Damacles

I could start the game, now I can't, it stops half way through the load screen with; No entry "config.cpp/CfgVideoOptions/ShadowQuality/Disabled.shaderQuality" I click "Ok" The screen goes black as it continues to attempt to load before coming up with; "Error compilling shader PSEmpty" Clicking "OK" ends the process. Anybody offer any help ? The only thing that I've done that might have buggered things up is to install "SweetFX" which coincided with A3 not working, although removing that didn't help.

Thanks, you're a star, that solved the problem perfectly.

That was excellent, thank you. You're right about once you've used VAC to control your A.I it's difficult to go back, VAC really is very good and much, much better since Win 7 came out. How about posting your VAC profile, I'd like to have a look if that would be OK ? ArmA's command menus are potentially quite large/complex and it's nice to see how other people have set theirs up either to use as a base or as food for thought.

"Helicopters can be realistic and easy to fly at the same time" Ahmen to that. Having tried "Take on Helicopters" I'm rather worried about it's implementation into ArmA. It might just be me, although judging by TKOH lack of success and various comments posted in various forums maybe not, it's just too damn difficult to fly. I just don't know whether it is down to my hamfistedness, lack of feeling of flight or if it is overly sensitive controls and control input sliders. It's just very difficult, possibly more difficult than it should be, so anything that improves the overall feeling and controllability of helicopter flying in ArmA 3 is to be welcomed with open arms.

First off I have to admit that I haven't played ArmA 2, somehow it just didn't click after playing ArmA, so if what I am about to say is totally redundant or surpassed,Vanilla or otherwise, please forgive me and ignore this post. I always had a hard time when playing Co-operative multiplayer in ArmA 1 trying to figure out who was talking and who exactly I was supposed to be teamed up with. In real life audio and visual definition is far better so knowing who is talking is normally quite easy, not to mention that you often know exactly who has just said something because of their voice/accent and associating that with somebody you are familiar with. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to carry over into ArmA, through no fault of their own. First off would it be possible to have some form of TAC sign system implemented,either vanilla or as a mod ? I know that it's possible to have squad logo's but could that be carried over to TAC signs ?. What I mean by that is each Team or squad is represented by a symbol or colour represented on the player by something like a shoulder flash and or a flash on the back of the helmet (much like some Americans had a painted bar on the back of their tin lids during the Second World War), nothing flashy, just so that when you form up and you're standing next to somebody you know that you're in the right group. A Squad/troop might be represented by a shaped shoulder patch, each team/section then having their own colour, for example First squad might have a triangle and the first Team in that Squad, theirs would be red, second team white etc etc. It might also be useful for vehicles to take on the TAC sign of the driver in that whoever jumps in the drivers seat has their TAC sign superimposed on the doors, bonnet etc of the vehicle similar to vehicle unit identification in the real world. Secondly, knowing who's talking, because it is difficult associating voices with bodies, would it be possible to have some form of subtle indicator, obviously better for VON in that you can restrict who sees it but also available, if in a more general way for TS ? If some form of TAC sign system, as mentioned above, was implemented then would it be possible/desirable to have the TAC sign glow slightly, just enough to notice the difference, before fading away, to indicate who had just spoken ?

Cheers TheWabbit I'll give it a go, although as lazy as I am, I still think, from a memorizing stand point, that it's worth individuals doing their own. That said it's brilliant seeing how everybody sets up and uses their profiles, especially for a game like ArmA that's just screaming out for it to be used. Like I say though, quickly glancing at your profile, I have a couple of commands set up with a delay and repeat so that I don't have say the command again for example "Look at watch" and "Salute Front", maybe you should try it, it feels more natural. You might consciously think about looking at a watch or saluting in the real world but you don't particularly think about not doing it, if you see what I mean.

At the moment, subject to change, my VAC/Teamspeak/VON set up is mapped to my forward/back keys on the side of my mouse. I use headphones so I tend to leave VAC on, pressing the back button on my mouse disables VAC and enables the press to talk for VON, the forward button does the same but for VAC. Like I say, this is subject to change, it's a long time since I played ArmA and had such a potentially complex VAC profile. One of the reasons I recommend a basic/core VAC profile as a separate base is, if you intend to share it, it can be easily remembered, even by an dunce like me, which gives new users a foot in the door and then the confidence to use and expand the profile further themselves using phrases and commands that are more natural/intuitive and thus easily remembered added to the fact that if they collate the commands themselves they are more likely to remember them. One thing I like about the profile over at dwvac is the option of having it set up for an ArmA game with both a fast or low frame rate. VAC really is a first rate program and I'm surprised I don't hear of it being used more often.

I did a VAC profile several years ago for ArmA 1, now long lost, but I think I had the watch set up as "Look at watch" this obviously brought up the watch, it was a natural, easily remembered phrase, but rather than repeat the phrase or say another one to put the watch away, more phrases, more complexity, I simply had a delay and repeat command inserted. This brought up the watch gave me enough time to look at the time and then put it away without having to say anything.

Looking good so far. Whether it might be an idea to have two profiles, a basic and a more complex, trying to pair the basic down to the bare bones of selecting soldiers and then moving back and forth through the command menu, obviously the main aim being to make any profile, complex or otherwise, as sparse and intuitive as possible while still giving the widest range of directions of travel through the command tree. I also have a preference for using two words when one will do as an extra insurance against errors and in that vein I wonder whether it might be advisable to say "Soldier one", "Soldier two" rather than just "one", "two" etc . Anyway thanks for the taking the time and effort to share and I'm looking forward to see how your profile evolves. ---------- Post added at 07:10 ---------- Previous post was at 06:43 ---------- Is there a printable command tree somewhere ?

If you want realism then I suggest, while assaulting a position, throw the grenade and then run towards it. It really only works the once, but if you want to do what the big boys do, for realisms sake.:p

I'm finding it difficult to understand some of the annoyance/anger about the early German release and patch, so I thought it might be worth conducting a straw poll. Given the complexity of modern computer games, and ArmA II is probably more complex than most because of it's open free running architecture, and the general impatience of the average gamer, would you prefer: a) A delayed release, that is as perfect as possible that the developer then left with minimal support apart from major bug fixes (most games, most developers) or b) Getting your grubby little mits on it at the earliest opportunity, even though it's been released in an imperfect condition, (most if not all computer games) obviously with no absolute killer bugs, knowing that the developer will support and continue to put effort into developing the game. Having asked the question, I suspect I already know the real answer. All you have to do is look at the number of leaked unofficial beta patches for games like IL2 that people were happy to install early and the excitement and buzz that surrounded their release.

[ QUOTE ] Â Damacles such big "colored TAC signs" would be a step into arcade gameplay. Maybe, maybe not! First and foremost, they're used by real armies in the real world, possibly under slightly different circumstances i.e vehicles only, but they still think they're useful, and for very much the same reasons as we find ourselves facing in ARMA. Even with VOIP Â and teamspeak, establishing that the person you want to speak to, is in fact the person in front of you, is not always easy. The real deal use them on vehicles so that they can get a good idea who a vehicle belongs to and that they're doing the right thing in the right place when, like in ARMA, you can't speak to them directly or as in our case because of the limitations of computing you can't tell which animated sprite is in fact doing the talking. Secondly, they wouldn't need to be overly big (shoulder patch) and the colors, if used, could be muted so they wouldn't stand out like a sore thumb. Numbers or letters would be just as valid if not as easy to identify. (just because a vehicle has red tail lights doesn't mean they stand out, unless turned on of course) Â Â Thirdly, they would only be useful to the opposition if they are listening in on enemy communications so as to link movement orders with particular groups, just as in real life. I understand where you are coming from about the danger of implementing tacky TAC signs, but if done in very much the way the military does it, subdued arm and helmet patches for combat kit and copies of the real thing on vehicles, then I don't think it would detract from the realism side of things. As for the individual identifiers (shoulder and helmet patches), they wouldn't need to be legible from more than about 20 yards, if not less.

Sorry, I made a complete arse of posting this, Double post's and in the wrong thread, however here it is, hopefully in the correct thread this time. Would it be possible to implement Tac signs into this MOD at some point in the future ? Would it be desirable ? By TAC signs I'm referring to the symbols normally found on the doors and trunks of military vehicles to identify units. The reason I ask, while playing, especially with no name tags enabled and restricted views, trying to establish who is who, and particularly for those in command, can be a lesson in frustration. Teamwork, the very essence of a good multiplayer game often descends into chaos as missions proceed. Who's that ? Why are they there ? Am I in the right team, Â I'm supposed to link up with Alpha, where the hell are they? It's not difficult following the white circle for the FT leader but trying to establish if the group or vehicle on your left is actually the team your Squad leader has told you to support can often become frustrating and confusing. Because ARMA lacks the small subtleties that would normally identify someone or something ( Oh, thats so and so, I could tell him a mile away just by the way he walks ) I would desperately like to see the possibility of having TAC sign like identifiers linked into the player role selection screen, but lack the skill and time to implement it. The way I would see it working would be each fire team would have a symbol i.e "^" or ">" Â if more than one squad is involved then possibly color coded, FT leaders would possibly have a bar underneath to denote such. Â This would be seen in game by a small patch on an arm and maybe on helmets if worn, on each of the players. On entering a vehicle this symbol would also appear on the doors and trunk, the symbol of the highest rank taking precedence ( Oh, that's the striker I'm supposed to get in). I appreciate the A.C.E mod is about about realism, but I also understand that you take game play into account. ARMA has worked well enough without a MOD as described but I feel something along these lines might just add to improving command and control without being unrealistic and without being too complex to understand.

Yeh, just tried it, apart from being killed a lot, no issues so far. I'll have to try each mod one by one to see which was causing the problems, I certainly didn't have anything exotic in the mix.

Could anyone please tell me what this means, I've recently been getting this message flashing up on my screen, with an update every 5 seconds. I've been playing ArmA for several months without problems but now, a few seconds after joining a multiplayer game, I can't go anywhere and the above message comes up and I have to exit out of the mission.:wall:

It might be even worse than I feared I tried the Kellys heroes server, but had the same problem so exited out, but because it was good fun I tried to rejoin the server again but couldn't find it in the list. Five minutes I later looked up the server list and there is Kellys but with no players, so I suspect it may have crashed and even worse I may have been the cause, how is this possible ? Maybe I've been leaving a wake of grief and despair behind me at all these servers were I've had this problem How can I check to see if I'm causing problems and how to fix it ?

Yeh I'm using lots of mods, like 6th Sense and various others, all installed through Kegetys launcher, I'm not however using the XAM mod, I heard it was causing servers to crash. I don't know why it started because I managed to play without problems before and my Internet connection seems fine enough, low pings and a 2-3 meg speed even when slow. I think maybe I'll try offloading all the mods and seeing what happens as and when I bring them back on line to see if that makes a difference.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure its the answer though, although I suspect somewhere in the right direction. I use an 8 meg line that runs at approx 2-3 megs and by and large the games I join are sub 100ms when it comes to ping values, I'll check my line though to see if something is adrift.