-duke-

For whatever reason, we can't seem to keep our Retail Server up and running but the demo server runs perfectly. The server seems to run fine for aywhere between 2 - 5 minutes then stops responding. Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with OFP Servers and this is my first experience with ArmA at a server level so I'm basically learing as I go. We're running the game in a Windows Environment and it is patched to 1.02 on the latest dedicated server.exe so I'm lost as to what the issue may be. Anyone else experience issues or am I just a complete idiot? Thanks, Ken

I agree with this 110%. If BIS hadn't given at least partial access to this game prior to 2007, we'd see a forum full of p1ssed off members who can't believe that BIS can't hit a release date. Ya there are issues but this isn't EA, BIS will work with the community to fix them.

My system is new, my graphix card is new, my performance is acceptable, so I'm not interested in trying any NVIDIA based 3rd party apps.

So has this thread officially dead now? If so, it's a shame because I'd love it if a bunch of us could get together and create a n00bs version comprehensive media tutorial for ArmA. I never got into modding or doing much with OFP (simply because i was new to gaming at that time) so I'm starting from scratch on all this. The WIKI does nothing to help a person actually understand the commands listed within it.

You can't compare this game to BF2 and I'm not sure why people do because there completely different. BF2 does not have a free roaming 400 km/sq area of play nor does it have dynamic AI. I'm pretty sure the weather is all the same as well as day/night transitions so how you compare them is beyond me. Now onto the rest of your question, yes, many of us experience lag on even good computers. I'm running an E6600 Dual Core 2.4 w/2 GB DDR2 Dual Channel @667 MHz and an NVIDIA 8800GTS. My game is set to 1024 x 768 and all details @ medium which seems to run mid 30's to low 40's FPS (average). Desert areas or areas with less foliage run far better while wooded areas produce lag spikes and flying only worsens the situation. Try lowering your shadow settings, view distance, terrain detail and anti-aliasing. Personally, I'd sugges lowering everything and/or disabling the setting then bringing them up one value at a time until you have the best performance/visual ratio.

I would just like to add that I don't believe this to be the case and if it is, ATI needs to address it yesterday, as does BI. This issue has been a problem for my rig since the beginning and tinkering will reduce the problem but never fix it, or at least, not for long. I've tried the last 4 driver releases of ATI Drivers only and nothing made a difference. I've also experienced issues with Black and White2 and more recently, rFactor as I mentioned previously. I actually took the time to report everything to ATI and all they did was point me to the knowledgebase (gee, I wonder if maybe I may have already looked there, duh!. Anyway, out of sheer frustration with the entire soap opera that seems to plague many of us ATI users, I decided to pick up an 8800GTS. I came home, unistalled everything ATI, replaced the card, updated the drivers and voila, no problem. For me this was not simply an ArmA issue, it was an ATI issue. Also, I have made no system config changes between either card which means they both had the same opportunity to play apples to apples on my rig. My issues with Black and White2 and rFactor have also completely disappeared as have any issues with ArmA. In closing, I want to apologize for the anger in my post. I've done everything I can think of to keep my ATI card and they were paramount in driving me to camp NVIDIA. My thoughts in this and other ATI posts represent well over 3 weeks of pent up frustration which has spilled out in my correspondence now and then. Ken

I haven't heard a thing about this game being brought to consoles.

I want the last two minutes of my life back

I'm referring to methods to capture one event from multiple angles, multi-speed zooming, camera angling/placement/scrolling, effects, etc., everything needed to make a cinemagraphic movie. This is something of great interest to me and I'd be more than willing to help out (even if it means video capture/publish/hosting) so long as I can get help using and understanding camera characteristics for each effect. As it currently stands, if ingame camera control is measured as 100%, I understand about 0.00001% of it

What would be great is if this tutorial either included or linked to an in-depth camera/multi-camera/multi-angled use tutorial for those of us interested in making movies. I'd love to know if there was a way I could place multiple static and multiple motion scripted cameras over a battlefield to record the footage.

I too have the same problem which I've posted here: http://armed-assault.net/forums/help-4/artifacts-radeon-x1900gt-86/ I've tried the last 4 driver releases, additional cooling, overclocking, not overclocking, enabling/disabling VPU recover, profiling for ArmA, etc., and still have experienced little success. Tonight for the first time, a similar problem surfaced when playing rFactor which was never an issue previously. This was before the VPU locked up which required a hard shutdown from the power supply. I can believe heat because the x1900 GT is known to be one of the hottest running cards on the market but even at high 80's to low 90's, it only represents about 3/5 of the total temp. guage found within the Catalyst Control Panel. My power supply is an SLi ready Antec 550 WATT Neo HE (504 Watt sustained) so I can't see my card being underpowered, even at load. My system: - Intel Conroe E6600 2.4 GHz Core 2 CPU - Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi Edition Mobo - 2 x Kingston Dual Channel DDR2 @667 MHz - 2 x Seagate Raptor 320 GB SATAII HD - Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS - ATI Radeon x1900GT 256 MBDDR3 - SLi ready Antec 550 WATT Neo HE (504 Watt sustained) - Cooling out the ying yang including one 80mm input fan (from case front) dedicated to the GPU.

The first one is too big by about 50kb. Might want to resize that one. Done, sorry.

It is only an issue with this game as no others give me any kind of graphical abnormalities and I play plenty of games at much higher resolution for extended periods of time than ArmA such as: - Half Life 2 + Expansions - Doom 3/ROE - IL 2 FB, AEP, BOE, PF - BF Series - CoD 2 - ToCA 3 …and my daughter plays: - The Sims 2 + Every Expansion Imaginable - Black and White 2 (well, I play it too, lol) ...it even seems to run Oblivion well and Company of Heroes even though I'm not crazy about either of these games. I'm 99.9% sure it's something to do either with ArmA or my drivers for the Radeon. I've also posted the worst images of the lot just as an example; the game is not always like this. I did put the computer together myself and I'm pretty sure it's working just fine. The case is well ventilated with over 10 fans (yes 10, all directional, "wind tunnel") with an input fan dedicated to the video card alone (which has reduced temp. under load by 5 degrees). The power supply is an Antec NEO HE 550 Watt (504 sustained) so it should be enough to handle the system requirements. As for the card, it's really hard to say what constitutes overheating with this card anyway as it's known to be one of the hottest running cards on the market. Under continual load, it seems to get to around 86 degrees which is much better than the low 90's I was getting before installing this input fan by the card. Even at low to mid 90's I've never experienced an issue with any other game even after hours of playing. These issues will also appear upon loading my first mission so the card hasn't even had time to experience load much less, sustained load. A last word about overclocking. Even thought the card has an overclocking utility I refuse to use it. I've messed with it now and again out of morbid curiosity more than anything and all it introduces is instability. In most games overclocking only represents a minor FPS increase anyway (according to Fraps) so it's not worth the hassle because this system runs all recent titles pretty well to begin with. Ken

Personally I love the game and since I'm no war vet (only spent 6 months in the Canadian Military) I can't speak to aircraft control accuracy, sounds, ballstics or what have you. I think BI did a great job with this game and look forward to the more major issues being resolved either by BI and/or future driver releases to current hardware. My main issue is this: [im]http://www.gamemoviemaking.com/images/misc/screens/armor_low.jpg[/img]>100kb Before you respond, yes I am using the latest drivers for my x1900GT and yes the issues were there on the previous driver versions. In fact, all my hardware is up to date (drivers) as this is a new rig little over 2 months old: - Intel Conroe E6600 2.4 GHz Core 2 w/1066 FSB - ATI Radeon X1900GT w/256 MB DDR3 - 2 x 1 GB Kingston Dual Channel DDR2 @ 667 MHz - 2 x Seagate Raptor 320 GB SATAII Hard Drives - Creative Labs Audigy2 ZS I can usually mimimize the issues with restarting but it still pops up now and again. BTW, I'm not looking for support just trying to show some of you who are whining about unrealistic sounds, textures, animations, etc., to consider there is a bigger picture out there for some of us. Regards, Ken BTW, I apologize if the images are too large. If this becomes an issue then just say the word and I'll resize them. Thanks.

Thanks for the replies guys. Any chance you can pretend I don't speak english and maybe point me in the way of a tutorial? Thanks again.

Hello, I apologize if this has been discussed but a quick search yielded no results so I thought I'd ask. Does anyone know how to get a birds eye view of the battlefield while gameplay carries on? I'm interested in creating a few movies and would like the ability to move freely throughout the game world and record the action. Any thoughts on how to do this? Much appreciated, Ken

Thanks man, I wasn't sure what to expect with that novella of mine, especially being new to the community. I just want to re-iterate that I'm definitely on board with BIS and will stay with this game for years I bet. I love the fact that BIS supports the community and in turn, the community supports the game. It truly is a I scratch your back, you scratch mine, kinda relationship and an enjoyful one at that. What I'd like to see is BIS consider handling their own future releases such as ISI did with rFactor. I don't care if I have to dl the software, so long as I don't have to spend hundreds of dollars and put my PC at risk to do it. I'm really excited to see how this game shapes up in another 6 months. I just hope that BIS wakes up and starts a major advertising campaign because I'd hate for ArmA to flop and be the end of consumer based gaming at BIS.

I'm not sure you're going to like the securerom very much iether Sadly I have no choice. I sincerely hope BI studies these topics and looks into other means to secure their investment but not at the risk of the end user.

Well I'm prolly going to get flamed to death for this reply but it's my honest opinion and not meant to step on anyone’s toes. I believe most of the reviews for ArmA will be either mediocre to good but seeing great will be rare and you can forget about groundbreaking all together. I really believe the reasons for the reviews are because BI type cast themselves and made such a groundbreaking product in the beginning that they would have had to re-invent OFP for ArmA to be revolutionary. Quite honestly, I believe I've jumped through hoops to get my hands on a copy of ArmA. In fact, I had a buddy of mine in the Netherlands purchase an extra copy and air freight it to me in Canada because I've waited 4.5 years and I refuse to wait another second to play. Then Morphicon releases an online world-wide dl for Armed Assault and since I can't wait, I purchase another copy, dl, install, etc. Much to my disappointment, Starforce is sadly required for the online purchase of ArmA so now I've not only purchased this game twice, but I may have introduced my system to potentially harmful software in the process. Of course since I'm a Canucklehead (and prolly not the brightest one on the planet), I'll likely pick up the English release of ArmA in early 07, assuming it's released on time. This means I'll have 3 copies of the game, one which will be removed as soon as the German version arrives (due to Starforce) which means I've donated to BI around a minimum of $200 CDN for Armed Assault. Yes, it's boneheaded to say the least but I loved OFP so much that I'm desperate yet still very, very loyal. The fact that I'm willing to pay this amount of money means I've purchased the right to also share my POV here. Upon loading ArmA I must admit I was a bit put off by the overall gameplay. Sure it's visually stunning but there were tremendous graphical issues to start with, buggy sound and somewhat clunky controls out of the box. I've since gotten past this so it's not an issue but it does help to sour the initial experience some. Now I'm playing the game nightly and have to say I love it as much (more actually) than OFP simply because I know it will only continue to get better as BI and the community pull together. Of course, this is not to say that this game gives me any more of a thrill (or any less) than OFP did 6 years ago, just updated thrills and the rebirth of memories long forgotten. Now consider yourself a lurker of this game and someone who tried OFP and played it a bit or gave up on it completely. What is it that ArmA offers you to draw you back to this style of gameplay? The answer is nothing really. The only thing that was added to this game was more saves for novice and maybe a few other bells and whistles but you have to admit, this truly is OFP 1.5 or OFP 2. Add to the fact that details of the game have been sketchy since day one, videos released were not of the best quality, screenshots were limited as were press releases and what do you get? Now maybe I haven't followed this games development as closely as everyone here but I'm very sure I've followed it as close as I could and even more sure that I've followed it closer than the average gamer. Even if the reviews tanked on this game, I still would have bought it because of OFP and I'm sure most everyone here would have done the same. I'm sure though that the average consumer is scratching their collective heads as to whether or not to actually purchase ArmA. Add to this the most bizarre and disorganized release schedule in the history of gaming (at least my history) and you have a recipe for an undersold treasure. I guess what I'm saying is that none of the reviews surprise me because of the way this situation has played out over the past few years. If I were a part of the BI PR team I'd be looking for someone to get as much mass media and advertising of ArmA in circulation as possible. I'd also suggest that BI possibly look into becoming their own distributor/publisher and maybe offer the game as dl from the BIS site because the way it's being handled now is ludicrous. Again, I apologize for this reply but it is honest in nature so I thought there would be no harm in adding it. I sincerely do not mean to insult, belittle or offend anyone. Regards, Ken