oktane

For Original ArmA2 or ArmA2 Operation Arrowhead (with or without DLC) General Info: This addon removes the blur shader which causes performance and headaches/sickness issues for people. It was created because BIS has not addressed the issues with the rotBlur shader which provides the whole screen blur effect. At low FPS, the issues in this shader make the game unplayable. Turning off Post Processing will fix it but then you lose some effects that are actually nice. This addon allows you to have the best of both worlds. Framerate Improvement: This modification substantially reduces the number of instructions in the rotBlur pixel shader, essentially making it do nothing, just short of removing it. (can't do that) It may increase performance installed compared to identical video settings with it not installed. (FPS gain depends on the power of your GPU, how strained it was with blur prior to installing) More details in spoiler: Changelog: (newest on top) V2 Signatures enabled, key is the same. Automatic builds enabled.. see here for latest: http://506.jestservers.com/scripts/oktane/noblur/ Download: Note: If you have an old version of the noBlur installed, always delete it's modfolder before installing the new one. Delete old versions completely, do not overwrite. Normal Retail Patch If you have previously installed @okt_noBlur, delete the old modfolder! http://506.jestservers.com/scripts/oktane/noblur/ (get the 'retail' version) Beta ArmA2 If you don't know if you have the beta, or don't know what it is, you should ignore this. Beta downloads are in the same location but are marked 'beta'. Installation: In this example, my ArmA2 directory is D:\Arma2\ Extract the modfolder @okt_noblur from this archive into the ArmA2 folder. Verify that there is now an '@okt_noblur' folder in D:\Arma2\ Inside that folder will be a 'dta' folder and a readme. Don't rename the dta folder or mess with the pbo & key inside of it. (see FAQ if you don't want it in here) Add the @okt_noblur folder to your -mod line in your ArmA2 shortcut and launch the game. Example: arma2.exe -nosplash -mod=@okt_noBlur Turn on Post Processing to the 'low' setting in the ArmA2 video options and you are done. If you are having problems, like the game is crashing on startup, delete the @okt_NoBlur folder. Be sure you have the right version of noBlur for your game patch version. Notes: *Now with Operation Arrowhead, you will see the version you have loaded at the main menu. You can also enable/disable the noBlur via the Expansions menu if you are not using the command line -mod. You will notice there is a different colored icon that is displayed when using the beta patch noBlur. Regardless of retail/beta, always be sure you are running the correct version! The version in the main menu list when enabled should match the game version in the lower right. *The 'retail' noBlur only works with that specific version noted in the folder/zip file name. It does not work with beta patches. The noBlur for beta's is released separately above, but the instructions are the same, just exchange the modfolder name @okt_noBlur with @okt_noBlurBeta. You can have them installed side by side. (you cannot use the at the same time though) * Inside the modfolder is a dummy addons folder. This is just so Arma Launchers will detect the folder. * If you had the old non-signed noBlur test version I made a looong time ago, remove it first by deleting your whole "\Arma2\bin\" directory. Normally that directory should not exist. FAQ: Q: My modline is already too long OR I want to put your noBlur in a combined folder with other misc mods, can I do this? A: Yep, just drag the dta folder out of the @okt_noBlur folder and into your @whatever mod folder. Drag the whole dta folder, not the PBO's. Please note: The noBlur pbo cannot be put in an @whatever\addons\ folder, it will not work. Instead it must be in @whatever\dta\ Keep the pbo+key file in the 'dta' folder! Q: Does this modify my game files? Can I still patch the game? A: No it does not modify anything, it is just like a mod folder. To uninstall it, delete the @okt_noblur directory. Yes you can still patch the game fine while it is installed. However since the noBlur is only compatible with a certain version of the game, you'll have to uninstall or remove it from your mod line until I release a new version. Don't run the noBlur on a version of ArmA2 it wasn't made for. Q: What could BIS do to fix this so this isn't needed? A: The full screen 'rotBlur' shader should scale down blur amount based on FPS. If the FPS is low, the blur amount should be toned down since the blur and FPS are coupled. Right now: More FPS = Less Blur. Low FPS = Too Much Blur. In my opinion, this is a performance BUG, not a feature request. You can vote on it. Q: How are the addons made, what do they contain? A: They are actually a modified bin.pbo file, which is why they go in a 'dta' folder instead of an 'addons' folder. Inside of the file are all the normal files except one modified Shaders_DefPP.shdc file which has binary modifications to it. Unfortunetly, I have to include ALL shaders as well as the original binarized config.bin (which is the main game configuration) with the addon or it will not load my modified shader. So think of it as a slightly altered and renamed bin.pbo which normally lives in /dta/. This is why you have to get the right version of noBlur depending on what game patches you have installed. Q: What is the point of this? You can already turn off Post Processing in the menu. A: Some of us like the really great shaders that BIS has made (explosion glow/NVG Noise, glare, lens simulation) but can't turn them on because the shader 'rotBlur' makes it a blurry mess when the FPS is low. This makes people feel sick, get headaches etc. Q: This is unfair in competitive games. A: This doesn't hurt you, nor does it provide an advantage. Multiplayer servers cannot force post processing modes, they only force grass, view distance and difficulty. If a player couldn't stand the blur before, he likely had Post Processing OFF entirely, which gives more of an advantage than with this modification. This modification is similar to if BIS added a 'very low' option for Post Processing or a full screen Blur Enabled/Disabled option. ---- Old thread for test non-addon version here. Very technical shader info here Cheers to Leopotam for technical assistance, writing a shdc packer/unpacker based on the binary format reversing.

There was a change to the beta page, resulted in the last 2 betas not processing. But its fixed now. Arma3? Same shit more shiny. Uses exactly the same code as ArmA2, so again with this mess.. Man. Except they did add some DX11 shaders. The full alpha can load mods right? I haven't played with it much. If it can, I'll have to try to make a noblur for it. This pisses me of to a great extent.

It's been explained numerous times in the thread why. If you want proper options, petition BIS. This is a HACK, not a proper mod. ---------- Post added at 15:45 ---------- Previous post was at 15:45 ---------- shiiit, something must have broke. I'll look at it, thanks for telling me. I moved to california and been moving around a lot, lugging this server around and plugging it in so that this mod updates lol, but haven't been keeping an eye on it otherwise. Being broke and stuff has been more of a priority. ---------- Post added at 16:28 ---------- Previous post was at 15:45 ---------- okay keys are fixed. maybe the path got too long calling binpbo.. i moved the key to the root of the drive and it worked again. I reprocessed all the recent betas so they have keys. Anyone wanna check everything is okay? (can't run game on laptop) Thanks ---------- Post added at 16:29 ---------- Previous post was at 16:28 ---------- Anyone else verify this? ---------- Post added at 16:37 ---------- Previous post was at 16:29 ---------- Yes all the crap like that can be removed. But it's not manageable as a mod, this is a crude hack the way this works. I'd have to make a million different versions for everyones tastes, and its confusing for people from a user standpoint since they shouldn't be used more than once. BIS needs to just add options to disable certain shaders individually, something they have promised for a while but never fufill. So make noise in that regard. If I wasn't overriding the whole damn bin.pbo, it would be a different story. But this isn't a normal mod, it overwrites the whole game config because it has or the game ignores the the shaders. But it 'looks' like a normal mod folder, which makes people think its versitile like mods. This is the whole reason i had to automate everything and make it automatic, otherwise the chaos that it would cause would be immense. (people running 104170 exe with 102392 game config (from outdated noblur) and going online, crashing other clients, etc) Hence, it's just a clusterfuck. It's in their court, their game will be a flop if it doesn't contain modern fucking graphics options anyways. It's not a lot to ask after 3 years of dealing with this nonsense.

a week or two ago, the script was messing up and processed some incorrectly, but i noticed and fixed it pretty quick. so maybe you donwloaded it right away and got the messed up one? I'd redownload it. (I checked and its fixed now, i think i fixed it on the 28th) When it goes tits up, its like 80kb, if its good it's like 260kb. Sorry about that. The server may be off for a few days as it gets driven across the US to california, but I'll hook it up at my friends house when I get there for you guys.

I would say screw the moderator. You created something new from scratch, that merits a new thread, regardless if it was a recycled idea. I'm sure that every member of this forum would agree with that too. This is a digital bulletin board, are we conserving resources? Give me a break. Your creation is much wider in scope than this topic it is posted in. It deserves one simply so that you can have a first post, which you can update and provide documentation/links etc. You think someone searching for a beta email notification is going to find this thread, read all the way to the 5th page? No, they are are going to try to subscribe to the OP's email thing and be dismayed when it doesn't work. :D I would put a post in the Beta forum, since that's what it's about. Seriously, don't let anyone, anyone diminish what work you have done for this community, this game, etc. There are many takers and few givers. If the mod doesn't respect that, he doesn't deserve to be a mod.

Please hound BIS about this, if you search this thread the exact thing is mentioned about 15 times with explaination why I don't do it. It is not possible to mix and match, because of the way that this mod works. It contains the whole game config, it is not a normal mod that you are used to. I would have to make like 3 different mods (blur, bloom, both) and people would get confused, its just a nightmare. It would be different if it was a 'normal' mod. I tried very hard to make it as normal looking as it is now. (but you will notice there is nothing in the Addons directory!) BIS needs to fix it and provide separate INI options for each shader, but they don't give a shit, and haven't for what now 4 years? It's been promised and hinted at by devs about 6 times, no results.

Go here for new RSS Feed: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?84986-Notifications-for-new-Beta-releases&p=2278417&viewfull=1#post2278417

New RSS: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?84986-Notifications-for-new-Beta-releases&p=2278417&viewfull=1#post2278417

Nice job! @ArmABeta or something might have been more intuitive to a person that sees it mentioned or finds it on twitter, unless they read the description. Seriously though, this work is greatly appreciated. I had an RSS for betas too, long ago, which was shut down when the 506th group closed. It had all kinds of problems with godaddy security restrictions and stuff, pain to host. But this fills in the gap and takes it to the next level! Maybe it could run as a google app or amazon cloud service some day too, that's what I was looking into doing. I'm glad you did it first though, because I have zero time. :) If you haven't already, make a new thread for this so that you can control the OP/First post with updated information! I updated the old RSS feed thread with your post. Also, I made this a while back, if you need to 'do things' when new items appear in the RSS feed. https://github.com/oktane/rssRunCmd It's what I use for the noBlur processing when your feed has a new item. :) (config)

okay, just checking since nobody hounded me about missing some! :D

Argh, so the qBasix beta email notification stopped working! I had no idea there was any new betas. Anyways, maddogx made his own, and an RSS feed too!! So now it's automatic again, checks new beta every 15 minutes and makes and auto uploads it. :) http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?84986-Notifications-for-new-Beta-releases&p=2278417&viewfull=1#post2278417 Dunno if anyone still uses this noBlur anymore though? BIS fix it yet?

Sweeeeeeet thanks man. I stopped getting them, and therefore stopped making noBlurs! Making use of the RSS for the noBlur autobuild! Noticed some missing items on the RSS, is that normal? Like all of these: ARMA2_OA_Build_100496.zip ARMA2_OA_Build_100496.log ARMA2_OA_Build_100409.zip ARMA2_OA_Build_100409.log ARMA2_OA_Build_100385.zip ARMA2_OA_Build_100385.log ARMA2_OA_Build_100296.zip ARMA2_OA_Build_100296.log ARMA2_OA_Build_100258.zip ARMA2_OA_Build_100258.log ARMA2_OA_Build_100257.zip ARMA2_OA_Build_100257.log ARMA2_OA_Build_100056.zip ARMA2_OA_Build_100056.log Either way, as long as the new ones show up, it's all good. Cheers!

No problem and sorry for the outage. And I think you two might be saying the same thing just in different ways, but I'm confused in any regard lol. Btw, Its not an MP cheating issue, they just don't care. What is a basic priority and simple request by us, who have played (and even developed) other high end AAA games that have intricate graphics options for wide tastes and hardware, is apparently not obvious to them. And it shows the unimportance of the feature request/bug tracker system when it deviates from the scope of their baby, since its been a high voted item for years now. If it was a MP thing, PP would be enforced by a server logically. As has been stated many times, the technical way these changes are made by me is nearly a joke in efficiency, and is much better suited to BI who can easily add an ini setting to disable it, without redesigning the GUI. And they have said we'll look into it multiple times, but they haven't.. you can only conclude one thing.. shiny zombie models and shit are more important than basic graphics options. And their skewed priorities are what will kill them and their products, unfortunately. Hey I have an idea, lets make an expansion pack that will cause headaches for everyone playing MP for over a year. We can still make money on our old game and force the users to buy it if they want shit to work properly! .... oh that turned out to be a bad idea, here's some low resolution models to get your fragmented communites back together until we fuck up the next big thing. Lol. I commend their idealism and dedication to the community. But they failed to grasp their engine/game as a platform much too late, even though all us devs/power users were all screaming it for 3 years. Only now are they playing catch up, I think.

hi i'm back from cali again i'm afraid my life is a bit chaotic right now. i would have had them up to date but my internet got shut off. (it wasn't mine exactly, but it was legal) they didn't bother to tell me that it was going to be disconnected a month early, right when I was gone. So it messed up a lot of stuff, like my ability to work remotely for clients and you guys. I am back now and i have found some pirate internets, and I updated everything. I promise to make an effort when I get a chance, to host this buttload of scripts that generates these on a server that will be up more often than my workstation. Probably a windows machine somewhere. Because my workstation is probably going to be in a box, or I'll be using it as a pillow as I sleep under the golden gate or an abandoned bunker in the marin headlands. :D I see that the beta number rolled over another digit, hopefully that didn't break anything. The files look okay, but someone check if the latest work okay. cheers and seek adventure! ---------- Post added at 15:09 ---------- Previous post was at 15:01 ---------- Can you try with the new version, and make sure that the oktNoBlur shows up as loaded? (it has an icon on the main menu if it was successful) See screenshot. (this is old, ignore numbers.. you should use the right noblur addon for the right OA beta patch, or retail etc)

So, do you need anything from me? No need to copy the whole mod over, just the okt key should be okay. I'm sort of screwed here.. I'm in california on vacation and my internet was shut off at my office, where my workstation is, and where I make the noBlur. So I cannot remotely access the resources to fix anything, or even patch to the latest OA beta version. (as of now, I am one patch behind) I do not get back to illinois until the 17th of Dec, when I will hook my phone to my computer and update the missing noBlurs. You should use the latest beta that you want, but then use the noBlur for that beta version. Don't mix and match, since the game config.bin has to be included in the noBlur, weird things will happen. If you want, you can try to use the latest okt key from a post v2 changeover. (any latest version) The key should not be version dependant. You can use any okt key that you like.

I suppose it's hard to explain and you might have misunderstood. I guess I will have to fix it and then show you, hopefully you will then take the changes and put them into your codebase. I am trying to say, the way that crCTI does the weapon restrictions is completely artificial, and it's a result of it being hard coded. In arma2 itself, you are allowed to carry heavy weapons and launchers. (except in extreme cases? I can't think of any at the moment.) In crCTI, it is artificially limited by mission scripting, which causes issues I described in last post. Since your addon requires mods anyways, if you wish to restrict certain weapon loadouts(prevent m249+launcher etc), they should be done in the addon config (config.cpp), not in mission scripting. Then mission gear should work dynamically, and match game gear logic 100%, so there are no more issues. OR if you are saying that restrictions are completely broken in ArmA2, I will look into it. Maybe A2CCP can help. I will try to work on it this weekend to show you.

Oh, before I forget.. is anyone interested in the Buy Gear dialog being 'logically' the same as the ArmA2 gear dialog? What I mean is, obviously everyone is aware of the silly limitations in the mission dialog, just as it was in Warfare. Such as: Certain Weapons are classed to take up primary AND secondary, when they are not actually in the game. Example: All machineguns and high caliber sniper rifles. (can be glitched around anyways, no real point) Certain Ammo types have incorrect size which does not match up with actual item in game, so going in gear after buying will make game 'correct' the faults by removing extra/too much ammo. (Example Carl Gustav AT round size, can carry more than normal) The smoke grenades go in the Pistol/Rifle Grenade slots!? (This is a carrydown from OFP, I don't think there is a valid reason for this, someone correct me if I am wrong) In my minority opinion, these restrictions are artificial and easily glitched around anyways, so in the end they just make buying the gear you want a pain. What I propose is that I (or whoever is allowed) rewrite the gear dialog logic to use cfgvalues to assertain the size of round, and primary/secondary/pistolmag limitations. That way it is DYNAMIC instead of hardcoded. When things are hardcoded, then they have to be updated and maintained, nobody wants that. Besides this, if there should be a primary/secondary limitation imposed, this should be done properly in the weapon addon or proman config, not the mission gear dialog, that way it cannot be glitched around. So Mission dialog always matches and works like ArmA2 gear dialog, no accidentally losing ammo if you enter game gear dialog, no more ammo than you should have, no silly smoke grenades taking up M203 slots, etc. I was going to do this for my version I play coop with here on the lan, but it would be nice if it was made standard for everyone, if that's what people would like. I am just saying, mission gear dialog should read values from weapontypes and ammotypes, not use custom limitations like it does now. Or maybe there are just some bugs. I have familiarity with this, as I did it in ArmA1 Warfare also, redesigned mission gear dialog to match game 100%, with no 'weird restrictions'. I do not see why a 249 gunner cannot carry a AT4, etc. But if you wish to restrict this, shouldn't it be done in the weapon config? Or implement a simple weight restriction system, I think there was a script version of this on warfare? (without ace) I propose, if you still wanted SOME hardcoded overrides to prevent Javelin with 50cal or something, then a small list of hardcodes is okay with the rest being dynamic. Let me know what you all think about this. Cheers!

Um, not sure if I understand but. FYI, This is the way I play cr-cti for 7 or so years. Friends come over and we play against AI. We use AI mod so they aren't dumb. Works fine. The reason is that we have limited time, and online public has hackers and impatient people that come and go, where we want the old style hours long CTI with no interruptions. I would guess that ALOT of people play CTI like this, on LAN. We make small changes to speed up gameplay, like more start money, factories have lower time limit build prevention. We remove tab lock prevention. (we turn planes off and attack choppers to double otherwise it becomes impossible to drive around) It's very very close to OFP crcti. We very much miss the AI commander in CRCTI, the way that he built reliably the H pads and always had choppers taking off and paradropping on towns to reinforce. And those 50 caliber tripod M2's that shot the shilka gun, LOL.. made getting in base harder. Proman is fantastic though, it is really close to CR on ofp. :P Thank you Angry Insects and Muecke and anyone I forgot. We have high power computers and it can get very nasty battle, too many wrecks and low FPS. And I'm sure AI mod does not help. But jesus, AI mod helps SO much in making it realistic, enemies do not stand around anymore. You have to relearn to play. The mod we use is @zeu_AI

Fresh sync from scratch worked! Cheers! Don't forget to update first post and let everyone know new URL! Thanks again mate

Hey man, that message was for Muecke. Don't use yoma until he fixes the webserver. Just use the full download file for now. Cheers

I will try to point you in the right direction regarding the web server.. There are a lot of files missing on it. The repo 7z file which has the file listing and checksums is OK, but the actual files that the listing points to are missing from server. So, if your proman addon dir is up to date, yoma acts fine. But if some files are out of date, yoma deletes old files and tries to get the new ones but they are 404(missing) on webserver. I think you should delete the repo 7z and resync with yoma upload function tab, which will reupload missing files and fix issue. Thanks!

If anyone uses yoma: DO NOT SYNCRONIZE WITH YOMA! (until the webserver is fixed) It will happily delete a bunch of stuff, and then CTI will not work at all. There are a lot of files (300 megs worth) missing on the yoma repository server. They appear in the 7z repo file listing, but if you actually need to download them, they aren't there! (404) The only solution to that is to get the full @proman.7z file Muecke posted which contains all the addons, old-school style. http://files.dao.nu/ArmA%20II/AI/@Proman.7z Thanks Everyone, especially Muecke and Team Angry! Req: Separate group size for AI vs Player (Humans are good with lots of AI, especially if you are playing coop against computer, but if AI TL has too many group size, game gets really slow) No need to do this for me, I already made small changes it in myself. Just seeing if anyone else liked that idea... :)

Yes, no new feature except support for version 2 signatures as sickboy requested. This is only important to server operators.

finally sorted v1/v2 signatures! and fixed arma2 (nonOA) script. my updates come slower than BIS feature requests, lol. So noBlur updates released tonight: ArmA 2 1.11 (finally! and w/v2 sig) OA 1.62 (just with new v2 sig) Latest Beta 97028 with v2 sig Everything will have v2 sigs in future of course. I also installed more bloated DLC (ACR Lite) but it did not make any game changes so nothing is needed for that. I imagine only a handful of people use this mod, but maybe it will be allowed on v2 sig check servers now. Dunno how that works, it says a new key is not needed so they should be able to use the existing one, the only change was on my end. Cheers Thanks for the information Sickboy.

updated last two betas that were missing, still need to fix script for old arma2 non-oa sorry cheers