All Questions & Answers

As you know, Gamespy, the system that has been handling the majority of the multiplayer in many of our games is shutting down. There is no reason to worry however, as there is another method to play online.

Games affected:

• Arma 2
• Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead
• Arma 2 Combined Operations
• Arma 2 Complete Collection
• Arma X Anniversary edition
• All the Arma 2 DLCs
• Arma Cold War Assault
• Arma Armed Assault
• Arma Gold
• Take On Helicopters

How to connect to server?

In order to connect to a server you need to know the its IP address and port. Usually, these can be obtained from the server host (in most cases, they would have a website with the server details). Once you know those, follow the steps bellow to connect:

1. Select Multiplayer.

2. Choose Remote.

3. Enter IP address of the server. Do not forget to change the port and then continue with OK

4. Select the server and click Join

Step 1: Run Steam as Administrator

• Right-click on the Steam icon.
• Click "Run As Administrator." If this choice is unavailable, you are already logged in as Administrator. In that case run Steam normally.

Step 2: Opt into a beta program

Right-click on Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead in your Steam Library.

Then click on Properties.

Once Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead - Properties windows appears, go to the Betas tab. You will see this screen:

Then select the beta you wish to opt into and click Close. After closing the window, Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead will update itself with the selected Beta version. To opt out of the Beta program you selected, select NONE - opt out of all Beta programs in the Betas tab of the Properties window.

Yes and you have two options how to do that.

You can export servers from our web-based server browser: master.bistudio.com/

Just choose the game, filter servers and press "Export to CSV".

Save the file and move it to the folder with the game.

For instance default Steam folder for Arma 2 will be here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Arma 2

Now start the game and you will see the servers in your in-game browser.

Or you can create hosts.txt file in your game folder and manually insert desired servers. For more info about hosts.txt please visit our Wiki here:

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/hosts.txt

Our web-based server browser provides Steam users with the possibility of directly connecting to an online server through simple browser-based system.

First of all, please open your Steam client, log in and then open your web browser and go to this site: http://master.bistudio.com/

Now select the game you want to play in the browser.

Now edit the filters to find the server you want to join.

When you find the server you want to join just click on the blue "Steam" button right next to the server. Please note that you can see IP adresses and ports for all listed servers.

Click on 'Allow' in all the pop-up windows that will show up.

The game will start right after you confirm the last pop-up window. You will be automatically connected to the selected server.

Another way is to connect to the server directly (please note that you will have to chose this option every time you want to play multiplayer in a non-steam game).

Your copy of the game will be added to your Steam Library. Once added, you will be able to download and play the game from Steam Library.

Please note that your CD key will remain the same, you will not get a new copy of the game this way - your current copy will be transferred to Steam.

You do not have to be always online. You can launch the game with Steam in offline mode.

If you want to switch to the offline mode please click on Steam (top right corner in your Steam window).

Select "Go Offline..."

And restart your Steam client.

Please note that you will not be able to play multiplayer while in offline mode.

You can also switch auto-updating feature of the Steam off:

Right click the game in your Steam library.

Select "Properties"

Under the "UPDATES" you can change settings for automatic updates

Please note that most of the servers will run on the latest version of the game.

Step 1: Make sure you have the Steam client installed

If you do not have Steam installed, please follow this link to download and install it.

Step 2: Run Steam as Administrator

• Right-click on the Steam icon.
• Click "Run As Administrator." If this choice is unavailable, you are already logged in as Administrator. In that case run Steam normally.

Step 3: Activating your game

Click on the Games tab in the menu in the top of the client.

Then select Activate a Product on Steam from the menu.

Click the Next button until you get to this screen:

There you can enter your CD key.
Then click Next again. Your game is now activated and you can download it the same way you download any game on Steam.

Please note that this will work only for Arma 2, Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead and all Arma 2 DLCs. Also, you can only activate your game on an account where the game has not been activated yet.

Run Steam as Administrator (right-click on the Steam icon and click on "Run As Administrator").

Install Arma 2.

Run Arma 2 once.

Install Operation Arrowhead.

Run Operation Arrowhead through Steam (Battleye will now install automatically).

If you wish, you can also install the Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead beta (for the purposes of running Mods etc.). It will appear as a separate item in your Library.

There are several possible fixes for this issue.

First, run Arma 2 once. Then try to run Arma OA (without beta or DayZ).  If that won't help you can try to verify game cache of the Arma 2 and Arma OA.

1.) If that will not help, follow this guide:

1. RUN STEAM AS ADMINISTRATOR
2. Exit Steam.
3. Right-click on Steam icon.
4. Left-click on "Run As Administrator".
5. If the problem persists, reboot your computer and try the procedure again.

2.) DELETE ARMA 2 OA REGISTRY ENTRIES

1. Exit Steam, open Start menu and type this directly into the menu (in Windows XP, you will have to click on "Run" first) regedit
2. Press Enter.
3. In regedit window, click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
4. Press CTRL+F to bring up search.
5. Look for "ArmA" (without the quotes).
6. Delete all the "ArmA" entries you find from the registry.
7. Run Steam as Administrator.
8. Right-click on the game in Steam Library.
9. Click on "Properties".
10. Select "Local files" tab and click on "Verify integrity of game cache files" button.
11. Please wait, the process can take several minutes.

3) REINSTALL STEAM

1. Go to Steam's installation folder.
2. Delete everything there except "steam.exe" and "steamapps" folder.
3. Run "steam.exe" - Steam will reinstall itself automatically.

Unfortunately if you have lost your cd key we cannot give you a new one.

There is a possibility to find your CD key if you bought the game from store.bistudio.com or, if you have the game still installed, we can instruct you how to recover your key from the windows registry files (please e-mail us using the contact form below if any of the previous conditions apply to you).

Otherwise, you will have to buy a new copy of the game.

This error can happen in several cases:

1) You incorrectly installed mods (such as DayZ) which broke the game.

Reinstallation should help in this case. Note that after uninstallation via Steam you might have to delete Arma 2's install folder as well. It's located in \steamapps\common\arma 2

2) The game launches with incorrect / corrupted startup parameters.   

Delete any parameters you might have set. In Steam, you will have to do this:

1. Go to your Steam Library.
2. Right click on Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead.
3. Click on 'Properties'.
4. Under general tab, click on 'Set launch options...' button.
5. Delete everything in the launch parameter field.
6. With Steam running as Administrator, try to launch Arma 2 OA / CO again.

3) You manually installed a beta patch and overwritten OA's .exe file with the beta patch .exe file.

In this case, a clean reinstall should also resolve your issue.

If you have any other issues with Arma please send us the following info:

Screenshot of the error. Please use FRAPS for making in-game screenshots.

RPT file of Arma 2 OA (arma2oa.rpt). It can be found here:

1. If you have Windows Vista or later, please open Start menu and paste this directly into it: %userprofile%\AppData\Local\ArmA 2 OA
2. then press Enter. You should be taken directly to the folder with arma2oa.rpt.

If you have Windows XP, please open Start menu, click on Run and paste this into Run window:
%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\ArmA 2 OA

Then press Enter. Same as before - you should see arma2oa.rpt.

DXDIAG

1. Open the Start menu.
2. In Windows XP, click on 'Run'. In Vista/7, continue to step 3.
3. Type 'dxdiag' (without the quotes).
4. Press Enter.
5. In dxdiag window, click on 'Save All Information' button.
6. Send us the resulting file as email attachment.

MSINFO report of your computer for checking (no sensitive personal information will be collected):

1. Open the Start menu.
2. In Windows XP, click on 'Run'. In Vista/7, continue to step 3.
3. Type 'msinfo32' (without the quotes).
4. Press Enter.
5. In MSINFO window, click on 'File' in the upper menu.
6. Click on 'Save' button.
7. Send us the resulting file in the form below.

Thank you.