Pyronick

Well, Joint Operations also had huge maps. But the game still was more akin to Battlefield 2.

Hmm...Well I hope that Volkswagen is friendly enough to provide ArmA 2 with a name licence... :D

The new FIA GT3-class competitor in the twenty-four hours of Sahrani!I'd love to see ICA go-karts though, they are automatics anyway so you don't need crazy gear change sounds.

Maybe there is no need for a licence due to the age of the car?They'd have to licence Zhiguli aswell. It's a shame that they probably can't give the Volkswagen Golf IV it's official name in the game.

If the really was the case I'd fully agree with you. But both are different cards with different architectures and memory technologies, in various games they might perform (near) the same but there definately will be differences in the near future.We still have to wait how ArmA 2 will run on these cards, since ArmA 2 isn't in the TWIMTBP programme and "ATI support has been improved" the AMD card might have the upper hand. Only time will tell. With DirectX 11, Windows 7, WARP and OpenCL coming near it's probably better to postpone any upgrading plans anyways. Also most of the excess heat is dissipated through the second slot exhaust on both the GTX 260 as the HD4870, the amount that does dissipate in to the case is negligible. I know it still theoretically is bad, but that's how I see it. It really depends on the manufacturer of the GPU. My Sapphire HD4870 1GB is very quiet, even under load when overclocked.I precautiously increase fan RPM because due to the position of my case I can't hear it and the amount of noise that I can hear does not bother me. But I can imagine cheap fans that make alot of noise. The newer VaporX cooled HD 4***-series are really quiet and cool without having to invest more than a regular version. I found a chart on Tom's Hardware, I can't comment on it's reliability but here it is: Due to the higher power level of the GTX 260 Core 216, I can't imagine it being quieter. ATI's current-gen dual-GPU cards are plain crap. They only work properly in a select group of games.

Low heat output is irrelevant if you aren't in to overclocking or using a crap case with really bad airflow.These days you can overclock natively hot cards as fine if not better (HD 4890 iirc) than most lower temperature cards. With the double slot coolers on modern high-end discrete graphics hardware even airflow shouldn't be that of a problem. The only relevant negative disadvantage I can think of, if said person doesn't have a crap case or diehard overclocker, is the noise emitted by the hardware's cooling system. My HD4870 1GB can get noisy, but that's mainly due to the manual fan speed override I precautiously set up due to my overclocking practices. Efficiency is also a relative term in computer hardware, the raw floating point power of the TeraScale architecture by AMD can be of great use with OpenCL (since it's an IEEE-754r derivative) in near future software/games. That said, currently nVidia's CUDA architecture is more interesting. I don't really know much about semi-conductors and computer hardware even as a tweaker, but I study thermodynamics, exothermics and aerodynamics as automotive engineer so airflow is my thing. Also due to those studies I use alot of GPGPU hardware for computation fluid dynamics and thermodynamics simulations, and my noisy outdated HD4870 1GB still beats the Tesla C1060 we use at school. Thermal efficiency is only interesting if the thermal dissipation is bad.

That's only interesting if you have a really bad PSU or if you want an ULP device like a notebook or a nettop.Either way, I'll stick to my trusty philosophy: Only but hardware, when you really need it. I still recommend waiting until after the demo/game is released AND played. Only then you know what hardware is best. Patience is a virtue.

Yes, I actually expected that one could finally drive/walk in vehicles in ArmA 2... But WHY isn't it the case? :(

I thought it was May the 5th?

Exactly! But anyways, competition is always good.Even though I don't think Codemasters is a worthy competitor, it will definately make BIS developers more efficient. If they make enough profit, they could expand. Like what Crytek has done over the years, they now own a couple of renown developing studios while they have the technology.

Aircraft tug drag racing! :D

Yes, it's crap aswell. At least with the 8800GT.My HD4870 1GB works flawlessly though. Avoid XP64 anyway you can, it's even worse than Vista.

That's the difference between now and then.I can't afford Core i7 atm either, not because my salary isn't deposited but because it's only 6 months on the market. Core i7 is only in it's first stage, it's more a showcasing of Nehalem architecture for early adaptors. Once it's in the range of the first tick iteration, it will go down in price. Probably lower than Core 2 Duo atm and we're only talking about 2-3 months. The problem you will be facing with buying a C2D/C2Q or Phenom II now, is that it gets outdated very quickly. Dunno, it performs the same on my Windows XP (Catalyst 9.4) boot as it does on my Windows 7 (Catalyst 9.4) boot.

I can only give you this advice: Postpone upgrading plans until after ArmA 2 is released. ;)GTA IV won't run that good on that computer. My Q9650 @ 3 GHz, HD4870 1GB, 4 GB DDR3-1600 CL6 doesn't even run GTA IV properly. Somewhere in August I should have enough dough for the new RV870 2GB (40nm, DX11), a Westmere-shrunk i7 (or perhaps i5) and 12GB XMP DDR3.

But what would EU be? Germany, France, Italy, Benelux?

I'd wait until after ArmA 2 is released, then you can upgrade when you really need it. By than current-gen hardware will be cheaper and next-gen hardware will be out. The instant gratification "needs" of people often leaves them with nothing. ArmA 2 is expected on 26th of June, around that time AMD-ATI's RV800 series will be released.

It might just run ArmA 2. You'll have to see when a demo or sth is released.

That is a very nice hint. I'm waiting for X58 boards to get cheaper and SAS SSDs to be available, then I'll switch from U320 to SAS.SCSI has very smart TRIM commands which can improve SSD bandwidth after being written on multiple times.

They could heavily blur out the outer edges...

Let alone diesel fuel is even harder to ignite and other than old Skoda's and Lada's there probably won't be any regular petrol Otto engined cars.A tracer round might be able to ignite petrol, but you'd need enough air aswell. Explosions should be avoided anyway, it just creates unnecessary need for splash damage and graphical effects.

Let's assume we are talking about a very complex ragdoll physics system which realistically portrays the anatomical restrictions of our bodies. (tendons, muscles and bones make sure we cannot fold into positions you often see in other games with ragdoll physics)It can assume the correct position and very accurate pose only with a grid location of the pawns' fictional absolute center (grid location on the map), azimuth and the three dimensional Cartesian position and angles (XYZ and ɑβγ) of the wrists, head and combined feet relative to that absolute center. Angles ɑβγ predict the pose of connected limbs by using anatomical restrictions of the human body and gravity. The data of the pawns pose can be synced without using much data. Legs have a small angle of freedom, so you can see both feet as one position, ragdolls doing splits aren't realistic anyway and you want to avoid them so this is the best solution. The head is synced in the game already afaik. That only leaves the wrists. A human wrist restricts movement of the entire arm, there is only a little bit of freedom. So the XYZ + ɑβγ of both wrists, combined with that of the head and the gravity gives you a very accurate pose of the upper body and already a pretty accurate pose of the lower body. Here's an example: A pawn is placed at position XYZ, azimuth 45° off magnetic north. His left wrist is a relative XYZ away with alpha, beta and gamma as direction. His right wrist is a relative XYZ away from absolute center with ɑβγ relative to absolute center. His left wrist is a relative XYZ away from absolute center with ɑβγ relative to absolute center. The camera raytracer gives the head's position and direction. The combined positions and directions of both wrists and the head and gravity create a very limited amount of possible poses so you now have a fairly accurate pose of the upper body.

You don't have too. Only the general position of the body is needed. You don't need to sync the positions of all the bones, joints, etc.Hidden & Dangerous 2 has a similar system which I am describing, but the pawn location isn't synced with high accuracy. It isn't relevant if said pawn is upside down, legs crossed and arms to one side. That is only important if you want exactly the same esthetics on all clients. Only the location of the pawn itself is important, so players or NPCs can interact with it (take ammo, hide body, etc).

This doesn't have to be the case. Ragdoll physics are more like a part of esthetical correctness as I like to call it.For a game like Armed Assault 2, ragdolls don't need to be anymore network intensive as regular death animations. Just give the pawn a given trajectory and final position, sync that with the clients. The client now recieve that data and you can limit the ragdoll physics to the trajectory and final position. Combine a few death animations with ragdoll physics through blended ragdoll physics. This way the ragdoll will always end on the same spot while the client does all the computing and it will never look the same.

Ragdolls aren't really that CPU intensive, if the engine is properly coded.Using purely ragdoll physics as a replacement for death animation won't work. Other than procedural animations the best solution would be a motion captured animations combined with inverse kinematics for the final position.

Well, I read somewhere that the Clarkdale will get the very same IGP hardware as used in the GN40 chipset. Which is based on Intel's X4500 HD graphics processor.However the first Core i5's (Lynnfield) will get an on-die PCI Express controller for decreased latencies, higher bandwidth and better direct memory access capabilities. So no integrated graphics processor in the Lynnfield. Havendale (45nm) is scrapped and replaced by Clarkdale (32nm). So: The Lynnfield is the first Core i5 to release, which is a mid-end 45nm quadcore without integrated graphics processor. The Clarkdale is the second Core i5 to release, which is a low-end 32nm dualcore with integrated graphics processor. What I think you mean is either the Flexible Display Interface (which connects the IGP through the MCH to an HDMI/DVI/VGA port on your motherboard) or the Direct Media Interface (which connects the CPU-GPU to the MCH).