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I just purchased and installed a new Diamond Radeon 4890 X OC 1gig GDDR5 video card and to my endless frustration ArmA doesn't start. Monitor goes blank, after about 10-15 minutes of 'thinking' with sandclock icon, ArmA starts in what appears to be 600x480 mode. Half the screen is black at the top and the bottom half is filled with what apears to be ArmA infinite ocean. Instead of the interface icons I have 5 black squares. That is not to say that ArmA was running on this system in all previous versions. ArmA doesn't run with this new card period. ATI Radeon 4890 XOC My ATI catalyst drivers are the latest - 9.4 ver. I used to ran ArmA fine on the same system with Radeon X1995 gddr3 215mb v-card, with casual crashes here and there due to the ArmA's ATI card issues. My OS is WinXP Pro 64bit, 6gig DDR2-800 RAM. My v-card again is Radeon 4890 X OC 1gig GDDR5 (CCC ver.9.4). CPU: Intel Core2Duo E6400 2.13ghz. The machine was freshly reformatted, OS reinstalled. I hope ArmA2 isn't gonna be acting up the same. If I cannot play ArmA2 with possibly one of the best cards on the market, I guess I'm done with ArmA. I just spent $400 on a piece of hardware that I'd like to use to its fullest.

Saw the RUS video too - weapons and battle sounds were as weak as in ArmA. It seems like they recorded sounds from airsoft guns - PK sounded sooo weak. Visually looks good. Did the video seem choppy to anyone like it was recorded on a lagging system? When people go to shooting ranges they don't put ear-muffs on just because they think the muffs look kewl and spacey. If you empty just one 30rds 5.56mm clip without ear protectors I guarantee you 50% hearing loss for the rest of the day. In the video, as in ArmA now, weapon sounds are half-muted. ECS or Red Hammer weapons addons had great sounds - it can be done. I hope something is done about the sounds in ArmA2.

I have 3 very easy and quick questions: Could any of the visiting BIS-ers shed more light on the revival feature please? 1. Will we be able to turn it off in Difficulty options? 2. Will the character be always "reviv-able"? Lets say if the character is hit in the head by a .50cal - which must be inevitable death in 99% of cases - will he be revivable then? In other words is this feature applied indiscriminately, regardless of the type of injury? 3. Is mobility and accuracy of the character affected after being revived? I cannot help but harp back to the "realism" factor. If the character is immobilized and needs revival then it's unlikely he'll be able to spring back to his feet immediately after revival is complete, like it happens for example in BF2. The revival feature can potentially change ArmA game dynamics irreversably, where Rambo tactics aren't punishable. It might turn ArmA into BF2 with its insane headlong charges and magic resurrections. Â In my opinion if the feature is available there should be a two stage process. First the character is stabilized then he will have to wait in lying position to recover from the wound to become mobile again. But the mobility, speed and accuracy of moves shouldn't be restored to the full potential. It still sounds far-fetched realism-wise. I mean if the injury to the character was heavy enough to knock him down and required medical attention, I doubt such a person would even be able to move independedly in real life. Ya, ya, it's a game but it's also ArmA/OFP don't forget that...

to ohara could please confirm what language the opposing force is speaking in. In ArmA now it's a perfect English. Will Russians have Russian voice-over? I'm also ataching the URL with the real life footage of what happens when a tank is hit. I completely agree with other ppl on the issue of instanteneously charred/blacked vehicle models. Vehicles would turn black only after hours of extensive burning. I think the black texture is excessive. It might be cool to have the texture turning darker after maybe 10-15 minutes of burning. Also it's very common for a tank to have it's turret blown off. Continuous ammunition detonation is also amust. It doesn't have to go off in one big blast and it doesn't. The darkening texture issue is also very unrealistic when it comes to airplaines and copters. Why not have helicopter or plane models replaced by two, three parts upon the total detonation to simulate the plane/copter body break-up. Right now in ArmA we have the helicopter/plane models also instanteneously replaced with black textured models. In reality the planes don't turn black untill they burn for a while on the ground. They don't black right away in the air.

I think different language voice-over is amust for ArmA2 where we have at least two real-life nations Russia & USA. Russians shouldn't be communicating in perfect English. Plus there should be emotional overtone in verbal communication. It's pretty hilariuos when an AI, in vanilla ArmA, in robotic answering-machine-like voice says: "oh no, one is down..." AI should be screaming, shouting, taunting, crying - in short what real life humans would do when they are in the middle of a battle. In my opinion, the greatest example of realistic voice-over mod is ECS. So my simple question is: BIS, did you care to invest into real life russian and american english voice-over? Very critical!

Two simple suggestions from me: 1). Somehow AI in Urban environment should stay away from going prone in the middle of a street right in the open. In one of the latest clip BIS showed deployment of russian specops unit in a city. There was a machinegunner that just walked in the middle of the street and went prone right in the center lane. There should be a condition set for AI rule of engagement when in Combat or Aware mode - they should move along protected area away from the centre of a street. Street sidewalks, along building walls? It goes back to the issue of more human behavior - right now they move around like telepathicly controlled zombies with little regard to whats going on around. They don't move from cover to cover - straight on, from waypoint to waypoint. 2). AI shouldn't be able to rotate/spin around on the belly in prone position. It's humanly impossible. The same goes for upright stance - they rotate along their vertical axis like a tank, on a spot. Different animation should be applied here - side-step to change orientation or similar.

1. I totally agree with the binoculars request - it's a shame BIS has never even made an attempt to solve the issue. Plus AI should not be using binos at all - this function should only be resrved to human player's abilities! I was always wondered since OFP what the hell are the AIs looking at or seeing there when they bring the binos up!!! It's especially ridiculous when an AI pulls the binos in the middle of open area, standing upright underfire. It's defininately one the most dispensible useless cosmetics in the game. 2. Will the Russians still be speaking english in the game? ECS mod is a great depature/reference point in this respect. 3. I don't know if you guys ever saw this clip of a tank being hit by an AT missile and what happens after: Tank being hit by AT MadMatt effects mod is a great reference point too when it comes to vehicle destruction. Plus I also believe something should be done with plane destruction. BIS should at least make some sort of "blowing into several parts" animation - upon destruction, explosion the plane model is replaced thru spawning of 3-4 separate plane parts geometries. All these effects do not require changes to the existing engine. Just the willingness to listen to the game's fans. If modders can do it BIS can too. 4. Toggling you firing mode in rifles and LMGs should be separated from cycling thru the selection of one's grenades and underbarrel grenade launcher. It's really a poor design choice when one is made to go from auto to semi-auto thru his selection of grenades, smoke grenades, flares and underbarrel grenade launcher. In RL a person just flips the firemode switch back and forth and doesn't have to go thru his grenade pouch to switch to auto or semi-auto. BIS invested quite a bit of time into so many new vehicles; I hope they spent enough time on the game's playability aspects. Leave the modeling to modders - develop the core functionalities, please! - such as animations, physics, character/game controls.

Since in ArmA2 the Opfor is definitely Russian and not some mystical made-up race why are ArmA Russians still talking in English? There was no improvement in the sound department either considering the latest in-game footage (on armedassault.info)? It's the same "flat" marble-on-the-floor" tapping sounds for weapons. Does BIS care? AI is still as stupid as it was walking around in different formation patterns but still blindly like zombies, zig-zaging, stopping in the middle of open areas like roads.

In my opinion the "Fast Travel Speed" feature is kind of rediculous. It could have been realised better. I'd replace it by the HALO para drop. I hope I have enough time to work on it when the tutorial comes out later on. The best way to realize it in my opinion would be having a transport heli sent upon the "Fast Travel Speed" request from the base, to the location of the requestee. Then upon arrival the person gets into the heli and requests thru the map the insertion point. The heli would have to travel to the destination, risking getting shot down in the process. This service could ony be available at a certain cost. The way it's done now is just too arcade, completely out of character for OFP/ArmA series. The "Fast Travel Speed" is more appropriate for Unreal or HL2 run-n-gun SiFi shooter.

Respect Matt! Great job! Ya, I completely agree don't add QG content. I have no intension of buying it, like many other Arma gamers. I already bought 2 copies of ArmA as is . On the other note, I don't want to make a personal request. It's more like a question. Is it possible to add adjustable numbers of Resistence AI and Armor in towns? There was this great OFP CTI mod - ROXI CTI. In it you could adjust the level of difficulty i.e. the numbers of Resistence and opposing force AI and their armour; this could be set at the game's startup. This feature will make the game last even longer . Right now if you couple Warfare with ECS and TrueRange mod, the game becomes absolutely autrocious. AI is much smarter that way - the game becomes a real challenge!

Guys, feel free to shoot me down on this. But I was voicing this topic many times and I believe there was even a request made on the BIS bug/improvement report log. Nothing has been done as of yet. It's a gameplay functional issue on the par with the high recoil of the jeep monted grenade-launchers or disfunctional AI pathfinding issue. In ArmA like in OFP we have the kind of binocular that has the most autrocious interactive features in the entire FPS gaming world. It's the kind of gadget that a players is staying away from using during gameplay as mush as possible since it gets in the way of interacting with other features and "tools" in the game. It doesn't allow for any freedom of movement when being used. Interacting with it starts off a horribly protracted animation sequences that simply irritate the hell outta me and anyone I know that plays ArmA. Very often because of how messed up it is, the animation sequences are absolutely unpredictable. To give you an example - I was playing yesterday and switched from a rifle to a handgun. I accidently, from the action menu selected a binocular instead of switching back to the rifle. Here is what transpired. I was immobilized by the binocular being brought up right away to my eyes. I then went back to switch to the rifle. The animation of switching from binocular was not as easy. Since I had a handgun before I switched to the bino, my character put the bino back, then pulled out the handgun and then put the handgun back and pulled out the rifle. But since it so messed up the animation loop of switching back and forth between the handgun and the rifle was replayed 3 times until finally my character ended up with the rifle in his hands. 3 simple questions to BIS: 1. Why is the binocular not defined as a weapon which would automatically allow us pull it out as lets say a handgun and walk around with it in our hands freely? 2. Why is the binocular set up in such a way that when we select it we have no option of briging it up to our eyes when we choose? If you choose the bino you are automatically put into the zoomed-in mode and deprived of seeing anything outside the bino's lense. The view angle is very limited. 3. Why is the bino put into the action/weapons menu and not simply activated by an assigned key like a compass or a watch or the NVGs? Very often when trying to select my weapon or action from the action menu i accidently select the bino and it starts this painful protracted bino animation. Possible solutions: Define bino as an addon weapon class so it can be pulled much like a rifle or a handgun allowing a player to move freely with it in his hands. The choice of when to bring it up to his eyes will also be left to the player. Looking thru bino would be activated thru the "Optics" assigned key, much like looking thru a rifle scope function. Such setup will also let players look thru the bino and move as they wish in the zoomed-in mode. This was stated so many times, but BIS is still playing deaf. When looking thru a bino and getting his view obstructed a player has to switch back to his rifle, move aside switch from the rifle back to the bino and only then get unobstructed view. It's a very user-unfriendly and painful process. If during a firefight I'm caught up in this mind-numbing animation sequences I can be quite sure I'll be dead if a bot or an opponent walks in on me. The issue is also complicated by the most rediculous closed-loop animation system that a player cannot snap out of until after the animations is complete.

Totally agree with StakeX! Wweapons' inadequecy in ArmA is just a tip of an iceberg. It's an absolutely valid topic, but it's a topic among many other topics revolving around the subjecy of what ArmA2 needs, that which is lacking in ArmA1 now. "ballistics, different ammunition types, weights of ammunition, characteristics of the weapons themselves..." (OFP2) Is this really a quote from an artcile about OFP2? - because it sounds painfully similar to the heap of promises that BIS made to us about ArmA. Did they deliver? - hardly... how can we talk about realistic weapons balistics etc. when you have sniper rifles still shootign tracers in ArmA. And this is again just a random pick from the list of things that are wrong in ArmA. What it will really come down to in the end is whether BIS or Codemasters will deliver on their promises. BIS has already failed, we'll see what Codemasters has up its sleeve. I'm sure ppl in BIS can see all the shortcomings we are talking about here on the forum. The sad part is whether they see any value in correcting these shortcomings. And what can be even sadder they might not even see them or want to hear or address them. I was just dumbstruck when I was listening to Suma's interview with JerryGrasshopper. Suma was asked about the lack of realistic battle/weapon sounds in ArmA and the fact that shots in ArmA sound like a marble dropped on the floor. And Suma just said he sees nothing wrong with the sounds in ArmA, "they serve the purpose..." as they are. If this is the vision that the copmany's leadership follows we cann't really expect any miracles, anything beyond what we've seen in ArmA1. I'm telling you Project 85 full conversion mod will probably have more character and juice then both ArmA1 and ArmA2 put together.

Totally agree. They would have to be also impassible and retain the same geometric collision properties as when they are in normal state. At least one shouldn't be able to pass straight thru the trunk of a fallen tree.

What throws english speaking ppl off is the capitalization of the last letter in "ArmA". Who on earth capitalizes the last letter of a word unless its an abbreviation. So it's Armed Assault afterall... But then as ppl said what assault in military sense is unarmed. It's like calling a brand new beverage a "Liquidy Drink". ArmA does indeed sound like a nickname, little and insignificant, friendly, informal - at least in English. There is hardly anything serious about the name. Pokemon is the next thing that comes to mind . It's most likely what devs would refer to it as in Czech, since for them to pronounce Armed Assault in the middle of a Czech conversation would be a tongue twister - I heard Suma in his interview:). But face it it's kinda ironic - they called it ArmA and this is how the whole project has unfolded.

@shinRaiden Shin, who cares how the engine works - I don't play a game for the sake of the engine, just as I don't get into a car just to appreciate the gear shifting experience. I get into a car to drive from point A to point B. When I get into a car I also hardly ever think about "how far the car manufacturing industry has advanced since 1920, or 1950, or 1980". I don't make a cult out of "car driving and tuning", I just use it as a vehicle - but I guess the response will depend on who u ask. Instead of writing this long convoluted statement, please download ECS mod and just put together a simple mission on Rahmadi. Then play it in Vanilla ArmA and ECS ArmA. And ask yourself the honest question which one does the job of conveying the atmosphere of a battlefield better - what ArmA is supposed to be about afterall... One little reminder in case you forgot, ArmA is not a virtual world simulator or a programming experiment, it's a combat simulator game; When BIS fans like yourself start going on about the great job BIS did in creating the amazing new breakthru OFP/ArmA engine unlike anybody else on the market, I cannot help but think BIS did more or less good job already in OFP. But that was 8 years ago!!!!! What we see right now in ArmA is  just an expansion/addon to OFP, minus all the fixes that have been done to OFP since version 1.46. You see BIS has to move on beyond the great days of OFP and take it to another quality level, instead of going in circles. Back to the topic - ArmA needs a life atmosphere of a battlefield. That means it needs real life sounds (not the "marble dropping on the floor" type of sounds), it needs realistic particle effects (example ArmaAffest by MadMatt), it needs combat effects concussion, bleeding, etc. It needs character voice-over sounds that don't sound like a telephone answering machine. It needs better AI that uses supressing fire and indoor CQB capabilities. In short all the things ECS team had already done and more, that what will help it to move past the dry world of OFP and the world of technological limitations of the year 2000 engine...

To understand what ArmA is badly lacking now and what it really needs - everyone on this forum and most importantly Suma have to download and try ECS mod. Of course there are other things beyond the scope of ECS. What the BIS lead programmers and devs have to realize is they cannot create everything with just good programming. Suma might be brilliant in his understanding of what it takes to program an amazing virtual-reality simulation. Yet his choices in terms of the sound effect, visuals effect and combat effect aspects in the end product may not be very sound. When we play a game we don't care how genius are the programming technological solutions. What we care about is what's going on our screen and in our headphones/speakers. We connect with the game on the visual and audible levels. Therefore more attentions should be paid to those aspects of the gameplay. What kills me the most is devs irresponsiveness to the community generated materials. There were some absolutely brilliant things released by OFP modders before ArmA was created. Many of these mods were instant hits i.e. FFUR, ECS, MFCTI. They kept OFP going for 8 years. You would think BIS would use the modded content as a guide to the OFP community expectations and incorporate the best mods features in ArmA?... No instead BIS took OFP version 1.46, inserted the streaming terrain technology and JIP, added a few different addons, 1.5 new island and voila here is ArmA. On top of that now in Arma it's also possible to destroyed Abrams with exactly 1200 hits from an MG. Totally agree with this! I wouldn't be interested in completing reloading an RPG if all of sudden an AI would run up to me from around a corner and stick a gun into my face.

We run: TruerangeAI ArmaAffects ECS when played with Evo ArmA transforms into a totally different game! - especially with ECS with adds supression fire to AI and AI CQB behaviour beyond anything ever seen in ArmA or OFP or any other mods. AI bots will take up positions in a building and if you are there they will continuously try to storm your room be it 2nd or 1st floor.

@plaintif1 Totally agree - it should work by the same principle as with a scope. If you're looking thru a scope using optics key and press forward key, the scope is lowered and you move. When you release the forward key the character stops, the scope is brought up to the eyes once again.

@Quenaelin & Federef - OMG!!! you really think BIS is trying to encourage us players to use better tactics? They are real busy these days patching up the game and trying not to land on their face once again. They used underdeveloped platform of the 8 year old game and resold it to us in updated packaging with several new addons and 1.5 new island. They haven't chosen to lock us up with the binos in our hands. No, they chose not to redesign the old animation system for the sake of releasing the game on the market ASAP. All these quirks with the clumsy animation and movement system is the legacy of the old OFP technology where many compromises had been made in favor of performance and at the expense of "realism". However they made it into ArmA not because BIS cares alot about the "tactical aspects of the gameplay", but because the game was rushed to the market and nobody had time to redesign the old junk. In fact I'm becoming more and more convinced that ArmA is just a developmental and financial spingboard to ArmA2. Yes we can say then there is no point to whine about it - it's too late anyways. But I say they have their priorities somewhat askew. They work for example on VOP - a new feature - for month instead of polishing up the features that are already in the game. You just look at the ECS mod - what the modders managed to achieve. ArmA spiked with ECS is a brand new game! AI uses covering & supressing fire and clears buildings. Infantry also works along with armour when apcs and tanks keep on firing on buildings where the enemy was identified. Now that is the encouragement for better tactics. Yet it doesn't come from BIS, like so many other things that have been corrected by the community. I hope BIS listen; they did so many promising things in OFP & they can do it once again if not in ArmA then in ArmA2. I'm off-topic

no, AI is a bit dumb and still runs like headless chickens under fire or hit the ground right in the open. But they do return supressive fire fairly viciously & use fire movement maneuvers. Our mod combo needs to go through thorough testing on the server. But we were reeling from our last night session! We were supressed with everything, 4x4 MGs (hummer), machinegun & rifle fire, hand grenades, AGL APCs. On top of that they were trying to flush us outta the building CQB style, by going up the stairs and clearing the room. So you don't feel safe in buildings anymore in ArmA. It might be the combination of 3 factors: TrueRange mod, ECS, and AI intelligence setting brought up to maximum in Difficulty settings. We are still playing on the 1.08 patch level. Given 1.11 patch promised AI improvements it might be even more challenging in the future.

like you won't believe it, buddy! AI sees you peeking outta the window, they just start pissing bad news down your way, until they run out of ammo into your window; the worst are 4x4 with mounted MG. We use TrueRange mod in conjunction with ECS on our server. I still haven't figured out whether the long range engaging by AI happens due to TruerRange or ECS. But we were shot at from beyond 300 meters - just constantly hear zip, zip by your ear ; and you can't even see them or figure out where it's coming from.

I just want to add that this mod is ArmA revolution! Combat effects - superb! AI improvement - beyond the scope of vanilla ArmA! Atmosphere - super-immersive! BIS and especially Suma should try this mod and see how much difference the sounds and battle-atmospheric effects can add to the otherwise stale game. ECS is ArmA 1.5!!! My friends and I run an ECS powered Evo with a few addons and what's really noticeable right away is the AI behavior; AI squads use sustained supressive fire and work in tandem with armour. We had some epic engagements yesterday when me & my buddy entered Masbet and secured a building in the centre of the city; we moved to the second floor and started firing at an AI squad 100m out. The AI identified our position & started supressing us immediately, so heavily that we couldn't even peek outta window. Once they where right upon us they entered the building & went up to 2nd floor trying to flush us out. Meanwhile the rapid supression continued. We were pinned down. Then a Stryker w/ grenade launcher rolled up and sent a few nades into our room. That was it... We couldn't do shit! Now that's the game! It's seemed to be greatly optimized. We ran the game on a Pentium 4 HT 2.99ghz server with 3gb of Ram, from behind a router, firewall and on a DSL cable connection. No noticeable issues FPS wise. Although it was just two players on the server.

Doing "ragdoll" type animation for the sake of adding variety into the death poses would be a wrong reason. The visual effect can be a secondary priority but as important. For the devs it's simply better to let the physics take care of the animations as opposed to trying to create numerous death animations, integrating and blending them with other movement animations. The problem is that the way death animation looks depends on how the animation artist did it. We can see now in ArmA that the artists didn't do a good job in all the cases or it was a wrong choice of animations. So now if they acknowledge it they have to come with something new - what are the chances it will be better. Besides I have a hunch that after working for months on the animations, the animation guys just get loop and stop seeing all the kirks. They just want to be done with it. It's a never ending vicious circle. Wouldn't it be simple to just develope the ragdol once and for all? They'll just save themselves time & the physics will take care of the rest.

I would pay to see that. Im sorry, but i don't care who you are, but there is no way anyone human or otherwise is going to come to a dead stop after a full out sprint. Well, my fellow airsofter, exercise, exercise & exercise! I do it constantly in airsoft when I dash out from cover to cover. It's all about how you controll your body. I never over-run a tree stump by 5 steps as it happens in ArmA. I admit if I run too fast I use a tree truck and slam into it with my shoulder if I feel like I'm falling. But if I aim to stop at a certain spot I will, and will never run past it. This is exactly why I support more advanced physics system where if you sprint real hard and decide to stop you will have to deal with your own momentum as opposed to 5-step animation sequence.

Dynamic vehicle destruction and ragdoll kinda fall in the same category of an advanced physics model system. I agree with vehicle destruction as well - for example a tank turret can be blown off if the ammunition depot inside the tank detonates. I don't think that integrating a hybrid ragdoll/precaptured animation into ArmA can be very difficult. But developing the all-encompasing more advanced physical features in the game can be time demanding. There are already elementary physics present in the game which can be used to further enhance character's movement options. It can be a worthwhile time investment in the long run for BIS. If they plan to stay on the market they will have to start doing new things and not recycle game components that are 8-10 years old. Look at ragdoll this way. Animations are purely visual simulation of what ragdoll would manifest itself like in the game. The devs are trying to simulate falling of an unsupported physical object caused by gravity with an animation. Replacing of physics with animation was previously justified by the lack of system resource in the currently available gaming systems. This is not true anymore. Physics are nowdays are essential for gameplay - it's what makes interaction with the virtual world interesting. However devs spend so much time working on a believable world yet provide very limited options of interacting with it on the character level. They are forgetting that ArmA is all about combat and not about perfectly modeled trees, shrubs & wildlife. Arma is still a first person shooter - therefore the success of the title directly depends on how well this first person interaction experience is recreated in the game.