ta.maximus

I will buy the game because of this thread. Thanks to all involved.

Sigh, the old Steam problem back again. Like some of the other guys here Steam started downloading the patch before I could shut it down. I then downloaded the manual patch but it didn't work as ArmA II was already marked to version 1.07. Now I have to download the whole dam 8GB's again through Steam. In our country this amount of bandwidth costs the same as the game's retail price. I'm just going to uninstall ArmA II, can't afford this game anymore. Cheers.

I can probably check the credits to try and determine this, but just out of curiosity, how many developers actively worked on ArmA2 during it's development? Considering that these days the development teams can easily reach between 60 and 150+ people for large games.

I tested ArmA II with the two sets of drivers, and here are the results: Driver Version: 190.62_desktop_win7_winvista_64bit_english_whql Avg. FPS: Island Flyover - 39.030 Avg. FPS: Run through Chernogosk - 30.712 Driver Version: 191.07_desktop_win7_winvista_64bit_english_whql Avg. FPS: Island Flyover - 38.503 Avg. FPS: Run through Chernogosk - 29.280 So that is a slight decrease in performance for the newer drivers. :P

Sheez, thanks man, did you actually go and count them :O! It's actually still a very small group then considering the various aspects of the game. Just wondering how many is actually developers, then the number of artists and then the number of sound engineers as well... But it's cool, I'll go check it out this evening and do some counting as well. ;) I'm well aware that a game isn't just a success just because of the coders - team effort and all, but I'm specifically interested in the number of coders as I'm a software developer myself and have been for over 18 years. And I'm not looking for a job though for those who are thinking I am, I'm getting too old for that kind of pressure thank you very much ;).

I fully agree with your statement MadDog, well said.

Sorry my intention is not to start a flame about how skilled the team is or not. I just find it impressive when small teams build such immense games. Bugs or not, it's still a very impressive engine.

Yep, I'm at work though, but I guess I'll check it out tonight then if no one knows it of hand.

Thanks p75 and Juggernaut. @ p75, unfortunately small is a relative word when it comes to internet downloads. In our country small means less than 100MB, in other countries it could mean less than 1000MB. But thanks for responding anyway :)

Before I start up Steam I just want to get confirmation from someone whether the steam patch is 4GB in size again or not. If it is not, what size download can I expect?

If you decide on getting the game please don't get the Steam version... having to download the 4GB patch from Steam was never resolved and I have not been able to play the game since the last patch was released over a month ago. At least the retail version have got small patches. :P

Gecko, Placebo was referring to DecoySA's post.

10...9...8...7...

Thanks for that response. There is hope :)

Of course one should appreciate the patch and that BIS is working hard on getting everyone happy with the game. But some of us needs to jump through many hoops to try and get the patch in the first place. As long as the complaints are constructive then there should be no reason why one shouldn't be allowed to complain. As Placebo said, there might still be light at the end of the tunnel if the guys at Steam catch a wake up. However, one have to also keep in mind though that it is not up to Steam to support all sorts of propriety file formats in order to support the auto patching of games. My point is, ArmA II's data files are essentially the same, whether it be Steam or Retail version. One should be able to download a "steam" version of the patch which does exactly what the retail version of the patch does, with the exception of updating the exe's and copy protection libraries. Afterwords, you can simply do a sync with Steam and it will only synchronize the files that still needs to be patched. I hope it makes sense but in a way I'm just trying to determine whether at some point in the not too distance future there will be another way of patching ArmA without having to perform such major downloads. Or if I've got it all wrong and it is indeed a problem on Steam and the download size can be drastically reduced, well then I'm perfectly happy to wait a bit until it gets sorted. Sorry for my rambling...

South Africa is great. Most of it's nature is beautiful, we have sunny skies and great weather most of the time. We also have the best rugby team in the world *cough*, etc. etc. Last but not least, we have quite an active gaming community, despite all the negatives listed below. Our negatives are: 1) We pay huge import taxes. 2) We have a poor dollar and pound exchange rates. 3) Our local game and software distributors doesn't know about games such as ArmA, it's only interested in selling consoles and console games these days. So, ArmA II ever appearing in a shop is extremely unlikely. 4) We are one of the most expensive countries in the world when it comes to the internet. 5) We don't have decent internet everywhere yet, so it sometimes forces us to use less capable wireless connections. 6) Our standard internet accounts are limited to 3GB and 5GB, depending on who your service provider is. If you want to purchase more you pay your ass of for it. My internet costs alone last month worked out to R1500, which is 10% of my salary (I'm a software developer and earn a fairly decent salary). Having to download patch 1.3 will cost me an additional R675, that is more than what I paid for the game when I bought it through Steam. (I pay R150 per 1GB at my ISP and I don't have a choice between ISP's) So, if BIS ever reads this, perhaps they will understand that downloading a patch worth 4.5GB is just not acceptable in some parts of the world. Myself and others have done our share to help distribute ArmA II in South Africa, I just feel that it's fair that BIS does their part in making it easier for everyone.

Cool mate, no problem. :)

gdiza, I'm also in Cape Town, and I'm also on a wireless connection (Wireless Online), so I'm in the exact situation as you are. I got all the steam files from my brother who's got ADSL though and I have already created a nice two DVD setup for Steam with instructions and everything. If you wait a bit for me to get hold of the new cache with the new 1.3 patch, I can do the same thing. So, I can then give you the 2 DVD's for 2 replacement DVD's and you'll have it on disk, even if your PC crashes.

The only other method is to get the Steam cache from someone else and then buy it over Steam. But then you have to contend with a new set of problems, such as 4GB patch downloads!

It's going to cost me the same amount I paid for the game to download this patch. Common BIS, this is unacceptable. You guys are clever, surely you could write a small patching utility which is downloaded via Steam together with the changes, that can then actually implement the changes like your normal patching tool does?

datter from these forums posted an alternative version, I haven't tried it out yet though, will do so tonight. Read this: http://www.caveofdistraction.com/2009/07/22/fps-limiter-smoother-gameplay-in-arma2-and-other-titles/

A common technique to capture smooth videos using FRAPS is to limit a game's maximum allowed framerate. This makes for crappy gameplay but allows you to setup the capturing in such a way that FRAP never misses a frame, resulting in extremely smooth videos. This is especially helpful if you don't have a fast RAID array or SSD harddrive. As the title says, is there a way one can limit the framerate in Arma II?

Hi datter, thanks for that, it looks very promising. I will give it a go tonight.

I fully agree with your post An-225. Those changes would really add a lot to the flight dynamics.

Hi Kegetys, I've tried your limiter DLL but unfortunately the game won't start up and just crashes after the little checkbox load screen pops up. I'm running the game on WinXP SP2 and using the Steam version. Shortcut is set to: D:\Games\Steam\Steam.exe -applaunch 33910 -fpslimit=40 And I'm running ArmA II version is 1.02 Anyways, just though I'd let you know.