Whisky_Delta

Hello Been looking at the ACE features videos on you tube, and in conjunction with the new 1.05 patch release i am eager to get back to ARMA2. One question though and i am sorry of this is a dumb one, but are all of the new features, like deploying weapons, Kestrel equipment etc all available through playing the single player campaign? I am not a ARMA 2 online fan but will i get the benefit of ACE on the single player campaign? Keep up the good work, the mod looks fantastic. Regards Whisky

So how can some players not have this dead AI bug, yet people lke Zipper5 can play throughout no problem? Have you patched it? This AI issue cant be down to hardware differences either, unlike the performance issues of Arma2 Regards Whisky

So does anyone know what and where i have to change a few things in the config as Daniel mentioned? I mean granted, i cant progress any further in the campaign due the dead AI bug in "Delyaing the Bear", but i would still like to know, may replay previous missions. Regards Whisky

Hello Well i was just playing (cant remember the name of the level, but its after Manhatten, and before Delaying the bug infested bear :)), and i found i just kept on getting nailed by the super accurate AI. Now i tried everything, from taking the enemy AI from novice to expert and turning off super ai, but ti all made no difference (so god knows what these settings do) but basically an enemy would see me (through the grass, which i cant see him) then would then take a single shot that would kill me, no idea where he is, could see him and exciting firefight ensued. As another example, in this mission i was driving away from some enemy in a hummer, i must have been around 300-400 meters away, then a single shot killed me, it somehow missed by team mates and all the metal on this vehcile, but managed to find by visual cortex. I replayed both of these situation several times and ultimatly it feel sometimes BI have not bothered attempting to create the feel of a fierce firefight. In real battle, many hundreds of bullets are fired, with possible just a few confirmed kills. With Arma2, the Ai see you, shoot twice and they hit and your dead. No firefights!! I remember in OFP someguy made this full mod (it was set in Africa if my memory serves me correctly, cant find the name of it now)where the accuracy of weapons was made far less for the enemy and yourself, so it was far more fun and lots of bullets was flying all around the place, and there was none of this 3 round burst at 400 meters results in my face becoming a complete mess. Ultimatly part of the suspense of Arma2 is that you wont always be able to see the enemy because of the fantastic dense enviroment, so at least i would like a hail of bullets heading towards me, with cracks and wizzes going off, at which point i drop, take cover, attempt to find the enemy and return fire. Currently the case is i will be patrolling along and then nothing more than a pixel sized enemy will see me, drop to prone, shoot a small burst and i am dead! Game over, reload! And so this situation continues until you eventually finish the level after making 100's of saves !! Argh!! Now this has turned more into a rant than a constructive post, but basically can BI, or a community modder, make it so the AI arnt all Casey Rybacks and can nail you 500 meters, when you didnt even now they were there! I would love it, the enemy would more likely to nail your position with a hail of gunfire, which would be landing all around you than, just a few bullets going off here and there but them always finding their target. Regards Whisky

not neccaserily. I only notice the lack of grass when using a scope with zoom. When you zoom into something 200 meteres away, no grass is drawn as the radius of the drawn grass is not affected by the "view", but the players position. It is not impossible to implement code, which when you switch to your sights, will only generte grass within an "arc of your view. So know, instead of drawing 360 degress of grass, up to a range of 100 meteres. You could now be viewing grass up to a range of 500 meters but only within a arc of say 20 degress. This arc would obviously be adaptive, so as the player moves the weapon left or right, it will draw grass in the scene, before the view gets to thoat area of grass. Hope i am maing sense. Ultimatly it would be possible, but as BI prefers the idea of quickly and hastely implementing untested code, just to release the next install of a game, i doubt this would be implemented. Like someone else said in this thread, Far Cry 2, did a fantastic job with grass. At no point did i see the edge of the boudary where grass was being drawn. Even when you zoom in with a sniper rifle, geomety would be generated which would give a convincing enough interpreation without massive fps drops. Really BI could learn a lot rom the developers of Far Cry 2, as their LOD system was fantastic. SOmehow they made it so distance trees, would turn from images, to gradualy increasing detailed models and would look so seemless. Regards Whisky

I just got Delyaing the Bear and indeed like everyone else, i ahve the dead AI bug. Its unfortunate really, as i beleive Arma2 could well be one of the best games i have played (when it works) There have been some moments where i jus tthink that was so cool, yet the community is being let down by poor testing, management and support. I am starting to realise that Arm2 is just goign to be a rollercoaster of dissapointment, and even die hard loyal fans, once OFP2 is launched will convert back to OFP. I now this is pure speculation, but i Codemasters would never release a game in this condition. Well done BI, i know VBS2 is a raging success, but i think you have in one swoop, made a lot of loyale fans regret paying for the game. Regards Whisky

Right click your speaker icon on the desktop -> plyback devices -> select your realtek speaker setup -> right click-> speaker configuration -> then make sure 5.1 surroubnd sound is selected. I found when i used on-board it would not detect my speaker setup and would default to stereo, so for the last year or so i have been playing my games in sterero and not full 5.1 lol. Regards Whisky

Hi All Just wanted to find out if anyone is expieriancing this. When a pilot in a helicopter and i select manual fire, the gunner stops aiming the cannon all together, and just points dead ahead. However if i rely on the Ai to do all the shooting, he only fires when i am 10 meters infront of the enemy, and this is irraspective of whether the enemy is shooting at me. i.e. a group of enemy which is open view, shooting at me, and the AI gunner does not engage, switch to manual fire, and he will either not aim the cannon at all, OR he will prevent me from selecting any weapon other than Hellfire missles. Even if they are all gone, i will hammer the weapon change key, and nothing will heppen, then for no apprarent reason, he will they allow to change weapons again. I select the cannon (make do with the fact he will not aim the bugger) point the aircraft in the direction of the enemy troops, expect a hail of 20mm led heading their way but instead he decided to take control over the weapons again (despite me being in manual mode) and i shoot a hellfire. What a load of bolloxs. Now i am now AI expect, nor a game programmer, but how in the name of all that is holey did BI allow the game to ship in this state? Regards Whisky

This is not a hardware issue. This problem is called z fighting, and it occurs because the graphics engine cant work out which polygons to draw first, because they are close together, so you get that flickering effect. I also get this problem and as it happens when you zoom in to buildings, trees etc etc it is down to the near and far clipping planes of the view. It commonly happens when yu may have your ground terrain mesh, and then maybe polygons overliad ontop of the ground plain with possibly a different texture, say some dirt or something (just as an example). As to why it only happens when you zoom in, it would probably be due to the same reason, but the distances between the two sets of polygons could be meteres apart rather than millimeteres due to the fact you are now looking at the polygons which are physically a mile away. In the video example what seems to be flickering the most arethe windows of the buildings, ans the z fighting is occuring between the geometry of the windows glass, and the interior room walls inside the building. Hope i made sense. This cant be rectafied by us, Bohemia Interative needs to pop this on the ever increasing list of problems that they need to fix. My belief is that BI have shot them selves in the foot releasing the game in such a poor state long beore OFP2 is out. At the moment i am reluctant to carry on struggling to the play the game due bugs and performance issues. As such i may ditch it, and go to play OFP2 when it comes out as it is very unlikely OFP2 would be released in such a poor state. Regards Whisky

Well...i am starting to give u hope, as i dont think i can determine what is causing this surround sound issue. Whether i use my soundcard, with all the drivers installed or not, or if i use on-board, i can never get the Vista speaker configurator to sound off any other speakers other than the front left and right. I just strted up Splinter Cell Chaos theory and a simialr issu, of if people are talking at my and i either face them or have my back to them, no sound is emitted from the speakers. I am starting to wonder if this is a hardware thing but i god knows how to determine or sort that out! Any ideas? Regards Whisky

Well i have 3 Soubd tabs in Dxdiag and none of them have a slider for Direct x :(:( Regards Whisky

Well...the plot thickens...after a bit more digging i have no foudn that on-board sound is actually no better than my sound card with this problem. After you led me to the speaker configuration in Vista i set my on-baord to 5.1 and when i started playing the game again the same original problem i have remains. The reason i thought on-board worked was because when i turned it on, it did not automatticaly detect my 5.1 set up so defaulted to 2.1. So i turned it back to 2.1 and the problme dissapperared, which is identicaly to when i use the soundcard. So i have now determined it is not hardware related but purely software, whoihc is no biggy as unfortunatly the more i play Arma 2, the more i feel it is just Arma 1.5. My hardware is a q6600, 4 gig of ram and a nvidia 260 yet in places no matter what my graphics settings are i get reallty low fps. I suppose this is going to be like Arma 1, where you have to wait for a year before it is actualy in a playable state. Shame Regards Whisky

Thanks Gnome your post was most uswfull and i have yet more confusing resultd after looking into your suggestions. I have already mentioned in Arma 2 voices and some, but not all sounds, only play through the front left and right speakers. In the example i first noticed, other characters talking to you, if your back was to them, you wouldnt heara thing. I f i change to onboard this issue goes away and i do get full surround sound playing through the correct channels/speakers, but obviously there are performance and quality issues associated with on-board. Now i also mentioned that when using the X-Fi Volume Panel, where you can get sounds playing through each individual speaker, only the front left and right speakers get that sound coming out of them. This is after chaecking all the phsical connections. Now the even stranger part. When i connected my speakers up to my on-board, which i now works in all manner of games, movies etc with the 5. surround sound, when i used the Vista speaker configurator, i again only get sound coming out of the front left and right speakers. So just to re-iterate, although Arma2 works fine wiht on-board i still get the issue that something is not accepting the fact i have 5.1 speakers connected whether it is to my sound card or on-board......AAAARRRGGHHHHHHH!!!!!! Any ideas gentlemen? Regards Whisky

Well i re-installed and patched. Made no difference. I then installed my Sigmatel Onboard drivers and it works fine. No problem, other than the sound is now not as punchy and there will be a performance hit, so it must have been my sound card. I have always had an issue with my soundcard, in that when i do the speaker location test using the X-FI software where a woman says the location of each speaker, it only ever worked for the front left and right speakers. If i clicked on the central, rear left or right speakers no sound would come out of them. I have done loads of googleing but this issue has not been found by anyone else. So i am relucatant to get another replacement card as the same problem may occur. Any ideas? http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Creative-Labs-SB-X-Fi-Xtreme-Audio-PCI-Express-x1 This is the card btw, and i am using Vista x86 Regards Whisky

It is a Soundbaster X-Fi Audio 1x PCI-E, and i am using the analogue mini jacks connected to my Z5500 I am just re-installing the drivers. Regards Whisky