vran.

Looks like you guys are making Episode 3 come true, in a Greek, open-world, squad-based tactical and realistic fashion. :)

Steam Machines are not officially out yet, they will be released in autumn. And I think they have a chance at getting success since all pre-orders are already reserved. I think Steam Machines could appeal to a more mainstream audience who don't want to bother with putting together their own PC but would still like to enjoy the higher fidelity, options (customization, mods, etc) and the more in-depth type of games (simulators, strategies, MMO, etc) it offers. It was said that games like Total War and Civilization will support Steam controller which is supposedly the best substitute for a mouse and keyboard. Maybe Bohemia will opt to support it too and port ArmA or Day-Z over. It could be the 'PC console' done right. Half-Life 3 not happening has more to do with Valve's own direction btw. They became more a software distribution service company and are now entering the hardware platform arena too and they also said that they are more focused on online MP games now.

Here's some more games which could be seen as 'true sandboxes' - From Dust, Black & White 2 (first one is better imo), Sim City, Cities: Skylines, Spore.

OFP fits your description perfectly. :p You can make almost anything in it if you really want to, despite some engine limitations. Otherwise there's a lot of open world, sandboxy games out there, as mentioned the likes of TES, GTA, Fallout, Far Cry and so on. And if you don't have a problem with childish themes, Minecraft and Lego Worlds.

Yes and this is the reason why CPU development somewhat slowed down in recent few years. First quad cores were already available a good ten years ago (remember Intel Q6600 and AMD Phenom line), what has been improved in the meanwhile were clock speeds, SIMD instructions and larger 3rd level cache memory. Not unimportant improvements but they can only go so far with the speeds on affordable/viable cooling solutions and large cache memory ups the production costs significantly. One would expect by now 8 or more cores would already be established and well supported but this is not so. As you say, majority of games only make use of quad cores, some even only dual cores. Maybe this will change when DX12 comes out and also due to many games these days being developed also for the consoles which have very slow but 8 core CPUs, effectively forcing developers to make better usage of multi threading.

Well my first ever system was the ZX Spectrum but my first game console was also the NES, aka Family Computer. Real fun system in it's time and it's still fun to play in a nostalgic fashion (you can't beat Mario Bros. 3, Contra and Jackal ;) ). It's interesting to think Nintendo had a great success almost the same time as Apple and that both CEOs had almost the same fate. And although in recent times Nintendo aren't commercially as successful, they still have a passion for their thing, as you say a gaming-oriented company for all ages.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/13/tech/nintendo-ceo-satoru-iwata-legacy/ Apparently it was bile cancer. Like many others, I too was growing up on Nintendo games, although the last Nintendo system I had was the GameCube, before switching almost completely to PC gaming. The man was reponsible for the Wii and DS family of games consoles which made gaming accessible to practically everyone.

edit: nevermind, I've seen you know of it well (post can be deleted)

Of course more fps is always better. Not sure why this is debated. Although you sometimes go for less fps in exchange for more graphical detail. If you guys didn't care about graphics you'd still be playing OFP... ;)

Really nice update of the models, textures, lighting and intro scenes. But I must ask, will there be some material settings for surfaces and models too? Because I feel your mod would really benefit from some extra visual flair. :)

I have no such issues, no. I use 1.99 version though (loaded via FWatch exe but this addon doesn't make any use of it), not 1.96.

Indeed, a super fast clocked single core CPU would be best solution for A3. The speeds you mention aren't far fetched, though, I highly doubt you could OC a processor to those levels and not burn it, even using liquid nitrogen. :p edit: I correct myself, looks like Bulldozers could indeed be clocked to those speeds. Practical usage of such OCing is questionable however.

I tested the addon and Soviet tanks attack it normally. It seems it could be your issue for which I don't know the cause.

Worked for me. I once made a mission about mechs attacking North Korea (yes I know... ;) ) and the tanks fired at me.

I would hold off getting a AMD for ArmA because it does not support them well. It was proven on there with evidence that ArmA 3 only makes use of four cores from the total of eight cores the FX 8350 has. But for most other things more cores = better (if the program or game supports it).