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ahhyeaa

Could someone help an old man?

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I'm almost done downloading the Anniversary Edition from steam. Could someone give me simple instructions in order on how to install and what updates i need . I'm only worried about Arma2 OA, BAF and PMC. I have read the forums, but i'm still not sure. This is my first time using stream also.

From what i've read you neeed to install Arma2 first, then OA then BAF and then PMC. I've read if you start it up in stream it will automatically prompt you for the updates. I'm not worried about online now and would just like to play offline, but i'm a little confused as to wether i should install the game with stream or without stream. I chose the option to create shortcuts on my desktop.

Any help would truly be appreciated. I would hate to have to download all this again. Thanks in advance.

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If you bought it from Steam then you don't have to worry about updates, you always get the latest version automatically. Except the beta patches of course, but they are nothing you have to worry about right now.

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Steam has to be turned online only once, to download the updates. Once those are finished, you can run it in offline mode and still run the games no problem, it´s what I do. Arma does not require a permanent internet connection.

Once an update is out (Community websites and forums will notify you), simply switch steam to online, download the update, and then turn it off again.

Hope this helps

Insta

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Not a Steam man myself, but if that creates shortcuts to launch the game, you will probably get a few. You want to be launching the one that points to Arma2OA.exe

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Ahh, one thing. After patching, or first installing the steam version, you will want to run ARMA2 (stand alone) once before running ARMA2 Operation Arrowhead (for the combined version)

This seems to initialize the patch on steam. It will also allow you to double check that you've got version 1.11 of Arma2. :)

-k

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Thanks for the responses, especially about running Arma2 first, i did that. 10 yrs ago i could do this stuff without thinking about it. Out of boredom, i broke down and bought a really good PC, mainly for this game, and it was worth every penny.

A couple things about steam and the Anniversary Edition...

1- It seems like it must download to some cloud like storage device. I can't find any of the folders on my PC other than a steam folder that contains the desktop auto-run shortcuts. This is somewhat of a let down because i see no way of running any mods. I also went to install/uninstall programs and the games show up, but show no file size what so ever, it's just blank.

2- I have to sign into steam to play, not thrilled about this because if your internet goes down no gaming. You can sign in and then go offline, but you still have to sign in first.

A couple final questions i have is...

1- Does anyone have any idea of where i can find the game folders to run mods later on? Is it even possible to run mods with the AE from steam?

2- I planned on spending some time in the editor also, one of the major reasons i bought the game. Where in the world is editor missions going to be saved?

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1. install and run ARMA 2, exit

2. install and run ARMA 2: OA, exit

3. install and run ARMA 2: BAF, exit

4. install and run ARMA 2: PMC, exit

should be all you need

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I don't have any problems playing. The steam edition stores all your files on a cloud device and i'm not sure if modding is possible. Is it possible to access the files on steam to use mods? This is my first time using steam. I'm thinking the way they have it set-up is you can't. I think they want to make sure everyone has the same version for online play.

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Steam stores your game files normally on your HDD, or did something change?

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Of course you can use Mods with Steam too. It's probably a little bit different though. I'm sure a Steam user will explain how anytime soon.

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Here is what i think you got to do after some searching. You have to create a back-up of the game while your in steam and it will give you the option to back-up the game on your HDD. Once you do this modding should be possible. If you download just Arma 2 it will download to your HDD, but it doesn't do this for the Anniversary Edition which includes all the Arma games and expansions.

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I don't have Anniversary Edition, but as far, as I understand, correct me please if I'm wrong, it's just a game package, many games sold as one item, and all included games have to be installed separately.

Using mods on Steam isn't any different from retail copy, at least after 1.60 update. Put @modfolder into main /arma 2 operation arrowhead directory, keys and userconfigs (if included) into /keys and /userconfig. Start Operation Arrowhead, go into Expansions, check mods you want for game to load on game startup.

I don't think you need to Steam Backup of game files. Obviously, all components (A2, OA, BAF, PMC) need to be installed.

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I found the info on modding the steam version. Just google "ACE mod steam".

Edit: Everything i said about the fix to the mouse lag/accel was bs. I guess i'm just seeing things now. I don't get it. I got a intel i5 2320 quard core 3.0 ghz, 8 gig ram, 1gb ati graphics card, Windows 7 64 bit. I've tried turning vsync off, setting gpu render ahead to 1, and the lowering the smoothing option all the way down and turned off percesion mouse pointer and my mouse still acts like it's on crack.

I swear it's not a fps issue. The game defaults to high settings based on my specs and there isn't lag or stuttering you get when your pc is bogging down. The mouse is just acting nuts. I've got all updated drivers. There's a default option in video memory i use because very high only goes to 512mb of ram for the graphics card and supposedly default will account for higher video ram which i have. It really doesn't make a difference which i use. I can turn everything to very low and it's better, but i can't get it to act right just on normal which i should have no problem doing.

I've got just a regular optical mouse, nothing great, but people with good mouses are still having this issue with better PC's. I remember now why i gave up on PC gaming years ago and just bought a xbox 360.:( I've read everything there is to read about this and i'm thinking it's some kind of driver problem because some people with the same specs or lower don't have this problem and some with higher specs do.:confused:

Edited by ahhyeaa

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Thanks for the responses, especially about running Arma2 first, i did that. 10 yrs ago i could do this stuff without thinking about it. Out of boredom, i broke down and bought a really good PC, mainly for this game, and it was worth every penny.

A couple things about steam and the Anniversary Edition...

1- It seems like it must download to some cloud like storage device. I can't find any of the folders on my PC other than a steam folder that contains the desktop auto-run shortcuts. This is somewhat of a let down because i see no way of running any mods. I also went to install/uninstall programs and the games show up, but show no file size what so ever, it's just blank.

2- I have to sign into steam to play, not thrilled about this because if your internet goes down no gaming. You can sign in and then go offline, but you still have to sign in first.

A couple final questions i have is...

1- Does anyone have any idea of where i can find the game folders to run mods later on? Is it even possible to run mods with the AE from steam?

2- I planned on spending some time in the editor also, one of the major reasons i bought the game. Where in the world is editor missions going to be saved?

Steam stores arma in it's own steamapp folder, you can search about it by using keyword steam in this forum. But the method to use mods is just the same except the folder path location or you can just use sixupdater to download and manage your mods especially ACE.

Arma 2 editor stores the files under my document/arma2 folder but if you want to run it in under SP or MP mission selection you need to PBO it and put the PBO file under arma 2 main SP/MP folder which is for you is under steam folder.

Yeah Steam is a hassle, especially if your internet breaks down while it's updating something, then you cant use it until you get an internet connection again, happens to me once. That's why most of us prefer getting it directly from BIS but it lets you update your game automatically. yeah pro n cons...

Regarding lags, from my experience it is because your hardware is being stressed to the max and causing bottleneck usually on the GPU. The way to remedy this is to tone down some graphic settings in the option and resolution. You can start by reducing your resolution to the minimum with default setting on all option. Then slowly increase the 3D resolution until you start lagging. If you are using win7 you can add a GPU and CPU monitor widget on your desktop to monitor what is causing the issue. Higher resolution will use more GPU power and running a mission with lots of AI will cause high usage to your CPU. (I manage to run 1500 AI in my old rig which cause everything to stutter lol XD)

I've played this game on my old rig with amd quad core phenom x2 CPU and only 512 mb Graphic card and it runs smooth under 1024x resolution. It lags like shit if i go more than that though and if you play this game online(on servers) it will make the game much smoother because all the processing power are done by the servers.

Just asks away in this thread if you need any help with mods or the editor. Even though people will say to browse the forum, most of the guides here are mostly for intermediate users. I remember spending a lot of time just looking for what the heck is pbo and dpbo....

Edited by gunso

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Good info gunso! I'm all squared away now.

On the weird mouse behavior. I finally got it fixed. On the video settings i just swithced video prefrence, a general setting top right, to normal. I think the main thing this fixed for me was it turned viewing distance down from 2400 to 1600. I also put everything else on normal and set the gpu render frames ahead to 0 in the config or profile(can't remember which off hand). Also, i used very high for the video memory setting instead of default which is supposed to account for cards with video ram over 512mb which i have. I could probably do a little tuning to get it higher, but it's fine the way it is and considering i spent 3 days on this alone, i'm just fine with the way it is now.

It's still somewhat of a weird problem because i'm probably still getting somewhere near 60 fps or higher on high(not using a fps program), but it just screws the mouse up. There's no lag or stuttering, the mouse is just way too sensitive. Another thing i did was run Arma gold then ran Arma2 and it seemed like it magically started working. I mention this because i'm still not positive it isn't a driver related issue because to run Arma 1 it installed an older display driver because it doesn't support widescreen. So, right after doing this Arma2 seemed to work. I still went back and updated my display driver again to the newest version to see if it would screw the mouse controls up again and it didn't.

I may do some more experimenting later on now that i have a known set-up that works because i'm still not sure exactly what changes did the trick for the mouse.

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Gunso you was exactly right about the resolution. Dropping it from 1600x900 to 1330x750 cured everything. Now i can crank the settings up all the way with no mouse problems at all. Thanks!

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you need to set both resolution in the video setting to the same value to get a nice and clear graphic.

You might as well set video memory to low unless you have a 2GB x 2 GPU linked on SLI and turn off post processing. There are some more you can reduce which dont make much difference anyway to have. In term of FPS, arma is a slow pace game so i dont really need high FPS. even 15-30 should be sufficient. You can test your setting on the benchmark available in your SP mission menu.

If you want to make arma 2 smoother in term of loading objects (you will notice some of the stuffs in the distance loads a bit slower or a bit of lag when in town area) you can invest in a SSD drive. It made the game much better and with faster loading time too because some of the objects are loaded directly from the hard drive.

Another advice from me, play the vanilla version for like a month. Then after that you can start looking into mods like JSRS and Blastcore, it will make you feel like you are playing a new game XD

Edited by gunso

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ahhyeaa: save yourself 3 days and check-out these tried and tested tweaks:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?85124-ArmA2-OA-%28low%29-performance-issues&p=2081466#post2081466

Good advice from Gunso about mods: try audio (JSRS) and visual (BlastCore WarFX)mods first, before messing with game-balancing and/or AI mods, e.g. ASR AI, ACE

Don't get me wrong, I love ASR but it radically changes the game..

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you need to set both resolution in the video setting to the same value to get a nice and clear graphic.

I just set the in game video option 3D resolution to 83%(1330x750). This changed my monitor resolution automatically. So, they both are equal. The rest of my settings are...

visibility=2400(I might try lowering that a little back to 1600, like domokun mentioned, it does have a big effect)

texture quality=normal

video memory=high(i might just stick with default or low like you suggest)

anisotropic filtering=normal

antialiasing=normal

terrain detail=high

object detail=high

shadow detail=normal

post processes=off(don't like the blur when turning)

vsync=on

It looks AMAZING with these settings! I will need to go lower for MP, but SP is just fine. I do get a little slow down in dense areas.

Still, something odd has happened. I adjusted the general video preference setting before, top right in video options from high(default) to normal(which automatically changes 3D resolution) and still got the weird mouse behavior. Now it's gone. One thing that has changed is...When i made certian video setting adjustments when i first got the game, i would get a message something like "you will have to restart game for changes to take affect" and now i don't get that message at all. I can see the changes, the settings are working, just no message.

I messed with the settings yesterday and without question the mouse problem was related to 3D resolution in video settings. Running at 100% just screws the mouse control and makes it hyper sensetive. It changes the on screen zoom and makes objects look farther away, too far. Lowering it actually makes the game look a lot better.

I went back and undid the config file edit also- gpu render frames ahead from 1 back to 1000. Winows 7 percesion pointer checked on. In game mouse smoothing off(all the way to the left).

Anyway, it's working now and that's all that matters. It was unplayable before and i felt like i just wasted money. Thanks for the tips on mods also. Domokun, i saved your link. Thanks for your help also.

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Actually it's not your mouse that lags, it's your whole PC. arma 2 is pretty demanding on hardware and CPU and the only way is to tone the settings down.

But it will lower your CPU usage a lot if you play it online if the game is hosted by other people or server. Yeah your game will run much smoother if you play it online because most of the processing power is done by the server not your PC.

The only way to increase your resolution without lags is to get a better Graphic card.

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Actually it's not your mouse that lags, it's your whole PC. arma 2 is pretty demanding on hardware and CPU and the only way is to tone the settings down.

But it will lower your CPU usage a lot if you play it online if the game is hosted by other people or server. Yeah your game will run much smoother if you play it online because most of the processing power is done by the server not your PC.

The only way to increase your resolution without lags is to get a better Graphic card.

I beg to differ. There are 3 main causes of "lag" in A2 (reality is that the lag is poor performance and not poor network) which are (in order of priority):

1. View Distance

2. Terrain Detail

3. Post-processing

4. Anti-Aliasing

So my advice is lower VD to 1600m, lower Terrain to Normal, disable PP and disable AA.

Then keep Video Memory at Default and you should be able to increase 3D resolution to 100%

This way the game should still look fairly good but run smoothly.

If you find that the game is running well, you can try increasing PP to Low but make sure you run the noBlur mod.

Trust me, the settings that I recommend get the game looking good without killing your machine (I run 4-year old CPU + 3-year old GPU) are the result of hours of research & iterative testing.

Edited by domokun

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