Rista

Yeah, I mentioned the 5870 because I have a chance to get it for a good price used. For a new card I was thinking about something like a 6870 but it seems that would be a slower option. My current card doesn't cope well with higher resolutions, most likely because of the lack of video ram. Seeing as 27" screens with 2560x1440 have the smallest pixels of all monitors on the market, I could probably get away without AA but I would REALLY prefer to run the game at native resolution. So, C2D E6750 @3.2GHz, ATI 5870/6870 at 2560x1440. Aiming for mostly normal settings, high objects, low PP, let's say no AA and 30fps in missions. Doable or maybe not?

How important is the CPU in ARMA 2 when it comes to higher resolutions? I have a C2D at 3.2GHz and want to buy a 27" monitor for more resolution/space but I'm worried I won't be able to run the game properly anymore even if a buy a better graphic card. In other words, how would ARMA run at 2560x1440 on a C2D 3.2GHz and say something like an ATI 5870? Would my CPU be a big bottleneck and would I be better off just staying with a 1920x1200 monitor and a GTX460? I would like to get a new monitor and would buy a better graphic card but I really don't feel like changing the motherboard, CPU and RAM right now as well.

From my experience with racing games, wider FOV increases the feeling of speed. Driving an F1 car with very narrow FOV, I lose all sense of speed. Did a quick search on youtube and found this: Try covering the two screens on the sides with your hands and then after watching for some time remove them. The car appears to go a lot faster with a wide FOV.

That's comparing apples and oranges though. GP and F1 2010 are both Formula 1 games that can be directly compared. I didn't play the original GP much but I did play both GP2 and GP3 a lot and was involved with editing carsets, AI performance files etc. While you could argue that AI is "fake" in every single game as it doesn't use 100% the same rules as human player does, the AI in those games was much more believable and fair. There was no rubber banding or any of the cheap catch up tricks back then. The AI driver cars wouldn't suddenly receive engine power boosts once they were xxx meters behind the player. The race just wasn't centered around the player like it is in F1 2010.

I'll try to find it. There is a catch up config file where you can see the AI cars receive engine power boosts/penalties depending on how far ahead/behind the player they are. That itself doesn't mean the AI is faked like in those videos though. It just means the AI is very cheap and not something you would want or expect in an F1 game even if it's not a hardcore sim. Their explanation of weird AI lap times during the race is somewhat reasonable. But why are the AI cars timed differently? Why are there no gap times during the race? If the AI lap times are already completely fabricated during the qualifying how can we be sure there is nothing fishy whatsoever about their race lap times?

They're saying it's an error with the timer that resets when AI cars cross the finish line. Really want to believe them but wouldn't be surprised by anything really. I like how they are talking about "the AI variation of pace" and trying to explain it in a realistic and complex way when you can see from the config files the rubber band/catch up AI is clearly there and doesn't seem that complex at all.

Didn't GP2 back then in 1996. have properly simulated qualifying? I remember you could speed up the time while you were in the pits and you could see the other cars getting out of pits in fast forward and having their laps timed. You could also go to game menu and accelerate time but it would still take quite some time to finish the session and the better your processor, the faster it was, which tells me it was still properly simulated instead of lap times being made out of thin air. I could somehow get over faked AI in qualifying if it wasn't for the cheap AI catch up during the race as well which one of the devs promised would NOT be in the game because they "dislike it". If you are ahead of the AI a certain distance, they get engine power multiplier and drive faster, if you are behind them then they are slower. CM explain this as "realism" as when the lead car has a big lead, he is likely to slow down to conserve his car. Which would be fine by itself if it couldn't be explained in this way ONLY when human player is around. So they only push or conserve their car relative to the human player car, wherever it is on the track, and nothing else. The race is completely centered around the player and doesn't even bother simulating the rest of the race properly. A bit like "you can't see it on the screen so it doesn't matter" in Dragon Rising. Combined with the pit stop bug, it completely messes up any kind of pitting strategy in this game.

He he, wait until you experience the huge pit stop bug. Or realize the AI lap times in qualifying are faked, or that the game uses catch up logic despite one of the devs saying they wouldn't. There is something fishy going on with AI lap times during the race as well but nothing has been confirmed yet. It really is the Dragon Rising of F1 racing games ;)

I'm using Firefox stable version with around 20 addons and I really like it but whenever I get to use Chrome or Opera it reminds me how slow FF is. I've tried FF 4 beta and it does seem a bit faster and looks better but many of the addons I'm using don't work with it so I'm going to have to wait until they're updated before I switch.

Just seen this for the first time. Operation Flashpoint 3?? Oh dear... One thing is for sure, Codemasters are never going to get my money again. Ever. Enough has been said about Dragon Rising I believe, but slightly off topic, not sure how many racing fans are here but has anyone played CM's new "sim" F1 2010? So much hype and so many promises and in the end you wouldn't believe how bug ridden, and most of all, SHALLOW this game is. They're using a bunch of cheap tricks instead of simulating an actual race. Sounds quite familiar! I did give Dragon Rising a fair chance but I'm not going to even bother with a demo of "OFP 3"... like there is going to be one anyway. Codemasters couldn't make a good sim game to save their lives.

I still play OFP all the time. I give ARMA 2 a go every now and then but always end up going back to OFP. Never liked ARMA 1 at all.

Why? :confused: Personally I think the game has gone backwards in some areas. Controlling vehicles for instance is terrible in ARMA 2. Whenever I switch from OFP to ARMA 2, the aiming feels wrong, not sure why but it does. OFP has a much better atmosphere as well IMO. ARMA has better graphics of course but on the other hand OFP has no FPS/LOD switching/texture popping issues and honestly I'd take that over nice graphics.

OFP is still better IMO.

What exactly is sad about it? It's not like anyone is talking about increasing the FPS from 60 to 70 or something. 15fps vs 25fps is a huge difference and if someone thinks it's worth the extra money, then, for them, it is.