Qxs

The Valhalla 0.98 beta server seems like a great server/mission. (finally bringing the gameplay arma2 should be capable of...) My main problem is opfor look like friendlies... any thoughts on how to distinguish the two sides? Doesn't seem to matter if it's takistan or chernarus.. same issue...

Cant' get a server list... wondering if something is down...

Request that the towns be selectable. This would allow the admin (or map/mod team) to select, say 7 towns in a line, then the battle focuses at the middle towns. Arma does NOT have the community numbers to support the current rash of LARGE towns Warfare settings --> might as well coop offline! 30 players trying to conquer 20 towns is a bit ridiculous. 200 players in a LARGE town setting would be quite good though... I played a lot of AAS on Novalogic's "Joint Operations" and the battles are intense and fun even now (like 6 years later?)....

Could someone provide a link to a video taken of actual gameplay in the current OA Domination version (with ACE if possible). Having played the Demo I noticed a few things that concern me.. interested to see if they persist in Domination...

http://www.bistudio.com/arma2.html Latest patch is wrong, there is also no direct link for OA, you have to go running about to find it...

If you didn't install any new hardware or software... maybe somebody hit the computer case and dislodged the video card slightly.. my only other guess would be some type of virus. I would not expect any software to just explode tomorrow, unless I did something to make it explode...

Post Processing: disabled Shadows: try disabled vs High or Very High. AA: Low Should be ok to max the rest I guess.. you should expect a wide range of fps, depending on the missions you are playing. If you are planning on finding the magical FPS switch, there isn't one, it's hard wired to mediocre. Just to be sure nothing funky is going on, please report your FPS from the 3 benchmark missions. (single player -> benchmark... let it run, displays fps at the end..)

Permissions are all great and everything (credit where it's due), but I think you would find the only rights belong to some TV network, OR to BIS. A2 or OA seem like a great platform for some Airwolf missions, you could probably squeeze about 2 or 3 missions per map/island.. the storylines in the show were never fantastic so it just needs to be action based. I suppose you could even do it up as 1-6 player COOP missions, guessing you can only fit 2 in the chopper, and a small ground 'support' force as optional... The Wolf has come down from the north...

EDIT: Just another , hey look CPU is bottlenecking and GPU has nothing to do - thread /end-edit I downloaded Combined Operations from Sprocket. Installed A2, then OA into the same directory. It autoupdated to 1.07. If I run the Arma 2 link, then set my video settings up, and enter the "Benchmark 02" mission, there will be a spike in GPU usage for the first few seconds, then GPU usage drops to 0% (flatline in AMD OverDrive & 0% ATI Overdrive). Fraps measures fps to be about 10 at this point in time. It will remain at 0% until you get about 45 seconds in, and then it will jump up to about 30%, around the same time you see an increase in fps from ~10 to about 15-20. To check GPU usage I alt-tab to the desktop (Windows 7 64bit). Where I have left the AMD and ATI utils running along with the Task Manager. I can reproduce this with little variation in results. If needed I could probably get the dxdiag info... basically Video settings make no idfference, any settings, same problem. Video Settings: View Distance ~5000 Low or Very High Low, High, or Very High Disabled or Normal Disabled or Normal Very Low or High ANY Disabled or Normal (High and Very High will bump up GPU usage, I assume this is because it is being moved from the CPU to GPU as previously posted on these forums) Disabled or Very High Normal 5:4 -twice I had a strange bluriness for a split second, this effect looks a lot like when you hit ESC and the menu comes up... which I find interesting due to the other thread I read about the bringing the menu up was causing a boost in fps.... but it could have been some strange effect of a missile being fired into my viewpoint or something. -this happens when the helicopter crashes into the 2 large hangers. -no effect: cpuCount=4 -exThreads=7 -no effect: run as administrator -no effect: exiting fraps, task manager, AMD Overdrive, ATI Overdrive -no effect: exit comepletely, and load A2 again. -no effect: underclocking the GPU So basically, the video card is only being used for Shadows and possibly Post Processing ( I forget now too many test runs). Not tested: tinkering with V-Sync, hdr setting, benchmark 01 & 08 under same settings. EDIT: I did some tinkering with the view distance, and this seems to be a critical setting... GPU usage will actually go UP as you DECREASE view distance, and vice versa... I assume this is because the CPU workload is decreasing and it is therefore able to send more stuff to the GPU (that it was previously just dumping into the trash)... otherwise, I wouldn't expect GPU usage to increase with a lower view distance... -I also tried the benchmark 02 mission and got some similar strangeness with the view distance, the original problem seems to persist with this mission but it is not as apparent... -CPU usage remains fairly stable, 50-80% usage, very spikey though... -RAM usage could be linked somehow, seems to reach a RAM plateau at 1.48GB about the same time the GPU bumps up to ~30%, my gut tells me this is a coincidence. /end-edit

Just a thought, could this be related to full AI processing being done on the server & client side problem, when you bring up the menu, it disables the processing on client side, and you get the FPS boost that should have been there in the first place ? Cause that would be wild if this was the case... I'd add a link to the stuff but I'm kinda too tired to give a rats ass atm.

EDIT: After reviewing the AI problems/Deadeye posts/threads, it would seem like this is the issue with this benchmark Unless this mission is specifically engineered to perform differently than a typical mission (false representation, which seems unlikely), than any problem with this mission is likely going to be a problem for various other missions, be it multiplayer or whatever... My point of view is that the problem is right here in the benchmark mission, you don't need to look anywhere else. I will proceed with testing various catalyst versions as soon as I get some time to do so. Updated/New Data: Changes: SuperPreFetch=1, boot files only, but I see it is still caching armaoa.exe, so it's probably not actually changed... Added framesahead and hdr to the profile and marked it read-only. Setup: -Task Manager open and watching CPU usage -ATI Tray Tools, GPU % running -Fraps running (may not have been running for all of them) -Alt tab after mission ends to export the graph -AMD OverDrive is run to adjust CPU Multiplier, applied, and then exited each time. -Started at 3.2ghz, then 2.6, then 3.4, and finally 3.4 again while bumping shadows up to Very High (to see the effect of switching it from CPU to GPU usage. -Video Settings located within -My Game Profile, if needed, located within -broken file atm OA Benchmark 02 (Ati Tools GPU Graph - Exported): my Tripod website with jpeg links 3.2ghz = 16, 15, 14 fps *I ran it three times in a row because there was massive HD activity the first run, and considerably less the second time* 2.6ghz = 12 fps 3.4ghz = 15 fps 3.4ghz, Shadows VH = 15 fps Conclusion: The shit is messed up. You can see some dependence on CPU clock speed, but honestly, 2 or 3 fps difference between 2.6Ghz and 3.4Ghz, on 4 cores no less, sounds ridiculous to me.... @3.2Ghz the GPU is pegged for about 25 seconds... what on earth could possibly be that much different that it needs 3x the usage it had before, and the same time frame.... I will look at the deadeye Dead3yez stuff after work.. . EDIT: After reviewing the AI problems/Dead3yez posts/threads, it would seem like this is the issue with this benchmark. I will move on to finding out what bushes kill my fps with rifle scopes instead... :/

you must have file extensions hidden... or some other horrible problem... go download WinRAR... from rarsoft I think it is.. if you can't open it with that program then you have a file that needs to be deleted and redownloaded... .

classic problem that's been seen in previous games like this... I noticed there was mention of it on the community tracker.. I don't know if it's an actual bug that will be optmized/fixed.... An example is just bring up a reflex scope (the simple one with a red dot) and it will drop your fps... which seems a bit silly to me. If you can, try to see if your GPU is maxed out when you have this problem... if it is, then maybe you do need a better video card.. if it isn't.. then it's more likely a CPU problem..

You need a Quad core at least 2.6Ghz or more if possible. I bet you would get a performance boost with 3.2ghz dual core, but I do not know if you would then be limited by your video card (I don't buy nvidia, so I dunno anything about them). If your option is a slow quad vs a fast dual core, get the slow quad (maybe one that overlocks a little)...

Vix, what do you get in the 3 benchmark missions, running them from OA. Same settings as that screenshot would be fine...

Interface you probably don't need to change... 3D you want at your desktop or LCD's natural resolution... though you might find a different one works better. Define lag? Disable Shadows & Post processing.. see if that helps anything.. AA at disabled or x2/low or very low.. forget what it is.. Mouse: turn off the head bob and/or smoothing and/or aiming deadzone, might also help..

I installed ATI Tray Tools, and setup a profile for OA to force V-Sync off. Doesn't seem to change anything (tried on/off). Did some testing in OA, the 7th Cav Domi West server. My fps are always ~25... I get about 35 fps with view distance 500, 30 at 1000, or I can get 25 fps with view distance 5000. I can 3D resolution to 200%, and get about 15 fps, or I can set it to 50% and get ~25 fps. Changing the rest of the video settings does nothing but modify the GPU usage a little bit.... My next step is too look at previous driver revisions, but I dunno if I have the burning desire to try to fix something that probably can't be fixed by me. -no effect: hdrprecision, framesahead... Also, -cpuCount 2 -exThreads=1 is ignored, and it runs on 4 cores...

Maybe different object settings would help refine the area of interest... Instead of hitting ESC, what happens if you try to check memory usage in the task manager...

Fun fact: Arma 2 DEMO, Benchmark mission: 30 fps (compared to ~44 in OA DEMO) -it's not using the quad cores very well at all, but holy smoke does it look like a lot more fun that the OA DEMO...

LONG story somewhat shorter: -Phenom 3.0 Ghz is more than enough for this DEMO -AMD Dual Core would have to be 3.0 or 3.2, imho. -ATI 5750 seems OK with near max video settings -Quad core usage is wonky, imho. BUT all 4 cores are avg 50% usage, always. Longer version: Recent Benchmark results for the OA Demo: SP Mission Benchmark: 42 fps (+/-2) at 'Phenom II x4 3.4Ghz' clock speeds set via multiplier to 2.6, 3.0, 3.2, 3.4Ghz 34 fps at 2.1Ghz Notes: CPU seems to be bottlenecking anywhere just below 2.6Ghz It is my opinion that the GPU is not bottlenecking around 2.6Ghz, and that the CPU is simply not being utilized in the most efficient manner. For whatever reason the increase from 2.6 to 3.4 is just not scaling with the game... I believe the GPU would bottleneck at about 50fps on this particular "benchmark" mission. EDIT: Underclocking the GPU has revealed that it is very close to it's maximum performance, even at a CPU clock of 2.8Ghz (again, somewhere below 2.6Ghz). INTERESTING: CPU utilization remains the same for CPU clocks from 2.6-3.4Ghz, logic suggests that utlization would DECREASE while increasing the clock from 2.6Ghz to 3.4Ghz IF the video card is bottlenecking (or close to, which it is)... but it appears to stay same, so.. I have no choice but to conclude that it instead of improving fps on the video output, it is spending cycles doing "something else"... making the AI do smarter things?? Planning a beer run.. I just don't know... Also a possible issue, is the V-Sync is disabled in the Catalyst setting but I really have no idea if it actually is disabled or what the effect would be... Video Settings: View Distance ~5000 Resolution 1280x1024 VH VH Normal Normal High High Normal Disabled Normal 5:4 Notes: Object quality (scene complexity) has a noticeable effect on fps HDRprecision, framesahead seem to make no difference. -cpucount= 4 -exThreads=7, does not seem to do anything at all None of the 4 cores EVER maxed out, and I would claim that they NEVER RARELY (spikes) went above 75% utilization as determined by the Win7 Task Manager. RAMdisk, don't have the RAM to run one, don't have a USB stick either, some stuttering was noticed in the Benchmark mission, and I suspect this is also evident in Multiplayer gameplay (desert generated ~8 players), I can see the HD activity light doing a fair bit of blinky mcflash-flash.... I also tried a Desert generated mission with myself and the other ~31 AI, the CPU is being wasted in this test, fps scale with a change in the number of AI players. Which suggests to me that the AI needs to get picked up better by the multiple cores. EDIT: the cpu utilization is never ever maxing out is the issue.. TBH I don't think it's possible to do it... lol In theory I could add another 20 AI and the fps would drop to 0 and the CPU would STILL not be maxed... EVER... Finally, I never want to see the Benchmark mission again... night..

You are probably CPU limited. -my OA DEMO testing revealed the video settings do not affect CPU usage very much... though there could be a specific set of tweaks that works OK. :) Try the OA DEMO, SP mission, Benchmark (just let it run, it's not a real mission), I get 20fps with a slightly slower system than yours. I will be posting some detailed info soon, as I am about to replace my dual 2.6Ghz with a quad 3.4Ghz. Unfortunately I can't test in OA full version until I can physically buy it from a store (a dying preference as I have recently discovered...) ->Win 7 64 bit (Home Premium), Asus M4A78-EM Motherboard, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5000+ 2.60GHZ, 2GB RAM, Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB (GDDR5) @1280x1024 (17" NEC LCD1715), w/ATI Catalyst 10.7 (Catalyst AI Disabled), Antec EA-380 Power Supply (3 SATA, 1 CDRW, 1 DVDROM)

WASD is inefficient, I recommend a ESDF setup, simply shift over one key... Q and T for roll left/right.. W and R for crouch/prone.. though this does put you further away from CTRL, SHIFT, and TAB, my pinky now has a purpose in life... Left handed, this works great for me... if you are actually using the mouse in the left hand then you should sue the person who first showed you a mouse... ;) Side note: if you know how to get get the right-side button working on a microsoft itellimouse, let me know, it's the only one that doesn't wanna register in the Arma key config...

Choose my destiny, flawless victory!! 1. Phenom II x4 3.4 Ghz w/~6Mb L3 cache 2. Athlon II x4 3.0 Ghz w/no L3 cache **AND** 2x1GB DDR2-800 Will be merging with my existing ATI 5750 1GB (1280x1024 res), Asus M4A78-EM, 2GB DDR2-800 and Win7 64bit. These are my only options and the price is almost identical. I'm aiming to play mostly Multiplayer stuff like Domi and Evo from Arma 1. BTW, Tomshardware has a nice comparison on the small benefit of L3 cache, it seemed almost worth it in the GTAIV benchmarks... If I make this purchase, is there some sort of benchmark I can run in the OA Demo to compare before and after... assuming I can be patient enough to do so... which is looking highly unlikely atm...

OA DEMO only: Discovered I'm CPU limited! AMD OverDrive Util: reduced the CPU multiplier dopped my fps by a comparable ratio. (Athlon x2 5000+ 2.60Ghz) It also shows my ATI 5750 1GB running at 30% when I'm running ~20-25fps (DEMO, Desert, Generated city 100 buildings, large spacing, 7v7: 1 Player + 13 AI - fun battle actually) I also confirmed this by underclocking the ATI card using the Catalyst Overdrive util... lol... so I guess I'll be CPU shopping soon.. =D The real interesting question is if I had the CPU power, could I push ~80fps out of this ATI card... or would I simply discover a different bottleneck... assuming the math works that way.. which it probably doesn't.. Would LOVE to hear from 5750 or 5770 owners, what is your GPU doing in the following: Activity in ATI Overdrive (after a quick alt-tab to catch it before it drops back to 0%) AMD Overdrive util

The export function of the editor, try this: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=97016 ((Win7) export to email, Thunderbird lets you open the link & select 'save as', save it to a new MPMissions folder under your player profile (win7 under Users\somename\mydocuments\yaddazippity..., same place as "missions"...) In short, the Editor will export the .pbo (in Win7).