oktane

Thanks, I was waiting for it to be out on Six Updater. I am starting a new naming scheme here: FOR BETA 71382 ONLY! @okt_noBlur_for_Beta_1.05.71382.7z Due to some instabilities with the latest betas, I found myself switching between the 1.05/beta frequently.. which meant I had to swap the noBlur obviously. I normally did this by renaming the folder, I had two folders.. one with 1.05 noblur, the other with the latest beta noblur. I'd just rename whatever one I wanted to use to @okt_noblur. But this is silly, since I use separate shortcuts anyways. (they had identical modlines, other than the beta having 'beta' mod of course) But from now on, the noBlur's from the beta version shall live in @okt_noBlurBeta (new) and the non-beta will live in @okt_noBlur (as it did before). Summary: your beta shortcut will use the @okt_noBlurBeta mod, and your normal shortcut will use @okt_noBlur. If you use a mod launcher type app, well I hope this wont affect you much, you can just check whichever one you need. (don't run both obviously) And you can rename @okt_noBlur or @okt_noBlurBeta to whatever you want as always, (like to shorten it) just don't mix up whats inside. So when the next final patch comes out, I'll sort this all out and get rid of the config scripts and that useless junk. But for now, I'll continue releasing these beta's by themselves. Cheers

This is indeed such a minor issue, but the issue does arise frequently in discussions.. Someone mentions A2T, the immediate question is which one. (original or 1.0 (aka ACE Dev version)) Perhaps it should also be considered due to the scope changes that occurred during development that have taken it on a slightly different direction than it's predecessor. (and this is by no means a negative thing!) What I thought of the two scopes, simply broken down was: simple, optional, VOIP replacement for all, with a very small amount of depth (channels), entirely script based, semi-public server friendly compared to ultra-realistic, LOS modeled, radio objects/crates, RTO Roles, suited for highly organized teams and realism matches especially, may have required client addon to join (dunno yet). Regarding the incredible and overall, game enhancing portions of this addon could provide to the arma community: Hopefully the new A2T 1.0 devs are willing to let others use the TS3 plugin/jayarmalib portion as the basis of a basic, optional voip replacement for A2 (ideally included in ACE, enabled by default), should the OA expansion fail to make any improvements to the stock and useless VOIP. (and the two must not interfere of course, A2T would always take precedence if installed and enabled on the server) It's just a dream to have working voip that hooks into the game's existing GUI transparently, as well as features such as this. This of little importance at this time, as you are busy getting ready for 1.0 release and all. But I hope you will consider it sometime. Cheers Guys (nice sig meek :))

Which one? Here you can see them all: http://www.506th-pir.org/scripts/oktane/noblur/ I can get to this site, is it giving you issues? I copied them here too for now, in case thats whats going on. http://506.jestservers.com/scripts/oktane/noblur Lol, for OA I hope it's an OPTION like it should be. :D When I get this completely automated I will try to rewrite the docs to simplfy them. Ideally an update script will be made that you can run and automagically get the latest noBlur beta. (for A2 beta users obviously)

There's this too, if you do RSS. My code greps the differences and tries to determine if it is the same. Works like 95% of the time :D http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=85411

Thanks. This is correct, except for the need for the addons folder. It isn't used. The only reason I include it in the 1.05 release is so I can put a note in there that says 'NOTHING GOES IN THIS FOLDER'. It serves as a visual hint that it WONT WORK when you try to put the mod in an Addons folder instead of a Dta folder.. People who have super easy problems due to failing to read the thread/documentation should be shot. Do you think people enjoy writing documentation in the first place, or humor you with responses when you can't be bothered to read a paragraph or two? :( I hate writing documentation. Don't overwrite/edit your game files! Don't put addons of any sort into the game's stock folders! If you can't get it to work, try reading the instructions and thread!? In the long run, it will have taken you more time fiddling with it than it would to read the thread, ask a question and wait for response. The beta folders are just that, only for the beta. They are made so frequently, they don't include updated documentation. They don't include config scripts. Those that use them, know how to use them based on the info in this thread, after you get the new a2 beta, just delete the old noblur and drop this one in it's place. Load the @okt_noblur in your modline, if you haven't already. You cannot use the beta noblur with the stock game, nor can you use the stock 1.05 noblur with the beta. You should use the right beta noblur with the corresponding Arma2 beta, or suffer crashing. Also, if you had read the thread, you'd know the no-glow is not present in the beta releases. Nobody uses it, it does not have much of a performance impact either. If you don't want glow or blur, you could turn off post processing. :D For most addons, making a mistake is no big deal. But with this addon, since it contains the whole game config, it is potentially destructive to other people you play online with. So please read the threads and keep the noblur up to date with the latest betas. ---------- Post added at 11:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:28 PM ---------- I was not at my post most of the day. Here ya go, cheers. :D FOR Beta 71275 ONLY http://www.506th-pir.org/scripts/oktane/noblur/@okt_noBlur_1.5.71275.7z Mirror? Here's one if the site doesn't work for you: http://506.jestservers.com/scripts/oktane/noblur/@okt_noBlur_1.5.71275.7z

This. One other thing to add is the in-game GUI (ammo count, commander icons, menus) is always rendered native to the 'interface resolution', it is never stretched or shrunk by the game. (but it may be stretched by your monitor, if running non native on an LCD obviously) And you don't have to use anti-aliasing with > 100% fillrate, it already does it by design! If you do turn it on, you'll suffer FPS loss for no visual gain. Myself, I actually don't mind the jaggies @ 100% fillrate.. a lot easier to spot targets before everyone else, when the scene isn't 'smoothed' out. I really hope people that have fillrate > 100% haven't complained about FPS. Some tooltips when hovering over the options menu items may help the confusion, since not many people read manuals/research with google apparently.

Me either. It doesn't mess with it unless you 'reverify' the cache or whatever that option is, that is what reverts it back to 1.04. I liked the steam version because honestly, these digital download companies are a dime a dozen but I don't expect steam to be going anywhere soon. (ie, disappearing, going bankrupt, losing any ability to retrieve my licenses/games) It makes it so when at a friends house or anywhere with internet, I can retrieve my games, it's nice. It produces less waste, packaging, dvd's.. I guess I like my shelf of Bohemia games (multiple copies of OFP, Res, Arma, A2) on the shelf but honestly I can do without them... they are a shrine to something most people don't understand and don't care about. :rolleyes: But since the only game I really play when I have time is ArmA, I just disabled steam from auto starting for the past year or so.. there is no need to even run it after you have installed the game, since BIS is nice enough to disable the copy protection after a few patches. (yes, copy protection is an annoyance to developers too! you have to submit your binaries to the protection vendor, costs time/money, etc.) Some people like the social networking features of Steam too, shows what server you are playing on and stuff. (dunno if it ever supported that in A2, like I said, I try not to even run Steam) I know it said 'yadda yadda is playing arma 2'. But in any distribution medium case, digital or dvd, I never reinstall the game because I just zip up the directory after patching and extract the registry keys the game uses. Then it's ready to go on if it gets messed up or I reinstall the OS. Please don't complain about the frigging price. These people that made this fine game for you do not make money hand over fist. They are a small company that has done incredible things with very little resources. They are not ruled and owned by a giant parent corporation/publisher, as most 'popular game' developers are. The risks they take are real and failures are not easily 'absorbed' into the balance books as they could be with a larger, corporate owned studio. This is not your typical garbage DLC that is pumped out these days by various developers. It's an expansion proper, hopefully on par with OFP Resistance. (not like Red Hammer, Queens Gambit, or other 'publisher' expansions that only served to tarnish the games IMO) Cheers

I wanted to clarify the issue a bit so uninformed people do not appear as total trolls to server admins who know what we are discussing here. Or even to server admins that may currently think that the server side addon is a bad thing. First, why small required addons are bad in certain senarios, (very optional long explanation follows).. *Specifically, an addon that is required by the server (meaning the server forces the client to have it) falls under the following categories: An addon which is used in the mission, non-optionally. It will be listed within the mission's requiredAddons list, in mission.sqm. ACE is an example, when playing an ACE mission. Any new island obviously, falls under this. When a player doesn't have this, he's immediately kicked off the server automatically. An addon which in one way or another, prevents the player from being able to either load the mission after joining, or playing due to some features being missing that are core to the gameplay. Now what you are describing Jay, does not sound like either of those. A player which does not have Arma2TS, should still be able to play the mission theoretically. He may get a popup on loading which says 'missing classname radioxyz' which would be the radio object. (if the custom radio is in use) But his presence (hopefully) should not break other people's arma2ts experience, nor should he really be prevented from playing, other than suffering some invisible radio objects. (his loss) This has nothing to do with what the Arma2TS users require, the addon, jayarmalib, etc. It just has to do with how a client without arma2ts handles the situation, hopefully it wont affect anything on his end or on other clients, just like it didn't effect anything in the first version. Ie, it doesn't hurt anything if someone doesn't have it. Everything (including the server) keeps on truckin. Nobody has issue here with a server side plugin at all (I don't think, unless due to confusion), in fact I'm glad it's handling things instead of clients. :) The only issue I could see arising is, as you mentioned, if you have an editor placable object which a mission designer uses, thereby blocking people that don't have arma2ts from joining. But a competent server admin can always edit the mission to remove this requirement. (edit mission.sqm's requiredAddons) There is no way the arma2TS team can get around this without requiring some mod with radio objects in it. (ie, ace) And they have stated they don't wish to do that. If you're still confused: To summarize, there shouldn't be an issue with the new arma2ts at all. It won't be forced. Biggest thing is you may have to do is edit a mission to remove the classname from requiredAddons if the mission designer put it in there.

Any chance of releasing the source so we can all contribute to it via dev-heaven.net?

I wish! Don't assume people are as smart as you are mate. :) And the server name is not a good enough 'bulletin board', very limited number of characters. But these are usability issues with ArmA itself, I am not here to complain about addon proliferation problems and clutter the thread up. Sorry.

This is interesting. New objects would indicate a required addon right? In the past, the original a2ts addon wasn't required, being all script based. So pubbers could still join the server and not have it, and we could tell em how/where to get it. (normally people on TS already had it) Hopefully with these new rewritten versions they can still get on and just have to suffer an error popup (missing xyz classname) rather than getting kicked off the server, so we can still help them out. Pretty sure that's how it would work since it wouldn't be in the mission.sqm's requiredAddons. For some reason I thought this was going to be included in ACE at some point in the future, I guess that is not the case now. If it was, it helps with the distribution problem a ton, people will automatically have it if they have ace. But I understand the want to keep it separate since non-ace players will want to use it. Hopefully it will be in the six updater repro though, for people to add to their preset. As far as the issues with six not being able to install the TS3 addon, that actually is untrue. All that would need to be written is a little ruby function that gets the TS3 installation dir from the registry (normal & wow6432node) and puts the applicable addon in the install\plugins directory. Just like the other functions that 'Process Keys', 'Create Desktop Shortcut', etc. Sickboy's framework allows for a ton of flexibility there.

For beta 71141 ONLY http://www.506th-pir.org/scripts/oktane/noblur/@okt_noBlur_1.5.71141.7z

You could have a prep batch file that a person could run if they wanted to watch the demos. It would copy the base dac code over to each demo folder. Or just zip the demo's up separate, the compression should get rid of the redundant data and make it very small. :) Xeno's comments on new players not knowing what DAC is are very true and important for public play. When a cool addon comes out, I always try to see if it can be script based for inclusion with a mission precisely to avoid the pitfalls he refers to. Mando Missiles is a good example of something that adds a whole new dimension without requiring an addon. Coyle, the implementation is no different. One does not have better resource management than another, DAC is pure scripts, the addon just adds the simple logic markers which init's the scripts. I think you are noticing a difference because in the case of forcing the addon, much less people were able to join and therefore you had less issues with the jip stuff. :) If CBA wasn't going to Include DAC, prehaps the CBA team could do a favor and just include some special markers which were resizable, A generic version of what is in the DAC's config.bin. This is just to help the mission makers place their zones? Much respect Silola, cheers!

Here's a hint. Use the find in files function to find all mention of BTR90_HQ. The code has the answers already, you just have to search. Even if you cannot understand the code, it is easy to understand that all references to 'BTR90_HQ's would need to be changed to 'BMP2_HQ_INS's. (because that vehicle is not used for anything else) :D

Defunkt, thanks that is well written and will come in quite useful. If it isn't in the release version, hopefully we could wedge it in there with mission scripting overrides. (overwrite their functions, or maybe they will provide GVARs for customization) NouberNou, jay, rest of team: Take your time and release when you want and when you think it's ready, not under pressure from the bs in this thread. If the release date whiners had a bit of initiative, there has really been nothing stopping them from making their own version that meets their needs, since the source is there. Besides, on a big project like this, the first release after a rewrite is a big deal and hard to get all the bugs out. If it's pearshaped on release due to people rushing you, it will ultimately hurt the first impressions. I'd say make it perfect for yourself and your team first, and disregard the grabby hands because they are never going to be satisfied in the end. I think you're doing an awesome job at everything so far!

I want to clarify this, if you report problems(testing, as rundll says), you better not have any addons loaded. But most addons work fine with the beta normally.. Just don't have them loaded when reproducing/documenting bugs or they will be invalid and ignored. (only saying this because someone said on TS to me last night that you aren't supposed to ever use addons with the betas, presumably after reading that. :D )

Ah yes, very bad to crank the a2 brightness or gamma up! If you need to do that, try doing it via the monitor or the video card control panel instead of the game.. if done via the game it's going to squash everything to a blob of light. Some parts are supposed to be really dark.. like if the moon isn't out at night, you can't see hardly at all.. this is normal and intentional. From your screenshot with the brightness cranked up, I am going to wager that your video card control panel settings may have been mixed up and are making things dim.. and then you are trying to compensate for that by cranking the game's own sliders. There were quite a few nvidia driver releases that totally fubar'd this setting to minimum.. since been fixed. You may want to go into the GFX card control panel 'color' or monitor settingss where you can adjust the gamma/brightness and 'reset to default' to see if it helps. In other words.. above all, try to make it so that you are happy to play the game (not too dim) without adjusting the in game brightness/gamma.. adjust everything else (non game) first.. the in-game slider is the last thing you want to touch mate. :D

Can you try to disable your automatic view distance mod? Not a mission issue, I don't think. (I can't get to DH to check the latest mission code atm) Once set, the VD normally stays the same unless you have an addon that is messing with it. (instant viewdistance, fpshelper, etc) That sure sounds like an ACE issue, not a mission issue. The ballistic calculator is a part of the ACE tank fire control system. (FCS) Edit i_common.sqf and remove/add what you want to the part under d_mt_bonus_vehicle_array = ( in the section that looks like this: #ifdef __TT__ [ ["AAV","LAV25","HMMWV_M2","HMMWV_MK19","HMMWV_TOW","MLRS","HMMWV_Avenger"], ["BMP3","BTR90","GAZ_Vodnik","GAZ_Vodnik_HMG","UAZ_AGS30_RU","GRAD_RU"] ] #endif to #ifdef __TT__ [ ["AAV","LAV25","HMMWV_M2","HMMWV_MK19","HMMWV_TOW","HMMWV_Avenger"], ["BMP3","BTR90","GAZ_Vodnik","GAZ_Vodnik_HMG","UAZ_AGS30_RU"] ] #endif Although, if teams can still use static guns like m119's and D30's, there isn't much difference eh? Edit x_client\x_weaponcargo_ace.sqf or x_weaponcargor_ace.sqf if ranked mode. If you want a super custom version of the mission, probably you're going to have to work on it yourself like the rest of us do. There is plenty of info in this thread about how to edit, and most likely someone that you play online with knows how to edit if you don't, ask around.

Hey did you guys notice that Horns are network synced again, hurray! Now if only the reload animation was synced again. (both of these issues started with A2's release I think, they worked fine in OFP/ArmA1) At least I can honk for people to get the hell out of the way or tell the to get in with the horn, etc. Simple things like this make me happy. :D ---------- Post added at 12:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:39 AM ---------- CPU count switch sets the number of CPU's the game will use. (maximum limit, not guaranteed) It's needed for people that have hyper threaded processors, because they want the game to use the real cores, not the virtual cores. (I don't know if the game detects real vs logical cores) For example, with an i7 920 which has 4 cores and 4 virtual cores (ht), taskman shows 8 cpus, the game would sometimes use a virtual core and that doesn't offer them any performance benefit. (people said their FPS was low) Personally I just disable HT in the bios because it makes my CPU run about 10c hotter. I use the 10c headroom to then overclock it further, which makes ArmA2 very happy. :P (faster cores are better than more cores, when you have at least 2 cores to begin with..) Please use the forum search or Biki to find out obvious things like command line parameters do, here's a list: http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma2:_Startup_Parameters There are many threads about CPUCount.

Do you use LOW pp setting? I guess I don't know what the point would be of enabling PP if there were no glow effects. Which is why I stopped even making it, it was kind of a little used extra that turned out to be a timesuck (less so with the automated system) but moreso a usablity issue, making the configuration of the mod all complicated with 4 different batch files etc.. And then theres the large amount of people that don't read instructions and will assume glow is bad and disable it, just because its an option. The glow is used for like everything, bright reflections, atmospheric effects, etc. With no glow, the game looks sorta flat like it does with PP off. Check out these comparison shots: (too large to embed) Here is a picture of two screens overlay'd (pp on low, pp off, showing only DIFFERENCE), white showing the detail that glow adds to the picture. Notice that things that are shiny have the extra effect, edges, shiny plane parts, etc. Here is a similar picture, but at night. Unfortunately the stars moved a bit but you can still see the difference in the NVG's. The glow is correct, that's what NVG's do to light sources. You can also see a small glow on the tung's headlamp cover, and some surfaces that are reflecting the moon. The black square is where I blocked out the radar because it had spun. Depending on the settings/quality of you monitor you may not even be able to see the subtle differences or the black box. Last here is what I think you are complaining about, the glow that happens through trees. This is actually due to the sun being behind the trees, I had to try pretty hard adjusting the time to get this to happen. Bright sun shining through trees does this IRL, albiet not to this degree, but I think this minor issue is not a good enough reason to disable all of the glow. The sun plays a tactical part I'm sure you realize. If I could lessen just this effect, I would but it's all or nothing. One thing I didn't even touch on because it is hard to show, is explosions and fire. Maybe I can make a SP mission and pause time to show that effect.. The glow makes the explosions look fantastic, it's the reason I turn PP on and made this mod in the first place.. I wanted glow + other effects without the blur.

Yep, they are the same.. config.bin is the important one. Contains the whole game config. And the shaders are important too, but less so. But in the vein of discouraging people from running the wrong version with different beta's, I think I should just release every one. If they ARE different, it causes problems. I had a mismatched beta/noblur on my other guest PC accidentally and man it was crashing every 10 minutes. I already made this one anyways. For Beta 70951 only! http://www.506th-pir.org/scripts/oktane/noblur/@okt_noBlur_1.5.70951.7z Did you guys notice that the Horns are now network synced again, I've missed that feature since OFP or Arma. :D I wish they would fix the reloading anim over the network too, used to work back in the day so I wouldn't think it was a big deal to fix.

I didn't expect using the chat chan to do everything. :) But like the old one had yelling/short/long, they may be related to be direct/group/side. Or perhaps just one channel that is designated the 'radio' (like side?), and another which is 'yell'(direct). I didn't want to make it so the radio was easy to use, as much as I wanted the gui to be coherent. The real benefit would be that players would always be on the correct chat channel for text messages and markers. Because those are the folks they are talking to on the radio, I imagine 99% of the time that those are the people the markers/chat is relevant to. That's all it relates to really, chat/markers and having the keys people already know. (and less 'Custom' keys) So it's not super important, just an idea. Perhaps if you do offer that feature in armalib, I will make a simple addon that resets the channel to side after each use. However, I'm very doubtful people aren't going to dl/use it unless they already have arma2TS/armalib. (think about it, to use simple chat addon user needs armalib, can't use beta, etc) This is why I suggested it be implemented in arma2TS. And besides that, the marker/chat issue is moot in coop, other than the possible usability improvements that reusing the old interface may/may not provide. I hate feature creep.. yet here I am. :(

Hey I had a thought, jaynus can easily hook the current channel selected in memory. As in the client selected channel (direct, side, vehicle, global), and perhaps that would be a part of the a2ts interface too? It really helps to have a unified and coherent user interface, it's one of the major shortcomings of ofp/arma. Would you rather jaynus hooked it, or would you like me to make a BIS feature request for it? I think it would be a useful scripting command to have, getCurrentChatChannel or some such..

For beta 70709 ONLY http://www.506th-pir.org/scripts/oktane/noblur/@okt_noBlur_1.5.70709.7z

I think perhaps people gave up with their gui's because BE would change and they have to fix it each time? When $able finalizes and has even barebones api docs, then you'll probably see one, even many. You could use the command line app, it's the only thing supported right now, since it's from $able himself. Also, the fact that BIS doesn't install battleeye BY DEFAULT really hurts things. There is really no reason for it not to be installed, it isn't like punkbuster or something intrusive. But yet people click no when asked to install it, and they can't join servers. There's very few players to begin with, it seems like an artificial hurdle that doesn't need to be there.. Anyone notice: Battleeye auto updates crashing clients a few weeks ago? Say a person installed the BE that shipped with 1.05 final patch and joined a BE server.. BE auto updates it's installation. For quite a few people it crashed the client to desktop when it got the update, two times until it was up to date. So if a person has old battleeye, it may take them a few crashes to be up to date. :D I am not sure how widespread it is, or if it happens 100%. But I noticed it would say be updated so and so version and then instant crash. Cheers