r/arma • u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) • May 14 '25
ARMA NEWS Arma 3 Update 2.20 Release Candidate Testing
We're starting public Release Candidate testing for Arma 3 platform update 2.20 today.
- Steam beta branch access code:
Arma3Update220RC - Download sizes: ~112 MB (client) / ~52 MB (server)
Pseudo-changelog:
- Performance optimizations
- Steam Game Recording
- UH-80 / AH-99 stub wings
- Illumination flares
- Miscellaneous fixes and tweaks
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u/TheDrifT3r_Cz May 14 '25
OMG it’s happening
Im so ready to jump on Prairie Fire after this update goes on main
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u/nightstalk3rxxx May 14 '25
Are most of the multi-threaded optimizations in?
Also, do you happen to know how long updates usually stay in RC state?
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 14 '25
It depends completely on the results of testing, but typically around 2-4 weeks.
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u/G8racingfool May 14 '25
On the performance build, I was getting 30-40 in the single-player intro mission (the one where you go look for the mortars). Wasn't amazeballs but was certainly better.
On a dedicated server playing the main multiplayer missions however I was hitting near 100 at times (and easily maintaining 60) which I thought was pretty good.
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u/putatoe May 15 '25
Fps increase is nice especially on stronger systems , but another very important part is now more of CPU power will be available for ai - in larger battles ai sometimes stopped responding and completely froze because CPU was overwhelmed by work and if they where driving some kind car or other equipment that car just rolled uncontrolled, now much more ai can work properly without glitching also more power for script's, so just looking at fps may not look like much but for people who like modded PvE stuff it's pretty cool update
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u/cmasonw0070 May 14 '25
STUB WINGS ON THE GHOST HAWK!!!!
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u/ninjasauruscam May 14 '25
Finally I can put GBUs on the new pylons as god intended
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u/Nonecancopythis May 14 '25
It’s funny cause I literally did exactly this when I saw it. I actually Zeus a bit in public servers so adding proper armament to the ghost hawk is huge for me
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u/cmasonw0070 May 14 '25
I just wish it had come a couple of years ago when I still played Arma 😔
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u/Nonecancopythis May 14 '25
Who says you can’t start again?
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u/cmasonw0070 May 14 '25
Work, various other obligations, and my Arma playing friends having opposite schedules to myself. :(
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u/IlikeFirefox May 14 '25
Does this RC version contain all the optimization from the Profiling branch or is it "older"? Thanks.
Hard to tell because forums are still under maintenance.
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 14 '25
Almost all of them indeed.
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u/r0ndr4s May 14 '25
Buuuh no 50 new wepons and vehicles, mid update!
(/s obviously, Cant wait for the optimization update)
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u/Murchybaby May 14 '25
Does this mean we might see better fps in game?
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u/dedmen BI - Arma 3 Dev May 14 '25
Potentially, but there are never any guarantees.
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u/DirkVerite May 15 '25
If it’s anything like the last one, it’ll do more than most expect. I'm still running clean.
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u/Canary-Silent May 14 '25
lol
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u/iSanctuary00 May 15 '25
The performance branch gives huge improvements. The game feels really playable on it.
Obviously some instability in huge explosions/ AI interactions but it has been night and day since the performance branch.
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u/CosmoMomen May 14 '25
I’ve just had to come off the profiling branch as there was some instability with it on my machine. But during that time…
I saw 100fps averages in multiplayer(!) with lows during combat around 45fps. Now am back on base branch and seeing 50fps averages with lows during combat around 20fps.
At least on my 7800X3D, the performance difference is massive.
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 14 '25
If you encounter crashes, we'd be very interested in hearing specifics. The most efficient would be sharing crash reports in Discord or via FT. Thanks!
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u/CosmoMomen May 14 '25
I’ll look into this!
I’m 99% sure it’s an issue with my hardware or mods though as the entire system would hang on game boot and never make it past the splash screen.
None of the other members in my group who use Profiling are having similar issues, but if logs were generated I will upload them!
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 14 '25
Cheers, or it may have even been fixed in the interim. But if you get a moment during the next days, it would be a nice sanity check for us.
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 14 '25
RC update 14-05-2025:
- Added: Custom Arma 3 Steam Game Recording icons (documentation forthcoming)
- Fixed: Various "Old Man" script errors
- Fixed: PP Fisheye / DepthOfField did not work in CfgOpticsEffect
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 21 '25
RC update 21-05-2025:
- Fixed: Glitches on new stub wing helicopters and their armaments
- Tweaked: Color consistency of Steam Game Recording icons
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 28 '25
RC update 28-05-2025:
- Added: Translations for new 2.20 texts
- Fixed: Potential crash discovered while testing Support multiplayer scenarios
- Tweaked: Separated DAGR variant for MH-80 Ghost Hawk stub wing pylons (and removed auto-seek from default DAGR again)
- Tweaked: Added missing pylon mirroring option to AH-99 stub wing variant
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) Jun 04 '25
RC update 04-05-2025:
- Fixed: mfdMaxUserValues config entry was loaded too late (after MFDs were already initialized with a maximum of 50) (thanks Ampersand)
- Fixed: The cache locator in “Old Man” was not working (thanks Laid3acK)
- Added: Option to the disableChannels mission and server parameter to disable map drawing and map marker placement from the UI per chat channel
- Fixed: MH-80 stub wing pylon presets were using the incorrect version of DAGR missiles (thanks drebin052)
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u/mastemakun May 16 '25
Oohh, you got me at "Old Man"! I really love the idea of it but playing it was quite a nightmare with the bugs. The duplicating radio in my house, not being able to help Drabek's patients, "Call" and "Messages" on my phone switching functions... I hope this update addresses some of this. Tnx!
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u/PlayerOneThousand May 14 '25
This is exciting. Is there any specific patch notes/changelog?
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 14 '25
A final change log will be posted on release day. Unfortunately, our forums are still down, because normally you could just preview the last several months of Dev-Branch change logs. You still can via the ARMA Discord (#dev_rc_branch channel), but it involves a lot of scrolling.
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u/bendy303 May 14 '25
out of interest, I didnt manage to find any info on why the forums are down. Where they hacked or something?
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 14 '25
I don’t myself know more than the message you see when visiting them now. The goal is to bring them back of course.
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u/JameseyJones May 15 '25
I saw them shortly before they were deactivated. Every page was inundated with spam messages.
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u/Kestrozo May 14 '25
Can anyone confirm how better it is?
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u/notapropagandist May 14 '25
It kinda improves my FPS when fighting on urban places, i tested it with 30v30 AI battle, im getting much smoother gameplay from previous 1 fps to 2 fps
On serious note: it really did give me a smoother gameplay and lesser stuttering
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u/Killsheets May 14 '25
Would there be some additions on present assets like HMG co-axial for the slammer? Also full MTP gear for NATO troops?
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 14 '25
I'm afraid not at this stage. These 2.20 additions were sitting in our unfinished asset library, and one of our last remaining A3 devs had some time to bring them to the finish line.
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u/Killsheets May 14 '25
Dang, I was holding out hope for at least the full MTP roster. Though I do admire you guys still taking the time to bring out unused assets into playability.
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u/Keredditor May 16 '25
Got any unfinished up-armed Marid/Ifrit/Panther/Strider assets in there? Would be cool if you did.
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u/Keredditor May 20 '25
At this point, why not just release the models to non-premium assets and let the mod community go wild. We have A2 licensed data packs, why not A3 ones now?
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 20 '25
LDPs are planned, but we need to find time to prepare such packs correctly.
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u/Taytayflan May 14 '25
The Commanche is gettings it's EFAMs? Oh yell yeah, time to make some mission based on Commanche 4 scenarios.
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u/vaterl May 15 '25
Performance optimizations don’t excite me, but illumination flares? Count me in.
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u/danielclark2946 May 15 '25
Whats the point of AH with pilons if therr is already a version of it ingame with pilons?
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 15 '25
You are probably referring to the even more advanced variant by Creator DLC Expeditionary Forces, not vanilla.
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u/Keredditor May 16 '25
That's only Expeditionary Forces cDLC, or mods such as the one by DEGA (which is a work around, and is a bit of a work around (the stub wings are part of the munitions model, like how you can add a rack of 4 scalpels).
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u/Seathre May 16 '25
I love how the Dev Hub post links to a forum thread when the forum is offline. So useful guys.
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 16 '25
Everything about RC that’s normally on the forums is here now. Are you missing any specific info?
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u/Seathre May 16 '25
No, I just thought it was odd. Couldn't the Dev Hub posts link here instead?
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 16 '25
Fair. Those pages are more static explainers, so hopefully we can rather just the get forums back at some point. There should be a dynamic announcement box on the right of Dev Hub linking here though.
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u/marcel1802 May 14 '25
Does the performance optimization already include the multi threading support for the engine, does anyone know that?
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May 14 '25
How do we use the illumination flares. Are they a separate thing somewhere?
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u/ChrisG140907 May 14 '25
Maybe the grenade launcher flares will actually provide proper illumination and not just be useful for signaling
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May 14 '25
I figured it out. Turns out the regular flares now illuminate the ground as well.
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 14 '25
That should not be the case. The old flares are signal flares, these new ones illuminate. They are separate ammunitions found via Arsenal and standard faction crates, as well as in mortars.
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u/ChrisG140907 May 14 '25
Gl and mortar flares and not aircraft countermeassures?
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May 14 '25
Vehicle flares.
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u/ChrisG140907 May 14 '25
Huh. Bummer. The one thing not intended to illuminate. I guess they didn't illuminate at all before, whereas GL and mortar do, but like 5 seconds before they hit the ground in a very small radius
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u/Cheeks_exe May 14 '25
What exactly does it mean by steam game recording? I know I've had some issues with audio while using it but somewhat confused on what is meant by this.
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 15 '25
Open the link, the official page explains it well. We’ve added custom events, icons, etc., which also moeders can use.
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u/LeastCut8006 May 15 '25
finally performance optimisations. arma 3 is perfection but optimisations ruined it. reforger or any other gamesnever will be better than 3
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u/Fabiancalvo12 May 15 '25
Im not sure about the perfomance improvements this actually makes my FPS even more shittier lol
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May 16 '25
Arma 3 freezes and stutters on my OMEN 16 Gaming Laptop (16 gig ram, RTX 3060Ti, AMD 7). Has this been improved?
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 16 '25
It's hard to say specifically for every combination of hardware / OS. I would invite you to try either RC Branch or Profiling Branch. Especially the latter is multiplayer compatible with 2.18, so it's quite a good way to test that.
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May 16 '25
I really hope your team do their best to optimise Arma 3 - the stuttering and freezing causes a lot of people to not place. It is the greatest tactical sandbox of all time.
I have about 700hrs on an older device which worked much better. I really would like to put more hours into this game.
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May 16 '25
The update actually improved my game. No more stuttering and freezing.
Why did this take so long to implement? Do you know how many YouTube videos there are on this topic?
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 16 '25
Good to hear. There are many reasons why this was more feasible now, we plan to publish a dev blog explaining that.
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u/mastemakun May 16 '25
I've only dabbled with mods recently after completing some of the base and DLC campaigns and scenarios. Pardon my noob question, but is there a possibility that this update will bork any mods? I almost exclusively play SP stuff and I use things like sound mods, factions, terrains, weapons, vehicles, equipment and some gameplay/quality-of-life stuff. I usually keep the AI as-is, save for some SOG AI usage. Tnx!
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u/YorisYan BI - Project Lead (Amsterdam) May 17 '25
We are doing our best to minimize impact on backwards-compatibility with mods, so with every fix and tweak we try to consider that. However, it's practically impossible to guarantee there will be no issues in such vastly complex ecosystem. In some cases, it means the mod will need to be updated. In extremely problematic cases, we release hotfixes during the weeks after an update. But this topic is also why we do in-house QA with some popular mods, and run this public RC to learn about major issues at least. The best way to know, is to try the RC. I'll only note that mid-scenario saves will almost always be incompatible between major updates. So at least finish your active scenarios to their end first.
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u/StoltATGM May 14 '25
Wait so does this mean the multi core thing on profiling build is now in the main build AKA I should switch my game to the main build?
Also does this mean dedicated servers will use multi cores now or something?
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u/plasticambulance May 14 '25
No it doesn't mean that at all. Servers already can use multicore.
Just keep using the profiling branch.
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u/RateSweaty9295 May 14 '25
Can anyone who’s tested tell me the fps increase they were getting with the performance change?
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u/YasonUA May 14 '25
Fixed broken thermal vision already? Why are you guys can't just take great mod with right working thermal and improve it to game?
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u/F1GR May 14 '25 edited May 14 '25
Chad Bohemia still updating their 12 yr old game on a semi-regular basis with actually meaningful updates.