VP's ARMA 3 1.76 beta now out, compatible with Windows for now

Quoting: GuestTo be correct, it is Bohemia's release not VP's

What does this mean? Are you saying Bohemia have ditched VP and taken the port in house? If so, that's very bold, but might bode well for a future where Windows/Linux is updated simultaneously, I suppose, rather than waiting for VP to catch up to a new Bohemia release.

Oh, cool! And finally I get to play some new content as well. With the last version I had played everything on Windows before I ditched it for Ubuntu, but now I get to play Laws of War DLC which I didn't get to play before :)

Great, once I finish downloading I will smash some Windows noobs

Edit: well, they kicked my ass. I need to train...


Last edited by sonic on 13 November 2017 at 8:28 pm UTC

Right now playing on King Of The Hill it working very good, copied my lvl from Windows. :D

Quoting: GuestNo, I am saying that it is Bohemias product, and they provide the support. VP is just contracted to do the porting work.

Huh, well that's a let down. I know it's Bohemia's product. VP have released several beta candidates since they were first contracted. I have to admit, I'm not seeing why you feel the article needs correcting. You feel that the first sentence implies VP own the IP, maybe?

Anyway, more generally, I'm hopeful that this is the first step to the VP beta becoming an official product. I've been holding off buying it until that happens.

Also, I wonder how VP are being paid. If this was a Feral release, they'd have an announcement (after months of teasing), then Linux sales thereafter are credited to their work. But in this case, VP only have a beta, so I (and possibly others) won't touch it. Seems an odd way to do business, particularly given how quiet they've been otherwise. Just checked their website and they have few titles on the go now and I didn't even realise they'd released Putty Squad - although that's not on Steam, GOG or Humble, and only features static screenshots on the sales page, so I can't see anyone dropping £15 for that!


Last edited by scaine on 13 November 2017 at 7:18 pm UTC

I cannot play on servers with version 1.76.xxxxxx (half EPOCH servers)

Quoting: GuestDoes this mean we can play Playerunknown's Battle Royale now? Or is there more to that mod than server side stuff? (I don't have Arma 3, but would be interested in getting it if I could play Battle Royale)

I will try...


Last edited by tom34 on 13 November 2017 at 8:41 pm UTC

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: GuestNo, I am saying that it is Bohemias product, and they provide the support. VP is just contracted to do the porting work.

Huh, well that's a let down. I know it's Bohemia's product. VP have released several beta candidates since they were first contracted. I have to admit, I'm not seeing why you feel the article needs correcting. You feel that the first sentence implies VP own the IP, maybe?

Also, I wonder how VP are being paid. If this was a Feral release, they'd have an announcement (after months of teasing), then Linux sales thereafter are credited to their work.

He's saying that VP are just external contractors paid a flat fee by BI to port the game to Linux (and OSX). VP operate on an entirely different basis to Feral and Aspyr. The latter two approach games developers and obtain the rights from the developer to publish the game on other (non-windows) platforms, they are publishers and as publishers they get a cut of any profits on those platforms. VP on the other hand are just contractors, games developers approach them, they quote a cost to port the game and when that port is done that's the end of their association with the game. You may have noticed that games ported by VP don't have a publisher splash screen.

In this case BI approached VP, it's BI that publish the linux version even if a lot of the work was contracted out to VP. It's BI who have labelled it with a Beta/Experimental tag and BI who decide whether that situation will ever change.

What he's bothered by is that the article says "Virtual Programming have released" ... they haven't released anything, if they had released anything they would have been in breach of their contract :) They did their work for BI and it was BI who released the game.


Last edited by GBee on 13 November 2017 at 8:58 pm UTC

Quoting: GuestDoes this mean we can play Playerunknown's Battle Royale now? Or is there more to that mod than server side stuff? (I don't have Arma 3, but would be interested in getting it if I could play Battle Royale)

I have bad news. BR need newest ARMA 3 1.76.xxxxxx version...
FeelsBadMan...


Last edited by tom34 on 13 November 2017 at 9:12 pm UTC

There is no steamos icon. But if I buy it I can play it on my Linux box?

Quoting: GBee

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: GuestNo, I am saying that it is Bohemias product, and they provide the support. VP is just contracted to do the porting work.

Huh, well that's a let down. I know it's Bohemia's product. VP have released several beta candidates since they were first contracted. I have to admit, I'm not seeing why you feel the article needs correcting. You feel that the first sentence implies VP own the IP, maybe?

Also, I wonder how VP are being paid. If this was a Feral release, they'd have an announcement (after months of teasing), then Linux sales thereafter are credited to their work.

He's saying that VP are just external contractors paid a flat fee by BI to port the game to Linux (and OSX).

<snip>

Well, we can agree to differ. VP released their latest beta. We appear to quibbling over an implied distinction between "released" and "published".

But thanks for the explanation of how VP work. I knew most of it, but you've clarified a lot. That clarification leaves me wondering how they make money on this, then? You're suggesting that each time VP release a new beta, Bohemia are saying "thanks, now here's more money to do a new version"?

Or is it "do a beta, then another, indefinitely, until we're happy - here's a flat fee"?

Cos the former costs Bohemia money each time, while latter is obviously never going to happen! And if it's former, well done Bohemia, right? Because they're not advertising this, and they describe it as complementary service, making it clear that you're buying a Windows game and this is the best they can do.

Kind of surprising.

Quoting: 1xokThere is no steamos icon. But if I buy it I can play it on my Linux box?

Yes, with some limitations (read my comments here).

Read more here: https://dev.arma3.com/ports


Last edited by tom34 on 13 November 2017 at 10:31 pm UTC

So close, so very close.

Great info! It's time to buy Laws of War!

Since they don't dedicate to Linux completely I skip Arma. If they can guarantee me version parity with Windows I might consider it.


Like this I'd be better of using Wine instead of the non-native port.

mesa_glthread=true

Gained 3% better performance in the CPU-heavy "Yet Another Arma Benchmark".

Getting about the same numbers I had on Windows 10 before abandoning it early 2017.


Last edited by Brisse on 14 November 2017 at 11:17 am UTC

Quoting: scaineWell, we can agree to differ. VP released their latest beta. We appear to quibbling over an implied distinction between "released" and "published".

iPhones are assembled by Foxconn in China. When a new iPhone is released, you don't see anyone saying that Foxconn have released a new iPhone.

Quoting: scaineThat clarification leaves me wondering how they make money on this, then? You're suggesting that each time VP release a new beta, Bohemia are saying "thanks, now here's more money to do a new version"?
Or is it "do a beta, then another, indefinitely, until we're happy - here's a flat fee"?

We can't know their exact terms, but the former are the usual terms, they quote based on an agreed upon set of requirements. Any change to those original requirements are change requests and are billed accordingly, any new work after the requirements have been met and delivered are treated as new work with a new quote. I've been on both sides of that equation, though not for games but software in general.

Quoting: scaineCos the former costs Bohemia money each time, while latter is obviously never going to happen! And if it's former, well done Bohemia, right? Because they're not advertising this, and they describe it as complementary service, making it clear that you're buying a Windows game and this is the best they can do.
Kind of surprising.

Yes It's costing Bohemia, and it's not going to be cheap either. I would suggest they are doing this because some of the current BI team are linux users themselves and this is partly a passion project (Besides which, right from the release of OpFlash in 2001 a portion of the community has been asking for linux support). However their larger motivation is probably a question of testing the waters, seeing whether porting their games is even doable, those of us playing the game under linux are in effect beta testers. Assuming the results of the experiment are good, we might expect to see their future games come to our platform.

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: cRaZy-bisCuiTSince they don't dedicate to Linux completely I skip Arma. If they can guarantee me version parity with Windows I might consider it.

Like this I'd be better of using Wine instead of the non-native port.

So you're saying you would rather run the Windows version under Wine, because the port is non-native ?
Anyone else see the irony here ? :><:

Also, they're not going to dedicate to Linux when people arent buying it!!

Also, it doesn't work in Wine. So there's that :)

They may also want to release ARMA 4 for Mac and Linux in the future and having some experience before that happens is always a good thing.

Since I already own the game and my Windows friends set their games to the legacyports version, I'm just happy to get our games patched up. :) The only problem I have is the game wants more than my 8 GB of RAM, so I have to make sure my swap is on... and the game doesn't gracefully switch to using swap when it needs it.


Last edited by 14 on 14 November 2017 at 1:23 pm UTC

Does malden map working?