lavenders2

So this.... thought you could fly low? You were wrong. Oh so wrong.

Currently only 2. Me and my buddy always used to play ArmA2 free. I was always into it after watching a demonstration of ArmA3 with TotalBiscuit and watching a lets play of ArmA2 on superpowers mode, but he was rather frustrated at it with all the bugs and whatnot. We played for about an hour and he got sick of it, so we stopped. Nearly a month later, he started to play it again just one last time. I joined him and we played the game differently. Instead of driving vehicles into the city constantly and getting shot up, we took it slowly. We parked our own vehicles in the forest (where the enemy couldn't see and steal them) and approached the city cautiously. By now, we knew the controls and game much better, so we were able to effectively scout out the town the enemy were in. With our AI buddies help, we both stormed the town really easily thanks to our tactical, cautious and strategical approach. It was easily the best FPS experience I have had. 1 week later, I had clocked 40 hours into ArmA2 free, and he had put in nearly 21. He purchased Combined Ops before I did. Once I got Combined Ops as well, we played and enjoyed the game much more. My other friend heard about it from me after we had a conversation about BF3 and how it really wasn't as good as all the hype said. I told him my stories in ArmA2 and he was not very interested at the time, but he must have gone to find more information about it, because he too had bought it before I did. However, he no longer plays it, not sure whether he didn't like it or his computer wasn't up to it. That's my story. One other friend is somewhat hesitant to buy it in fear that it will not run too well on his computer (it has the minimum requirements but it is old) and another wants to try it but his computer is very old and needs an upgrade before he can run it. Almost all my steam friends in real life have considered buying the game after hearing my experiences with it. About to try and convince one other friend in 2 days. He will be much tougher to rope in cause he is into more arcade style games with little complexity. Wish me luck!

Well I just bought the game yesterday... When I looked, there were a TON of servers, but not very many players. Im in AUS and I don't think I found any AUS servers with any players... am I missing something?

So after clocking about 35 hours into Arma2 free version I decided to go the full version of Arma2 plus Operation Arrowhead and have a few questions about them after getting a good feel for the game: 1. Is OA just the original Arma2 with more things? 2. Is the multiplayer for OA and Arma2 active in Australia? 3. Arma 2 free has the reduced texture quality. I have a solid fps on around medium-high (unless looking through binoculars sometimes, then it drops) but I have to wonder whether that fps will go down greatly once I get better textures. Is this the case, and if so, how bad is the drop? 4. How buggy is OA? I have heard good things but I know that when I played Arma 2 free it was buggy as hell Thanks in advance for answers and I plan to get the game tomorrow so hopefully you can help me out!

Thanks for all the replies everyone! Firstly, my laptop has no problems with Arma 2 free at all. When I play, I accept anything from 20+ fps, as that feels comfortable for me (30 is obviously better but I don't really care) On medium settings ish (1024x768 resolution and 3d res with normal settings on everything and some things on high and very high like texture quality) the game runs at around 25fps. This is the fps I am used to using (I tend to play games on budget computers) and I don't have any problems with it. On a higher resolution (1280 x 768) the game sometimes dips below 20, and I would consider that very hard to play, but not unplayble. And turning down the anti aliasing (usually on normal) to disabled usually results in an extra 10fps. I have been playing on 1280 x 768 on normal settings for the past 10 hours, and haven't minded. Games like Arma really only need 20-30fps to be playable, games like COD need more but COD is easier to run anyway As a test, on a really low resolution (800 x 600) with most things on normal and some on high, it ran at nearly 60fps easily. So I will obviously be able to run the game, just maybe not as high as I would like. I have no doubt at all that my computer will run Arma 2 with HD textures, I just have to wonder how much my fps will drop.

Thanks! Good to see an active community and not so buggy game. I plan to buy combined operations anyway, so no worries. About number 3, here are my specs: Processor: AMD A6-3410MX APU with Radeon (HD) Graphics. It is a quad core at 1.6Ghz RAM: 8Gb (7.48 usable) Graphics card: Dual AMD Radeon HD 6520G. It has 1.563Gb of dedicated memory and 3.573gb of shared memory (This sounds amazing but I have a feeling it isn't really) OS: Windows 7 home premium 64 bit That is my laptop specs with a native resolution of 1366 x 768. To give you some benchmark on how well it runs on other games: Modern Warfare 2 max settings (not hard to achieve) Deus Ex: Human Revolution on max resolution possible, anti analiasing on max but texture, shadows and other settings on normal (texture quality on high). Runs at maybe 30fps and drops in big scenes. Skyrim medium settings (Maybe high but that is pushing it. Not the best benchmarking game because it was optimized poorly) If you need more info, just shout out.