Though it did introduce a new error when it crashed, on top of the "v-buffer" thing:

Error during v-buffer creation: error 8876017c
Error during v-buffer creation: error 8876017c
Vertex buffer needs to be created before rendering. Out of memory? ca\buildings2\houseblocks\houseblock_a\houseblock_a2.p3d
Vertex buffer needs to be created before rendering. Out of memory? ca\structures\rail\railway\rails_linebreak_concrete.p3d
Vertex buffer needs to be created before rendering. Out of memory? ca\buildings\misc\plot_green_vrat_r.p3d
Vertex buffer needs to be created before rendering. Out of memory? ca\rocks2\r2_rockwall.p3d

[gossamersolid 155]

I think I'll hold off of downloading till that graphical glitch gets fixed :)

but I like the fact that BIS is still actively developing the game!

[Beagle 684]

I think I'll hold off of downloading till that graphical glitch gets fixed :)

but I like the fact that BIS is still actively developing the game!

I have not found such glitches, must be very hardware dependent.

[gossamersolid 155]

I have not found such glitches, must be very hardware dependent.

Everybody that has posted it so far seems to have an ATI card. I guess I'll test seeing as I have a GTX 260 Core 216

[MavericK96 0]

Just tried with Very High video memory setting. Stutter actually seems worse, and I'm only using ~3900 VD. LOD thrashing might be slightly improved but performance-wise it seems either the same or worse than before. :(

Did not notice the white ground while flying around, but I didn't test for that long.

[Drew 10]

for the people who have teh white ground issue, what Graphics card do u have plz?