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oktane

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Posts posted by oktane

  1. Posted · Edited by oktane

    I did not imply you were using a script, I just mentioned that that is an avenue that can create non addOns=[] sanitychecked objects that would be invisible to clients that didn't have it. (they should get a popup error once however)

    While not ideal to create OA-only suited missions with a A2+OA dev enviroment (ie your map editor), it does serve to demonstrate a big issue if the game is no longer kicking players based on certain missing content. That may be a huge problem. I think it is due to the config overrides as others have mentioned. I am guessing the common folder contains updated data for the old units in A2, via partial classes which inherit the original A2 addons and override them with the new features. In Common\tracked.pbo, there exists a class patch for CATracked which has no units in it:

    D:\Arma2\!Configs\OA_Common_Extracted\tracked\config.cpp

    00416: class CfgPatches

    00417: {

    00418: class CATracked

    00419: {

    00420: units[] = {};

    00421: weapons[] = {};

    00422: requiredVersion = 1.02;

    00423: requiredAddons[] = {"CAData","CACharacters","CACharacters2","CAWeapons","CASounds"};

    Which may explain why OA-Only clients are able to get in without errors, but then have invisible objects? More knowledgeable people would know if that's relevant. (but a lot don't visit the BIF anymore) There are no CATracked classes in OA proper, they are all appended with CATracked_E_Classname. There are no references to BMP2_CDF in OA or Common at all, it only exists in stock ArmA2 addons.

    In any case, since you've been around so long you should know the BIF is not the place for serious bugs amidst all the noise, that's what the CIT is for. You can wait and if by chance a BIS dev sees this, he'll likely tell you the same.. suggest to make a CIT bug for it. :) (doubt? do an advanced search Keyword(s): CIT ; Posts Made By: Dwarden) If it is a reproducible bug from a sanity checked environment, it will likely be taken care of by BIS very quickly and the result contained within the upcoming beta patches if possible. http://dev-heaven.net/projects/cis/wiki

    It sounds pretty serious at least.

    Cheers

  2. Posted · Edited by oktane

    If mission has requiredAddons "CAblabla", how can a pure OA client connect to it?

    Yeah that shouldn't work. The client should be kicked off.

    Terox, are you sure you didn't edit the mission.sqm in a text editor instead of the in game editor? When you save the mission out with the regular editor, it should see what external dependencies are required and write them out to addOns[]={} in the mission.sqm.

    In other words, OA-only clients should not be able to connect to servers running maps that use A2 addons, they should be kicked off. There shouldn't be invisible objects, that should only happen if:

    • The mission.sqm was edited by hand, and the dependencies were not added to addOns[].
    • A unit is created by the scripting engine, and that unit's class is not listed in mission.sqm:addOns[]
    • Some bug?

    This whole thing is a big mess because:

    • The mods and modfolders the server started up with may have NO IMPACT if a client will be able to join or not. For example, a server can have some server-side utility addons loaded, like armaLib or DAC which have zero impact on clients.
    • Because of the above, no silly indicator should be showing anything of the sort, its misleading to clients. It's harking back to the OFP -equalmodrequired days.
    • What does matter, is if the server is using classes on the map currently being played. If a client does not have those classes, he should be kicked. (and this is how it normally works) But instead of BIS adding a gamespy query variable that lists the addons currently in use by the mission, they list the addons that the server started up with (which is meaningless, as explained above).

  3. Posted

    Guys, a few notes:

    There have been reports of servers that run combined OA + A2, or other mod folders as showing up with a red question mark in the server list to OA only clients. http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=102169&highlight=red+question+mark

    Think of the question mark is a software indicator of if your client has the same addons as the server. If it's a question mark, that means the client doesn't match and doesn't know if it will work, you'll just have to try connecting.

    Since I'd expect A2 vets to ignore the bogus indicator, as they always have, (with sig checks, it would also sometimes appear red even though everything was fine) I have moved the old ArmA2\Addons and ArmA2\dta folders into a new modfolder called @ArmA2, and by doing that my server has become 'OA Standalone'. I don't recommend you do this, you won't be able to patch your ArmA2 unless you revert it back to normal. This way, new OA standalone folks (most new to ArmA2) will see a nice inviting green indicator, and the A2 and A2+OA guys will just have to figure it out. Since running combined arms will segregate the MP community, not allowing OA only people to join, it isn't a good idea for public servers. (and for some special private event that requires A2 addons, we just load up our -mod=@ArmA2 modfolder)

    Hopefully BIS will provide some kind of idea or fix for some of these issues like the indicator. The addons loaded on the server are really irrelevant, it's whats in use by the mission running that is important (mission.sqm addOns[]={}) and determines whether the client is kicked.

  4. Posted · Edited by oktane

    Could you somehow do a Combined Ops version of this mission, where you get to fight both takistan and russian/chedaki enemies or us army/usmc at the same time. Id lke to have access to the Arma 2 weapon in takistan as im missing the M16A4 acog and F35B in takistan :), and being attacked by kamovs ;). MAny people who play arma 2 on the server I go on ahve both AO and Arma 2 and would probably appreciate a combuined version with all factions

    And this would prevent anyone with OA-Only from joining, thereby alienating all of the new players. If you wish to do this, you would essentially limit the player pool back to the 'old' arma2 pool, which was pretty low a month ago. So it's your own choice if you want to block out all the new people. (more people for us OA-Only servers!)

    I doubt Xeno will assist in providing something that ultimately segregates the MP community.

    Xeno, what were the issues that caused the player count to be lowered to 30, too much lag? What do you think has changed in OA? I was looking for some technical discussion about it on the DH waves, but there was none. :)

  5. Posted

    I like the blur, it softens the scene

    Please fix this bug!

    First part: 'Soften the scene', the blur that most people dislike (at low FPS mostly) is the blur when you move the gun or view in first person. It doesn't soften/blur anything when you aren't moving the view. Just mentioning that because you may have it confused with another shader which adds a small smoothing AA-like effect to the screen no matter the movement.

    Second: If it hasn't been reported already, please make a CIT ticket for it, that's where things get fixed! :)

  6. Posted · Edited by oktane

    No I didn't know about that. I've had my rented server going for less than a day and so have not looked under the bonnet yet.

    You can either omit the -cfg=basic.cfg param, or get rid of the bandwidth settings by commenting them out in basic.cfg, and the problem disappears. (the freeze issue at base only)

    (EDIT: The issue persists with dropped boxes?!)

  7. Posted

    On the OA front: In game VOIP is really improved, no more dropping out, but there are still huge glaring issues that prevent it from being used. Like players able to be heard by some but not all users. (yes, channel was global or side, still no bueno) Didn't expect much, was surprised at improvements, but in the end still a let down. :(

  8. Posted

    It's an odd bug, nothing of interest in the server or client rpt. After many crashes, we found that if the player notices a frame rate drop while they're in the ammo box, they can quickly press G again to get out and avoid the crash.

    You know about the issue caused by server admins using old arma2 bandwidth basic.cfg settings right? When clients try to open the box, they freeze. If BE is enabled, it will kick them off because they are frozen. This was reported by alef in the DH Wave chatbox.

  10. Posted

    try adding -exThreads=1

    I was having same problem and that seems to have solved it.

    Mosh, 1 was determined to be the best for dedicated servers, right?

    BigBear, I think all these changes for the client threading/studdering are contaiminating the dedicated server, since they share the same codebase. For example, the dedicated server doesn't appear to use more than one core anymore. :(

  11. Posted · Edited by oktane

    You mean there are people who likes the radiactive sky, radiactive objects, radiactive people? I hate how irrealistic it looks! White/light colors doesn't glow in real life like that!!

    Hopefully this isn't a thread for complaining and me-too's, ideally it's for solutions. As I explained, people have varying monitors and it looks different, sometimes not as BIS intended. The best thing they can do is provide an option, which they have agreed with, what more do you want? Hopefully it will show up in a beta patch down the road. Until then, you're welcome to learn how the game works and modify it to your liking, as many others here have, or even use the Very Low setting for now.

  12. Posted · Edited by oktane

    I agree with Meek. This great addon isn't limited to radios so why limit the title so? I like ACRE and I like Advanced Communication and Radio Environment

    It doesn't matter! :) As long as it wasn't called A2TS to confuse everyone between the old version Blackwater made and may still develop vs the new version that Nou and team has made. It can mean whatever you like it to, like so:

    Advanced Carrot & Rodent Eliminator

    :p

    To add something serious to this post, OA has implemented one way, outbound communication to other applications via UDP. It doesn't touch jay's armalib, but it's 'half' of the equation at least. Hopefully BIS will add the other half someday and make Jay's life a lot easier, not spending hours looking at assembly code. :D Until then, armaLib will still be required unfortunately, afaik. See here: http://dev-heaven.net/issues/9436

  13. Posted

    I agree separate control would be best and yes, allowing it by changing configuration file manually will be first step in this direction, UI can be second.

    Until this can be implemented (which I can not tell but there is a lot higher priority work atm), there is quite good way to customize blur level even in the current version. If you don't like it, you may obtain very good result by

    lowering brigthness to 0.8

    compensating for it by increasing gamma to 1.1

    Thank you.

    I'm sure you understand the limitations of your own engine, being able to load and activate the shader cache file.. What I mean is only ONE can be loaded, the last one loaded overrides all others. This is what drives me crazy, as you can see in this post where I try to explain my issue as the maker of such shader mods, to people that want many options: http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1663840&postcount=129 Please do make my mod useless, I will forever be in debt and can spend time on better things. :D

  14. Posted

    Yeah but if enough people want it, I guess it can be done. But then it's somewhat confusing. I'd have to think of a better way to lay it out so the user can choose what he wants.

    This is especially relevant with OA, which adds a few more shaders, people may not want blur and glow at all, but do want SSAO.

    I wish they would just let us disable them individually in the INI. (if they don't want to make a gui for it) That would solve the whole can of worms.

    And I should explain, what I mean by confusing is that because of the way the mod works, it requires:

    • Modified shader files
    • BIS Whole game config.cpp, normally in dta/bin.pbo, without it, it will not load the modded shader.

    So for each of those 'possibily disabled shaders', I need to make a 'matrix', since I can only have ONE noBlur pbo&modified shader. (All of teh shaders are stored in ONE file, BIS's shdc file, and whichever pbo is loaded last is what the game will use. So you see I have to have a 'matrix' of pbo's, one for each possible configuration..

    • Pbo with -rotBlur, -radialBlur, -Glow, -Heat
    • Pbo with -rotBlur, +radialBlur, +Glow, +Heat
    • Pbo with +rotBlur, -radialBlur, -Glow, +Heat
    • Etc, the list goes on. There are 256 combinations in all, if there were 4 options.

    Remember, we cant do like the 'proper' mods and only put PBO's for features we want to change. With shaders, the whole SHDC file is overrode, and the last one loaded overwrites all others. You see now why this is a mess.

    To compute the number of PBO files needed, take the number of options (n) and multiply it by itself n times. In the above example of four possible shader disables: 4 * 4 * 4 * 4 = 256

    ---------- Post added at 10:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:17 PM ----------

    I can't agree more. Can't wait til you get rid of rotational blur in this game. Man I hate it.

    Oktane- just wanted to say thanks for your work on this. It's really important and invaluable to a lot of us.

    If I had to compartmentalize the PP I'd add:

    * Option to turn rotational blur off.

    * Option to turn down the amount of bloom or turn it off.

    * Option to turn down desert heat effect.

    That's only 27 possible PBO files... :D

    ---------- Post added at 10:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:20 PM ----------

    i use this mod, but i dont see any difference in my game with or without mod. i have the same fps. But i see it works with other people, so nice job ;)

    Read the instructions mate. ;) If you didn't use Post Processing before, you aren't going to gain FPS. The only way to see the effect of the mod is to turn PP on. (I recommend Low) When it's on low and the mod is enabled, there won't be blurring when you move your gun.

    ---------- Post added at 10:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:23 PM ----------

    Hi, if this addon removes the bloom, that means that it removes the glow in the characters skins?; if it does that means that the custom faces in .jpg could work again. Interesting... . Let's C ya

    What is this issue that you speak of? Lots of people use JPG face files. Even me!

    +1 for VHEMT btw.

  15. Posted

    Yeah but if enough people want it, I guess it can be done. But then it's somewhat confusing. I'd have to think of a better way to lay it out so the user can choose what he wants.

    This is especially relevant with OA, which adds a few more shaders, people may not want blur and glow at all, but do want SSAO.

    I wish they would just let us disable them individually in the INI. (if they don't want to make a gui for it) That would solve the whole can of worms.

  16. Posted

    Jest all the way! the guy that runs the company is awesome, very friendly and extremely fast in replying to any support questions. they even got in contact with the ace dev team in order to work on getting the six updater to auto update on their servers, if you wanted the option. when we got a second server, they even copy and pasted all our mods from the first box to the second, so we didnt have to spend hours uploading to the new one.

    What he said!

    (Although I am not on the ACE dev team! ;))

  18. Posted · Edited by oktane

    As with anything, yes, it would be nice to have more options, more GUI, more... but we always have to balance work load and this is simple but very functional solution. I hope we will be able to give further control in future, btw, over PP effects to users.

    I don't have OA yet, but please, looking forward to you putting my noBlur out of business so to say, all that is needed is ini options(on/off) for:

    Bare minimum:

    • rotBlur shader (biggest issue, was this improved in OA? If not, any kind of way to disable just it, would be nice.) This is the #1 offender!

    Good additions, that people always ask for: (see discussion sources below)

    • glow shader (some people have issue with this, perhaps on bad contrast monitors) However, more people LOVE IT. Which is why it breaks my heart that your 'Very Low' setting disables it, tossing the baby out with the bath water.
    • LSD or Tired(?) shader (provides 'tired distortion', the issue is that it looks like crap when it turns on suddenly, it looks like it interpolates the framebuffer to 1/2 size. This is most noticable when you have the rotBlur disabled, granted you didn't design it for that situation! )
    • radialBlur shader (provides radial screen-edge blur when running, most inconsequential)

    Due to the ambiguities of people's complaints, it is a bit confusing to know what someone means by 'blur'. When I say blur, I usually say rotBlur, because I mean that specific, atrocious fullscreen blur shader. :p I don't think people are complaining about 'being shot at' blur, explosion blur, any of that. Very few complain about the tired blur, and I actually find it useful. However, I use ACE and don't sprint. Other people don't have the same gameplay tactics. When the rotBlur is disabled, you can easily see the Tired shader kick on and off, it looks like 'lower' resolution all of a sudden, I think that is the complaint from all.

    Discussions:

    http://dev-heaven.net/issues/5932 (rotBlur bug)

    http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/3718 (feature req for bloom + blur)

    http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=97853 (noBlur replacement shader thread)

    http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=90414 (older noBlur thread, used pboprefix to override)

    Thank you Maruk! Congrats on OA release, have a beer (and many more). I hope you guys have developer release party hosted by BIS! (I have good/hazy memories of previous game release parties myself)

  19. Posted · Edited by oktane

    ;1661295']Nothing on this yet..??

    Xeno' date=' is it a mission nerf or is it a bug?

    Did ACE nerf the parasystem to accomidate the mission?

    Please[/quote']

    This is the wrong thread for this. Ace probably made the system more realistic.

    Instead of complaining here, you should complain to the ACE thread, it will have more results!

    BTW: If you did not realize, the ace version of domination uses ACE halo system. So all changes are up to them, they can change it any day they want. Maybe they didn't mean to get rid of LAP.

    Ask yourself if you are truly honest about wanting to open chute under 200m because it's 'realistic LAP', or are you just 'in a hurry' after you have respawned at base and now parajump? :D

  20. Posted · Edited by oktane

    Eeeek. I thought I understood this, but now I'm not sure I do.

    For some reason I've had not had this problem, can I just carry on as before?

    The issue is: If you try to host Domination on a dedicated 1.07 (new patch) server, without @CBA (or without ACE, which uses CBA), it will not load.

    Since I don't know what you're doing, it's different for each case.

    If you edit any custom versions of domination, you'll want to make sure that you either:

    • Resave them in the editor after installing 1.07 (easiest, recommended)
    • OR Manually edit the mission.sqm (in the top parts, in both addOns and addOnsAuto sections):
      replace this:
      		"warfare2",


      with this:

      		"warfare2",
	"warfare2vehicles",


    • OR Wait for Xeno or BIS to release a fix.

    If you just want to play local multiplayer or lan, there is nothing stopping you.

    If you are a server admin that runs a dedicated server:

    BIS's only obligation is to their own missions, they probably won't fix it. Or if they do, they'll probably resave their own missions. (if they are even affected) :D They don't guarantee mission backwards compatibility, it's a luxury.

  21. Posted · Edited by oktane

    If you using an ARMAII Launcher this mod will not recognized, because there is

    no "Addons" folder inside the path.

    Can I just put a plain "addons" folder under the "@okt_noblur", without destroying the effect of the mod? So the Mod could be used and managed by ARMAII Launcher?

    Yep, sure you can.

    I didn't know that's how that app worked. I'll add a dummy addons folder to the archive, thanks!

    Edit: Uploaded!

  22. Posted

    How about filtering the sound through a sharp bandpass filter, say from around 400Hz to 4kHz? I have no idea what is possible, but it would be nice if the radio could actually sound like a "narrowed down bandwidth" radio, if you know what I mean. For radio transmissions only, not voice direct :p

    Their FMOD TS3 plugin implementation already sounds very much like a radio. And it behaves how you expect, radio sounds like radio, voice is normal. Complete with little mic key beeps. (aka Roger Beep) It's very cool.

  23. Posted · Edited by oktane

    It's not exactly that. BI moved the CfgVehicles out of warfare2.pbo. warfare2.pbo is still there, warfare2vehicles.pbo has been added in 1.07.

    I've did the patch this way for each sqm:

    sed 's/"warfare2",/"warfare2",\n                "warfare2vehicles",/g'

    so, just added them, not substituted. I don't know if it makes any differences.

    Kju says this happens because warfare2vehicles is not preloaded. I don't know exactly what does it mean, but will be probably fixed by BI.

    Thanks for pointing that out, I added it instead and reuploaded the pack. Maybe it would have given an error when in the game. I think the reason it halted loading on Dedi is because the warfare trucks referenced are on the map. (ie, in mission.sqm, and the Dedi has zero tolerance for missing or unreferenced classes at init/load time)

  24. Posted · Edited by oktane
    Spelling mistake thing->think, add ace note

    Correct.

    I occasionally see it with several user made missions.

    Never really bothers me, quick hit of enter key and I resume playing.

    Yes, I've tested many patches and mod/addons. Currently, I still prefer Vanilla.

    Dear Mr Know-it-all:

    While a tiny annoyance for clients, missing class errors can sometimes cause dedicated servers to fail to load the map. (see here) And it confuses people, they think somethings wrong with their game, not everyone is a A2 techie. In this case, the mission uses the Warfare trucks but does not reference the correct classname in addOns[]={} located in mission.sqm. BIS renamedsplit the 'warfare2' base class to 'Warfare2Vehicles' in the 1.07 retail patch, just as alef explained.

    The solution is to resave out the mission with 1.07, or manually search and replace warfare2 with Warfare2Vehicles. Sickboy made a tool for this, I'll edit it and batch convert after I eat, unless Xeno beats me to it. :D

    I did check with and without ACE, it seemed the error did not occur when ACE was active, only happened with stock addons active.

    Edit: Here's the pack of edited missions that are 1.07 happy.

    Don't bother Xeno if you have issues with the files in this zip, they are not his problem. All that was done is a mass search and replace for 'warfare2'add of the vehicles classname, including all PBO's (with ACE util), the dommaker and base dev folder.

    Download Here (Patched Domi Mission Pack v2.11 for ArmA2) (updated, add instead of replace, per alef)

    I didn't test every single mission, but the tool has worked flawlessly in the past. Hopefully BIS didn't rename anything else. :D

    Cheers

  25. Posted

    My bad - very sorry. Went back and edited out but I guess not soon enough. I didn't do the md5 check - just what OrdeaL did above - thinking your "official" would be out soon enough. I see now that the shader did change and yes, it could well have caused crashes. :o

    [/Quote]

    No I think you guys were correct, it is the same. (I compared innards of 1.05.71749 with 1.07.71750, match) But for example, using the 1.05 noblur with 1.07 crashes the game with the fatal shader error. So I am trying to set a standard, that's all. I know you're just trying to help out.

    Since OA is out *real soon* and I've already bought it, I may not need the mod anymore because of the "rumored" new settings, but wanted to thank you for your great work on it. Thanks oktane. :D

    I hope so. Rommel posted some screenshots, but it was the same. Maybe they are in the INI or a later revision. (Rommel has a review version)

    ---------- Post added at 11:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:43 PM ----------

    Okay I have fixed up the documentation, hope it is more understandable now. :D

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