Optimization and worse graphics: The key to a fivefold increase in sales of ARMA 3

[antoineflemming 14]

@ Froggy Luv

Fair enough, but don't be irratated. I think Arma is great and I preach about it regularly to my peers, suboordinates and leadership who have never seen it (well most have in VBS2 form but didnt know).

For the record, I agree that OFP/ARMA has been a bastion against mediocrity too. That is an excellent way to describe it. I just believe both graphics and content are truly possible.

As far as the term competitors, I meant it in the simplest business model form. I want BI to get more money through more sales. I would like EA, UBISOFT and other mediocraty masters to disappear. However, they truly have mastered at least the graphical content and there is always something to learn...even from ones competitors.

Take care.

P.S. I'm waiting for an "...am I not merciful ?!" Lol.

That's kinda harsh... those mediocre publishers and their games have their place... just like Michael Bay films have their place... those who want some action with no substance... there are those who every once in a while just want to be wowed with big hollywood explosions (NOT referring to myself). The beauty of ArmA is that you can be wowed by realism... I agree with you though. Graphics and Content are possible together, and ArmA2 already accomplished that. Now, Graphics, Content, and "Runnability" is another thing. You can get graphics and content on a really good rig, but the challenge is getting graphics and content together on medium-grade rigs. That's where the idea of "Optimization" comes in. Optimization is the process of modifying a software system to make some aspect of it work more efficiently or use fewer resources (that's from Wikipedia). This is basically my understanding of optimization. I haven't taken the time to analyze just how much "resources" ArmA2 uses. But cutting down resources is what will determine to what extent you can have graphics in addition to content on medium-grade machines. Ideally, it would be great if ArmA3 could use fewer resources than ArmA2, without sacrificing graphics. But, chances are, that reduction is going to have to come through customers lowering some graphics settings, and there goes graphics and content. You then have to prioritize, what graphical settings are most important. PPFX or Textures for example. Ultimately, getting back to the OP's point, BIS shouldn't worsen graphics to achieve the content-playability balance. Nor should BIS remove content to achieve a graphics-playability balance. If BIS could find a way to reduce the amount of resources used, in whatever form those resources may be, without sacrificing graphics or content, then we could have a graphics-content-playability balance. That'd be an ideal scenario, where players could have good enough graphics and not sacrifice FPS.

IF BIS were to decide to lower ANY graphics settings across the board (I know they won't do this), then I'd rather BIS scale back particle effects over detailed models or textures. As proven with COD (hate to use them as an example), particle effects can be faked to seem real. On that note, it'd be kinda nice if players with low-end machines could choose "fake" particle effects a la COD while players with really good rigs could choose ArmA's authentic, realistic particle effects. Smoke is one example. I'm not sure how much that would help with FPS or what not, but something like that is a possibility.

[froggyluv 2135]

P.S. I'm waiting for an "...am I not merciful ?!"

I'm not sure what your talking bout but it sounds like you've been a Busy Little Bowman!

Hehe, well again sorry about the snappy attitude as it sounds like we all want the same thing -a successful Arma3 that looks great and we can all run and enjoy.

[MulleDK19 21]

If you can't afford the hardware, you're not interested enough in the game.

And a fivefold increase in sales? I highly doubt that.

For one, I wouldn't buy ARMA 2 if it went back to OFP graphics. Or even ARMA 3 if it stayed on ARMA 2 graphics.

[antoineflemming 14]

If you can't afford the hardware, you're not interested enough in the game.

And a fivefold increase in sales? I highly doubt that.

For one, I wouldn't buy ARMA 2 if it went back to OFP graphics. Or even ARMA 3 if it stayed on ARMA 2 graphics.

Right, because there is a direct correlation between someone's ability to pay for something and someone's interest in something. There's a difference between willingness to pay for something and the affordability of something. I can be really interested in buying a Lamborghini but not have the money to pay for it, meaning I can't afford it.

[Hillsbills 1]

Well you shouldn't force everyone else to drive a Yugo with you either. ARMA is the road, not the car.

[gonk 0]

They can then rename it to ARMA-CRAFT...:p

[antoineflemming 14]

Well you shouldn't force everyone else to drive a Yugo with you either. ARMA is the road, not the car.

No you shouldn't, as I basically said. I don't agree with lowering ArmA3's maximum graphics settings. BUT, that DOESN'T mean that someone's income level, or someone's ability to pay a certain amount of money for a computer is indicative or reflective of their interest in the game. You shouldn't force everyone to "drive a Yugo", but just because a number of people drive a Lamborghini, and you don't/can't afford one, doesn't mean that you aren't interested in driving one.

[Minoza 11]

Hey! Yugo is awesome! :D

[onlyrazor 11]

Hey! Yugo is awesome! :D

Indeed. I remember one of my neighbours having one. Damn thing never even broke down that much, if I recall correctly. Still, in this analogy, I agree that you shouldn't be a damn commie and force everyone to drive Yugos. :rolleyes:

[dmarkwick 261]

I'm not sure what your talking bout but it sounds like you've been a Busy Little Bowman!

(Consider your avatar picture... ;))

No you shouldn't, as I basically said. I don't agree with lowering ArmA3's maximum graphics settings. BUT, that DOESN'T mean that someone's income level, or someone's ability to pay a certain amount of money for a computer is indicative or reflective of their interest in the game. You shouldn't force everyone to "drive a Yugo", but just because a number of people drive a Lamborghini, and you don't/can't afford one, doesn't mean that you aren't interested in driving one.

The thread seems to have veered into imagination again... ;) I don't think anyone is advocating lowering settings generally across the board (although the OP hasn't made that clear at all...), only that settings can be optionally lowered more if necessary to cater for laptops and underpowered PCs. Personally, I think it might be a good idea if it was cheap and easy to implement. Playing ArmA3 on an engine that looked like OFP might seem like a ridiculous thing to do, but many of us have a laptop we can take around with us, and this would allow for some good entertainment and the possibility of on-the-hoof development etc. Plus, you could host a game on a laptop & join from your PC, to test out MP development (assuming your development is not of the eye-candy type :)).

In my imagination I would consider these steps to reducing graphical complexity:

Losing the higher-end LODS.

Losing shadows.

Losing higher-end MipMaps.

Losing clutter.

Losing non-essential particles (drifting leaves, insects etc.).

Etc.

Edited April 30, 2012 by DMarkwick

[-FHA-Dynamo 0]

.. lower you own video settings until it's playable to your liking /thread.

[liquidpinky 11]

Pretty much.

Take ON has most of the options (if not all) imagined byDMarkwick anyway.

Adjustment from low end to high end is all possible, allowing you priority over whether you prefer more view with less detail or more detail over a shorter distance.

Cloud detail, RTT detail, post process, shadows. It's all there.

[antoineflemming 14]

(Consider your avatar picture... ;))

The thread seems to have veered into imagination again... ;) I don't think anyone is advocating lowering settings generally across the board (although the OP hasn't made that clear at all...), only that settings can be optionally lowered more if necessary to cater for laptops and underpowered PCs. Personally, I think it might be a good idea if it was cheap and easy to implement. Playing ArmA3 on an engine that looked like OFP might seem like a ridiculous thing to do, but many of us have a laptop we can take around with us, and this would allow for some good entertainment and the possibility of on-the-hoof development etc. Plus, you could host a game on a laptop & join from your PC, to test out MP development (assuming your development is not of the eye-candy type :)).

In my imagination I would consider these steps to reducing graphical complexity:

Losing the higher-end LODS.

Losing shadows.

Losing higher-end MipMaps.

Losing clutter.

Losing non-essential particles (drifting leaves, insects etc.).

Etc.

In bold: This is what I thought OP was saying. "Arma 2 is actually the only game where I would wish that it had worse graphics". I guess I did assume that he meant that ArmA3 on highest settings should be lower in quality than ArmA2 on highest settings. Maybe we are saying the same exact thing. (see below)

Underlined: This is what I was suggesting, that the lowest settings in ArmA2 actually be lower, if that's possible, for ArmA3. So that ArmA3 on lowest settings actuallly looks worse/ runs better than ArmA2 on lowest settings.

[sapped 10]

Fully agree with the OP, concentrating on graphics instead of gameplay is NEVER a good way to go for BIS,

especially when the ArmA series have ALWAYS been about its realistic combats.

No one is gonna buy the game on release when they realise that they will need a rig 3-5 years in the future

to fully enjoy all it has to offer. And also the amount of bugs at launch is just unacceptable, people are just

going to wait when it's patched to an acceptable level to play.

We will be forced to buy the game only when it's like $15 on steam, we don't want to do this, we WANT to

support BIS for making this incredible game, but BIS really left us with no choice but to wait, until it is finally

playable at an acceptable framerate for the general public. ArmA 3 will pretty much be an elitist's only game

at launch, for someone with NASA supercomputers.

Hell, people are still experiencing performance issue with ArmA 2 now...

[onlyrazor 11]

Fully agree with the OP, concentrating on graphics instead of gameplay is NEVER a good way to go for BIS,

especially when the ArmA series have ALWAYS been about its realistic combats.

No one is gonna buy the game on release when they realise that they will need a rig 3-5 years in the future

to fully enjoy all it has to offer. And also the amount of bugs at launch is just unacceptable, people are just

going to wait when it's patched to an acceptable level to play.

We will be forced to buy the game only when it's like $15 on steam, we don't want to do this, we WANT to

support BIS for making this incredible game, but BIS really left us with no choice but to wait, until it is finally

playable at an acceptable framerate for the general public. ArmA 3 will pretty much be an elitist's only game

at launch, for someone with NASA supercomputers.

Hell, people are still experiencing performance issue with ArmA 2 now...

You know, the game's not gonna be locked at supermax settings with 32AA permanently on. I'm sure it'll run just fine on Medium.

[Haystack15 10]

Computers need the work out these days. My computer is starting to get a bit overweight. :p

[kimozabbi 1]

No one is gonna buy the game on release

Your living in a dreamworld. You might own a crap rig, but hundreds of thousands of us own BEAST rigs! ;)

[-FHA-Dynamo 0]

i fail to see what the issue is and what the op is trying to convey here.. all of BIS's games have a little thing called (VIDEO OPTIONS), where you can tailer the graphics to your liking. as said by OnlyRazor, video settings are not locked. if BIS is pushing the envelop on graphics for ARMA3, GREAT!, for those of us who can't run with such settings, just turn them down.. why would anyone who has the hardware to run the game on it's higher settings would want BIS to "throttle" video performance to cater to the low end crowd?

if you can't keep up with technology on PCs to where you have to complain about the graphics being too high for a 2013 game, maybe you should look at switching over to consoles.

this thread has gone on much longer than it should have. second post should have been "change video options to min, or upgrade your PC. /thread"

BIS designs their games with long life spans.. really long life spans. so what if they game can't be run on "super max" settings on release? people are going to be playing it for the next decade.

[sapped 10]

Your living in a dreamworld. You might own a crap rig, but hundreds of thousands of us own BEAST rigs! ;)

It sounds like YOU are the one living in the dream world, not everyone have the money to buy new rigs

every 3 years, we may have a bad time with loans, study, taking care of family etc.

We simply cannot afford to upgrade so often, especially in this economy. You might have an uber Alienware

with 10 core 5.0ghz CPU and 4GB GPU, but it doesn't mean the rest of us does as well, you really shouldn't

be so selfish and only think for yourself.

Afterall ArmA is about the community, enjoy playing the game by urself online at launch.

If BIS can't see the reason in this, then they are gonna lose a lot of their dedicated crowds. Many

of whom who have followed since OFP, we don't play arma for its uber graphics, we play it for

its GAMEPLAY.

[wipman 1]

Hi, what would mean a clear increase on the sales would be a more fluid and less sketchy movement and also a more stable aiming and aiming while walking; that's one of the bigger issues that the previous games had. Let's C ya

[nodunit 397]

Dynamo;2142954']i fail to see what the issue is and what the op is trying to convey here.. all of BIS's games have a little thing called (VIDEO OPTIONS)' date=' where you can tailer the graphics to your liking. [/quote']

They do yes but are limited to a degree, for example, normal and specular mapping take far more resources than a typical diffuse map, and Arma 1 had an option to turn these off yet Arma 2, even on the lowest texture quality setting does not and I think that is having a bit of an affect on it. Think of it as having post processing off, but the screen space ambient occlusion is always on, or other filters that, despite being a higher caliber, you cannot turn off.

[froggyluv 2135]

No one is gonna buy the game on release

True, many of us will have preordered the game prior to release.

And your flat out wrong that one needs a NASA computer to play these games - my buddy just did a $750.00 build and says the game (Arma 2) plays amazing and he can now enjoy Highest settings. PC games can be demanding and some will be less while other will be moreso - Arma, with all it has to offer does require a somewhat strong cpu but really only a mid-tier graphics card. Theres no point crying over performance when you have no idea how it'll run yet.

Edited May 1, 2012 by froggyluv

[dmarkwick 261]

Anyone who buys a newly developed FPS war sim must surely have some idea that it will require a minimum amount of gruntage :)

But anyway, I already suggested some graphical reduction ideas, seeing as laptops generally are OK on CPU but are limited in GPU.

[froggyluv 2135]

It's just funny in a sad way that we have a game with 1000 features, a bug list 5000 long (being slowly chipped away at with unprecedented amount of patches) and a wishlist for 10,000 more features -with the final request being "Now make this behemouth playable on all the PC's!!!"

BI must feel like its married to an alcoholic wife :p

[PuFu 4600]

It sounds like YOU are the one living in the dream world, not everyone have the money to buy new rigs

every 3 years, we may have a bad time with loans, study, taking care of family etc.

while that something that happens to a lot of other people besides yourself, i think you should be reminded that gaming is a hobby for 99% of us out there. All in all, if you don't have the money and you are still stuck with an ancient computer, there is little BIS can do for you.

Afterall ArmA is about the community, enjoy playing the game by urself online at launch.

If BIS can't see the reason in this, then they are gonna lose a lot of their dedicated crowds. Many

of whom who have followed since OFP, we don't play arma for its uber graphics, we play it for

its GAMEPLAY.

funny enough, the thing that takes the most amount of horsepower to run is part of the gameplay - the AI.

If you can't keep up with the technology for whatever reason (financial or otherwise), there is always the console solution. You pay around 400Eus for that box, add another 200-300 for a TV/Monitor, and you are set for at least 5-8 years.

Arguing that BIS should NOT push the envelope and just keep everything in place because upgrading is too expensive is just foolish. The reason why your average game runs on any sort of dated PC is because most have a console counterpart, if they are not ported directly from that said boxes.

to the OP:

This thread was started by a lad who's laptop is NOT a gaming one, no matter of its price - it is a workstation and its intended purpose is completely different.

It is just like me saying that my one of studio workstation worth around 6000Eus running on a Quadro 5000 gfx card cannot play this game as it should. It is just plain stupid....