someboy

That's great to hear cm, hope to read your conclusions soon! (the 720 is the processor I thinking of getting).

Could anyone with a quad core test to what extent is the 4th core used? Just want to know whether three cores would be enough... Thanks in advance.

You guys might want to check what Marek posted on the ArmaII news forum regarding the launch plans in North America... http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=73115

His point being that, answering to OverDawg, there are actually detailed roots of trees coming out of the ground. On 4th picture render distance of grass does not seem too high, and it doesn't seem to blend very well with the texture behind it... still, great pictures. Can't wait to play & fight in there. Paul, by bug in the trees you mean those leaves on top of them hanging in the air by themselves? I've always seen that kind of things in bushes and trees in both OFP and ARMA1, but I guess it is more clear in that picture. I wish they gave a more "solid" aspect to the vegetation to avoid that. Still, I think trees look great (e.g. tree on the right on 1st picture, it's amazing!). Good job BIS.

Yep. Usually news regarding not including mission editor in console version don't help in a ranking I guess...

Could you ask about performance/lag issues? Does it run smooth?

I suffer the mouse lag in Arma, just as Leopardi describes. For me, it was the most annoying thing when playing the game. I hope I can get rid of it in ArmaII

Hi, Has anything official been said regarding performance on 3 core processors? I was thinking of geting an AMD X3 720. I read the developers claimed that a quad core should provide better performance than a dual core on some specific situations, but I was wondering whether there would be any gain from 3 to 4 cores. Regards.

Nice looking desctruction physics might be feasible and even "easy" to implement in single player games or multiplayer with very small maps and small number of players. Implementing it in a game such as ArmA2 with a large scale map and a large multiplayer count could require simply to much bandwith to work properly. So... which feature do you pick?

Page 4 Regarding the existing four difficulty levels, the highest ones are not only frustrating, but they sometimes make the game way too complex as well. One of the most evident factors is the total lack of help over the screen when locating your objectives, allies and enemies. Something to which we were used to in this type of games, but that obviously is far from realistic, and therefore in these levels we will be force to rely on our sight and intuition to recognize between allies and enemies, knowing where out team mates are and where we have to go. We will not have a map that shows us where we are exactly nor the direction towards the objectives either. Still, we have our watch and compass. Didn’t we want realism? In the lowest difficulty levels all this hints are activated, together with an increased impact area of the enemy, the resistance of our character, the possibility of playing in third person and, in conclusion, making the game a lot more bearable. We will see it in June Two month away from the release, ArmA2 look very good, if not excellent. It still maintains part of its features that most have fed up the patience of players, but, in exchange, it maintains and further exploits all those features that have made of it a cult game for those who were seeking something more than shooting down enemies the most spectacular possible way and then laying down to miraculously recovering health. One of the strengths of this sequel will be its complete localization to Spanish, something very useful given the great amount of dialog and the crucial of literally following our orders for the successful accomplishment of the mission. Wrapping up, if we wanted like to define what the new ArmA2 represents, we would say that it is able to maintain the interest of the saga followers, and event greatly alleviate its usual issues, and that it has achieved enough level of attractiveness and gameplay to attract those who fled from a rough, complicated and problematic game. ArmA has simply has reached maturity and turns out to become an essential for those who look for at least a slightly serious tactical action game. And we cannot but finish this first contact without mentioning the coincidence with the release timing of Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising, the sequel to this saga but this time under the direction of Codemasters and without any participation of Bohemia fellows. Or what is equivalent, the same recipe cooked by two completely different chefs. We foresee a tough competence and ArmA2 arrives with good credentials. It seems clear that we will be spending a lot of this summer ambushed waiting for a convoy… either Russian or Chinesse.

Page 3 Combat Once it is clear that we will stand in a realistic environment, with realistic weaponry and vehicles, and with realistic physics, there is only one factor left for experiencing a totally realistic situation: the “human†behaviour, or the so called AI. The AI has been one of the more criticised elements in Bohemia’s games. In what it pretends to be a simulator, it was a real pain to see how men of a squad got “stuck†in any place of the scenario of the stayed aiming at a wall while enemies where passing by their side. In ArmA2 Bohemia promises us an advanced AI called semiautonomous AI. Before going through the advances on this AI, we have preferred to note that, even though the AI was more “ignorableâ€, in Arma2 it becomes fundamental. The reason is that in previous games our allies let themselves get killed like rabbits but you didn’t really need to care and could end up playing the missions as a lone wolf without any need of help. In ArmA2 this will not be the case since your team mates, the Razor Team, is always the same through all the campaign, and loosing one of them the mission will fail. This circumstance had been seen in other games… but in those games your team mates didn’t start running everywhere in a chaotic manner putting their lives in danger, and therefore your mission. It is the same with event detection, another curse that the series has been dragging. In certain situations you will find running from one place to the other without knowing what you have done or are left doing for the current mission not to finish. In most cases this is due to an enemy which, since it itself also counts with the semiautonomous AI, might have run to a nearby forest and is hiding, with the given difficulty of the game not ending if you don’t kill him as well. Given that we are two month away from the game release, we are not too confident in these kind of bugs to be solved, basing our opinion in previous games in which these issues were not addressed in any patch. However we cannot but acknowledge the great improvement that the AI has gone through, mostly in out team. While the enemies, when being attacked from distance, simply lay down on the ground and see how the die one by one, our team advances covering with the environment, repels attacks quite well, heal themselves and share ammo and, in conclusions, is not anymore a burden, but a really helpful company. Still, we fear that, just the way we saw in the Beta version, we will spend a lot of time regretting the death of a team member that we didn’t even know where he was, and to which we were not even able to cover, or why we were hurt but no one came to help us while the keep running around, or why the same enemy that was unable to see us two meters away, is now able to finish us from one kilometre away one with one single shot. But, oh well, this is ArmA and all that is part of its main appeal, its difficulty.

Page 2 Another improvement with respect to the scenario is that we will finally be able to use is as a more effective way of concealment. We will be able to use bushes and the highest grass itself as an effective concealment. Stress is put on the difference between cover and concealment. It will depend on what we are using to hide and what type of weapon and ammunition we are being shot with. One thing is that the enemy cannot see you, and a totally different thing is that his bullets cannot go through your cover and equally hurt you. In this facet Bohemia claims to have put a great amount of effort implementing a physics necessary for using guns, focusing on the bullet behaviour, which will be great for realism lovers or frustrated snipers who can tell the advantages of the match ammo, the subsonic ammo, MOA index, coriolis effect and the rest of parameters that are not taken into account in any other game. Game modes ArmA2 allows a variety of game modes, but we are going to divide them into two. On the one hand, the classical single player campaign mode and on the other hand the almost infinite possibilities that it offers us to create our own custom fun, With respect to the campaign mode, the importance of the storyboard has been recovered, as it was in OFP, but rather questionable in ArmA. The story in ArmA2 seems to be really well presented with the advantage of varying depending on the continuous decisions the player must keep taking. The destruction of an objective, rescuing a hostage or capturing a prisoner will be fundamental in the events of subsequent missions. The campaign will be long and complex, and it by itself already justifies buying this game. However, the most attractive feature for the lovers of the saga will be the possibilities that ArmA2 offers by means of its mission editor and its multiplayer mode. Bohemia is conscious of how much the series has been supported by the community thanks to mods. Now they directly give us “the keys to the labâ€, being now the limits of the game our own interest in taking advantage of it, either playing individually through out own missions created with the editor, or with other players, playing coop, teams, warfare or any other way we want. The potential of this title is fabulous in this aspect. In fact, it is the only real alternative in case we want to “play war†in a realistic enough manner. For that they put to our disposition the recreation of 225 square kilometres terrain fully accessible by a great variety of vehicles, both military and civilian, and a complete arsenal, Russian and American, which reproduction and functioning have been realistically modelled. It is worth mentioning the possibilities that the so called “Armory†offers, in which, as we fulfil objectives, we will be able to unlock, study and test elements such as guns, vehicles or military ranks by means of different challenges that the game will offers, from shooting a plate (something funny to do with a Barret gun) to animal hunting in the forest or survival games, assaults…

Here is the translation of the spanish preview posted here http://www.meristation.com/v3/des_avances.php?pic=GEN&id=cw49ef6baacf681&idj=cw46cc10e6b4725&idp=&tipo=art&c=1&pos=0 a couple days ago. Not many new things said in it (and a few contradictory or senseless statements by the author), but here you have anyway. I tried to translate it as literally as possible. Enjoy. (PD: in that website forums, the author claimed to perfectly know the complete saga) Page 1 “Welcome to the definitive militar Simulator for PC. Don’t get fooled by the fact that it looks like other FPS. In ARMA 2 you must forget all your usual tactics from other games, you must think and act like in a combat in real life…â€. This is the first thing that our screen will display once we load ArmA 2. A declaration of intention of what it has always aspired to, and in many aspects managed to fulfil, Bohemia’s saga. In this, their last version, they are closer than never to achieving it. This warning will be very useful and will help both people who didn’t enjoy the saga becoming patient enough and also calm down those who do know it and hope its essence isn’t changed. Just as we described in our first preview of ArmA2 (http://www.meristation.com/v3/des_avances.php?id=cw49246792f3e24&pic=PC&idj=cw46cc10e6b4725) (which we recommend you reading for better understanding this new text), the fact of its release on consoles, the totally new concept of action based on an attack team around you and even the improvement in graphical quality, made some fear that the values which had allowed it to stay apart of the rest of FPS where lost: realism, difficulty and infinite options to face the goal. Since now we can tell you that, even though the game has noticeably changed since Operation Flashpoint and Armed Assault, its spirit remains the same. Once we have shacked the fear to the lovers of this saga, we will get into describing what we are going to find in this new version of what for both Bohemia and many followers is not a game, but a tactical combat simulator. In order to keep “good mannersâ€, we will find the already usual high HW requirements. All the AI, physics, impacts… require a good processor, and the graphical environment demands a good GPU. Once we install the game we check why all that graphical power is needed. Visually, ArmA2 implies an importance advance over ArmA, but it does not event get close to the level of titles such as Far Cry or Call of Duty. Graphical resources are not focused on dramatic explosions, illumination or extremely detailed models; ArmA mainly aims at two goals. The former is offering the highest possible view distance, showing objects or individuals over which we will be able to interact up to two kilometres. The latter si the maximum fidelity to both vehicles and weapons, becoming in a real encyclopaedia about how the weaponry is, how it is used and what effects it causes. In any case, the representation of Chernarus, fictitious name of what in fact would be the current Georgia, is more than perfect, showing from highly dense forested areas to building areas such as towns or refineries. All of it while maintaining the maximum coherence with reality, and leaning on real images of the area. In conclusion, the graphical advance will never hurt the spirit of real combat simulator that the game pretends. Once we have adapted to the environment, we will quickly sense to obvious improvements in the game. The first, very noticeable if we have played previous versions, is that our character runs a lot more. He still gets tired and his level of tiredness still affects his aiming, but it is not so difficult to cross the map on foot, as it was in previous versions, something to which we are thankful. In addition, we are finally able to reload our weapon while running, jump over small obstacles, and even focus the attention on a point while we run towards a different one, a great improvement. The second improvement is related to movement as well, but this time is due to the entire environment that surrounds the player. In ArmA2 the vegetation moves and, what is more important is plagued of civilians and animals… Something which might seem banal, completely changes the style of a game in a saga where the easiest way to locate an enemy was searching for the slightest movement on our screen.

Two more interesting additions extracted from the author's comments on the forums: - He claims that his preview version is from April 21st. He commented that he saw too many bugs to be corrected in just two months (if it is going to be released in June) - He pointed that, unlike in OFP and ArmA, it is now feasible to (to some extent) accurately shoot while running

New preview (in spanish). I don't have time to translate it now, but might give it a try this weekend (anyone else offers as a volunteer?). http://www.meristation.com/v3/des_avances.php?pic=PC&id=cw49ef6baacf681&idj=cw46cc10e6b4725&idp=&tipo=art&c=1&pos=0

Nowhere in that document is stated that the variance of the measurements are 0.5C. I am wondering if you misread the part stating that the two standard deviation with 95% prob for comparing two values is 0.05C, and actually thought that they were talking about measurement errors. - Variance is not standard deviation. The first is the square value of the second. - It's the standard deviation for COMPARING two values, not the error of a single value. The error of a single value is simply 0.025C (comparisson is not but difference of values, and when you add or substract values with errors, the total error is the sum of the single values) You keep using the term "median" as if it was "mean", when they are totally different concepts. Regarding your statement about being more accurate to represent the data as one thick grey line... sorry, but it makes absolutely no sense. Data is data, they didn't make it up. Those values were recorded and they cannot just put different values in there (whatever the error in the measurement is). You can argue about the explanation that someone gives to the data, but not about the data itself. Nowhere in the article I could find the author stating that the depicted graph is "bullshit". Either you are making that up or you misread it. Hope this clarifies the issues you have with the graph. Regards.

Yep, sure it helps! Thx for the info Viiiper

To be honest, in the EGOTech video they mention that the editor will somehow feed the game with the latest mission data. In the video they click a button and suddenly the game appears with what it seems to be the latest changes in the edited mission. (1:27)I am still not sure if that is real or just faked... Guess we will know when it comes out. PS: thanks for the info Daddl

Mission editor in the PC version was just confirmed in CM forums to be a windows standalone application. Does it means you would have to be Alt+Tabbing all the time to check an edited mission?? I guess this is due to a lack of time/resources. If they offer the mission editor as a separated application, it's kind of hard to include it in the console versions I guess... maybe in patches. Can a console (PS3/XBOX360) game be patched? Sorry for my ignorance, I not much into console games...

Hmmm yeah I was referring to the hockey graph with the 0.5 variance over a scale of 1 you mentioned. Is that the one you were referring to? I cannot find in it the 0.5 variance... Thanks.

I might be the one being wrong . AVIBIRD may be able to clarify us. Still, 35km seems a lot. Will the island in OFP:DR be that long anyway? EDIT: I sent a PM to AVIBIRD regarding this issue...

The problem is that I guess only people in the CM forums will end up being aware of the lack of editor in consoles. Mass buyers will probably not ask about it, or even not care about it. They will see a fancy soldier in the box, or a text in a magazine stating that it offers unlimited realism and open worlds unlike CoD and they will run to buy it. I really hope that eventual reviews on game sites and magazines will make justice and stay unbiased when reviewing both OFP:DR and ARMA2... Hint for Clive: order your super-clever AI to program the editor for you!!

Has a 35km view distance been confirmed for OFP:DR? I thought it was a mere rumor.

Yeah I agree with those thoughts walker. That seems to reflect this situation quite well. Lack of experience of the developing team at CM in "open world FPSs", together with maybe cuts on staff and denial of any further delays from investors might have probably forced them to scrap the consoles editor. After watching the last gameplay videos, it seems to me that they have a lot of work to do in order to release a polished product. If they pretend to release it by late summer, they better hurry up... Just to add, I could not stop laughing after reading the following post at CM forums:

And we know that, even in the case that FARMA does not fullfil our expectations, we will probably get an A.F.E. mod for itÂ