laggy

The stream/load lag is even worse than the first 1.02. When I move fast through a city I dip from 25 FPS to 8 for no apparent reason other than object/texture load. For me the game is running worse with every new patch, hope this won't become a tradition. Am I the only one? I have defragged my HD, which isn't even half full by the way. Would a clean install on a separate partition do the trick? This game is fantastic, but this issue doesn't make any sense to me and I would love to hear an explanation. My specs: Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, 3.0 GHz 3.00 GB RAM NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX (186.18 drivers) VD 2400+ Everything on Normal except: Shadow detail - High PP - Low Cheers!!!

Started scripting in ArmAII but found to my surprise that no matter how bad my syntax/code is, I get no error messages. The error messages are crucial I think. When will they appear again?

Here we go... The combat simulation games by BIS are the only PC/console games I really find worthy of playing. Games like IL2 Sturmovik are good too, but narrow since they only deal with flying and when it comes to immersion nothing beats the first person experience. My gaming history started out with mindless and violent carnage FPSs like SOF2 and Resident Evil. Graphics and blood was everything. Atmosphere and story added of course but it was really all about the intense action. After trying Ghost Recon and its somewhat realistic approach I slowly started getting interested in those genres. As a player it was suddenly really difficult to survive (one hit=dead) and for the first time the AI actually reacted when their buddies got shot. In other games you could take out a guard with a sniper rifle and the guy right next to him didn't even care, he just waited until you moved into a trigger and then the scripted repetitive action could commence. One day in 2003 a good friend of mine recommended OFP and said that it was even better than Ghost Recon, he said it was "the best game he had ever played". I was quite sceptical at first, but finally bought the game and started playing the cold war crisis campaign. Little did I know that I had just started a journey that probably will go on forever. I found this "new game" very hard in the beginning, I felt like a mere useless grunt trying to keep up with my squad mates. I was confused, didn't know where to look, where to go, what to do, everything was chaos around me. Far gone was my invisible superhero status falsely given to me in the other games. "Man I suck! and this game feels too "open" and scary" was my first impression. Then I got it... This is probably how I would feel and react if this stuff really happened to me, this is what this game is all about. You are just a poor soul on the battlefield, trying to survive. Coming from a long background of "paper, pencil and dice" RPGs (Warhammer, Call of Cthulhu and Pendragon) I'm surprised it took me a while to appreciate this element, guess I wasn't used to it in a PC game. When I finally did get it there was no turning back. I was hooked for life. Situations like: never even seeing the enemy sniper that just killed you, getting lost in the forest, a frightening bullet wizz by your ear before hearing the actual shot, fleeing from superior forces, crawling several miles in panic because you were shot in the leg, atmospheric logistical missions etc. Everything was very compelling and something I'd never experienced in a computer game before. You were not "playing" your character, you "became" your character and the experience felt so real and convincing. OFP was in retrospect quite simple, but for that time it was more open and varied than everything else around. Discovering the mission editor was really what ruined my life. I could now create all those scenarios I always wanted to play AND include my own sounds, music, dialogue and camera work. Hundreds of well (and some poorly) designed missions later I'm still obsessed by creating an experience as magical as "Alone in the forest". What is so nice about the editing is that you never stop learning. Starting off in 2003 asking questions like "how can I place a unit in a window of a building?" and in the present working with .sqf is quite a journey and it is great fun. The community addons and mods deserve at least a full post, but I'm not going into that now. Armed Assault was a bit of a let down, the world was uninspired and the campaign was not very personal. Stability is also still an issue for me. If only those things had been better I think the game would have felt like a worthy sequel. Graphics were better, but graphics is not all that matters. Playability and variation is really what gives a game long life. And now ArmAII... Well what can you say? The game has now become what I always dreamed of. Combining the strengths of the prequels and excluding their weaknesses. It is very clear that BIS listens to their community, since they have basically included most of the requested ingredients + added more stuff that increases gameplay drastically. So what makes ArmAII so amazing? -Hyper realistic graphics (not the most important aspect, but I had to mention it. Being a classical painter myself I dare say the "lighting of the landscape" in ArmAII is the best ever accomplished in a game, this is what reality looks like. This aspect has been really good even since OFP but is now perfected. The water effects are stunning as well.) -Sound (A huge leap forward, everything is extremely convincing and adds to the illusion of you "being in the world". Just standing alone in the forest listening to the wind in the trees and the birds is magical. When you crawl through a bush you can actually hear the leaves and branches touching your body... amazing. The more action related sounds are also perfect.) -Playability (BIS keeps adding more and more gameplay options that makes the variety and world experience outstanding. You can now talk to the AI, attach objects to each other -enabling endless possibilities-, create unpredictable missions with the SOM logic, carry your wounded, perform first aid etc. Some of this was done in community addons and mods before, BIS has obviously recognized that and this time they included it in the original game.) -Atmosphere (In the prequels the mission designer had to spend a long time making the world "come alive". Endless hours of placing objects, units with waypoints and scripts. Usually those units and objects were never even needed in the mission, they just had to be placed there to add a convincing atmosphere. Now the simple placing of some game logics does that in a second... simply fantastic!) -World (This is also better than ever, finally a world/map that feels very realistic, it makes sense in terms of geography and settlements. You feel that people could actually live there as opposed to the "boxes on the ground" urban areas in OFP and Armed Assault. The world is also very varied and has many inspiring places for a mission designer.) -Editor (More and more useful commands. "IsOnRoad": The command senses if you are on the actual road and not driving in the landscape, adds a lot to a "get through the checkpoint" mission. "AttachTo": You can now put any object/unit on for example a truck and drive them around, adds variety and playability. Seems like soon only your imagination will be the limit in a BIS game. The editor this time has very useful objects as well, something that was missed in Armed Assault.) -Overall the whole game experience is now so very close to reality with all the new details, complexities and options. If this game had been released when I was a teenager I wouldn't have a life today... Still true to some extent... but could be worse. Weirdly enough this fact should be taken as a huge compliment by BIS. Simply put... ArmAII is a masterpiece. Maybe it will not be praised by teenagers that are into COD and other "timekillers", but for any serious gamer ArmAII is an entity that will definetely live forever. I really hope BIS will stick to their narrow path in the industry and that they will be rewarded for it. I get really tired reading all the negative input on this forum. The only explanation for all the silly complaints must be that some people simply don't understand what ArmAII is about and how complex this game's structure really is. I'm not very good with programming, I'm an OK scripter but that's it. However, what I do understand is the difference between a complex simulator and a heavily scripted action shooter. ArmAII is NOT Chrysis, it's about convincing and varied "non-scripted" simulation. Of course there are games that can render the image better than ArmAII, but they are basically "corridor FPSs" with little variety and very limited playability. To all of you complainers I just have to say this: Why do you even compare ArmAII to other games? Don't you know what kind of program you are getting? If you only care about graphics and mindless action ArmAII is not the game for you... PERIOD!!! As far as BIS future plans go, I hope they keep increasing playability rather than graphics from now on. I for sure don't need more detailed textures or more polygons. Instead: Imagine if all the different types of warfare (infantry, armor, navy, air etc) would become more and more detailed over the years and the worlds/maps larger and larger. What you would then have in 5-10 years is a super detailed total war simulator where the "whole planet" can be the battlefield. Imagine one player being a stealth bomber pilot flying over the Atlantic ocean, destination: some big city in Europe, mission: surgical bombing, mission time: several hours. On the other side you have a player stationed in that very city who is responsible for the air defenses, or maybe he's just just a working civilian. A third player is a SEAL member inserted off the coast by a submarine and starts moving across the country for days, mission: to recover something or someone. The submarine is suddenly sunk by an enemy destroyer and the SEAL team has to get out of the country, maybe with the aid of agents or civilians. The possibility of these huge scenarios spanning across the globe are endless and thrilling to think about. - "During a Black Operation in Asia your plane has crashed in the Himalayas, the radio is wasted and you have to get back to the U.K... What do you do?" kind of missions. Wouldn't that be something to strive for from now on? Anyway... LOVE YOU BIS AND KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK, YOU RUINED MY LIFE... BUT I'M LOVING IT. sincerely, Laggy

Never hugged a tree or smoked pot myself, guess I'm pretty shallow after all :D ArmAII just has the effect of making me feel like I'm ten years old again. Cheers!!!

Haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure the viewDistance is set in the mission file itself. That's what I always do when designing a mission. The mission designer knows what kind of mission it is and can set the viewDistance to maximize performance AND gameplay. In a sniper mission for example, you might want 3000+m, but in an intense urban combat scenario with tons of units the viewDistance reduction + fog/rain can be used to ensure maximum performance. Thus I believe your own settings are changed automatically in the campaign missions anyway, so it doesn't matter really.

Being able to embrace your own sentimentality is crucial for any good mission designer :o:

Seems like the complainers are fighting hard still. Anger leads to the dark side... Better bump this thread up :don 14:

Well put my friend and those ingredients fit perfectly into my "future vision". How many years before it is possible system wise? 5? 10? more?

The Sec Op manager is excellent and makes a mission designers life so much easier. You could basically make a mission just by setting up a base and a SOM logic synced with your team. Any standard edited mission will also benefit from this random spice, which could be added at any point in the mission. Thank you BIS for this amazing module. I think an extension would be very useful. Don't know all the possible scenarios but so far I have only discovered these: -high value enemy target nearby -friendly position under attack -friendly team needing escort -pow units held nearby -enemy convoy inbound -friendly plane down -patrol the checkpoints All those scenarios are great... but at least 10 are needed, the Sec Op manager also needs to work in MP :couch:

The dogs (all animals for that matter) are great, but at least the Alsatian should also have a version that is scriptable. Right now it's not controllable and it would add a lot of playability if you could have the dog as part of a group and use the move commands. This would be very useful in missions, dog parties can guard a base or track the players fleeing from an area, a dog also has better awareness than a human. Shouldn't be much work, just make an additional config that counts the new dog as a human unit, who cares if it is silly that they can drive a car, that stuff is up to the mission designer. You know I'm right :D

Thanks guys

Hats off to your work and good luck ! Though I think this is such a simple thing for BIS to do, since the model already exists and they only need a small config adjustment to add this new "useful dog". Would take a programmer/developer less than a coffee break to do this small adjustment if I'm not mistaken. I'm very reluctant to start using addons, since the vanilla ArmA2 is fantastic... part from this issue. @ Hoak All those inventive things are easy for an average mission designer/scripter to accomplish, except new animations which are unnecessary I think. Please dear BIS, if you exist and can hear me :jesus: this is such a simple small thing to do...

ArmA2 is a true masterpiece, combining the qualities of OFP and ArmA1, while excluding their weaknesses. More than I could ever hope for. For me and many others the performance issue is the only problem. Minimum/recommended system specs are still not accurate. Hope they soon will be.

Dell XPS 420 Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, 3.0 GHz 3.00 GB RAM NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX (182.50 drivers) 1.02 introduced texture loading problems and stuttering as described in posts above. The game sometimes freezes for 10 seconds when starting a mission and the models are simple blocks that eventually turn into trees and other objects. Factory complex, large hotel, monuments and city hall in Chernogorsk have the texture problem as well as some Razor team member faces. The stuttering happens mainly in city areas and it doesn't feel like the kind of lag that occurs when your settings are too high, more like loading delays. Overall I hope the performance gets better as even some missions in the campaign are barely playable (lots of LAG), even though I'm slightly above recommended specs.

Everything about ArmA2 is perfect and better than I could ever hope for, except when it comes to performance. Really hope BIS does something about this in patch 1.03 and that it is possible just through polishing and not by compromising the game. The minimum and recommended system specs are not accurate at the moment. I believe it's a problem that many players got new computers to make ArmA1 run well, but at the same time they actually had ArmA2 in mind. Judging by the way ArmA2 is running right now (v. 1.02) many members of the community have to upgrade their hardware again. This is annoying many people and I therefore see this as a very important issue if BIS want's to keep their faithful community.

Recently had some time to try ArmA2 seriously and I have to say again... It is a masterpiece. It is everything that OFP and ArmA was together (combining their qualities and canceling their faults) ... and even beats that. Will be hard for modders to beat the original... good luck! Graphics- gritty, realistic and beautiful at the same time. Sounds- create a convincing world experience and scary, intense fighting. Atmosphere- choice of environments are right on the mark. Playability- the best I've seen, you can actually talk to AI, carry wounded and attach objects. AI- amazing and unpredictable, no more rambo style for players who figured out the game engine. Immersion- better than anything else, thanks to the above mentioned qualities. Unit/Weapon/Vehicle selection- all I ever hoped for. Campaign- amazing so far, serious and dark. Editor- Hallelujah! we finally have access to really usable sounds and objects, i.e massgraves and money stacks instead of playground items. Modules- Praise the lord! a mission designer can now focus on the actual mission rather than eye candy and making the world come alive. I could go on forever (and probably will in a future post), but I have one negative thing that I would like to hear your opinion on. Critical input: Performance, performance and... performance. Recommended/optimal CPU specs is not applicable in reality, really hope this gets patched up drastically and that it is possible to do so. Question: Playing the campaign I've only gotten to mission "Harvest Red" (the huge attack on Chernogorsk) and here I ran into real trouble performance wise. This mission was almost unplayable. Before that the missions ran really well though, so I wonder if anyone else experienced the same difference? I'm on version 1.02.

[iG]http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/8424/cpuxfr.jpg[/img]>100kb As you can see my CPU is working for its money :D when I play ArmA2 on high settings, which I like. Would I benefit from overclocking it a little and if yes, where can one find a tutorial for this :confused: How many FPS can one gain from this? How would it work if I only throw Vista out the window and go for Windows 7 instead? Dell XPS 420 Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, 3.0 GHz 3.00 GB RAM NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX (182.50 drivers) Thanks in advance, Laggy

Thanks both, Yes I finally realized this had something to do with this issue as well. Didn't think the savegame problem would include user edited missions played/tested in the editor. I was trying to play my "LAG test" mission in Chernogorsk including many troops and civilian modules and it performed horribly. This mission was edited in 1.01. Newly designed missions seem to work better, but I'm not sure that this is the only truth yet. In general the texture loading is worse. Sometimes when you turn away from certain objects and then look back the object is white (as in no texture) and it takes forever for the texture to load again. This happens at least with the large hotel, city hall and statues/monuments in Chernogorsk. In 1.02 Chernogorsk seems to be impossible to populate with the ALICE module as well, but I'm not sure about this. More testing has to be done.

Did it and it helped a little bit, thanks! However this patch has changed something with the engine drastically. The first time I start a mission in Chernorus the game lags so much I can't move for 10 seconds while textures are loading and I see awful square block looking trees and buildings all around me. While this is going on I can't even turn my character. When the texture/model loading is "done" the game works OK, but still worse than 1.01. Is this a planned change of the engine or may it be a corrupted file in the patch download? Dell XPS 420 Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, 3.0 GHz 3.00 GB RAM NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX (182.50 drivers) German download version updated to 1.01 and then 1.02.

@ MadDogX and Manzilla, I remember that a very similar performance drop occurred when ArmA1 got patched to 1.14. BIS had then changed something with the virtual memory address thing and the effect was devastating until... you installed Vista SP1, then everything was back to normal or even better. Maybe someone (Hrrrmm... BIS) could let us know if something of equal magnitude has been done in this 1.02 patch for ArmA2.

richiespeed13 and Swedda, This is weird... Could you please post your specs?

So your theory is that specifically a Dell computer for some reason can't handle patch 1.02 :rolleyes: Tell me more...

1.02 made it more or less unplayable for me :( Serious stuttering when loading textures and at least 2-3 FPS drop. Dell XPS 420 Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, 3.0 GHz 3.00 GB RAM NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX (182.50 drivers) Newest Nvidia drivers didn't help.

:( Hi, really love this game, it's a masterpiece, however patch 1.02 made it much worse for me. ArmAIIMark shows an average of 2-3 FPS drop (before 25 now 22-23) and the game has also become very, very stuttering. Seems like the textures load really slow and that's when it stutters. Very noticeable when you move around. The sounds are also delayed because of CPU overload I guess. It is now almost unplayable... Not Good !!! My specs: Dell XPS 420 Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, 3.0 GHz 3.00 GB RAM NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX (182.50 drivers) Tried 186.18 drivers - No difference. Really hope this performance issue will not last, I was looking forward to some serious MP campaign designing.

I have: C2D E6850 @ 3.0 GHz 3 GB RAM 8800 GTX 768 MB Vista 32 My ArmA2 runs OK but not excellent. Personally I think that your CPU (at least with this ArmA2 version (1.01)) is the bottleneck, meaning it should be playable but not more. My personal experience is that graphics settings up or down doesn't really change the FPS, but more units on the map (AI) does, which is mainly dependent on the CPU. Laggy