SeaVee

I just finished installing and setting up VAC for Arma2 using Fish44's profile. Fish44 I want to thank you SOOOOOO much for this. Your profile is excellent and saved me alot of time on the initial setup with all the macro commands. Guys, its hard to convey just how good this VAC is. After using it just a couple hours it IMO is almost a necessity in this game and I can see me using it extensively in almost all the other games I play. I'm still new to Arma 2 and amd still getting the hang of things. The learning curve is steep and the need for multiple key commands often to control the squad is a bit of a PITA and immersion killing. But let me tell you this VAC has TOTALLY TRANSFORMED that and its now intuitive and effective and simple to do. This is so absolutely awesome that there is NO WAY I'll play Arma2 now without it. I got the free 30 day demo of VAC directly at the developer's website: http://www.dwvac.com/ VAC uses Microsoft's speech recognition engine. I did the initial set up and testing of the mic - about 5 minutes. I first had issues with the headset mic directly in front of my mouth but it picks up too much breathing and with it just off to one side its perfect. Then I spent about 20 more minutes doing the voice training. You have a choice of several different excerpts to read aloud, in my case I picked the one from War of the Worlds by HG Wells which is cool and made the voice training process itself pretty interesting. The install puts into the program list for VAC a shortcut for VAC Builder and a shortcut for VAC System. With the Builder I imported and tweaked Fish44's profile a bit. Basically added a couple of additional voice commands and changed his default key press to activate mic from NUMPAD "." to something else as I had that key set to Arma2's default "tactical view". I then closed the Builder and launched the VAC System. It's icon will sit in the systray lower right corner (at least in my WinXP32). You then have to right-click that, load the profile and turn VAC ON. The cost of VAC after the 30-day demo period is just $18. IMHO its worth several times that based on how much it is improving my ARMA2 experience. Guys try the VAC demo and have your Arma2 game experience literally transformed!

How to install and configure Speech Recognition in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306537

First off, let me say I just got Arma 2 and am still learning the ropes but I can't believe I never had picked this up before. What a fantastic game! most of my past gaming life has been combat flight sims (BoB2), a couple of racing games and the usual FPS shooters. Arma2 blows them all away in terms of depth and immersion based on my experience so far. In case anyone is thinking of a new PC build, I finished this latest rig a couple months ago and am getting - I think - very good results with Arma2 and wanted to share the specs. Hope this is of some use to people thinking of putting a rig together in the near future. Benchmarks: With Ace2, running the in-game Benchmark #2 at 1920X1080, 2.5KM draw distance and all graphics options maxed and AA set at high I get 20 FPS avg. Without Ace2 it rises to about 22-23 FPS. Benchmark 1 FPS is 45 w/o Ace2 and 43 with it on. Is this considered "decent" with these particular benchmarks? In the few single player Arma2 scenarios I've played, FPS are generally at a low of 45 and at or close to 60 maybe 85% of the rest of the time. FPS are pretty much 95% of the time pegged at 60 in BFBC2; Modern Warfare2, etc. I play with Vsync forced on all the time with my games so I am limited to the 60FPS refresh rate of my monitor with vsync on. Rig Specs: Most stuff I got from my usual vendor Neweggg.com which is very reliable and competitive. CPU: Intel Core i7 920 - overclocked to 3.8GHZ. CPU COOLER: Zalman CNPS9900 NT POWER SUPPLY: CORSAIR CMPSU-850HX 850W - incredible review at HardOCP and tremendous user reviews at newegg on this PSU. HardOCP's review: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/05/27/corsair_hx850w_power_supply/ CASE: Cooler Master CM 690 NVIDIA edition with five 120MM cooling fans + the PSU's internal fan. RAM: Corsair Dominator 6 GB (3X2GB each in tri-channel mode) DDR3 1600, 8-8-8-24 CAS latency 8, 1.65V I'm using WinXP its only recognizing 3GB of the RAM but I got this as a package deal at a good price and can use it in future maybe with Win7.... Motherboard: ASROCK X58 Deluxe. Took a little flyer on this MOBO as I've traditionally been an ASUS guy but the features for the price are awesome. Has four PCIe full x16 slots, legacy IDE connectors, etc. etc. With the SLI setup and the i7-920 it will make full use of the x16 capacity on both video cards. Two months on the rig now, with CPU overclocked and its excellent and rock-solid stable. Graphics: Dual BFG GTX-260 1GB n55 cards in SLI mode (got a great deal on these from a b&M locally brand new in retail boxes). HDD: 1 terrabyte Western Digital Black Caviar SATA w 32MB cache AUDIO: While the mobo has on-board 8-channel realtek audio chip, I have really liked my Creative Audiguy 2Zs which I'm keeping from the old rig. I've yet to run the on-board audio solution. Operating System: Sticking with WinXP32 bit until - maybe - a move to Win7 a couple years down the road. Other stuff: - Logitech MX518 mouse - MSFFB2 joystick - Track IR 5 with trackclip - Logitech Z680 5.1 speakers - Logitech G27 racing wheel - Westinghouse 42" LCD monitor 1920X1080 @ 60Hz. Looking forward to getting deep into Arma 2 and my first foray into on-line play. Still have to set up the TS and voice commands which are new to me and think I'll try VAC. Is having the voice coms set up and mastered a "MUST" for casual play on open servers?

Are Mark XIII's Hi Fi sound mods part of this ACE2 SM mod package?