Beta patch and Steam with Overlay, etc.

[Jimmy James 18]

I found this thread by Steam user Dragoonseal very helpful. Hopefully it's of use to others.

When you install the beta patches you have to start the game using the beta shortcut/exe instead of the normal game exe, so it doesn't trigger the Steam overlay or keep track of your play time. You can add the shortcut to your Steam library as a non-Steam game to get the overlay back but Steam still won't keep track of your play time. So here is how you fix that.

After you install the most recent beta patch you get a "Launch Arma2 OA Beta Patch" shortcut in the main Arma 2 OA folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2 operation arrowhead" which has all the info we need when you check its launch options in Properties. Currently it points to a beta exe at "\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" with the launch parameters of "-beta=Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion"

So do the following:

Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2 operation arrowhead\

Rename ArmA2OA.exe or move it to a backup folder.

Locate the beta ArmA2OA.exe in the \Expansion\beta folder, copy and paste it to the main folder where the original exe was.

Open your Steam library, right click on ARMA 2: Operation Arrowhead, and click Properties.

Click Launch Options and add "-beta=Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion" without the quotes

Add any additional launch options you want such as -nosplash, -world=empty, -mod=@dayz

Launch ARMA 2: OA as normal from Steam and enjoy.

Any time you install a new updated beta just update the ArmA2OA.exe and check the beta shortcut to see if there are any additional launch options needed.

Enjoy!

And the link to Arma 2 beta patches: http://www.arma2.com/beta-patch.php

[Jmoney 0]

thank you for posting this

[ABORT 5]

So we don't need the ;ca after \beta?

Example:

-beta=Expansion\beta;ca;Expansion\beta\Expansion