FROM: Project Lead

TO: Arma 3 Users

INFO: Adapt, HDAO, MP optimizations

PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

The time has come to resume normal operations ... welcome to Arma 3's 2014! The team has rapidly geared back up for 'Adapt' release prep, and next Tuesday it's go-time. We would like to stage the episode on devbranch later in the week, but let's see how things go as we are currently testing under data lock. Then we have an exciting multiplayer announcement dropping in February, and we'll be wrapping up the campaign with development on its final episode. Plans beyond that are being outlined with plenty of awesome stuff coming to everyone. Good times ahead!

INTELLIGENCE

A new and splendid HDAO post-process effect has been implemented based on a technique by AMD engineer Layla Mah (thanks!). The effect is DirectX 11 only and brings improved visuals and an interesting potential performance boost (1-12% based on settings). Find it on devbranch in the video settings, under AA && PP (AO drop-down). Another example of continued cooperation with various hardware partners for optimizations and new tech, are recent performance improvements to stencil shadows via Intel.

Designer Bořivoj "Druid" Hlava has posted documentation on the so-called Advanced Hints (used in the Field Manual e.g.).

The main website's Community Focus was updated with two new videos, a police modifcation and a tools installation guide.

OPERATIONS

There finally is some solid movement on the multiplayer optimization front. Over the past weeks our programmers, David "Dwarden" Foltyn, and several community admins tested the new build quite a bit. They are already reporting significant performance increases, as well as better load-balancing on CPU cores. There has also been a fix to make (dedicated) headless clients function again on passworded servers. These improvements are set to arrive with the next update (version 1.10 - both the main game and servers).

In December we released the first version of the Arma 3 Server for Linux (as well as Windows). Our programmers would like your feedback on using the Linux server specifically in this forums thread. Thanks!

LOGISTICS

In case you are experiencing difficulties running the Arma 3 Server tool, please try the following two steps:

Make sure the steam_appid.txt in the installation folder contains value 107410. Unfortunately the Steam client currently automatically changes this to 233780 with every update of the app. We're trying to solve this with Valve. Add -mod= to your shortcut for running arma3server.exe (to ensure it will load the correct add-ons, i.e. not those from the main game installation).

To also repeat a general tip that may help performance for any Arma 3 player: run file verification in the Steam client for Arma 3, and defragment non-SSD storage.