GBee

I would dearly love to see a future version of Arma (or whatever it's called by then) which is platform independent. I've never played Arma and not a week goes by when I wish that it ran on linux. Operation Flashpoint was the best game I've ever played and really the only game I was interested in playing once exposed. You would think, given their core business with VBS that they are already considering OpenGL, many governments and armed forces are switching to alternative operating systems, including linux, as part of a cost reduction, infrastructure stability and attempt to free themselves of vendor lock-in. Assuming they have the foresight there is hope.

Has anyone got Arma or the Demo running under emulation in linux? If so details would be great. Right now I'm struggling to get the demo to install under Wine - Cedega might work better but I've not got a copy installed. I really want to play Arma and until recently I'd resigned myself to having to install windows on one of my machines. Today though I've decided that the hassle of Windows is just too great and just a giant step backwards

Well theres the problem. I'm trying hard not to just say 'Go play BF2' because I think you deserve a little more respect than that, all the same it would seem to be the only answer. Many of us OFP/Arma fans, if not the majority of us, want something as close to real life combat as possible. We want a simulation of the real world because that is what interests and excites us the most - we just don't want to risk our lives or kill others in the process. Real life is not balanced and it is never fair. There are hundreds of games out there which cater to those wanting less realism and more balance etc but there are very few, almost none, towards the simulation end of the spectrum. So forgive us for protecting the one game which actually comes closest to being what we want.

Heh, everyone cried, begged and screamed for a demo. Then when BIS rush to meet your demands you lot complain they released it too early .... It's a crazy world

I didn't do anything special, no tweaking etc. I just ran the games under the CVS (Free) Version of Cedega, in some cases using the Loki Installers to perform the installation. The non-free version wouldn't need the Loki installers. My comparison wasn't scientific but merely consisted of comparing framerates on both platforms using the same settings. I'm not the only one to notice the improvements - I've regularly seen people mention it. I've not a clue as to why it works better, maybe the cedega DX translation layer is actually more efficient than Microsofts DirectX? Maybe the improvement is in the kernel/drivers; linux will frequently run smoother and faster on the same hardware than Windows and this could in some way extend to the games? Maybe it's there is less CPU/Memory hogging crap running in the background in your average linux install? The FPS gain ranged from 5-20, not a huge amount but enough to make a difference if your machine is struggling with the latest games. Some of the games in question were Call of Duty, Max Payne 2, Starwars:KOTOR, Starwars:JK2, Battlefield Series (1942, Vietnam etc), Farcry. Operation Flashpoint would run under emulation but I recall that there were a few problems, in cutscenes etc and I can't remember how it compared in performance.

[CS]SOBR[1st-I-R] - To answer your question (at least the question I think you are asking), every game that I've run under linux (D3D and OpenGL) has run much better in terms of FPS under linux. I can't say why that is the case or if it will be the same for Arma ... Windows is only "better" for games because everyone writes the games for that platform and not because Windows has some other advantage. I've lived without Windows for years now and to be quite honest it would be more trouble to re-partition, install and maintain a Windows installation than get a game to run under emulation in Linux. Please don't turn this into a Windows vs Linux vs Macintosh thread - the question and subject of the thread is whether anyone has managed to get Arma running on Linux and how they did it. This also isn't a thread about Open Source - Cedega does cost a small amount and has many idealogical flaws, but it is still a valid way of running D3D games on Linux.

Well it's not like its completely asking for too much of this realism, i mean running someone over with a tank seems like its a pretty easy fix and could easily be put into the next patch [if they do get a heads up about the problem] Sure, I'm not saying that this particular problem can't be easily fixed in a future patch and it probably will be. I just get irritated when people say something like "this game claims to be realistic but X, Y and Z aren't like that in the real world." It's relative, and as games go Arma does the best all round job of reflecting the real world better than any game to date. Instead of finding the areas where Arma doesn't match the real world they should step back and recognise the number of areas that do.

It is military simulator and more realistic than the majority of games but complete realism is a nearly impossible goal even when it is desired. Programming, design and artwork take a huge amount of time - with each new game it becomes more complex than the last. In case you hadn't noticed we aren't playing space invaders any more! So yes, it would be nice for some of those unimplemented aspects of real life to appear in future patches or games but it'll be 50, 100 even 500 years before everything in-game precisely reflects what occurs outside the game. Perhaps you can list what games are more realistic or closer to simulation? Not just in a single area (e.g. a dedicated flight sim) but sharing the same scale and scope as Arma?

Possibly ... but why? I mean OFP/OFP:E didn't suck and Arma is an updated version of them, so what could BIS do to make Arma suck so badly? Especially when all the features, screenshots and videos we've seen suggest it should be so much better?

Not a "Dancing Banana" score .... Unless it's ridden with bugs I fail to see how it could be given 55%. Even if the reviewer doesn't like the gameplay the scale, graphics and content of the game deserves a minimum of at least 75%. Hell OFP:E got better scores just 12 months ago and Arma is 100x better.

The German screenshots I've seen were, bizarrely enough, in German. (Text obviously) Well you don't need a website to release a game do you? I'm not sure exactly what isn't proper about their current sites either? Between the two of them there isn't anything missing which was on the original OFP site or even the OFP:E site.

Cheaper than? If you pre-order now from Gameplay you can get it for Å24.99 inc Delivery (Just one example)

It's on the main page of the Morphicon home page - with them being the publishers is that not evidence enough? They've sent it for pressing .... I mean what are BIS going to say? "Oh crap, it wasn't ready yet! Stop the presses!!"

Gold means they have created the physical 'gold' master CD from which all the copies will be made. It's no reflection on sales or anything else. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_recording#CD_mastering

I'll say again, why are you complaining here? It won't change a thing. I'm not sure if our US cousins are familiar with the saying "There's no use crying over spilt milk"? If you stopped posting here and instead tried emailing a few publishers, now that might actually change the situation.

If Starforce was just a simple form of copy protection then few people would really mind, but it's a nasty piece of software which is actually responsible for destroying the CDRom drives of users (no urban legend) it also makes machines extremely unstable. The mechanism used by Starforce (device driver level integration) is also controversial - if you don't immediately dislike the concept then it would be pretty hard to explain why that is objectionable, just trust that it's a "bad thing". CD copy protection, whilst not exactly welcome, is ok by me. Starforce is not.

I'm guessing that this is just a case of Chinese whispers. Idea used starforce in the press demos but said that copy protection for the final games was down to the publishers to announce. (Idea historically refuse to comment on what decisions have been made by the publisher, they prefer you ask the publisher directly). Idea were probably confirming to Spoock that starforce was used in the press demos - someone mis-read or mis-understood what was said by Spoock here on the forums and a couple of translations later everyone thinks the final release uses Starforce.

You are assuming that the majority of people actually pay attention to who games are created by ... they don't. Most potential US players won't know about the game until it's released and even if they are aware that it's late I highly doubt they will choose not to buy it for that reason. Here in the UK we frequently get US films and TV series 6, even 12 months after their US release - you don't get mass boycotts of films and TV because of that. If you think about it, the idea is pretty absurd - if the game is good who actually cares that the rest of the world played it before you? I know the US OFP fans are frustrated, but nonsensical predictions and scare mongering are not going to make a US publisher suddenly decide to sign the game - nor will you get it much faster even if they do. Instead of wasting your energy attacking BIS here why don't you start a petition of all the US games publishers - show them that demand exists and help BIS (and yourselves).

If the environment is believable then it enhances the game more than any other change IMHO. To their credit BIS seem to know this and that's why OFP and Arma have unparalled realism in their environment, from real day/night cycles, real stars, huge and realistic terrains, ambient wildlife and even real tide cycles.

More to do with the physics than the collision detection?

Why do so many people seem to think that the reason they don't have a US publisher is that they just haven't tried to get one? Blame your US publishing companies .... I mean do you blame the independant film makers over there when they fail to find distribution channels? Or do you recognise that most production/distribution/publishing companies in the US aren't interested in the little guys, no matter how good their product? When they do sign with an indie company they like to have editorial/content control and will change the product to sell the most units - i.e. make it a mainstream hit at the cost of the original vision. OFP might have sold 1.5 million copies over 3-5 years but that's nothing compared to the sales of BF1942 and BF2 in their first 2 years. (BF1942 - 3 million in 2 years)

I spotted that ... if it really runs that good, on that spec, then I'm extremely pleased as that's the spec of my laptop. (Ok so the graphics aren't quite a 6600 but they are 6000 series and should at least run the game )

Interesting trend with the diagonal pin-stripe, or are you all using the same site/software to create them?

It's a little better now ~150 KB/s but short of the 512 KB/s my 4Mb connection should allow.

Anyone yet mirroring these videos on a fast server that doesn't require registration to download? I'm currently managing <20 KB/s from armed-assault.de