Arma 2

hmm i wonder what the betas are for been using 1.05 perfectly fine with ace 2 and all working great, betas make me nervous about breaking my mods.

 

The changelog covers the more stable aspects of it but the last seven or so versions have gone trough some major revisions engine wise for some pretty good performance and stability improvements, reduced stuttering and other benefits.
(Allowing up to eight cores to work with the game, allowing control over threading via -exthreads= command and now also improving memory usage to name some things, others would be changes to the rendering system for vegetation though autumn type vegetation textures still bring a hefty performance hit which is a rather well known problem.)

 

hmm multicore support, well if i get a quad i will definately be interested in the new betas. be awhile before i scrap my mb and all for a 6 or 8 core tho.

 

Review of OA.
http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=10844

 

Preordered a while ago.

My personal points why you should buy ArmA2: AO:


- game uses more RAM above 1GB
- game uses more cores than 2
- every house is enterable and can be searched for hidden soldiers or stuff
- the new world has less details -> higher fps than the world in ArmA2
- enhanced mission editor stuff -> random village generation for example
- more different factions to play, not just US army this time. British army could arrive via patch/DLC later on.

 

Most of the technical stuff has been patched in via the ongoing beta updates after 1.05 (Guess it'll be 1.06 eventually with support for OA when it goes final, next beta should hit this week and will be large-address-aware as well apparently.)

Of course OA adds more stuff to the game plus missions, a new campaign and three islands if I remember it correctly (I have it on pre-order as well.) and thankfully performance will be better as there's less vegetation but it looks rather detailed even so.
(Character models have improved further for example and it adds new systems like thermal and flir or what it was called among other improvements plus it can be either stand-alone or integrate with a current ArmA 2 install.)

(For some reason the autumn like trees and vegetation really hit performance compared to the greener spring/summer variants, known issue and it's difficult to say what causes it but there have been various mod fixes like turning the game form it's autumn theme to a greener spring theme or even replacing the vegetation with OFP and ArmA 1 models/textures.)

 

New beta builds, three actually since the previous version I posted. (Again, heh.)

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=7171
(LAA enabled as well.)

 

I'm eagerly awaiting patch 71752, they said recoil fx will be fixed. Finally more realism.

 

Prolly the best preview so far

4 days till OA get released!!!

some guy already got his and he's posting screens and answering questions (he's a moderator)

so far cool stuff thats confirmed about OA;
integrated mod support for enabling/disabling mods
new maps are big, including a big city
engine is optimized a lot
tons of new units including little birds, flyable UAV's
adding towns via the editor is easy as 1 click.
thermal vision equipment
improved AI
some better graphic effects
includes MP coop missions
because this game takes place in the desert with few trees, the game has lower system requirements, than arma 2.

 

Yeah the main "Takistan" capitol has it's own map, would make for some interesting CQB custom missions and similar.
(That and it would minimize lag on the "world map".)

 

http://www.gogamer.com/Arma-2--Oper...productId108894934VVcatId444781VVviewprod.htm

 

1.07
http://www.arma2.com/supply/all-downloads/file/235-arma2patch_105_to_107.html?lang=en

EDIT:

EDIT: From the forums this patch is build 71750 so does not contain recoil fix and that newly discovered performance issue with certain trees.

 

Operation Arrowhead can now be preloaded on a few places like the usual Sprocket (Since a few days ago in fact.) and Gamersgate, can't be installed as just with the first game it'll ask for a serial (Those will be released tomorrow and the activation servers will be brought online as well, retail copies were sold early in Germany and some other places however and those only use normal SecuROM with disc check so there's been all sorts of info and details released about the game due to that.)

 

So how is this game now a days?

I have always wanted to pick this one up but I have been waiting for a good STEAM deal.

I'm more about multiplayer....many people play online?

 

In a word: awesome

 

Now if only this could be on sale for 10$ like OFP.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/505-Games-ArmA-PC-DVD/dp/B001QCYA2A

Kinda, 9.46 pound, with Arrowhead for just a bit over 16 as well.
(Unsure how it compares to USD and Euro, of course it's a bit more than 10 USD though.)

Steam still has it around 50$ apparently and I guess Arrowhead will be just a little bit lower than that, unsure what other digital distributors demand.

 

35$ USD. Still to expensive for the game.

 

I think 35$ USD is a very fair price.

 

The only issue with Steam, not all patches are available through Steam.

Can anyone help me with this? I haven't played in a long time and wanted to try the latest patch. How would a Steam user go about properly updating?

Edit: Cool, looks like 1.07 patch is supported by Steam. Just started downloading.