Update: Mirrors and some troubleshooting tips in this thread.
The demo of soldiering giganto-sim Arma II, which contains a surprisingly large chunk of the full game – including a limited version of the extremely versatile scenario editor – is now available. Get it here.
The demo comes to just under 3gb, but it’s an essential download for those of you who want to check out compatibility and performance issues before buying. And anyone else vaguely interested in the game, obviously. I’ve been caning the full thing for the best part of two weeks, and I’ve kept delaying the RPS review because, well, I just keep finding more stuff to do in it. I’ll stop tinkering and post full impressions early next week. Launch trailer and full demo content details below.
From BIS:
Overview of the demo content:
Boot Camp:
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Boot camp provides you with several scenarios which can help you to better enjoy the ArmA 2 demo.
To play the scenarios, start the game and select SingleplayerBootcamp from the main menu. The following tutorials are available:
Basic Training – You can learn the basics of the game controls, movement and principles of first aid and infantry combat in this tutorial. If you’re new to the world of military simulations, it is strongly recommended to learn these basics.
Parachute Jump – In this tutorial, you have a chance to try precision-jumping with a steerable parachute.
Helicopter – Learn the basics of helicopter flight, transportation of troops and attack chopper tactics.
Team – Learn the basics of your team’s command and control. This tutorial will teach you how to command your subordinates and manage your team.
High Command – You are often given command of whole groups in the bigger battles (e.g. Death Valley scenario). This tutorial describes the basics of the high-commander’s job.
Construction – In a large-scale scenarios (Death Valley in the demo), you can construct defenses, HQ buildings or structures which enable you to enroll certain unit types.
This tutorial will teach you the basics of the construction interfaces.Singleplayer:
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Three scenarios and an editable mission template are featured in the demo. Scenarios are accessible from the main menu’s Singleplayer > Scenarios section.Trial by Fire – A marine assault team is inserted on the Utes island to capture an OPFOR base. To successfully complete this mission, advance together with the rest of your team, follow your orders and avoid being too brave.
Death Valley – Small mission to introduce and also teach you how to use the RTS/FPS blend mode for ArmA 2 – The Warfare mode.
In this large-scale battle, your objectives are to capture all strategic locations or destroy all structures on the enemy base in your area of operation.
It is recommended to play Team, High Command and Construction tutorials before you start playing this mission.Benchmark – This scenario is an unplayable cinematic benchmark test that will help you determine the best setting for playing ArmA 2 on your computer or to compare your hardware. Average FPS is displayed at the end of this scenario.
Mission Template: Basic – To start this mission template, activate “My missions…”, select “
”, “01:Basic”, choose the side you want to play for, and edit the mission conditions. Multiplayer:
————It’s possible to play a multiplayer battle or customize some of the available mission templates.
To start the template-based multiplayer, select “<
>” and select from the list of available templates. Note that templates are customizable, and you may prepare many variations of existing setups. Death Valley – Multiplayer version of the scenario. Up to 16 players may take part in this battle. In “Create game”,
Multiplayer Mission Template: Deathmatch – Free-for-all fight for up to 16 players.
Multiplayer Mission Template: Team Deathmatch – Two teams fight in a small area. Up to 16 players may play in this scenario.
Multiplayer Mission Template: Seize The Area – Cooperative scenario for up to 6 players, whose task is to eliminate all hostile units in a designated area.Mission editor:
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Limited version of Mission Editor is present in the demo. Note that it’s not possible to either save or load a custom mission in the demo.Check http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Mission_Editor to learn more about the basic features of the editor.
And those system specs:
Minimal PC System Requirements
• Dual Core CPU (Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz, Intel Core 2.0 GHz, AMD Athlon 3200+ or faster)
• 1 GB RAM
• GPU (NVIDIA GeForce 7800 / ATI Radeon 1800 or faster) with Shader Model 3 and 256 MB VRAM
• Windows XPRecommended PC System Requirements
• Quad Core CPU or fast Dual Core CPU (Intel Core 2.8 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or faster)
• 2 GB RAM
• Fast GPU (NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT or ATI Radeon 4850 or faster) with Shader Model 3 and 512 or more MB VRAM
• Windows XP or Vista
Related Stories:
Wow.
So I just ran this ArmAII-Mark mission 3 times. First time was with my 2 hours fiddled with “optimized settings”. I got a 2798. Then I lowered all settings to the worst possible. I got a 4919. I then cranked all settings to the absolute highest possible (outside of 3D resolution which I left at 100%). I got a 2848. I got a higher score on the test with everything turned on than I did my optimized settings.
I had been reading that if you reduced everything to the lowest, then turned them back up that the game somehow rendered those new settings almost as fast as the lower ones. I didn’t believe it, but I have some tasty pudding here… Now to run more tests. :)
@Dominic
Yes you are as I am playing the demo and you are not, and “low” AA does virtually nothing so its impact is unimportant, and because you apparently do not understand what a render path issue is. Which this game has.
@Markoff
I think this may be the issue. People who claim they are getting uber settings on hardware that clearly cannot handle it. The game is simply not making the changes it claims to be, i.e., changing everything to Very High detail does no such thing, instead leaving the user on normal or so as the game realises it cannot handle what it is being asked to do.
We’ll see in 6 months once Bohemia extract a digit from an orifice and patch this monstrosity.
Two words – Motion Blur.
When your character turns, he experiences instant vertigo and his environment turns into a smear. This is not realistic, at least not for someone who hasn’t suffered a serious concussion and needs immediate help. It doesn’t help that due to the insane upsampling/downsampling shenanigans, the lead character clearly has myopia(short-sightedness).
It can’t be disabled, except by disabling ALL post-processing effects.
I posted to the demo feedback thread, and hopefully they do make motion blur a separate option, someday, because I’d quite like to play ARMA II but right now I have an option between a) vomiting uncontrollably / experiencing horrific migraines, or b) ruining the graphics by disabling a very important effect.
I can’t fathom why BI decided to make their game look so horrible with this upsampling junk, and the sickening motion blur / no post-process choice. Did they not put this in front of testers, or did they assume the testers were vomiting uncontrollably because it was ’so awesome’?
A few more tests and I’ve got her to a pretty stable 40+ (in the woods lol) with my shame being that my visibility stays around 2000. Post Processing and AA disabled. Texture and Video card memory at high and everything else is normal. Zoomed in I get to break 60, even with a few other on the screen at the same time. I want the full 10000 one day but anything over about 2050 starts giving me a somewhat noticeable FPS dip whereas it barely drops but maybe 1-2 FPS per 600 until that 2000. I’m sure it will change when I’m in a city though.
I can toggle AF from off to Very High with 0 FPS hit (well, maybe 1). AA, however, is a noticeable hit of about 20% even at low, for me. That’s ok, to me. AA is the last thing I usually ever turn on when tuning an engine up. Again, I like it fast as I can see it and 60 frames a second would get me killed out against the lions. Good thing I’ve moved on a bit as a primate goes…
I can see how playing this with mates would make it the ultimate coop experience, from a “complete this objective” viewpoint. I have to try to talk some of mine into it or maybe we can get a group going somehow. Intelligent people playing together is always a pleasure. The modability of the game is what really brought me to the game and the infinite possibilities contained in the future of community building.
The motion blur is vomit inducing at best. I liken it to me not having my glasses on while running. I’m legally blind without my glasses. Off it stays. :) I hope we can put the rest of the pretty stuff in soon. In the config file (if you edit it manually) the values for it vacillate between 8, 16 and 32, so I assume further delineation is somewhat possible.
Come home to me edit button! – Also limiting the pre-rendered frames in the nVidia control panel to 1 helped a bit. I need to try 2 and 0 as well, though. 3 is default.
mmmm the first page of http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=73947 says to set it on 8 havent read pass that so might of changed on a later page.
Balderdash(in my experience)! 8 was the first setting I tried, based on that guide. I saw no improvement, maybe even a decrease in FPS. The drop to 1 or 2 is noticeable from 3 and I did gain a few FPS in the process.
Another thing I found really helped out was disabling Pointer Precision on my mouse. I usually leave it off but ArmA2 was on a fresh install and I hadn’t done it yet. Feels less floaty now. Of course, the higher FPS helps in that department too.
P4 2.8GHz, 1GB RAM and a 256MB AGP card… runs smoothly on the lowest resolution. The blurring actually makes it seem more realistic than looking at hard, defined edges. I’m shooting at blobs rather than pixels if I don’t have a scope, but from what I remember of OpFP I spent a lot of time shooting at bushes anyway, which amounts to the same thing. Textures and mem are on low, but terrain and object detail, and Aniso are all Very High. It’s certainly got a great feel to it, and the demo’s convinced me to buy.
Okay, this is probably most relevant to those with a GeForce 2XX card, but anyway: hope it helps.
Turn your Pre-Rendered Farames int eh Nvida control panel to 0. 8 Won’t work but 0 seems to help
Turn OFF the PhysX accelration in the Nvidia control panel.
While you are setting the Pre-rendered frames, ensure that VSYNC is disabled.
Open up the .CFG file found in My Documents\ARMA2 and edit it so that your resolution and 3D resolution are the same.
In ARMA2 itself ensure that you have “hold breath” bound to a separate key. I did this but the game forgot so check it. For some ungodly reason “hold breath” was at least part of the cause for the massive FPS drop I got when zoomed.
Last point: Ignore the benchmark. As far as I can see it is broken (or at least brings out the worst in the game). That very first scene you see with the man on the cliff has bugger all in it yet I cannot get out of the teens FPS wise. To test your FPS play an actual mission.
With all this done I not have it set to 1600×1200, all details on very high bar AA which is on low (the AA they have implemented is geared for ATI cards it seems) and Post Processing which I have on Low (’cos it is VERY badly implemented) and, in a mission, I get 25-35 FPS. This is still pathetically low and I still have some mouselag issues, but I can at least play a mission to see what the game feels like.