Helmut_AUT

For me, 1920x1200 is okay on the 9600GT, with everthing set to Low except textures. Disabling post processing too. The card is limited in shaders for high resolution work, at lower resolution you might be able to use medium detail. I get 22-20 min, 29 avg, 40 tops FPS, but at about 10 AI squads present my CPU (5000+ AMD) starts to bottleneck at around 25 FPS, so in theory if your CPU isn't the fastest, you can turn up a bit more detail since the card won't be the limiter anyway. Drivers 185 or 186 (some people have problems with one or the other) bring about 10% more performance compared to 182 and earlier. Setting Object Detail to VERY LOW also is a good trick, I haven't yet been able to spot what it changes exactly, looks the same like LOW to me, and is 3 to 5 frames faster. In summary: The 9600GT does it's job, in larger missions the CPU will bottleneck you anyway, but there are certain slowdowns (for example with lots of smoke on screen) that mean you still have to keep the quality settings low since the minimum FPS of the card will be less than minimum FPS from CPU.

Nope, the mod has been disabled (and even deleted). Thanks, I registered, voted and commented there. Can someone else try this? Basically when you launch the game with PP set to DEACTIVATED, you should see the same kind of distant blurryness you see when using PP HIGH. It should go away as you set PP to LOW and then back to DEACTIVATED. I'm tempted to believe this happens for everyone (maybe just Nvidia cards, but unlikely only specific systems), but people using HIGH or VERy HIGH won't notice.

HAL, r3pent, orlok: If you are having the same problem as Von_Paulus and me, then the game will only be blurry once after each game start, until you change graphic options (easiest is to just set PP once to LOW and then to DEACTIVATED). It should then be not blurry again, and stay that way until you exit and launch the game next time. If you are running with PP set to High or Very High, you automatically get the same (at least very similar) kind of blur as it's meant to simulate Depth of Field. The error we're looking at here is for people running LOW or deactivated post processing who still get the blur. Von_Paulus, do you have a link handy? I'll register there and vote for it. Thanks for the effort, I'm just not familiar with the system.

Thanks, that is exactly what I have. I too start with PP OFF, then go PP LOW and PP OFF to reset the "blurry" image. The fact that you are using much older drivers than me seems to confirm it's not any particular system setup or driver related. Which I didn't think anyway since the blurry image looks a lot like high post processing - my assumption is that the render engine loads an incorrect config at start, with an incorrect shader for Depth of Field, not the one defined by the PP settings box. This error has little to no relation to any driver settings I'd say. BTW, the 185 might give you about 10% more performance, they did so for me as I went from 178 (both tested in A2). I hope the Devs see this, since it doesn't seem like an issue we as users can fix. And it might get very annoying long-term.

for the BIS_ACM module, you can create a marker called BIS_ACM_X where X is a number from 1 on, and that should exclude spawning. Not sure if the same works with SecOps and Animal module.

For me it is clearly caused by post processing, running at something else than "deactivated". My vid memory is set to normal, textures too. Lets try to separate the causes in this thread: 1) Who has the same issue with PostProcessing (can be diagnosed by loading the game, loading a map, then in game reset PP to deactivated - textures should now be crisp) 2) Who has blurry textures due to tex memory? Everyone has fillrate at 100% or better of course? Von Paulus, yours is the very same with the PP effect? I'm running an Nvidia 9600GT with 185 drivers, yours?

Today I launched the game once without this error. No clue why it happened. Next launch it was there again. Is there a way to ensure this gets looked at by the dev team and doesn't vanish here?

Has anyone found a way to add two choppers for the transport request, or maybe an Osprey? The default script just sends one UH-1Y which is only enough for half a squad (7 persons). I have 12.

Only problem now is that I get blurry distant graphics everytime the game loads first - then setting the PP to "LOW" and back to "OFF" fixes it. This must be a result of the patch changes which made PP optional.

With 1.02, I get artifacts even when shadows are disabled when using FSAA=1. It shows how great the game could look like, so I really hope FSAA makes it into 1.03 At least it's great to see the Boss himself reading these threads.

Yeah I guess I'll try that next. But it seems something got damaged during the unpacking - the version check is definitly gone, yet that crash is there...

Anyone else with this problem yet? Some more testing: The blurryness looks like what you get using high or very high PP settings, related to Depth of Field. When the game is loaded with PP LOW or PP OFF, these kind of DOF seem to be used. Setting the graphics back fixes it until the next time the game is re-launched.

It's fixed now in 1.02. And FlamingDeath, you've been reported to mods.

Need to check fillrate, it should be at 100% and is set that way in the config file also. But possible it jumps. BTW, for me this only happens ONCE after game is loaded. If you switch mission, island, relaunch anything, it doesn't return. But after a fresh game start, I need to set options at least once to get a clear image. Okay, just checked: for me it's not the fillrate resetting. So to recap: Same settings as in 1.01, 100% fillrate for 1920x1200 (config file has the info too) - load the game up, initially everthing is quite blurry unless PP is set to "LOW" and then back to "OFF". Certainly not a problem with my system, since 1.01 had no such behaviour. It almost seems as if PostProcessing is not correctly initialized when game launches, setting graphic options sets it up correctly then. Please someone registered there throw it at the official bug tracker.

I know that I can find some mirrors, and I know I can delete my cookies (which I did) it's still 100% unnecessary to hassle an user for his birth date (and otherwise make it seem like the link is broken) if he's following the official forum link to the official patch download. That is just bad usability. ---------- Post added at 03:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:02 PM ---------- Okay, Patch Impressions: Disabling PP adds two FPS compared to Keygets "NOBlur/NoHDR" mod. Though now distant objects seem blurry again, which wasn't the case with the modded 1.01 FSAA gives me artifacts even as it disables shadows. Don't quite like the new loading screen (minor thing, I know...) the previous one had Osprey, Venom, Force Recon, normal Marines and an AAVP7 - quite a nice display of what the game is about - now the Venom and Force Recon are gone, the new screen doesn't look any better for it and "gradient" from green to black on the edges looks amateurish. AI/CPU Hunger is unchanged, AI still needs the same amount of performance. Can't say how different the behaviour is, haven't tested that yet.

Okay, my conversion crashes the game upon loading the map into the editor. It looked okay, but seems it isn't. If anyone else wants to try his hand, please do.

Patch Download is kinda broken: If you do not enter an age above 18 at A2.com (I just clicked over it since I was in a hurry) you get redirected to an entirely different page and can't download 1.02. How stupid is it to make the user enter his correct age before he can download a patch?

It's cool work being done here, but personally I'll now take the LAV or AAVP7 anyday over the Stryker and M113.

Okay, here's another theory on why A2 (and also A1) are so slow, compared to other games. If someone more technically competent can correct me, please do so. I get the feeling that "Post processing" simple means the entire screen output is pushed trough some shaders, every little pixel. While other graphically great games - as far as I understand (Fallout3, Stalker are what I play) are using shaders only on specific objects and scenery (for example, to generate water effects or light effects, for bump-mapping on house walls, or to generate "depth" on some uniform textures on soldiers) in A1 and A2, shaders are used to generate the "Aperture/Eye Adjustment" effects, the NVG on/off effects and similar stuff that is ALWAYS there. For me this seems - again, if someone can contradict me, please do so - that in Arma this means the entire screen is also thrown into the shading process. Not only has the card to do shader work on soldiers, houses and vehicles, but then AGAIN on the same frame for overall brightness. Another example of full screen shading is the "Noise" effect you get as commander in some tanks when looking trough your vision system. And yet another example is the color correction you see in some missions (that brownish tint which for example is used in the second SP scenario). Now, I benchmarked that: Color correction off, and color correction on in the same mission do make ZERO difference on frame rate. How can that be, that the additional shader work of changing every single pixel on the screen to a different color has no frame impact? Simple, because every single pixel on the screen already is shaded independently all the time. The only other game I have that does "Post Processing" is Silent Hunter IV, which can do a color-changed and grainy "film-like" overlay over the whole screen to fake period film material look. PP in that game costs more than 20% framerate when enabled. In A2, it seems we don't get the choice to disable it. Basically to get good graphics from a legacy engine, already in Arma1 BIS has put a shading process AFTER scene rendering on top of the already existing render process. In A2 this means the engine is rendering objects/soldiers, shading/bump mapping their textures and FX effects, THEN does another shading run for Motion Blur and HDR, THEN does another shading of the final scene for the whole screen resolution to incorporate eye/aperture simulation and color correction. Is it any wonder that you need very fat hardware to do such a lot of shader operations? The pure amount of geometry and textures in a given scene (frame) in A2 are not higher from F3 and Stalker, least not in low view distance. The difference in performance can thus likely be explained in the shading requirements, which also explains why turning settings around only has a very small influence on framerate. Honestly? If we could disable the shaders that account for colorcorrection and eye adjustment, maybe also for the DOF and other effects, I think we'd all see 25% performance increase. Wouldn't it be nice to have that option?

Hi all, again Even though BIS states an AMD 64 X2 4400+ as Optimal System Requirements for this game, we all know how slow it runs. My 5000+ can't even run some of the included SP "Warfare Mode" missions at anything over 16 FPS, at this point the CPU is the full bottleneck and graphics settings don't matter really. I won't upgrade in the next six months either, mainly because all my other current games run perfectly nice, and I'd rather see what optimizations BIS can do here. I can always create my own small SP missions, but WARFARE due to it's random nature was the #1 Single Player thing for me in A1. Now, the question meanwhile is: If I use a second system (I have a bunch around) to either create a dedicated or Listen server, would I see significantly better framerates on my local client? Do the AI calculations all happen server-side? That way I could for example use my Office Computer as server, and get playable frame rate on my game machine. But I don't know if even the Micro-AI is done on the host, has anyone experimented with this?

Well, the "server" I could use is just another normal desktop in about the same weight class as mine, but as dedicated it would likely need less resources for graphics, and it would split the load a bit better. Might be worth a try for others too if they have a second system around. The process of firing up a remote server isn't that painful I think, in fact I should go and try it with some real dedicated servers running warfare I guess. Thanks for answering in detail.

Thanks and apologies, then I have missunderstood you. For me I think it's VITAL that BIS improves performance, for a simple fact: Most "average" gamers like me (not the hardcore guys spending every cent of disposable income in computer gaming) do upgrade their CPUs in a two- or three year cycle. I'm doing it now every two years, even if the old system is still under paid-for onsite warranty for another, which is in fact "giving away money". If playable framerates in a lot of missions requires a CPU less than a year old, they are effectively shutting out more than 50% of potential customers from actually being able to play the included content. And that can't have been their business intent.

And why does A2 require "big graphics card" when at lowest setting it doesn't look any better than other recent games running at twice the speed? What exactly is Arma2 doing more, graphics-wise, that justifies the double demand on Hardware? Just because they are triple-shading everthing on the screen since the core engine is to old to do these effects any other way? EDITED the rest since Razor and I are obviously much more in agreement than I thought. Sorry for the harsh tone.

I know that the CPU has to do a lot of things, no need to point that out. But by the benchmark you posted, the first handfull of CPUs giving playable framerate (>25) in that tested missions are the Phenomeon II X4 955 and the Intel Core2Quad Q9650. That Intel is LESS than a year old (August 2008) and the AMD has only been released in APRIL this year. So basically BIS is selling a game that requires a CPU less than year old, or if you prefer AMD, a brand-newest model, to even get playable framerate in the included missions. I think it's THEIR issue to fix, because the amount of potential interested customers with such CPUs ain't going to be that big. Quoting an user comment from that review: So, can we stop playing the "Blame the customer" game now and rather ask BIS to fix their engine so it doesn't require a latest-gen CPU to even get 25 avg frames in a normal mission? Wouldn't that sound more logical than simple asking everyone to buy a new CPU just for one game? Oh, and to make myself clear: I think A2 is worth an upgrade (for me to happen early next year) and I'll be playing it a very long time. But that doesn't mean we can't expect a company to release a product that actually performs with playable frame rates out of the box on hardware which is 12 months old, especially if they are putting much older HW on their system specs.

Where does it do "double the things" as other games? Graphically? No. AI-Wise - yes, maybe. Look, as I tested it the CPU only becomes the issue at large missions with more than 10 active squads. That's when it pushes the framerate down to 25, which I consider still playable. Which means WARFARE large scale is out for me, but I can still enjoy other stuff. The graphics card performance on the other hand goes as low as 16 in ANY mission, not dependent on units on the map. As Marek explains in another thread, the whole lighting used for this game is a mix of light sources and apperture simulation, which pretty much confirms that they stacked an advanced lighting system on top of the old OFP engine by using insane amount of shaders (did so already in A1). So basically I guess that means I should return the game for a full refund since the "Optimal System Specs" can't even run it, and a CPU better than optimal as listed is too weak? If that is the core of the problem, then they will not find a lot of happy customers since the average gamer is NOT running quad cores and i7s right now. It's not "MY issue", it's the issue they are selling a game for medium spec-ed systems without a realistic chance of it ever running on those systems. If they had written correct "recommended" on the box (which would mean requiring a fast dual core or even quad so you can actually play the included missions) , then they'd have about 20% potential buyers. And I'm getting a little irritated with the "It's your fault for having weak hardware" argument used in defense of a slow engine. I have a system that is nearing the OPTIMAL RECOMMENDED specs on THEIR website. If they didn't think it realistic to run the game on such hardware they should have been honest in saying so, instead of that now the users are blamed.