Helmut_AUT

They are activated in Warfare, not sure if they do anything if you just place them. Myke, for me the Air Radar and Arty Radar are definitly NOT moving. I place Empty-Warfare Buildings-Air Radar or Artillery Radar, and they just stand there. What object are you placing?

It's the stuff in USMC-Warfare Buildings-Air Radar and Artillery Radar. Not empty (yellow), but actually green. I'll get screens later if I can't fix it. Thanks.

Okay, so the "foreach thislist" means it sets the command for the array of units that activate the trigger? Timeout 10 to make sure the unit is properly spawned and initialized by ACM I guess? Will domove "overrule" any waypoints the unit might already have before reciving that order? I'll test that, it seems like a neat and easy way to get a typical "defend the Alamo" mission going.

Yep, that was it. And also I had tried Strangelove's suggestion, which actually works, but the configuration doesn't set. With the init.sqf and a properly named ACM, it's works great. I can't really say how awesome this is. Most of my time making Spec Ops missions with realistic insertion and extraction (meaning, a lot of foot walking and carefull patrolling) was spent randomizing guards and patrols. Now you can simple slap the mission targets togehter, create an insertion transport and extraction, then have the modules fill out the island with civilians, animals, soldiers.

Same for me. I follow everthing by the book, and get nothing. maybe it just needs 5 to 10 minutes before spawning something?

Okay, with the 185 drivers, patch 1.01 final and Keygets excellent NoBlur mod, I was able to move my average FPS to 28, low to 22 and max to 35 in my small Utes Benchmark, using a 9600GT on 1920x1200, everything low except textures, fillrate 100%. I started off at 22 avg, 16 low and 30 max, so with a mix of drivers, mods and patches this can definitly be improved. But now for the CPU Bottleneck benchmarking (I'm using an AMD 5000+ which is above recommended specs): I placed myself at Utes airfield looking north, where I get 42 FPS when the mission loads, and then set up two groups of infantry (USMC and Russian) at Strelak so that they would be fighting when the mission loads. Result: 37 FPS. I added two more pairs of enemy groups - now at 28 FPS. Two more again - for a total of 10 infantry groups - 25 FPS. All those were behind me and blocked by terrain, so there's no way the graphics engine would render them - any slowdown must be CPU-related. So basically with my CPU - which is already better than recommended - I can get 10 infantry groups on the map before I start losing frames to the CPU while the card could run faster. This explains why Warfare on Chenarus for me stays at lowly 16FPS even in open fields. Obviously for people with better graphics cards the break-even point will be lower, unless they also have a significant faster CPU. It's playable this way as long as I play small missions, but it really shows that the game has much potential for optimization, and that the recommended specs are - as usual - pure marketing.

Hi People I'm looking to create myself a small spec-ops missions (get in, lase targets for the Arty, get out) with some replayability, since I want to play them myself a few times. With this kind of missions, I always try to have a bit of distance for the Spec Ops Team to cover, while avoiding random enemy patrols and civilian traffic in the area. Now the question is: Is there any good way (maybe with the new modules?) to create random enemy patrols just moving around the whole map, but without massive framerate break? Something like the Ambient Combat module maybe, but NOT with actual combat. Or should I look for a Urban Patrol Script for A2, I think someone wrote this works already?

The 185 however seem to be pretty good for WinXP and 9-Series or 8-Series cards. Just so people don't all roll back to 182.

Okay, I now believe the poster who said A2 is totally CPU-bound. With new 185 drivers, some detail changes and Keygets no-blur mod, I was able to raise my avg. in my "Strelak" benchmark to 29 from 22. Even if I apply the color correction function that tints everthing brownish. But when I play "Trial by Fire" SP mission, with only a handfull of units - my framerate tanks down to 22. This is the same village, same graphic settings, same color correction applied - it must be CPU-reasons why I'm seeing such decrease. The graphics engine still is slow - still only gives me 18 fps sometimes in forrests or worse. I still believe it needs optimizing. But that doesn't matter when even the smaller SP missions already bottleneck me on a 5000+ AMD (which is better than recommended specs).

I just ran my normal benchmark mission (set in the Utes Village of Strelak) with the "color correction" applied - that brownish tint - and it doesn't cost any framerates. Then I benchmarked the "Trial by Fire" single player mission, which also happens in Strelak and uses that color correction - and it's a notable framerate hit over my "empty map" benchmark. At first I thought it was the color thing, but it isn't. That means even small SP missions like that one are already CPU-bottlenecked on a 5000+ AMD, the graphics don't play a part. Graphic settings, for those with average CPUs from the last 18 months, will likely only play a part if you are creating your own mini-missions.

Okay, for those interested I benchmarked this: It doesn't cost any frames. Running my default benchmark mission unchanged and then with color correction added, it's no measurable difference at all, in fact the values vary so that some CC numbers are better than without CC.

Are we playing the same game? In A1, for example in Warfare, I had been perfect at long-range shooting of AI, with little to no danger for me. In A2, suddenly there's no AI standing in the open anymore. I get killed much more than ever, even if I designed the mission and told the enemy AI where to go. This is HARD stuff now. They may be a bit daft in path finding still, but the firefights vs. AI really have a new level now.

Just wondering - did they remove the "vehicles leave a track" graphics from A1? Where you could see the impressions of wheels and tracked vehicles they leave on the ground. A2 doesn't show that for me, no matter the GFX settings.

Okay, for the 9600GT owners here - the recently (May) released 185 drivers give me about 10% more frames (average 22 to 24, low from 16 to 18, max from 29 to 31. It is not a lot, but basically free - although I saw some people report problems on Vista with that driver (I'm on XP), it's WHLQ and runs nice for me with my main other games too, no problems. In fact Fallout3 and Stalker also got a boost. Now the next thing I'll try is slap a low-watt 9800GT green edition in (changing the PSU to support more than such a low-watt card would void my warranty on the system) and then I want to see if 112 shaders vs. 64 shaders make a difference, despite slightly lower clock. I think they will, might bring me up to 25 average which would be acceptable.

Good find, I was wondering how they did that. Has someone tried how much this influences framerate?

The shame is that they have one of the best AI implementations and additional features I've ever seen in a military sim. And these improvements are not tied to the graphics, so if I could swap the renderer of A1 into A2, still keep the new AI, editor modules and stuff, it would be a most perfect game. Or in other words, I can't go back to A1 now after seeing all the good things, but A2 needs playable framerates first.

Valid point, good argument. The irony is of course that those few places where a visibility check might actually help are those were a lot of detail is visible and slows down GFX considerable. And I'd still love to find out what the deal is when looking at the ground. I think these are separate things we're looking at here - one is the lack of culling/frame rate improvement when facing a wall, the other is that there seems to be a constant rendering overhead even if there is REALLY nothing in your view except a ground texture. Oh, found something else: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=1305947#post1305947 The color grading in some missions is purely done by shader, they can also add film grain. While it looks cool I wonder if that doesn't confirm my assumption that a lot of the bottlenecks we are seeing at high res are actually shaders. I know for example in SH4, enabled post processing costs 20% frame rate. Here this almost seems like they have different layers of post processing stacked onto each other, which would explain why even monster cards struggle with high resolutions.

Okay I get what you are saying - but then that's still something unnecessary, isn't it? Just because you could theoretically look trough a hypothetical window in the house doesn't mean they can't cull if there isn't a window. It goes a bit with above tests - maybe material is not only used for penetration but also for culling, so wood - often seen on fences and other "see-trough stuff" might have different culling than concrete.

Yep, that's the magical question: Why does changing detail settings have basically zero influence on frames at high resolution. What I do notice is that people with this kind of problems generally run more than 1280x1024, which leads me to believe it is somewhat shading related. Pixelshading should be the one demand that really scales with resolution, no?

+4 Yes please, give us back the white map.

Well... I think 1 sec. for drawing a sidearm up to "ready to fire" is too little. Maybe correct for Spec Ops, certainly not for your average Squad Leader. Second, as far as I know sidearms are mostly used for indoor searches, traffic stops and for being "less confronting" to the civilian population. I don't know any Army that teaches it's regular soldiers (not spec ops) to revert to side arm when they can't change the mag quick enough. At the usual engagement ranges of 50+ meters it wouldn't make much sense either. Last, if you were to use the sidearm for room clearing or in other restricted spaces, you don't want the rifle to hang from it's sling in front of you, you want it packed away cleanly. So that's actually two very different ideas on how to use a sidearm, and what to do with the rifle meanwhile - the quick backup, or the prepared use of a weapon that's easier to carry. I don't think your idea is a bad one, but it's not a "one size fits all" thing. And for average soldiers, you'd need longer time to draw, AND make the reload times realistic on the rifles.

Frag, what fillrate and settings are you using? It's a bit shocking that your system suffers frame drop, since I wouldn't know what else short of a cray we could use instead.

Older - 178 or something. I really need to try newer ones, they claim performance increase up to 20% in some games with the 185 compared to the 182. I don't usually believe in such kinds of magic, but I guess here it's time to try it.

Ordeal, what driver are you using? I'll test the new beta tonight. Maxmem shouldn't make a difference. Really can't belive they are stating an 8800GT as recommended and still our 9600GTs (depending on benchmark only ~10% slower) are killing themself at low settings.

I will check that, but as far as I know that house has no "see trough" windows.