teacup

Hola a todos, I get the above error in the RPT when trying to createVehicle on the server. I could swear this used to work in ArmA1, for all sorts of things: AI, non-AI, what have you.. I searched for this error message without much luck. What does it mean? What am i doing wrong? Thanks in advance.

If this looks like the opposite of your average troubleshooting post, it's because it is. I need a surefire way to crash a 1.05 dedicated server. The reason is i'm too cheap to pay for FireDaemon, so i'm writing a Windows Service to (re)start and monitor the ArmA server. And i need to be able to crash the server for testing purposes. If you now a funny scripting command, in a particular context - or really, any reproducible way of crashing the server that will result in a juicy segmentation fault, anything that would kill the server and trigger the debugger. Thanks in advance.

This is normal. You can make distant objects move smoother by changing the server's "MinErrorToSend" variable. http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/basic.cfg

Hi all, Thanks to the generosity of one of our members, we (Hungarian ArmA Community) have the good fortune of running a dedicated server on a beefy machine. Here comes the bragging part: ------------------------------------------------------------------ VMWare 3.5 ESXEnterprise Virtual Machine IBM HS21XM Blade 2 socket Intel Xeon 5450 Quad Core 3Ghz processors 16Gbyte RAM FC storage (currently 50Gbyte allocated to the server) The blade system has a direct dual 10Gbit connection to the net, the current server gets a 1Gbit connection from it. The effective maximum is about 700Mbit/blade server. Software: MS Windows 2003 Standard, 32bit ------------------------------------------------------------------ Plenty of brute power to throw at the server both CPU/RAM and bandwidth, but still we're having performance issues (no surprise there). Our ambition right now is to run as smooth as possible with 60+ players, and maximize server performance. The maps we're playing are a flavor of C&H, optimized for minimal CPU/Network load. No mods, no AI. So far, the biggest problem is clearly JIP, and the resulting desync. We have experience running our own servers (for fewer players), we played in IC-ArmA, AToW, played on some of the more populous servers - we know "JIP lag" is endemic to ArmA. Still, if you're experienced with running games this large, we would really appreciate some good advice. Your settings, fixes, workarounds or just related experiences and best practices. The main questions i suppose are: 1. What performance settings do you use/would you recommend? Why, and what are the valid ranges? Ours settings at the moment: ------------------------------------------------------------------ MinBandwidth=15000000; MaxBandwidth=500000000; MaxMsgSend=1024; MaxSizeGuaranteed=128; MaxSizeNonguaranteed=64; MinErrorToSend=0.001; MaxCustomFileSize=1; ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. How do you check clients, if at all? Do you have verifySignatures on? If so, how does that impact performance? What about BattleEye? We could ignore all this and elect to just trust all clients, since it's not a public server. Our players are friends, guests, mostly people past the age of cheating. But they can be careless, so some way of running even basic checks could be nice. We're testing and trying to figure things out, but if you guys could help us, you'd be saving us (admins & players) some frustrations and headaches. Thanks in advance.

Huh! Thanks for the effort Cross. We were hoping for a quick copy-paste of some proven config files, but after what you're describing - i guess we gotta do the leg work and set up test cases, isolate all the factors, yadda-yadda.. and adapt to the peculiarities of our server and missions. Man i hate actual work! :icon_razz:

Actually, prior to installing FireDaemon and locking process to cores, and with our old settings, we had one core maxed out, one not even half way, the rest unused. And we were getting between 45 and 50 FPS with 40 people. But the game wasn't as smooth as this time around, crappy server FPS and all. We made several changes, so now it's hard to isolate and figure out what affected what. It's hard to get 40 people, just to do boring testing. The "box" is more like a "chicken coop" really. It's a blade system, and virtualization is required to span across all the blades and other devices. Server performance depends on the quotas allocated to your server OS, and this one has more than the ArmA server could ever max out (they're listed above). Our server is also located on a backup/spare, with very little else competing for resources. I doubt storage would be the thing slowing it down, since it was perfectly capable of running near 50 FPS before with 40 players, and the server is nowhere near the disc hog the client is. But we'll see..

Thanks for the tips Cross. Tried them last night, 44 people, 2 hours. It was smooth gaming all the way with people joining during the fight too. Server FPS started out at 19 and bottomed out at 9 during the last half hour. Sounds kinda' bad, but the game was running without a hitch. We had one core maxed out, one at 80%, a third core at around 10-20%, and the fourth unused. Viewdistance was 2.5 Km, and i don't think the mission we played was optimized for many players. Is there anything that stands out, that impacts server FPS or JIP disproportionately? Too many triggers, busy init scripts, public variable broadcasts or endless loops? Evil commands? We were again unable to use verifySignatures, it really bogged down the server.

Is there a method, or specific settings that would allow you to draw JIP out, to basicly stretch it's impact out, thus making it less dramatic? JIP players waiting for longer seems like a good compromise, to prevent the game from going to desync hell for everyone already playing. It's a shame JIP is this crippled. The desync penalty and the extra care mission makers have to take to handle it properly - it doesn't quite come across as a marvel of engineering. It's a bit baffling, that you get lag spikes even when players disconnect, and available CPU/RAM/bandwidth is nowhere near being maxed out.

Hey Wiper, Just dropped in to say we (Hungarian ArmA community) dig your mission. The randomness, the roaming civilians & patrols, and the tough AI make it a lot of fun. I'd also like to report a possible bug in 1.41. It happens to us all the time, we get a script error when finding the suitcase, and can't call extraction properly. This is what the RPT entry looks like: Error in expression <dio"]; if(Cipher_Mode<2 or( isPlayer NR or isPlayer Miles or isPLayer Corps3)> Error position: <NR or isPlayer Miles or isPLayer Corps3)> Error Undefined variable in expression: nr File mpmissions\__CUR_MP.chernarus\briefing_upd_SuitCase.sqf, line 13 Sure, we're probably screwing things up at some point, but the way we see it it's the mission maker's job to protect his scripts from being broken by idiots who can't be bothered to read the briefing all the way, or play the mission the way it's supposed to be played :colgate: Thanks for your work, and if there's anything we can help with, more detailed bug report, testing, just holler.

I'm trying to add new location names/markers to the main map. And figured i'd use createLocation, instead of just placing regular markers, since regular ones don't scale with the map. This is what i tried: loc = createLocation ["NameLocal", [4177.92, 8948, 0], 120, 120]; loc setName "Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory"; Buttt!! Nothing shows up. Am i supposed to use drawLocation as well to make it display something, and if so, how do i find out the main map's IDD? Anyone got experience with this, if so any help would be appreciated..

It didn't help. But i got off my lazy ass, unpacked missions.pbo and luckily found a working example. Instead of setName i needed to use setText. Go figure. Updated the Biki with my precious findings..

Must have been 2002, a guy at work handed me a pirate copy. Dropped silly Delta Force: Land Warrior and played OFP till my eyes bled :D Then stumbled into the editor, and later addon making.. In 2003 i think, on a business trip to London, finally managed to buy a legit GOTY box. First game i ever payed for.. Then decent Internet came, multiplayer heaven, and daily C&H battles with the likes of StoV, SF, 1stGuns, J4F, EC, FN, TK and many more. Greets go out to those ole' bastards.. :681: Personally, ArmA1 was a disappointment, and i worked hard to make myself like it. Was worth it though: i got to know these sensational tournaments like IC-ArmA and AtoW, which were serving up the best kind of gameplay one could have within the game. I also met new people, made new friends.. ArmA2 is here, and i'm still playing, still making addons, still having fun.. but boy i must be old! :o: :biggrin_o:

You don't need any bones in the P3D. The vertices contained by those "Named Selections" are xformed directly in the game. The old RTMs contained frames, made up of transformation matrices, one matrix per "bone". But the bones are virtual, they're not explicit objects in the model file (or in the animation file for that matter). So in a sense, the skeleton one uses in Max, Maya or MotionBuilder to animate, that hierarchy of bones, is never exported as data into the game engine. http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/RTM

Guess this is the best spot to scribble my little request. I know support for animation files was never in the tool pack, but is there any chance you guys could share your animation exporters as well? Or even better, would you mind dropping by the Biki and describing the new RTM file format in a few words, so we can write some exporters ourselves? Dankeschon.

First i would set up the parachute model in Max, create bones, skin the mesh and weight the skin. Importing the skinned mesh into O2 might be a bit tricky but maybe not impossible: not sure about 3DS, but you could write a MaxScript to export that "Universal Bistudio TXT" format, which supports weights as well. If not the weights, at the very least you should be able to export your selection sets. Haven't tested, but OBJ file format is also supported, and OBJ groups might translate into O2 as Named Selections. Worse case scenario: you have to create the selections manually in O2, and also weight all vertices by hand (using the Max scene as reference). Not great, but then again, how complicated can a parachute be? Then animate in Max, and export. Write the config and preview in the game. One more thing about RTMs: the file format in ArmA2 changed (and we don't have any new exporters yet), but as far as i can tell legacy RTMs are still (partially?) supported. Worth a try. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

I have crates with custom loadouts. I take a normal crate, empty it and reload it with my stuf during init. The thing is, if a JIP player runs the same init he will spawn with the same crates everyone else had at game start (i.e. full). Instead, i would like JIP clients to spawn with the crates somewhat depleted (to have the same amount of ammo/weapons everyone else has at that particular moment). That's what i mean by persistent. It would be nice if at JIP, i could get the contents of the relevant crates and have them broadcasted, then load the crates of the newcomers accordingly.

The full error message in RPT is something like: Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgVoice.Male03'. Warning Message: No entry '.protocol'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry '.directories'. Warning Message: Size: '/' not an array It seems HQ/Papa_bear/base/airbase got messed up in config. I get this error everytime i try to make them say something over the radio (my own description.ext messages).

I basicly have the same question: how to get a weapons&ammo list from crates/trucks? I can clear and pack the cargo, but is there any way to find out it's content? Any workaround? I'm trying to make a somewhat persistent mission, where JIP players don't spawn with full crates, like the players who were there at mission start. Whatever weapons and ammo was used up or lost in the field, should remain lost for everyone. Doesn't seem to be a way.. Similar topic here, with a workaround by fasad. But i'd rather not use something this crude. Nor do i like GUIs to manage weapons and ammo. http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=63906&highlight=cargo+weapons

How about: while {true} do { //update marker(s) here sleep 1; //one second delay between updates };

Moving map markers for showing player positions can be done entirely on client side. Make an infinite loop and use getPos + createMarkerLocal and his friends to set local marker position, type, shape, color or text.

Durhhh! I could swear i didn't use to be this sloppy. :) Thanks. I wanted to create a small explosion, but i used the magazine, instead of the ammo class.

A set of files aimed at creating soldier animations for ArmA using Maya. Some might remember my old kit for OFP, well this is a continuation of that effort. It's an early release, unpolished and all, but it still beats using OFPAnim. Hope some of you will like it. http://www.spunge.org/~ntib/Maya_RTM_kit_for_ArmA.zip

Polished? What planet are you from?! When a developer delays a game to do "polish", that means it's pre-alpha (not feature complete yet). In this day and age you're lucky if the gold disc is a mature beta, doesn't bring 2 year old hardware to it's knees on lowest settings and gameplay doesn't flow like a river of bricks.

You guys are on your own till Christmas. I'm on a month long vacation with little to no internets (or computer). Will try to help when i get back.

I think this is a clear improvement on the clunky movement system. Sure, the tip of your rifle will in some special cases poke through a wall, but you will not be able to shoot or look through it anyway. Inconsequential for gameplay. The whole weapon collision thing was rudimentary and awkward in the first place. Then again, automaticly-raising-your-rifle-when-facing-a-wall a la Crysis is not such an awesome solution either.. My 2 (overly critical?) cents