Let's Play ArmA! [1, 2 and 3]

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MAVEN
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Real, or a game?

IMAGE(http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/arma3_arg_14_4.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/arma3_arg_23_4.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/arma3_arg_32_4.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/arma3_arg_4_4.png)

IMAGE(http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/arma3_arg_5_4.png)

IMAGE(http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/arma3_arg_16_4.jpg)

If you've been following BI's activity lately you probably guessed that this is ArmA 3 in Alpha (The final release will be even better)

BF and COD series are officially outrun in both graphics and tactical gameplay Blum 3

ArmA 2 is great, but ArmA 3 will be a blast.

The original article (Armaholic) - http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=18715

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

SAS_Bajorq
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Btw, ArmA 3 Alpha Preorder @ STEAM in 2 days Biggrin

SAS_WIZ
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looking good, who knows; if SAS members get their arses in gear we might have a server

Lt_Col WIZ,  VC, MiD (Ret)

SAS_DDay
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I actually just upgraded my graphics card and can finally play Arma OA, even on very high. Maybe this weekend someone who plays the ACE mod can help me out with which one to install and where you guys play. Thanks.

SAS_DDay Veteran 22nd SAS Elite Virtual Regiment

MAVEN
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Just finished a several hours long Chernarus Life marathon. After many years I played this mission again on several servers today. Through careful planning and by using experience from swat 4 I managed to bust even the toughest criminals as SWAT officer and seize over 12 million USD worth of illegal goods (which is a lot for the mission). It was fun, thrilling and indeed SWAT 4 experience helped a lot.

Have you ever played Chernarus Life missions? If so, do you want a mission like that for A3?

Perhaps if many of us here play or have played this game mode for ArmA 2 we can actually organize a game and give it a try on a private server? Smile

DDay, contrary to a widespread belief ACE mod with all of its extras doesn't impact performance too much (cases may vary though) So I suggest you install ACE CORE, ACE EXTRAS, ACE US MARINES, and ACE RU, make sure you have the latest runtimes installed. Six updater is the only normal way to install ace unfortunately. So if you want to install ACE and don't have six updater then install this 1st and set it up, once you've done that you can easily install ACE mod.

About ACE versions. There are two. One is stable release (Which is for ArmA 2 vanilla only) and is discontinued and the other is ongoing development (Which requires CO and beta patch) For ArmA 2 CO you will want to install the later, in six updater this release is the only one available anyway.

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

SAS_Fluffy
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Rounds this Saturday 16/3/2013

1700 GMT

ACE mod required.

Be there or be....not there Dirol

SAS_Capt_Fluffy
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Raptor
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I'm in Smile

SAS_Master
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I'm up for it.

SAS_Master - Regimental Sergeant Major

GCHQ

"He's trusting you to do your job which is to clear that corner! Nothing else!"

SAS_Fluffy
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I really hope we can get more SAS attendance! Playing these rounds with the AST guys is great fun, and they are nice enough to offer us the use of their dedicated server when we play! Last time the comment was made, "When I heard there was a SAS ARMA session this Saturday, I expected like ten people...not just two." More is better Dirol

SAS_Capt_Fluffy
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Raptor
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Thx for the warm words Smile
You are right, playing together is always great fun. And it would be even better with more people.

@DDay: did you manage to install ACE? Don't be shy, just join us Wink

Ryan
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Real, or a game?

That's ARMA 3 - You get the Alpha yet?

I'd play ACE with you guys if you weren't on a gobbledegook timezone. Smile

My idea of CQB is running in with a sword.

MAVEN
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Real, or a game?

That's ARMA 3 - You get the Alpha yet?

I'd play ACE with you guys if you weren't on a gobbledegook timezone. Smile

I didn't yet. In fact I watched several videos and I got disappointing to be honest.

The alpha is like a demo, the MP is cramped with BF3-like players, there are dozen bugs flowing on steam boards, the animations (although some improved) are funny, specially the hop-over fence (lol) The trees look far less natural than in A2, the physics act oddly, fish swim on land, the gameplay is bf3-cod like specially with new features like instant frag drop (LOL!) or fast weapons switch (not to mention revives and other funny stuff mission makers already managed to put in, oh, wasteland too, I hope BI devs add filters to phase those crappy gamemodes out separately like DayZ) and there are many other things to mention. The only thing I really liked is the new lightning engine, the improved shaders and omnisource light is really good, whatsoever it kind of beats other shooters in it.

So is it worth it? Nope, at least for me, I will rather wait for full retail game once all bugs are crushed, things optimized and there are lots of things to play with and missions to choose from, I don't want to ruin the surprise-experience by playing an unfinished game (don't even watch videos now) I did same with A1 and A2 also, reminds me of my 1st time playing ArmA 1, those were memories...

A3 is also not worth playing on low specs, the new engine deserves to be ran on maximum, and with spec hungry game release I need a new gaming rig as well.

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

Raptor
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Really great rounds today (although not all ended successful) Biggrin

Ryan
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Real, or a game?

That's ARMA 3 - You get the Alpha yet?

I'd play ACE with you guys if you weren't on a gobbledegook timezone. Smile

[color=#dbc295]The alpha is like a demo, the MP is cramped with BF3-like players, there are dozen bugs flowing on steam boards, the animations (although some improved) are funny, specially the hop-over fence (lol) The trees look far less natural than in A2, the physics act oddly, fish swim on land, the gameplay is bf3-cod like specially with new features like instant frag drop (LOL!) or fast weapons switch

Yeah, the Alpha is just that - an Alpha. Lack of features, some minor bugs. To be honest I have yet to see any of the bugs... No joke.

I play it on the same specs as ARMA2 with better FPS on the same graphics. It's optimized beautifully. There are a heap of missions too, including the MSO_CQB module which is quite like insurgency. It's good fun.

The animations are great in my opinion, they are smooth to use in a firefight. They can give you a way better advantage than the static: stood, crouched, prone in ARMA 2. They still need work, to be able to adjusted mobile with a stance indicator and they'll be great. There's a few things in that sense that need work - like doors which get stuck on an angle when you open them.

The vault animation you mention for fences is actually being improved and many people have complained about it. BIS are listening at this stage, the exact point of an Alpha. I haven't seen fish swim on land or physics act oddly. I've seen the death animations act oddly before the person drops but it's pretty sweet right now.

The instant frag I think they're going to make into an AA2/3 type system of pull the pin, aim and throw. If not then modders will get on it. That's the problem, what to mod? BIS may be working on it already but ACE/ACRE are in the works on everything and anything. The transition in my opinion is a good speed and your fatal consequence is it's slower to transition back to rifle which I think is great when weighing up whether you need it.

My idea of CQB is running in with a sword.

MAVEN
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Sure thing the optimization is neat addition and there are many new features (I am personally excited about the stances and fluidity of movement, in ArmA 2 I always try to use fast movement combined with cover and scouting, a pain in the arse with clunky A2 movement system that is, and the lightning engine is another great feature that got me set for A3 already) But as is for an Alpha, it's unfinished and I do prefer finished products instead Smile

I think that A3 can be ran smoother than A2 spec-wise, I did notice a texture resolution and object poly clipping addition to A3, this hugely affects A2 and is main reason why some struggle to run it maxed out. The other thing is memory allocator, does A3 use any new ones? As far I remember from some release notes, VBS and VBS2 use custom ones, perhaps A3 borrowed some if these (as is the case with physics)

BTW, if you guys have the Alpha, feel free to use this thread to organize A3 Alpha games Wink

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

SAS_DDay
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@Raptor: I have everything installed and I've already played a good bit, but the performance really annoys me. The game doesn't even look good, at all, and even on low settings I can't get above 30 fps. I've tried various methods of optimization and performance tweaking, but it has no effect whatsoever.

I'll play with you guys when we get together, but honestly when it comes to ARMA 2 OA mods I'm sticking to DayZ. Maybe it also depends on the map, server, and how many people are connected; but the abysmal performance I receive has turned me off from the ACE mod, no matter how fun it is.

Funny thing is, DayZ runs great. Can't wait for the standalone.

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MAVEN
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DDay. What are your system specs?

I could run A2 OA on both of my test systems (I don't have a gaming rig, only a workstation that I am not allowed to use for gaming which sucks, both test systems are low spec on purpose but I use them for some games and testing) on let's say decent specs in SP (Medium mostly) and lower in MP (not lowest but still pretty low) with ~20 to 30 frames on average, which is sufficient. The only time my A2 OA ran under ~5 unbearable frames was when I used teamspeak (which is sadly a must-have for oa anyway) while with mumble I noticed only a slight frame drop.

And that was without any mods, with JSRS 1.5, ACE (RU, US and Extras) TrueMods(TrueUSER) and WarFX Blastcore bundle I had around ~15 to 20 frames in SP but only around 10 to 15 in mp, if I combined that with TS3, the game freezes eventually or runs to even more unbearable ~3 frames.

I made a tweak guide you can check on BI forums, it should help you at least a bit, so give it a shot. And if my test systems (one dual core one single core) could run OA then I don't see why your system couldn't if tweaked?

The A2 vanilla and specially A2 Free run smooth for me on above medium settings (some even higher) this is strange, but then again as someone once said on BI forums, BI messed up with overpatching OA to oblivion, which in turn may cause more frames to drop. You may also want to try beta patches which are slightly more stable when performance comes in question.

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

SAS_DDay
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@MAVEN: Could you link me to your BI post? I've seen a couple but would also like to see what you have come up with. Thanks.

Specs: Intel Core 2 Quad-core 2.5GHz (OC 2.86GHz). 4GB RAM 800MHz (looking to upgrade soon). AMD Radeon 7770 GHz edition 1GB GDDR5 VRAM.

edit: I found a link here with a pretty good-looking guide that I may test. Let me know what you think.

SAS_DDay Veteran 22nd SAS Elite Virtual Regiment

MAVEN
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I can't really give you a link for several reasons. Some of which are agreements between me and several individuals on BI forums after a ban was issued on my account there and a week long of negotiation between me/bi mod staff/bi devs/legal employees and events took place (end result I could have my acc back but I rejected, things got sorted etc)

You can however go to biforums.com and go to ArmA2 Operation Arrowhead Troubleshooting section, there you will find the thread pinned as sticky (among several other guides of its type) The guide you linked is good, but lacks detail, still, you can try it, it should help.

The thread name should be A2/A2F/A2OA Tweak Guide

I also have the original raw form of the complete guide in a txt file, if you want, I can send you that also.

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

SAS_Bajorq
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MAVEN, if you can please send me your tutorial in PM please Smile Thanks in advance!

MAVEN
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Sent.

If anyone else needs the guide let me know, I will also port it to pdf when I get more free time then post a link here Smile

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

SAS_Bajorq
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Got it. It's awesome! Thanks m8!

MAVEN
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You are welcome Smile

BTW guys, I just tried Wasteland recently, looks like a very fun to play game mode (No zombies whatsoever!) those of you who like DayZ may want to try that out also. I found it hard to find a decent cheater-free server though, that doesn't matter much anyway, I sort of got addicted to Evolution Hohei (Red preferably) gamemode anyway, which I recommend as well.

Also here's a nice tweak everyone should try with ArmA 2. I've been using this one for a while and after testing it turns out it doesn't only give few more fps (Hard to notice) but whats more important makes the gameplay experience A LOT better, at least it did for me.

A wrapped up version (So you don't have to go around for websites links and guides all over the internet) of this so called FOV Tweak:

> Find .ArmA2OAProfile or .ArmA2Profile files in your Documents ArmA 2 directory, back these up in a separate folder then open the original one by one in a text editor (Notepad does the job)
> Find fields named fovTop and fovLeft, remember these values or write them somewhere where you can reverse this setting later on as these two fields are the ones we need for this tweak.
> Go to this link http://www.rjdown.co.uk/projects/bfbc2/fovcalculator.php and input your in-game screen resolution as well as your desired FOV. I used 88 for my ArmA 2, however you can try values from 20 to 120, 90 is the most common, ArmA 2 default is 60 if I remember well. Once you've entered your value click on Calculate button then remember this number.
> Go to this link http://www.unitconversion.org/angle/degrees-to-radians-conversion.html and in 1st field input your result from the previous website (Degrees) so that you can receive your radians conversion.
> Enter the radian[rad] value (Copy it) into your previously opened text file (The profile one) in fovTop field.
> Use Wolfram Alpha ( https://www.wolframalpha.com/ ) and divide this radian number by the 2nd digit(s) of your in-game screen's aspect ratio. For example if your aspect ratio is 4:3 (default) and your degree result is 90 your Wolfram Alpha result should look like this 1.570796327 / 3 = 0.5235987756666667. Take this result and and in the same Wolfram Alpha query multiply it by your 1st digit(s) of your in-game screen's aspect ratio. For example for the above result and 4:3 aspect ratio the result in Wolfram Alpha looks like this 0.5235987756666667 * 4 = 2.0943951026666667 This result is your fovLeft setting so input it in the corresponding field.
> Save the edited text file, copy-paste fovTop and fovLeft to the other profile files with these 2 settings and save them as well.
> Launch A2/A2OA/A2CO and you can now enjoy a better gameplay experience, what FOV basically does is expand your in-game field of view, I find this perfect for CQB as well as for increased situation awareness in-game.

A simplified example:

> For 1152 x 864 4:3 aspect ratio resolution and desired 90 FOV there are 74 calculated degrees.
> For 74 calculated degrees there are 1.291543646 radians, which is also fovTop value.
> For 1.291543646 fovTop value fovLeft is defined by the two simple formulas - 1.291543646 / 3 which is 0.43051454866666666 and 0.43051454866666666 * 4 is 1.72205819466666664 therefore 1.72205819466666664 is fovLeft.
> Summed up fovTop is 1.291543646 while fovLeft is 1.72205819466666664

If you still can't calculate it properly on your own, post your in-game screen resolution bellow and I will do it for you.

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

SAS_Fluffy
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For those interested, one radian = 180/π, and one degree π/180. You can do the conversion yourself, it's not that hard Blum 3

SAS_Capt_Fluffy
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Elite_
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Do you guys play with ACE/ACRE? I mean, it's like changing the whole game to a better, even more realistic level.
Just amazing. Weapon sounds, medic action with detecting what's the problem and what's needed, either epinephrin or morphin.
Where you play, when you play?

Tim
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Hey guys,

We're doing an operation on Friday
Requirements:
- ACE (of course CBA)
- ArmA 2 OA
- Fallujah
- Microphone
- Tunngle (Which enables people to play with us with cracked versions of OA)

Just contact me on XFire if you'd like to join, the op starts at 19:15 British and Irish time, 20:15 CET
XFire: silentstrikeswat4

MAVEN
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I also suggest you guys try out Clafghan and some ops for it, once you do this you won't shift back to other terrains Wink

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

Tim
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It looks good, thanks for the idea.
This'll be the last time I'll ask you guys by the way Wink

SAS_Sniper
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nice set of mods for the operation

MAVEN SAS Mod pack will be including CLahgan great map.

SAS_Capt_Sniper

Head of Recruitment & Tactical Training

GCHQ - 22nd SAS Elite Virtual Regiment

MAVEN
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nice set of mods for the operation

MAVEN SAS Mod pack will be including CLahgan great map.

So there is a SAS Mod in the works for A2? I knew it! That's great to hear Biggrin

Will the SAS Mod have the old-school SAS Trooper characters for CQB too?
One more thing. If possible, you guys should release 1.1 v of SAS Mod for S4 as well Wink

P.S. Clafghan is a map ~900MB or more, you might want to ask for a permission from the author to include the map and also make a mod version without the map for quick single-download updates as well as over SIX Updater.

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

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