Jump to content

cscuk

Member
  • Content Count

    26
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Medals

Community Reputation

10 Good

About cscuk

  • Rank
    Private First Class

Contact Methods

  • Biography
    Computer is Intel Quadcore 3GHz, 8Gb memory, nVidia nForce 790i SLI Ultra motherboard, 8800gts
  1. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    You mean FADE anti-piracy protection. Well, it is not a problem so far on the downloaded firing range, but of course I bought online from a proper authorised place. FADE cuts in gradually but I have always had shooting problems. The problems have not got worse over time. I have my authentication key on back of game manual, wouldn't I have entered that during ArmA II installation?
  2. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    Intel quadcore 3GHz, 8Gb RAM DDR3 clocked at 1333MHz for system stability, nVidia 8800GTS, nVidia 790i Ultra motherboard. In game frame rates look OK but I don't know how to get an objective frame rate measurement. The intro screen though with the Khe San is a bit jerky & sometimes in game frame rate will noticeably slow, but that so far is rare.
  3. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    Engagement range against the AI normally depends on when I see them & what gun I have. Sometimes I will shoot even if I cannot see them in case there is only vegetation between us. Typically I get my team (in campaign) to kill an officer then go get his AK74-PSO. I will then try to engage visually from 300 yards down. Even with a visual at 200 yards these guys are very very small, the reticle can block them completely from view, so I use the AK74 for its scope which I take it is x4, but also because I read online how to use the calibrations. If I do not hit at these ranges I keep getting closer (or the AI does) & try again. This continues until point blank, say 23 meters in one case (but he was over the hill it turned out). I know you will laugh at this last, but I had to keep reverting cos he kept killing me - through the hill. Most kills are with the M4 holo in the dark at ranges around 80 meters. In campaign mission Manhattan, I was prone & could see into the enemy HQ from the west & could see prone enemy in the open side on to me, using the PSO scope, I started shooting at about 350 meters and the observed bullet strikes where all short, moving up only ended in non-observed bullet strikes so I don't know where those bullets where going, I kept creeping closer until 200 meters with the same results. I never got closer cos they shot me every rerun, so eventually I just blew the place up with artillery. For the sentry posts (I found maybe 5 of these) I tried shooting from prone through the low lying vegetation which should not offer any resistance but that never works even at say 60 meters on the HUD bearing. I fond 1 pair of tents in relatively open ground, all the sentries were clustered prone on far side of tents I tried hitting them with semi & full auto from around 80 meters while standing, most bullets I couldn't seen strike, then they kill me. I had to keep reverting until my AI team mates could kill them. So that is about typical. View distance is 10,000. Object detail is very high. Resolution is 1920x1080x32. 3D resolution is 1920x1080. All the other video settings are: brightness & gamma mid. Quality, texture detail, vid memory, anisotropic, shadow detail, post process all very high. Terrain detail High. Antialiasing normal. interface very small. Aspect 16:9 wide.
  4. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    I am not left-handed & I often hit wrong keys on keyboard unless I am actually looking at it. The whole idea of both HOTAs & game pads is to put different things near different parts of the hand for minimised travel & minimised mistakes while eyes off, & it works well. I have been 'dialing in' my arrangement of functions to HOTAS buttons so those often used are most easily accessible without errors & at reasonable speed. ---------- Post added at 02:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:58 PM ---------- Yes I do have a keyboard & mouse phobia for games. The error rate & time for operation is too bad also have to take eyes offscreen far too much in the case of the keyboard. The X52 is now almost dialed into ArmA II, so what is done is done. Lock-on Flaming Cliffs 2 is a flight-simulator grade mil sim, but that is another topic. The PC is for video editing & games are secondary. In fact I use it just for simulator grade games, other stuff just do them on 360 or PS3. ---------- Post added at 02:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:04 PM ----------
  5. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    I was using zoom but I think now that I shouldn't except when about to actually shoot because it also causes you to hold your breath & when I saw this control I wondered whether that is because you sometimes have to go under water but now it appears that it is related to steadying your aim during pulling of the trigger. I also have this control on my HOTAS throttle so available to my left hand for simultaneous use with shooting. I suspect if you use this zoom feature a lot you will partially asphyxiate your avatar so I don't think I can use it generally. For pointing & clicking, obviously in real world physics moving a mouse & clicking is not as hard as moving a gun around, but I was referring to the totality of being able to hit things in ArmA II even at shortish ranges with the difficulty of hitting things in real life with real equipment at similar ranges, such as 100 yards. In real life I can hit at 100 yards, in ArmA II to begin I couldn't even hit at very short ranges of tens of meters. This is now starting to be addressed. BIS Dev Diary says the shorter the range gets the more unreliable the floating pointer on screen is due to parallax you will just have to go watch that, all my kills have been with the gunsight & now I propose to use only that for aiming. Because I have the game HUD enabled I am being shown where the AI enemy is. I can fire bursts on semi at them or go full auto, makes little difference, then along same line of sight they hit me. In some cases I have double checked on the map & there is high ground between us according to the contour lines. Often they are shooting me through forest over say 200 meters when the vegetation between us is so thick we cannot see each other, so maybe they have x-ray vision, I fire back the other way (see the above) no effect. What I am doing is just firing into the zone of the HUD indicator & yes that is a form of x-ray vision, but how come along the same line their bullets can hit me but mine cannot hit them? From this description of experiences it is clear that often I am not able to observe actual bullet strikes. On other occaisions when I can see them, in the past I have been using the floating mid-screen cursor, so see all the above, on those occaisions when I do see bullet strikes they are usually nearby the target but a bit off, I think I hardly ever see overshoots, when I do see bullet strikes they are often short of the target. I almost always use semi, with good gaps between trigger pulls, & there is no sign of bullet scatter, & there is no correlation with standing crouching or prone. I thinkyouare saying I may be spraying the bullets around, but I am getting these observations when prone on semi with spaced shootings as well as in other modes. I have started a single mission, forgotten its name, I took a sniper rifle M40A1 I think. There is a runway with about 4 enemy on it at 650 yards approximately my bullets mostly fall short (I can see them hit the runway) but if I adjust up I miss with usually no sign of a bullet strike. Well for this we will just say I have a downloaded shooting range & I may open a thread focused on how to shoot accurately then go practice.
  6. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    I am now pushing more than 1 control at the same time. Console games often require simultaneous inputs. See the other posts. I checked on other more general websites. Some comments include that long range shooting for humans in software is more difficult than in reality cos you have lower levels of visual resolution than in reality. You must remember that the AI doesnot have to deal with the user interface. I have played paintball and seen better than I can see in ArmA II, that is just a fact. I have shot with shotguns clay pigeons & I have fired a .22 on a range at 100 yards I can group my shots (group shooting rather than bullseye shooting) which means I have a real-world talent (I checked if that is correct meaning of such a result). Shooting in ArmA II I find much harder than in real life. Its the user interface. And I do get the impression the AI can shoot through stuff that humans cannot, including hillsides, often they are shooting me without a direct line of sight, I shoot back at them (the hud on recruit difficulty tells you where they are) I cannot hit them. This so far is an impression, I will wait & observe better before I confirm it as a fact. ---------- Post added at 01:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:51 PM ---------- I probably would write a bad review then yes. As I say elsewhere, I am in Lock-On Flaming Cliffs 2 flying an A10 in "simulation" mode using my Saitek. It is not a huge company that develops that series but so far I am having a faster rate of progress than with ArmA II. I think I will be playing FC2 online far sooner than ArmA II. As I say I have got adequate control of my avatar in ArmA II now and I have to sort out the shooting bit, which it appears is deeper than just pointing the gun. I do not mind this so long as I am past user interface control issues and can start getting into a simulation of how difficult real world shooting is & learn how to do it. Further on FC2, the Saitek will need programming for that too for full functionality, but at least FC2 recognises & works with my HOTAS essential controls for x y z axes & throttle thrust out of the box. & it has documentation. Just reading about mil sims generally I hear that documentation is normal for them. I am learning the A10 tankbuster first & then I guess I will go MP for anyone who wants a half decent A10 driver. Regarding difficulty of programming against joystick, this is simplified for developers by things like drivers which are there precisely to remove complexity & cost for application developers & I will say again so far only ArmA II has displayed difficulty reading my HOTAS. So this is definitely a developer issue.
  7. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    The Saitek X52 Pro has an in-built mouse declared to Vista as a mouse, but it is operated by small thumbstick on the throttle. But I found my aiming problems are in part based on this mouse being less good than a proper PC mouse, so now I have switched to using the PC mouse for fine aiming in a gunfight. Point being, I say again, a PC mouse takes a whole hand and a thumbstick mouse only takes a thumb. The ball of my left thumb is used on the mouse button behind the stick as a shift key to control whether I run or walk. I have a hat also on my throttle, my index finger on left hand uses that to look around, so head swivel. I have two POVs on the throttle, one is used for setting my direction of travel (WASD entry) which I can do with just my right thumb. The other POV is used to set stances stand up, crouch, evade left or right, and I have a pinkie switch by my right little finger so I can go prone in a flash. The trigger on the joystick can be used to fire, but now I revert to proper PC mouse for fine aiming & actual shooting & use gunsight optics at same time, at expense of using a whole hand for the mouse. I have things like reload & stepover & night vision set on other joystick buttons. I also have a bunch of toggle buttons beneath my right hand which require me to release the joystick, mostly for things that are not so split second urgent, and I have a mode button on the joystick to switch essentially from avatar control mode to command mode.
  8. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    I told you, this is a review thread. People who are thinking of buying & who do research via the internet & who key in ArmA II review may see it. Then they will decide whether they are going to try it or not given the reality of how tough it is to get anywhere with it. Help etc on specific points is done elsewhere.
  9. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    Help is elsewhere, this is a review thread. There are plenty of ArmA II guys using the Saitek X52 Pro which is why I bought it myself. Like I say in other posts here, I have been making progress but boy is it slow. I still can't hit anything though, but I have downloaded a long shooting range mod by kronzky so maybe another thread on how to bloody shoot? ---------- Post added at 12:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 PM ---------- I didnot work on it everyday. Nor all day. Thats just elapsed time.
  10. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    I patched to1.07. I find glitches with teammate control. On one campaign mission, where you try to get Lobotev or whoever before he gets over the border, I found an enemy tent near the top of a hill in a depression, we killed the occupants, when I left most of my team followed me but one wouldn't. I ended up shooting him and reverting to last save. I often have a problem with this kind of disconnect in campaign. I asked everyone to board a humvee, they all said they were mounting, one by one they mounted until Number 2 just stayed stuck in mount mode, I used team switch to become him and was sitting in the Humvee, I team switched again and got out as leader & there he was standing outside! I had to revert. In the mission where you are departing from FOB Manhattan by helicopter, I tried to get my team on the helo, one of them just got his head stuck in the tail rotor. I had to revert. Basically, before you order boarding of a vehicle do a game save. I did find how to rearm & heal everyone though, in FOB Manhattan there is a medical tent, stand by it then team switch to any team member who is injured & he will fully heal in the tent. Same thing for getting more ammo from the ammo box. ---------- Post added at 12:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:57 AM ---------- What do you mean by adjust the sight? You either put the chevron on the target or not for a correct aim at a stationary target, right? I read online for the AK74 with PSO sight, they say bullet drop doesn't matter until around 900 meters then you start using the lower chevrons. Websites on ballistics say gravity doesn't have much effect on bullet flight at first for aiming purposes cos the bullets are just going so damn fast but they lose energy fast as well, depending on bullet characteristics. There are maths formulas for this stuff. ArmA II should be using those formulas in order to live up to its repute as ballistically accurate.
  11. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    I cannot understand what is odd about joystick control of infantry avatar. I see this a lot in these replies, people who really think infantry cannot be controlled by joystick. I played Dragon Rising on PS3 with no keyboard & ergonomically it was very easy to pick up, I find keyboard to be the unnatural method of control. The point is productivity, joysticks with nearby buttons are more productive ergonomically than a clunky keyboard & mouse.
  12. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    You looked up my profile & saw equipment definition, which is broken across 2 lines, I think that was due to form entry limitations so I spread 1 description across 2 fields. I selected all computer parts then paid a pro to assemble them, so yes I do know the difference between the computers, you just need to read the profile with more understanding. ---------- Post added at 10:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:30 AM ---------- It takes a while to get a programmable joystick dialed in to ArmA II, but I am getting there & configuration is getting more stable. Playing through the campaign helps to dial the thing in. I already know that playing games using keyboard & mouse is hard but PC game developers insist on that being their reference input cos that is the default standard, it just isn't ergonomic. In regards to the purpose of the thread, review, we are able to be critical & suggest improvements, if this is heavyweight software for enthusiasts then do a better interface that uses joysticks properly for in-game avatar is I think a fair point. BIS have dev diary videos to help introduce people to ArmA II & I watched the 1st about basic controls & that helped tune my HOTAS. But they don't have many such youtube videos, about 3 I think, not nearly enough. I found some of my issues are not ArmA II but joystick. So I have a thumb stick that acts as a mouse and was using it for aiming, but I have discovered that it is either low resolution or low repeat rate, so I use it for broad scanning but in a firefight I then have to grab the mouse for fine aiming. The dev diary shows you that aiming with the projected aim cursor in mid-view is not reliable, they have a parallax issue, so now I always switch to the gunsight in a firefight, all my in-game kills have been obtained via the gunsight. They showed us how to use evasive left/right when going round corners or shooting from behind cover & for flattening grass that stops you seeing what you are trying to shoot at. So slowly things are getting there with regard to control. So far this is just for the infantry avatar. But this screams the question, why no proper documentation? I downloaded a kronsky-developed shooting range & discovered I really am a terrible shot, but I have started correcting that, it is better then the training range in ArmA II basic training. Since ArmA II is about correct realistic ballistics we need lessons on ballistics, including how to snipe, how to take use/read scopes, how to take account of target movement (lead), how to detect & correct for wind & so on. These are the sorts of lessons/tutorials/documentation that they should build in. ---------- Post added at 10:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 AM ---------- Who, me? I don't play many games, reviewers have to play loads of games & then be nice to the developers or get starved. ---------- Post added at 10:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:52 AM ---------- I back up my ArmA II saves directory every now & then, there was a plague of load failures 1 weekend but that has subsided, the last patch applied was 1.07 & that was some time before this load glitching started, so basically it remains a mystery but I am back to stability. The campaign was started before the patch was applied. ---------- Post added at 11:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:56 AM ---------- Actually all software of any complexity needs to be documented including user documentation, lack of such often causes users to fail to take up software & many large professional software projects fail because of inability of users to use the product, this inability often because developers were not concerned with the users but just with their software. ArmA II seems to fall into that category. There is a habit amongst ArmA II enthusiasts of blaming the user, which we see in this thread, & of saying give up mate. Lots of people keep saying use the keyboard, interface designers know that different people think different & have different abilities & that different interfaces are often needed & you need to escape the view of having only 1 rigid interface, in part BIS tries to escape such rigidity by building in recognition of other devices like HOTAS then it just doesn't work with them well. With my HOTAS as I am getting it dialed in I can now do several things all at the same time. ---------- Post added at 11:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:06 AM ---------- A laser mouse doesn't work so well without a pad, my desktop is pine covered by fake glass & the laser doesn't like that at all. My HOTAS thumb mouse doesn't need a pad or a whole floor, you just deflect it with the thumb and away goes your avatar. A mouse takes a whole hand, this is what I am telling you, HOTAS is more efficient ergonomically, but still not devoid of its own issues. This is why fighter pilots use HOTAS not PC keyboard & mouse. Like I said I am still dialing the HOTAS into the software but really BIS should have made provision for basic HOTAS control of the in-game avatars, so recognition of the essentials of any HOTAS should be in ArmA II. I got Lock-on Flaming Cliffs 2 & it immediately works with my HOTAS, see, not so impossible. FC2 has a default input method of keyboard & mouse but they know HOTAS is best. I am learning to fly the A10, I have my 300-page user documentation & so far the in-game tutorials are good. I can already fly an A10 close to the ground without crashing, though I can still crash if I want. ---------- Post added at 11:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:17 AM ---------- The reason it took months is that I did not realise that unlike all other software tested with the joystick ArmA II appears to bypass a good deal of your joystick programming, and that the basic things that make a HOTAS a HOTAS (the X Y Z axes) are not at all programmable with ArmA II as the target software. The core of a HOTAS just appears unuseable in ArmA II. I had to disable these axes in the Saitek programming software, & disable a bunch of other Saitek features. There is definitely something about ArmA II & HOTAS. Joystick is a better way to control an infantry avatar, I don't understand why people think otherwise. But as I say in other posts, I am now getting satisfactory control of my infantry avatar with the HOTAS. The consistent problems that emerge with this software is lack of documentation & lack of ergonomics whilst we have to agree that different people prefer different input devices it really is not too much to ask for top end developers to work with HOTAS. ---------- Post added at 11:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:27 AM ---------- Anyone thinking of buying ArmA II needs to know what they are buying into first. I heard it was a good battlefield sim & paid my 45€ or whatever. Then I found ergonomics were bad for me but some guys said get a good HOTAS like Saitek X52 Pro, so I did, that set me back about 160€. It is said that you will get support with the game from the local publisher in my case 505 Games or some such, the publishers never reply to emails, so basically there is no official support. Reviews are in part so people thinking of buying can get a realistic view of what lies ahead of them. It is correct that this ArmA II needs a lot of commitment, much much more than a general buyer would ever have imagined, & the issues do revolve around ergonomics & documentation & you must sure that you are going to put in a lot of learning effort.
  13. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    Well, I shall progress for a while but I must find a way for it stop losing my game saves,this bit is just disastrous. I suppose I could look at editor and see if in there you can effectively make a campaign substitute, only thing is you would have prevision and also there are unlocks in the game for new weapons, I see most weapons have to be unlocked though you are not specifically told how. I have an awful feeling they are unlocked in the campaigns. The disastrous campaigns. ---------- Post added at 08:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:08 PM ---------- I do not use PC mouse for aiming because in part I run out of mouse pad, I have a mouse on the HOTAS throttle by my thumb and that is what I use, also this only takes up a thumb not a whole hand, so I can have a chance of operating other buttons and thereby functions at the same time, nevertheless moving the aim is very slow. The targets I notice move faster than my aim can track, especially once they get less than 100 yards.
  14. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    Well how are you supposed to aim a rifle in ArmA II? The joystick I use is programmable so I put the keyboard commands in there. It is Saitek X52 Pro. For this joystick you cannot program the central parts of the HOTAS because ArmA II just goes crazy, I had to disable the joystick in ArmA II's options controls, I had to remove programming of extra modes by use of pinkie in combination with mode switch cos that drives ArmA II crazy, the only things you can program are Saitek stuff not necessarily found on every HOTAS such as POVs and fire buttons. Anyway, the HOTAS is used in keyboard mimic mode and transmits scancodes to ArmA II accordingly.
  15. cscuk

    Lets do bad review of ArmA II

    I play campaigns to learn before I go online, most online players don't want to play with noobs who do not even know yet how to play. Also for some games the single play is deeper than the online. For this type of game online has to be short paintball type runs around the woods cos players online only have an hour or so, but maybe online missions for ArmA II are different but other players still want you to have basic competence I am sure. I crashed out of recruit training by the way. When commanding tank, driver drove into sea, we all swam ashore and then wewereleft in never never land cos the ArmA II tutorials are badly designed and do not recover from disasters yet disasters are to be expected in basic training and you need such training so you canlearn the dreadful complicated controls. So I wa
×