john_mcclane

Quite enjoyable "mission". Thanks for taking the time to make it! Also like the taxi paint schemes.

Some good points have been made. Let's see what the patches do. Hopefully they can find a middle ground that will satisfy most everyone. BIS are very good at listening to their customers.

Can someone explain to me why the standalone update is a mere 29MB and Steam shows the update as 1.694GB? And it's not a typo, as I downloaded 100MB and it was still downloading.

We are talking about a game that is using a modified ARMA2 engine. This is not something that has been built from the ground up to be a flight simulator. I personally think it is unrealistic to expect too much in regards to authentic flight modelling. Did you really think they were going to convert a tactical combat game into a perfect flight sim? The trainee flight model is quite an improvement over the ARMA2 model, as far as giving non pilot players a decent representation of flying in a game, over the simplified ARMA2 model. Even that model was better than most, such as found in the Battlefield series. No matter what they do, I highly doubt they are going to be able to completely satisfy actual pilots. Even FSX couldn't do that.

Oh well, just when things were getting fun, we have to get all serious.

And I'm an astronaut. If they had come out with "Take on Space Shuttles" instead, me and the boys could ease up on the tang and complain about a game instead.

I had been following the game for several months and was eagerly awaiting the release. I purchased it as soon as it was available on Steam. So what do I think? The game is exactly what I expected. I have been playing BIS games ever since the original OFP release. What I expected this game to be was basically a civilian helicopter oriented version of ARMA2, with some improvements in the flight model and atmosphere to make it seem more realistic, but I was not expecting a hard-core simulation by any means. I think some people had unrealistic expectations as to how much of a simulation this game would be. To me, it feels like a realistic enough representation of helicopter flight in a game. If I was an actual pilot, I believe I'd be more interested in my day job than wasting time on a forum complaining that a computer game isn't just like flying the real thing. Professional flight simulators are very expensive. If you expected to hook up your pedals and flight stick to this $50 game and feel exactly like you were flying an actual helicopter, you were being rather silly. This was marketed as a simulation game. Apparently some people took that a bit too seriously. Technically, all of their games since OFP have been considered simulations, but I wouldn't expect any of those games to be completely realistic simulations of actual combat. In the end, they are all games, and that is why most of us are here... to play games.

The title of this topic should be changed to: "I need to learn to fly ArmA choppers now!" A lot of people are quite satisfied with the flight model. Instead of complaining and making unrealistic demands to change it, why not just practice more and be happy with what we have? It's not bad at all, and is quite enjoyable with a joystick/gamepad. It is more than adequate for this game (emphasis on the word "game"). Just my 2 cents worth.

I'm very impressed with the performance boost I'm experiencing with the patch. I am getting a solid 30 - 40 FPS (even in the forrests) with basically everything maxed out and the view distance set at 4500. It looks fantastic, and no more stuttering or other issues. I also just played it for hours without a single hiccup. Vista 32-bit 8800GT (nvidia 175.16 drivers) Intel Q6600 CPU 3GB 800MHz DDR

I just upgraded to an 8800GT & Vista. When I first ran ArmA, I had the 169.25 drivers. I was very disappointed, as the game ran very poorly and stuttered constantly. Lowering visual settings made no difference. After reading this thread, the BETA drivers sounded promising. I installed the 175.16 drivers. I am VERY impressed. The stuttering is completely gone and it runs very smoothly on high settings now.

If you look back at similar threads, there are plenty of supposed real life pilots voicing their concerns... about a game. I find it amusing.

Aircraft were simplified in OFP. ArmA isn't all that realistic either, but it is more so than OFP. And lets not forget, it is just a game. It's not supposed to be a perfect flight simulation. I also get a kick out of how many "licensed pilots" pop up in these threads. You're mature enough to pilot an aircraft, yet immature enough that you complain about a game not being like the real thing? Well... duh.

I think the main gripe about helicopters in ArmA comes from those that use a keyboard to fly. That was the only way I flew in OFP, and it worked very nicely. In ArmA, you really need a joystick or gamepad to enjoy flying. I personally prefer using an Xbox controller, which works excellent.

The 8MB dedicated VRAM is all that is used. If I bump the color up to 32-bit in 1024x768, I get an out of memory error. Runs great in 1024x768x16-bit. 8MB was the minimum requirement for Glide mode, 16MB for Direct3D mode.

For kicks, I installed Resistance on a ThinkPad X22 800MHz P3 with 8MB ATI mobility video. Even though the requirements say 16MB video (except for Glide), amazingly it runs quite well on the 8MB card in D3D using low settings @ 1024x768! Anyways, just thought I'd share. I found it pretty impressive myself that the game could run well on an 8MB card in Direct3D.