toby23

I downloaded Play with SIX and it works fine with that. Thanks...

I'm using normal BETA build. SP= single player? or Showcase too?

Thanks for your help. CBA loads fine and I can see the very useful CBA team member overview in the briefing window, so at least I know who I'm playing as. I have only tried the Showcases, where I can't see the STHUD mod, even if I'm part of a team, so I guess this mod only works when playing online in a team?

Steam Beta is version 070.106872 CBA_A3 is version Beta 4 @sthud is the one from Armaholic I added them both to my game shortcut just as I always did in ARMA2 - "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Arma 3\arma3.exe" -mod=@CBA_A3; @sthud; But it doesn't work, I don't see any sthud...

It doesn't work for me using Steam Beta from today. Anyone else got this to work? I downloaded this and CBA_A3 Beta 4 today.

Hi BIS, After trying out the beta preview and the full version of Take On Helicopters, I've got some feedback and questions for you. 1. Why do you have such a low distance for LOD for 3d models. Buildings are changing shape 100m from my helicopter, they shouldn't be. 2. Why do the clouds 'melt' when I turn my head? They don't do that in real life. 3. Add an option to disable the restrictive 'realistic head attached to shoulders' view. This is one of the most annoying things about this game. 4. Please change the restrictions on view angle. It is completely unrealistic and uncomfortable. I do not want to hold ALT to look around, if you have Track-IR, then you should be able to use it as intended, to look around. 5. Why do all sounds fade out when you receive radio communications? Completely pointless and ruins any immersion, as well as making it dangerous to fly, if you use the sound of the engine as notification of problems. 6. Don't pause the game to save it, especially not at key points... Either allow user saves with F5 or do background saving. Do not pause my game to save it... that is so annoying. 7. Why do buildings on the horizon all shimmer as if AA isn't being applied properly? What does 4-8 mean in the settings? Please don't be so cryptic, just add normal easy to understand settings. Or even better, allow me to use my own AA settings set via Nvidia Inspector, for example. I want 8xs and transparency AA but I can't force it. 8. Autogen buildings pop in around 2km radius. This is too close, how can I change this distance? 9. There are lots of Z buffer texture fighting issues, perhaps this is just with Nvidia cards but I doubt it. If you could fix this it would be great. 10. Instead of clipping all autogen buildings and trees at the view distance limit setting, how about adding a realistic haze at this point as well, so that it doesn't look so bad? Haze is your friend... 11. Please make motion blur a separate setting. I cannot get the OktNoBlur ARMA mod to work with TOH, perhaps you could add a setting to remove it? 12. Why does post processing make everything look like butter was rubbed in my eyes? Could you perhaps add post processing without making everything go soft? 13. When you turn your head in the small helicopter cockpit, you look through the 3d model. Please correct this bug. 14. Spelling mistakes are unprofessional and litter this game. Proof readers are cheap and I would be happy to help you, for only the price of the game. All in all, I'm pretty disappointed that I spent 40 euros on this as it stands today. I love ARMA2 and own all the add-ons and consider that much more professional and finished. I really enjoy the mission aspect and the Asia scenery is much better than the US scenery but it is still not the best you could do, I am sure. I don't wish to compare this scenery to FSX scenery but I know what is possible with your engine and you can do much more. Perhaps you could consider adding an option for ARMA2 ground textures, which would also boost performance. I hope that we see a patch that boosts performance soon. I run an i7 @ 4.5ghz and have 2xGTX580 in sli and the performance is nowhere near as good as what I get playing ARMA2 with all the add-ons and mods. Take On Helicopters feels like you had a meeting and thought, 'hey, we've got the engine, let's make a new flight model, add some new scenery and we could have a new game out in 12 months.' Forgive me if this is wrong but that's the impression I get, and I shouldn't. I shouldn't be seeing anything ARMA in this game. Get rid of the ARMA compass, gps and watch in the map. Replace them with versions more fitting to this game.. Remove the ARMA2 keyboard shortcuts. Imagine that you're a new TOH customer who has no experience with ARMA... or ask someone who is. Please keep working on TOH. It could be fantastic. I look forward to seeing what happens. Toby

I use Track-IR and I can see and select the game 'take on helicopters' from the Track-IR games list. Try restarting your PC without Track-IR starting at start-up. There are some problems with settings not sticking with Track-IR and Win 7.

If you're looking for a combination of settings to improve frame rate, look here first. Turn everything off first, then slowly increase settings until you reach your acceptable limit, it's the only way and it'll take you an hour or two. Toby

Great interview Dwarden.. Why don't you offer a higher resolution version for download only then? The digital download installer was nearly 14gb. The ground textures really let this game down. I don't want to focus on ground textures but for a game that prides itself on low level flight, detailed ground textures should be a priority. That and high resolution cockpit textures. Those used now are unacceptable. You can't even read the labels, they are so blurry.. It's your job to convince us that we are in a helicopter. Part of that comes through a believable and detailed cockpit. Unfortunately the video has been removed but that is exactly my point. If the 'dynamic' clouds were linked to change over time, that would be great but linking them to head movement is just wrong. Toby

Hi Dwarden, Your quick reply on a sunday evening is much appreciated. 1. I cannot provide video at the moment, sorry. Please just accept that I am seeing buildings change shape in front of me. I understand how LOD works but this is too close. 2. Look out of the side window and move your head, the clouds appear to melt. 3. Do not attach the head to the body. Leave it free. I want complete freedom of head movement. I can restrict this with Track-IR settings. 4. Sorry I didn't mean FOV. I meant that I want to be free to look around without having to press and hold ALT. 7. That's what I thought. I hadn't tried disabling in-game but that works great and moving the AA to the GPU has given me a huge performance boost. 8. Yes, tried. I have now set maximum view distance. 9. Again, no video but the buildings have flickering problems. It is the same problem often seen in FSX when two textures are laid over each other, eg door on building. 10. I would like to see a fog at the edge of the view distance instead of nothing. Unlimited view distance is rare around Seattle. Maximum ground level view distance is around 30-40m, at 6000ft around 60m on a very clear day, more normally 40m. Just add fog to the horizon to simulate low visibility and this will hide the objects popping in. 11. I can try. I just want an option to disable motion blur. 12. Sorry I just don't like the BIS PP setting making everything blurry. It's not simulating depth of field by making everything blurry. I will try to get used to it. 13. I don't have a screenshot. Just try the training missions in the small helicopter, with Track-IR, and look out of the left window. 14. I can't give you a list. You can refund the price of my game and I will help you to find and repair all of the spelling mistakes but not for free for a commercial software. They are in the subtitles as well as in the textures. Ground Textures I personally don't care how large these files are. I use photoscenery that goes up to 30gb for FSX. I know everyone doesn't have the bandwidth or HD space for these kind of files but I think that people would be happy with 5-10gb extra download for super ground textures. Thanks again for your help and quick reply. Toby

Dear Devs, Does installing the ArmA2 Tools cause the Command Line Prompt to launch at Boot with a window that mentions a file called ArmAWork? i just noticed this window pop up quickly... Thanks

Thank you very much for your help Bravo. The key was pointing to the wrong path because after installing a new HD, the drive letters had changed... Got to love windows...

I have an original CD German version of ArmA2, bought when it came out. I downloaded the 1.0.3 patch but it will not install. Error - ArmA2 is not installed on your computer or is corrupted Patch 1.0.2 worked fine when it was released... NOTHING I have tried has worked... ie remove mod folders, move patch to .exe location... Anyone have any ideas or do I have to download a Language Specific Patch? Your help is much appreciated, would love to give this patch a try...

i want the developers to give me an answer as to why the patch won't install. do i have to wait for a german patch?

to the developers, can you please help with this problem. is this an english version only patch?

My TrackIR works fine with ArmA2. I can look left, right, up, down and zoom in and out, 6DOF as advertised. There is however no roll, no side to side and no vertical up and down. Would be great to see this added in a patch. Edit I am confused... I cannot get 6DOF working, I am missing X and Y axis. (Yes, they are checked in the trackir options)

i finally got it... i had to log in to my steam account and then download the manual....

I hope someone can help me.... Every time I try to download the english ArmA2 manual from Steam, all I can see are empty pages... The file is 11mb but the pages are empty... Can someone please send me a link to where I can download a working copy of the English Manual from? Thanks for your help, Toby

I just upgraded to a Q9650 from an E8500. Even without overclocking, performance in ArmA2 is better. I have a G15 keyboard and can see how much the cpu and ram are used. I have 4gb ram, win xp sp3 and a bfg gtx 260 oc 216cores and the ram never runs over more than about 40% usage. The CPU however is regularly running at 65% (65% of 4 cores) and that is already more than 2 fully loaded cores on an E8500 (would be equal to around 50% of my 4 cores). Of course the game will run on an E8500 but i am seeing better performance with the quad, so for me, the upgrade was worth it... I've overclocked the quad to 3.6 and performance is even better. For every 0.5ghz you overclock, you should see around a 10% performance boost.

laggy, i had this problem too. i found out it was because i was trying to play a SAVED GAME i created before i patched the game to 1.02. try starting the level new and it should be ok.... toby

Thanks to the team at BIS for this update. I had some trouble getting the AA working properly... If I disable shadows and enable FSAA, I get weird black shapes all over the bottom of my screen, my solution was to keep Shadows enabled (they are automatically disabled in game). I have the FSAA set to 2 which adds a subtle layer of AA to the game, it's not 4xAA but we're heading in the right direction... :) Now just bring those shadows back and I'll be a happy soldier! I still cannot override or enhance the AA or Anisotropic setting with Nvidia Control Panel, which I would like to be able to do. I have a BFG GTX 260 896mb and it's not being used as much as it could be. I've deactivated Post Processing effects and the game runs ok. The HDR Bloom effect is much more toned down since the update and now I can actually see what's happening around me anywhere I go... Thanks for fixing that BIS. I recently bought a quad Q9650 for gaming, as an upgrade to my E8500. I also have a G15 Gaming keyboard and can see the CPU and RAM usage on the display. ArmA2 regularly uses more than 65% of the CPU (65% of 4 cores), around 50% would be the comparable max load for a stock E8500 with 2 cores. This is one CPU hungry game, so don't be surprised if it stutters or you have a low frame rate on a dual core. Neither of my CPU's was overclocked. I have tested ArmA2 with the Q9650 at 3.6ghz and, somewhat obviously, the performance was better. I would like to see a better LOD system in the next patch, if possible. The most disturbing thing for me in the game, is how the detail on objects pops into view all the time. I never played ArmA so I don't know if this is part of the engine but it would be great to see a user customisable LOD. I am loving this game. It is a fantastic attempt at simulating real world conflict and with all it's dents and bumps, it's still leagues ahead of the competition. You can't come to ArmA2 expecting COD4, you just can't compare them... I am really looking forward to seeing what happens in the next six months with ArmA2... For anyone interested in my setup, I run Windows XP SP3 on a Q9650 CPU at stock speed 3ghz. I have 4gb RAM and a BFG GTX 260 graphic card. I use the latest Nvidia Drivers, 186.18 and my system is defragged and optimised for gaming. I play ArmA2 at 2560x1600 on a 30inch monitor with a TrackIR 4, mouse and keyboard and an X52 hotas. The only change I made to my .cfg file was to change FSAA to 2 and the Render size to the same size as the Resolution, ie Fillrate 100%. In my ArmA2.Profile I changed the following settings: anisoFilter=3; TexQuality=3; TexMemory=4; shadowQuality=3; headBob=0; sceneComplexity=250000; viewDistance=2500; terrainGrid=25; gamma=1.1; brightness=0.9; The game is very playable, performance could be better but for now it's ok. I haven't been online yet so can't comment on that. I hope my comments help some of you fighting to get ArmA2 looking like the screenshots that made you buy the game ;) Toby

Thank you very much for taking the time to prepare this fantastic guide. It's really helping me and I am really looking forward to my first online session with some like-minded players. I am 35 and a serious gamer, I only want to play ArmA2 online if I can find some like minded players. I am not a milsim obsessive but I would really like to find a grown up team to play this online with who enjoy the sim aspect but realise that it's a game and are primarily in it for the fun and the teamplay. At least a team with some patience and understanding for players new to the world of ArmA. Does anyone know where I could find such a team? Thank you. Toby

I don't know if this is allowed or not here, so forgive me if i'm asking in the wrong place. I have a German Retail version of ArmA2 which I would very much like to play in English. The various English language mods that I have seen and tried are awful. Can someone please make the Official Retail English Language Pack available? Could BIS make this available as a download perhaps? I only really need it for the campaign text... I can speak a bit of german, so I can get through the menus without a problem, it's just it's hard work for me understanding the fine details of a briefing in german... Many thanks, Toby

I am having a fantastic time with ArmA2, loving every minute of it.. I am using kegerty's no blur and no hdr B mod. How can I get rid of the light to dark fx that happens when you look around? This effect is nice but is overdone (imo) and this makes it very hard for me to see clearly as everything becomes too dark (in broad daylight)... Is there anyway to remove this hdr bloom light to dark effect completely? Thanks for your help, Toby Edit Found this post, which discusses this problem in more detail...

don't forget your graphic card needs some memory to display the images on your screens too... there is a reason this figure is not the total RAM of your gfx card. my localVRAM is 916741888 bytes (874mb) by default and I have an 896mb GTX260 card, which is 939524096 bytes. What I would like to know is, does nonlocalVRAM refer to Virtual Memory? If so, why is ArmA2 only using 503mb of my 4990mb available?