Some genuine patch 1.03 information

[thr0tt 12]

I am taking bets on how long before this thread turns into a massive brawl over fixes which are not shown in the less than comprehensive list Placebo has posted.

Still at least you can change the flares now, that one has really got me in a tizzy.

[datter 0]

No ETA etc, and only a partial list of what's being looked at but I thought I'd point this out (posted this morning) in case people were missing it.

Ironic ;)

So after tracking down a certain Mr. Spanel, I can tell you the current patch log is as follows:

Improved airplane HUD visibility.

Direct analogue throttle and brake for airplanes now available.

Optimization: Reduced frame stutter near map borders.

Sea surface was not rendered in NE area out of map.

Terrain surface was sometimes using wrong parallax map.

Grenade can destroy a building just by impact

Radio echo elimination

Team switch did not work when player died

More flexible configuration of Flares in the config (brightness, size)

Reduced AI detecting slowly moving enemy vehicles by ear.

Prevent killed units reporting who killed them.

The above will be fixed/improved as applicable and are of course subject to change in terms of inclusion in 1.03, nor does this list mean that other fixes won't be included with 1.03

And before you ask, no current ETA besides as soon as possible :)

[Placebo 28]

No need for a new thread, but I did nick your thread title for the merge ;)

[datter 0]

No need for a new thread, but I did nick your thread title for the merge ;)

Damn you and your sneaky thread merging ways. :) Just so long as people see the update, I know a lot of folks have been wondering what's going on and even a little information is a good thing.

[dazzo1987 10]

Heres hoping for a performance increase in the next patch, was getting decent performance untill i got into the city in Harvest Red.

[hoak 0]

Still {SAS}Silentkiller makes a very valid point, BI's games are outstanding, the PR is truly abysmal... That BI has a 'for the long haul' development and support approach, that while it works very well for those 'in-the-know' that love the games, and are mature enough to understand deferred gratification -- shouldn't surprise anyone when it doesn't fly in what is after all an entertainment market built on a feeding frenzy of instant gratification.

'Twitter is Shitter', absolutely and any experienced Marketing MBA weenie would agree whole-heatedly, but forums are no better means to PR support -- are in fact substantially worse in many regards; especially one with the post volume, moderation policies, legacy audience, and cold ratio of purchase order to forum registrations this one has... And deferring core PR to a smattering of local Publishers is the worst idea; it would be fatal to anything smaller then BI and the ArmA franchise...

There are a lot of things even a one man guerilla PR operation could do for BI and the ArmA games that isn't being even being casually approached, a lot of objections that aren't being handled constructively/positively, an enormous volume of questions that go unnecessary unanswered, and a lot of negativity that's being fed and amplified rather then mollified. Anyone with business experience can literally read, watch, and weep as they count lost sales and opportunity...

:(

Edited July 15, 2009 by Hoak

[eJay 1]

I hope performance will increase all over area (cities!), not only on map borders.

[Wynthorpe 10]

I dont have any performance issues but the analouge throttle excites me!

[datter 0]

Twitter is shitter.

[mosh 0]

Thanks for the info Placebo.

The aircraft throttle control thing sounds good.

[von_paulus 0]

There are a lot of things even a one man guerilla PR operation could do for BI and the ArmA games that isn't being even being casually approached, a lot of objections that aren't being handled constructively/positively, an enormous volume of questions that go unnecessary unanswered, and a lot of negativity that's being fed and amplified rather then mollified. Anyone with business experience can literally read, watch, and weep as they count lost sales and opportunity...

I agree.

[JoeyNickel 10]

About performance issues: what I'd REALLY like to see is a better performance depending on the advance in the campaign.

The first one or two missions I saved were written to HDD in no time. Loading..... same thing. Going to an ammo crate to buy some weapons...... not to mention.

Yet having played for hours sticking in "Dogs of War" (and I will quit the campaing early as I'm really fed up) it takes me about 20 secs until the window for buying weapons or unit opens, and it takes about 2 mins (!!!) until the list ist filled. Transferring units to other leaders takes about 1 min until the selection list opens. Writing down the save files takes about 15 secs, loading even longer. I understand that depending on the progress made in the mission the save files get even larger. My last AutoSave is 100797 KB.

Now people might say I should buy a new PC (and there are better one's on the market, for sure), but I tracked down that the QuadCore is used by a max of 33 %. That's not 2 CPUs at all. Even I start the game with -cpuCore=4.

The graphics board (which is a real old one -> X1950XTX - and will be replaced soon) is used about 70 - 80 %, it doesn't even turn on the fan on normal indoor thermal conditions.

I'm really wondering about this, especially as the sound is a total software solution (and I miss being able to tell whether a vehicle is behind me or not) that should use some percentage of the CPU as well.

I really hope that there's some perfomance improvement done.

[=Spetsnaz= 0]

About performance issues: what I'd REALLY like to see is a better performance depending on the advance in the campaign.

The first one or two missions I saved were written to HDD in no time. Loading..... same thing. Going to an ammo crate to buy some weapons...... not to mention.

Yet having played for hours sticking in "Dogs of War" (and I will quit the campaing early as I'm really fed up) it takes me about 20 secs until the window for buying weapons or unit opens, and it takes about 2 mins (!!!) until the list ist filled. Transferring units to other leaders takes about 1 min until the selection list opens. Writing down the save files takes about 15 secs, loading even longer. I understand that depending on the progress made in the mission the save files get even larger. My last AutoSave is 100797 KB.

Now people might say I should buy a new PC (and there are better one's on the market, for sure), but I tracked down that the QuadCore is used by a max of 33 %. That's not 2 CPUs at all. Even I start the game with -cpuCore=4.

The graphics board (which is a real old one -> X1950XTX - and will be replaced soon) is used about 70 - 80 %, it doesn't even turn on the fan on normal indoor thermal conditions.

I'm really wondering about this, especially as the sound is a total software solution (and I miss being able to tell whether a vehicle is behind me or not) that should use some percentage of the CPU as well.

I really hope that there's some perfomance improvement done.

I very much agree, the editor runs pretty smooth 20-60 FPS, Average 30 FPS. However the campaign is playable but not very smooth indeed. I get max 25 fps and it usually even drops at 15fps, i disabled Shadows and AA and that only helped by 3-4 fps, changing texture,resoultion etc does'nt affect it at all. I also monitored my CPU usage, i did made a big battle scenario on the editor in one of the towns with about 300-400 AI , and i placed myself about 3KM from the battle,and ended up having 60-70% CPU usage per core no matter what on my Dual Core, this is unacceptable to me, i thought should end up using more than that.

I very much would also like to see better optimization in the Campaign and Multiplayer, improving performance in Cities/Towns and Heavy Forestry Terrain could benefit us alot.

[Zombie_Mod 0]

30FPS is good enough for me, I just wish BIS would address the glaring issues with the AI first.

For those who don't even get 30FPS, having to deal with yearly graphical updates as well as bugs must be really pissing you off. I'm having to take Xanax and Valium to calm myself down playing this game cos of the AI, even Michael Jackson phoned me to slow down with the drugs ;-)

Mind you, I customised my PC to disable all non-essential services, defragged the hard disk, turned off the AV (only for the duration of the game...) used registry compactors and all sorts. I've turned each setting up to HIGH and so far I get a nice 42FPS, and my rig is hardly top of the range nowadays. Also note, I did not format and re-install XP64 just for Arma2!!

My specs:

XP 64 Pro

Q6600

8GB DDR2 RAM 6400

Radeon 4870

Generic Hard disk from PC World (not even branded)

Asus Xonar

Maybe if your PC is running slow, you should post your list of running processes on here so techies can take a look and tell you what to switch off. Those tray icons and themes, indexing services etc all hog RAM and CPU like no tomorrow.

Edited July 15, 2009 by Zombie_Mod

[nkenny 1051]

Thank you BIS devs/forumites whatnot.

How hard was that? Any form of feedback or news updates are great news. Continue down this path please.

Thank you.

-Ken

[=Spetsnaz= 0]

30FPS is good enough for me, I just wish BIS would address the glaring issues with the AI first.

For those who don't even get 30FPS, having to deal with yearly graphical updates as well as bugs must be really pissing you off. I'm having to take Xanax and Valium to calm myself down playing this game cos of the AI, even Michael Jackson phoned me to slow down with the drugs ;-)

Mind you, I customised my PC to disable all non-essential services, defragged the hard disk, turned off the AV (only for the duration of the game...) used registry compactors and all sorts. I've turned each setting up to HIGH and so far I get a nice 42FPS, and my rig is hardly top of the range nowadays. Also note, I did not format and re-install XP64 just for Arma2!!

My specs:

XP 64 Pro

Q6600

8GB DDR2 RAM 6400

Radeon 4870

Generic Hard disk from PC World (not even branded)

Asus Xonar

Maybe if your PC is running slow, you should post your list of running processes on here so techies can take a look and tell you what to switch off. Those tray icons and themes, indexing services etc all hog RAM and CPU like no tomorrow.

Yes im happy with 25-30 FPS too but i notice when it goes below the 20s thats when the game gets sluggish.

Ive done everything you have , reformatted, new OS Windows 7 64bit, registry cleaned,disk defrag after every install, removing all unnecessary processes...

Edited July 15, 2009 by =Spetsnaz=

[Richard Bruce Cheney 10]

I think the biggest improvement to ArmA2 would be fixing the distant grass issue.

Here we have a beautiful engine filling the gameworld with incredible foliage, yet players are seen without the cover of grass when they are in the distance, and there is no viewblock to the AI when you are prone in grass.

This is a gameplay issue and would be nice to see resolved in a future patch. I guess I am spoiled with an nVidia 260 and core2duo. Performance is not an issue, gameplay is.

[=Spetsnaz= 0]

I think the biggest improvement to ArmA2 would be fixing the distant grass issue.

Here we have a beautiful engine filling the gameworld with incredible foliage, yet players are seen without the cover of grass when they are in the distance, and there is no viewblock to the AI when you are prone in grass.

This is a gameplay issue and would be nice to see resolved in a future patch. I guess I am spoiled with an nVidia 260 and core2duo. Performance is not an issue, gameplay is.

Yep i don't get why the terrain is like that, at close up it looks nice but at distance theres completely no grass!!! just trees..

[Zombie_Mod 0]

Yes im happy with 25-30 FPS too but i notice when it goes below the 20s thats when the game gets sluggish.

Ive done everything you have , reformatted, new OS Windows 7 64bit, registry cleaned,disk defrag after every install, removing all unnecessary processes...

Can you tell me where the slowdown occurs, and I'll see if it happens on mine?

I can walk through the Factory town at the bottom of Chernarus, Chernovorsk I think its called, and no slowdown at all.

I do have 1GB of VRAM in my Radeon 4870 though, that may be a factor if a lot of textures are being loaded in.

---------- Post added at 01:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:04 PM ----------

Yep i don't get why the terrain is like that, at close up it looks nice but at distance theres completely no grass!!! just trees..

What? The AI can see through grass??

I wondered why I was getting shot all the time in a supposedly concealed position, I thought BIS had fixed that back in Arma1 days!!!

FFS!!!!

I need to meditate, my systolic is going to hit 4 digits

[Baxalasse 10]

Yep i don't get why the terrain is like that, at close up it looks nice but at distance theres completely no grass!!! just trees..

I understand that one cant render grass/foliage for miles, but wouldn't a simple solution be to make a distant object, laying amongst grass/foliage, be more transparent or blend in to the background somehow, the further away it is? That way it at least gives some advantages to seek "cover" in grass. That could also mean that having the correct camo against the background should give you greater transparency/"cover". AI should off course respect this also :)

Just a thought...

Edited July 15, 2009 by Baxalasse

[HOPEnSPIRIT 10]

Good point at no news updates, we should not need to read 100's of post to find out any news.

vBulletin Blog a DEV could do a quick 5 minute post, vBulletin Project Tools can even assign work to certain DEVs and the community can see the Progress.

Dam I'm getting board of mentioning about no support, this is the only game worth playing nothing else comes close.

Imagine the extra sales you'd get with proper support!

[Shinobi575 10]

what does this mean? "More flexible configuration of Flares in the config (brightness, size)" and "Radio echo elimination"

[paragraphic l 2]

"Radio echo elimination" probably means that they remove the bug that people are having with the radio sounds being played twice and they hearing them echo.

The flares config is probably for addons makers.

[{SAS}Silentkiller 0]

There are a lot of things even a one man guerilla PR operation could do for BI and the ArmA games that isn't being even being casually approached, a lot of objections that aren't being handled constructively/positively, an enormous volume of questions that go unnecessary unanswered, and a lot of negativity that's being fed and amplified rather then mollified. Anyone with business experience can literally read, watch, and weep as they count lost sales and opportunity...

:(

That's exactly what I'm seeing & it makes me sad :(

It's amazing what a little bit information can do, given on a regular basis, to the mood of your customers (us :))

Even just a paragraph like:

sorry for the delay with the latest patch update, but it's been hectic here!! We are currently working on xyz but have had a little trouble identifiying a CTD when x is implimented, but we are working hard to get around this

Oh & Placebo you are sneeky with your thread merging!! & fishing should always come first :P

Edited July 15, 2009 by {SAS}Silentkiller

[Cpt.Goose 10]

they should use twitter like most of the developers do nowadays

Twitter is shitter.

Please don't troll moderator... This will get you no where. Please consider this a warning from the community and the hypocritical squad.

I totally agree with the lack of communications and how one or two simple releases of status from BIS could put a lot of people at ease. I have seen this with other games and found to have lower the rage factor with it's customers. Who ever is in head office there just isn't thinking at all on this one.

Please make a forum for developer release/update notes only!

Edited July 15, 2009 by Cpt.Goose