MAVEN

Exactly :) As for the cut out terrains, I have no clue. I know that last official and stable patch for OA brings BAF and PMC as lite and that ACR may have only units models in low res. Your friend can always install OA, make it in CO with A2 or A2 Free and download a single player mission made for Bystrica and then check if it works or not. It doesn't matter if you install the ACR DLC later as the DLC replaces existent units with high res models and terrain detail. If you've liked Bystrica a lot like me, which seems to be the case, check this out - http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?135429-Army-of-the-Czech-Republic-DLC&p=2272887#post2272887

Just finished testing almost everything from the 1.5, and I must say 1.5 is nearly a complete re-design from 1.4.3 in a very good and welcome way. I know how much a feedback can mean to a modding team so I will provide mine: Weapons: No loud sounds, crisper, cleaner, more realistic, and what I personally liked a lot is that weapon parts (metal pieces clicks and cracks) were timed perfectly, you can now see and hear exactly what's going on with your weapon in ms precision. On top of that, the new reloading sounds are just awesome. M60 rapid fire is frightening. If insurgents had some of those people would piss their pants or just spin in circles when under fire from M60 (and 1.5 version of the mod). Favorite weapon sound M4A3 CCO, which just happens to be my favorite weapon in A2OA. Vehicles ground: The best set of vehicle sounds in a mod/game I've heard, therefore no doubt my favorite part from 1.5. The tracked vehicles in particular have a much better and realistic sound to a point you can literally hear pieces from tracks move independently. The armored vehicle gun sounds are well done as well, no dubbed or pitched sounds anymore, just crisp, clean and loud. Favorite vehicle Linebacker, just so freaking awesome. Vehicles air: Equally well made set of vehicle sounds, with an exception that these are even more realistic, thus my favorite air vehicle sounds in 1.5 is the little bird (awesome cannon weapon sounds!). Environment: Even more realistic and lifelike, sort of to a point you can't notice differences. Bird chirps favorite. Impacts, effects, miscellaneous: Lots of improvements here as well, favorite vehicle crashes and bullet hits. The new indoor effects add a completely new level by themselves. Optional sounds: Not bad at all, actually very good indeed. Project Zero sound frightening and cool at same time, however, due to A2's engine limitations I think that all of those cool effects can't find their place in A2. M249 favorite. So, to sum it up. if you liked 1.4.3, you should no doubt get 1.5, if you haven't tried JSRS yet, 1.5 is the right thing specially for small scale tactical co-op players. In addition to that, JSRS 1.5 runs smoother and better than JSRS 1.4.3 which means you gain on performance by using 1.5 :) Some suggestions/bugs:

Don't mind my joke. The real stuff is here:D Downloading! P.S. A pro tip. Use box.net and select all parts, hit download button and wait for decrypt. Once read you will get a single file link with full speed download (100mb/s connection here, I guess I will be among the first ones to try this out:D) Thanks for the mod, LJ and team :) Expect my feedback though not too soon, I may get stuck playing this all night long now.

JSRS 1.5 DL link! :D

Agreed. And would like to add that console ports not only help simplify game engine (to run smoother and more stable) but those ports help fund developers even more. However console ports don't come free and will almost always take out most of the game engines functionality. IMHO the main reason why ArmA Series were never released for (and hopefully never will be) consoles is to maintain the wide functionality ArmA engine can bring, such as mods (just look at how many great mods are out there, amazing!) It's not that hard to port a game to a different OS/Device. I use cross-platforming for my apps and games (http://www.phonegap.com/) but with games like ArmA 2, functionality should always stay primary and audio/video design secondary.

Guide updated. G.A.S Memory Fix tweak added. This one is for expert users only, use at your own risk. Thanks :) Nice suggestion. However you can simply use -malloc=system to get same effect without removing any of the dll's at all, regardless are you using XP, Vista, W7 or even W8 (if supported) your method should be used only if this parameter fails. Windows 7 memory allocator is a lot better than Vista's and is even better than XP's, I don't know about W8 though, perhaps W8 uses same memory allocator anyway. Also worth mentioning is that ArmA 2/OA Beta comes with separate memory allocators from the stable release, you can find this under Expansion/Beta/Dll folder.

Thanks for the clarification. As with any new tool/utility I always set settings first before use. The default directories were in Documents indeed, however after I've set proper A2/A2OA mod and pack folders (installations were properly auto-detected though) and decided to install ACE, Play withSIX decided to not only update my beta patch (Steam version, I also have a non steam one) but also update mods detected (some of them didn't get detected at all) and then freeze, leaving download progress via r/zsync unfinished which later corrupted the mods as well. As BI stated. Beta patches are not backwards compatible, forcing an older patch over a newer one may indeed result in errors just like in this case. I didn't know about beta opt-out button. However, if you guys are going to force beta update by default, at least make sure you have the latest one in the cloud. Don't get me wrong. Play withSIX looks great, works fast, it's very lightweight, I personally like the UI/UX, but it has limited functionality and there's lots of things to be fixed still. If you want more feedback (at least from me) give me Play withSIX thread link on BI forums, otherwise I can't submit my feedback. Anyway. To back on topic. Could someone please confirm if Armaholic I44 D-Day is compatible with versions used by servers now? I really want to try this mod out. Edit: Didn't see the reply. Thanks for clarification PacUK and everyone who helped out. I will DL the mod and give it a run :)

ACR doesn't add much. IMHO, the campaign isn't of much interest, but then again I never liked ArmA campaigns because I used ArmA series for the sandbox and online multiplayer the most. What ACR does bring is Bystrica terrain, sure it's a remake of Chernarus, but looks a lot better and by far it's the most realistic looking terrain of all terrains in A2 (except user made ones that is) So should you buy it? If you can run ArmA 2 on highest settings it's worth it. If you are going to use Bystrica terrain it's worth it even more, but other than that you don't really need to. I agree on BAF, great DLC, but same as for ACR, it's not mandatory.

Thanks! You have a high res version of it maybe?

Is this version (D-Day) the actual CO version of the mod or a separate D-Day themed one for A2 only? If it's the CO one, would this version (from Armaholic) work with all I44 servers out there? Because if so, that's awesome, thanks for the link :D

Really neat script. Thanks. I downloaded it and intend to use it in my mission USMC Sweepers. Will perfectly fit the mission setting :)

I was about to install this mod today (with playwithSIX) but, things went terribly wrong (the mod is not to blame at all) PlaywithSIX forced older beta patch over my newer 409 one and rendered my CO useless (even when I tried to re-apply 409), so I had to reinstall it all, re-download mods and set everything up again. What I want to know is, are there any mirrors for I44 (single link)? Because there's no way I will ever use that launcher again, or perhaps for some time until it becomes stable enough.

Glad I could help. OP :) UPDATE: Guide optimized. General System Tweak Guide is now a separate and optional section (since it's somewhat outdated and not everyone finds it useful here) I also added some parameters in Parameters section. Could an admin please rename this thread to A2/A2F/A2OA Tweak Guide or A2:CO Tweak Guide? Thank you in advance.

Not at all. I configured both launchers properly. I'm not a rookie to mess things up. But for some reason those tools decided to mess things up on their own. Play withSIX forced 296 beta over the 409 and rendered my executables useless (even after I re-applied 409 patch). They are all neat tools, great way to sync mods, but I'll play it safe and stick to my own methods. About DropBox. It's overrated, just like TS3 is over Mumble. The truth is DropBox has too many limitation, though it's perfect for careless uploads. I use both box.net and DropBox. DropBox for one time uploads, Box.net for larger files and private storage.

I like the fact that you provide mirrors instead of forcing use of launchers like some do (which sucks big time). I just tried two launchers(I wont name them though) and they messed up my entire A2CO and all of the mods I had installed. So I had to not only reinstall A2CO completely but re-download mods and re-configure them. Gave me a headache. P.S. for best file transfers I suggest box.net it's free, it's stable and has lots of functions unlike Rapidshare and other piracy infested sites.

Thanks for the clarification, helped a lot! I do have CO, was wondering does I44 run better/faster than OA alone (because of model, texture, number of players difference, etc) however after seeing few videos I got my answer. It's been a while since last there was a decent WW2 game out there, this mod crosses the barrier to the point it simulates WW2, which is a great thing. I always wanted something like this :)

By 2053 we wont play games but strugle for our real survival. There's your war game and that it needs patching :D As for the patches, last for A1 was released in 2011 :)

Hey guys. It seems there are still lots of I44 servers, a good thing. Though I want to know. Is ACE mandatory on all or most I44 servers and does I44 run better than vanilla OA?

I've been trying to figure this one out for a while now. No threads about it either. Is there a way to browse and join ArmA 2 vanilla servers via OA browser since OA runs on a newer engine and runs better?

Thanks. Great suggestion, can you write a step by step section so I add it to the guide? Like, how to make those backups, how to use them, etc. I can do it myself but since you suggested and use them it's better you do it:)

I don't have any release date for SP yet, very busy with work and it's holiday season, I'm also working on a SP version of Sweepers. However, maybe in the next version of MVD Mission Pack there will be one SP mission included, no guarantee. By HD copies I mean big res images (original renders) of those floorplans put in folder to go along with missions. A briefing entry can cover floorplans, I already added them this way but they are low res. A print version is just a version you could print on paper by yourself (nothing special really) the difference is colors, 300dpi and that there are no effects or paper emulation (rain drops, wood, etc) I agree about comms, most are done via voice chat, but just for the functionality I could add mouse ones, if there's sufficient interest that is. Thanks for feedback:)

Lol, I'm not surprised there...

Here you go (from A2 wiki page): 0 - disabled 1 - AToC on grass 2 - AToC on new OA trees (takistan, zargabad, proving ground, shapur) 4 - AToC on old A2 trees (utes, chernarus) // combined 3 - AToC on grass & OA trees 5 - AToC on A2 trees + grass 6 - AToC on A2 + OA trees 7 - AToC enabled on grass, A2 & OA trees (default) In my opinion, if you want to use AToC, you will need to use antialiasing, antialiasing by itself is performance killer for many machines, so if you do manage to run your game smoothly with antialiasing you may as well use AToC and PPAA with minor to no difference in performance (depending on your GPU) If you do want to be selective with AToC, then you will ideally want to use just AToC on trees as those are often higher above ground and do appear in skyline thus it's easier to spot jagged edges on leaves. Grass on the other hand looks very good on normal, high or very high texture quality with object detail on normal or higher. PPAA smothens object edges in a way that those appear to be "antialiased" and since foliage such as grass is on the ground many players don't pay much attention to it at all, so you can use AToC on trees + PPAA on Low or Medium (Sharp for bigger, brighter and crisper screens with more pixel density, while SMAA or PPAA on Low to Medium for almost any monitor/screen)

Thanks for regular patches BI. While many devs don't support products that are 2-3 years old you keep your support and manage to release patches weekly or monthly. Unlike many beta patches, most of your releases have huge impact and always bring some good stuff. The last BETA is very nice, improved some performance and speed up server ping times as well as solved several glitches. How about sharing at least some of this BETA love with A2 vanilla in 1.12 or specially for those using A2 Free who no doubt eventually buy the game? :)

It's been so many times that some random players in ArmA 2 play some music via custom sound effects. That's cool, it does add effect to the scenery. But I have a better solution which is best experienced between friends or clan members on a session. Wan to listen to the music simultaneously with your friends at 320kbps audio quality? This is how: Step 1 Download Screamer and Enhancer. Screamer - http://www.screamer-radio.com/download/ Enhancer - http://www.winamp.com/plugin/enhancer-017/81361 Step 2 Unpack or install Screamer to desired directory, make a shortcut of it's exe to desktop, then run it. Once it opens, tune settings like this: 1. Settings>Stereo Separation>100% 2. Settings>Effects>Compressor (Ticked on) 3. Language>Select your desired language (I use Russian but have English and Russian installed, you can download more languages from the website) 4. File>Update Presets Now 5. File>Exit If Screamer crashes, make sure you repeat all of it again. Open Screamer and check if settings you changed remained saved after exit, then close Screamer completely. Step 3 Find Screamer install directory, and find plugins folder (create one if you can't find it) then unpack and copy Enhancer plugin content in this folder so that the dll file is in main Screamer plugins folder and another folder named Enhancer is within it. Step 4 Open Screamer again and do the following. 1. Settings>Plugins>Enhancer>Enable (By doing this, a green text black window should pop up, if it doesn't go to same settings route except that instead of Enable you will use Configure and then press Cancel and after that Enable for the Settings part) 2. Enhancer Panel>Power 3. Enhancer Panel>Presets (I suggest you choose Classical with Ambience for start)Load>Press OK button 4. Minimize Enhancer Panel (Don't click on that X button, instead click _) 5. Focus Screamer app and then lower your volume to either 50% or even lower somewhere near 20% Step 5 In screamer, do this. 1. Presets>By Network>Soma FM>Boot Liquor (For testing, you can later try something else) 2. Press Play button. You now have your own in-game music, and with that you can customize ambiance settings to fit the in-game environment! For best effect, try this with your friends on a same server, I promise you will surely like it :) Run your game and enjoy. As for performance impact, Screamer and Enhancer take only 1-2% of CPU processing power, so there's nothing to worry about. However make sure that you have a good connection to run both your games online and play music via Screamer. You can also add more stations to your favorites, or try different Enhancer presets. For even more awesomness make your own presets and share them (You can share in comments as well, I would like to try custom ones, some good examples would be chopper radio effects, building radio effects, pocket radio effects etc) I personally use trance.fm, electric.fm, RadioMETRO, Europa Plus and Soma FM Tag's Trp the most. You can even create your own radio station and then share the URL. Enjoy!