Thinking of getting ArmA, few questions.

[Egan]

Combat is very rarely frenetic. I mean, in the campaigns there are missions that will punish you with their pace but most of them aren't really like that. To be honest, I've always felt the game plays best when it's a small special forces team operating alone. Actually, a lot of them are.

The BAF pack is very good. British troops in desert and woodland camo. A pile of weapons, A Warrior, A Jackal and a Landrover, plus a Wildcat and Chinook and Apache, I think. Not a bad package.

I get my Arma2 kicks in the mission editor. I went through a phase were I basically did nothing else but set up staged 'photos' of US and British troops going about there duties in Takistan: Speaking with the elders in a village, a marine firefight in one of the towns, British troops arresting suspected insurgents, manning checkpoints........great fun. Setting up poses and such like got me trying to remember the scripting stuff I used to know during the original OFP days.

[She-Wolf]

[QUOTE=She-Wolf; as there is no manual with the free game...[/QUOTE]

oops, yes there is, and in-game guidance as well. Thank you for the wisdom Egan. BAF pack... will remember that. Mods too.. wow. Boot Camp, here I come...

[0rpheus]

Originally Posted by Egan

The BAF pack is very good.

Apart from the writing! Ye gods it's beyond awful... just goes to show if you want to write a part for a 'warrior poet' - get a real poet to write the damn stuff!

Good units/maps/weapons though, same with Private Military Company.

She-Wolf: if you do decide to spend your pennies, DO NOT buy the individual games (Arma2 and Arma2: Operation Arrowhead). 99% of stuff (mods, servers, etc) for Arma nowadays requires Arma2: Combined Ops - this is the one to get. It contains both Arma2 and Op Arrowhead in one pack, so not only ensures your access to latest servers etc, but will save you a titanic amount of hassle if you decide to add mods (DayZ for example) further down the line as well.

BAF & PMC DLCs will work fine with Combined Ops too.

[She-Wolf]

Orpheus - advice noted, will follow as I will surely want to add mods as time goes by. Saving pennies begins now! Egg and chips for the next month methinks..

Eek - I dun it, haven't told himself yet... downloading from Steam.. feel guilty now.

[danlisa]

Was also looking at CO as a download. Got a demo of Arrowhead and ran the benchmark, 60 fps at max settings load a mission and it drops to 35.

Has there been any performance optimisations to the full game that improves this?

[0rpheus]

Originally Posted by danlisa

Was also looking at CO as a download. Got a demo of Arrowhead and ran the benchmark, 60 fps at max settings load a mission and it drops to 35.

Has there been any performance optimisations to the full game that improves this?

Depends how old the demo code is, but my instinct would be no. There are improvements in the latest beta, notably FXAA adds a good performance boost, but the campaign missions contain a lot of scripting and are heavy on the AI, and thus on your CPU.

Drop a setting or two, maybe on post process, AA or SSAO & you should see a difference. Also experiment with the 'video memory' setting - it won't autodetect and users often report a huge difference when they get the correct vidmem setting.

[Krauter]

Originally Posted by 0rpheus

Apart from the writing! Ye gods it's beyond awful... just goes to show if you want to write a part for a 'warrior poet' - get a real poet to write the damn stuff!

Good units/maps/weapons though, same with Private Military Company.

She-Wolf: if you do decide to spend your pennies, DO NOT buy the individual games (Arma2 and Arma2: Operation Arrowhead). 99% of stuff (mods, servers, etc) for Arma nowadays requires Arma2: Combined Ops - this is the one to get. It contains both Arma2 and Op Arrowhead in one pack, so not only ensures your access to latest servers etc, but will save you a titanic amount of hassle if you decide to add mods (DayZ for example) further down the line as well.

BAF & PMC DLCs will work fine with Combined Ops too.

Just bought CO on sale, however in my library it is seperated as Arma2 and Arma Op. Arrowhead. Which one would I install the mod DayZ onto?

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Krauter

Just bought CO on sale, however in my library it is seperated as Arma2 and Arma Op. Arrowhead. Which one would I install the mod DayZ onto?

Install both (A2 & OA), patch it and install DayZ via Six-Updater:
http://www.dayzmod.com/?SixUpdater

[Krauter]

Cheers