Terrain Improvement (dev branch)

[pauliesss 2]

Thanks a lot for taking care of this NordKindchen, outstanding job, hopefully you will be able to make this for Altis too!

Lets show the devs that this is really important. :)

[NordKindchen 12]

Edit: Mh okey...it seems (at least now) that the patch broke some mods which broke the game. Strangely disabling some mods who dont change any graphic aspect fixed the issue (At least for the moment)

I am not sure if this bug can return at some later point.

------------------------------------------------

Okey the last patch introduced some kind of mechanism that destroys my work.

When I start the game the textures get loaded fine. After I play for some time the textures get automatically sampled down to its standard size.................

I dont know what you did but after playing a few moments the textures get sampled down from

>>>this<<<

to

<<<THAT!>>>

It happened each time I shot someone out of a chopper but I also had this the first time I started the game.

Now.............I am missing words. What the f**k?!?!

Edited August 22, 2013 by NordKindchen

[Tonci87 163]

First: Calm down

Second: Contact a Dev and explain the problem in a polite and helpfull way. Posts like yours will only make sure that BIS stops working with you.

Remember the Error could be on your end too!

[maddogx 13]

I've seen something similar happen on my second computer - Arma3 will apparently reduce texture quality under some circumstances, probably when it hits the limit of your VRAM.

In this case, I'm guessing those hi res ground textures are consuming a lot of VRAM, possibly too much for the engine to handle correctly.

Btw. NordKindchen, please refrain from using huge bold all-caps.

[NordKindchen 12]

Yes you are right and I apologize at this point.

Maybe you can feel my anger at least a little bit.

[tremanarch 6]

I guess the IDea with increased Textures doesnt just work as expected. Too much VRAM is needed. so the original Idea with a logical map was better though.

on the other hand if the increased detail landscape could be streamed and blended in in a 400 m radius - but for this I dont if the engine just works this way.

[NordKindchen 12]

No it does work.

Only that the engine samples it down if certain things happen. It doesnt mean it couldnt take the high solution files again.

There is no severe framrate drop. Only maybe at the moment of switching textures. So the engine simple lacks the ability (sometimes) to use the high res textures again.

I say its a bug.

[tremanarch 6]

so shouldnt we try those technical limits out in the first place - for example with a noisy texturefile?

[xendance 3]

I've seen something similar happen on my second computer - Arma3 will apparently reduce texture quality under some circumstances, probably when it hits the limit of your VRAM.

In this case, I'm guessing those hi res ground textures are consuming a lot of VRAM, possibly too much for the engine to handle correctly.

Btw. NordKindchen, please refrain from using huge bold all-caps.

Let's see, a 4096x4096 24 bit depth DXT 1 (compression ratio for that is 1:6) compressed texture in the game would be about 8 MB. This is what games usually use for vehicles and first person assets.

4096*4096*24/6 bits = 8 megabytes

The satellite map of Chernarus in ArmA 2 was 15360x15360 pixels, which is 112,5 MB compressed.

15360*15360*24/6 bits = 112.5 megabytes

If you double the texture to 30k x 30k pixel texture you're looking at over 400 MB VRAM usage for a single texture. That is just for the diffuse colour satellite map. Since ArmA 3 also has the normal map layer for the satellite map, that's another 400 MB. Now you're using 800 MB for just two textures.

Enormous textures like that also need a lot of fillrate power from the GPU.

[gammadust 12]

^^ assuming those are good numbers, one does not have the whole amount of textures loaded... there should be some paging already implemented and also mipmaps should also decrease the load.

I would favour a native implementation of the OP's concept though.

[xendance 3]

^^ assuming those are good numbers, one does not have the whole amount of textures loaded... there should be some paging already implemented and also mipmaps should also decrease the load.

They are correct, unless ArmA 3 uses some other compression ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_Texture_Compression#DXT1

But yes, the whole satmap is divided into multiple smaller textures when you launch your map in Visitor 3 via bulldozer.

[ginger mcale 11]

can you write A3 feedback tracker ticket on this? with screenshots on 100/200/300 % + screen of your basic and advanced video settings + OS/GPU/drivers build and post URL here , thanks

Done: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=13196

*edit*: And another generated, same department and worth a look: Anisotropic Filtering "16x" forced by driver higher than ingame "ultra"

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=13197

Sorry for hijacking your thread NordKindchen, iam out now from here with sampling and AF stuff.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Ginger McAle

[NordKindchen 12]

@Tremnarch Vanzant allready did that. He has the whole island of Stratis covered with 4096x4096 textures.

He claims it runs fine!

And it runs fine on my PC too. Only that after some circumstances it blurrs the texture. Now its a nice featue for flying in the air for example. But sadly it doesnt turn back. And thats a bug I am sure.

@ Xendance

Arma cuts the map into little pieces. I would not be able to draw the textures if I was working on the big file since I couldnt even work with the file. 400mb data for the whole island is quite a managable data if you cut it down to say 300 tiles (stratis has got 64).

Oh btw - I was suprised how well camouflage worked together with the new texture!!! Spot the soldiers

Greetings

Edited August 23, 2013 by NordKindchen

[progamer 14]

Oh btw - I was suprised how well camouflage worked together with the new texture!!! Spot the soldiers

Greetings

I give up, can you or someone circle the soldier? Lol!

Edited August 22, 2013 by ProGamer

[gammadust 12]

Oh btw - I was suprised how well camouflage worked together with the new texture!!! Spot the soldiers

That is the discrepancy of luminosity+color frequency between ground texture (at a distance) and units siluette solved. The main reason i support your efforts. :)

[Tonci87 163]

Wow @ that picture.

There is a whole squad standing around and you still have a hard time spotting them.

I love it!

[Brain 12]

Nordkindchen, I'm going to take the next Metronom to Hannover and hug you. I will get fired for leaving my workplace but that's definitely worth it.

[old_painless 182]

If this gets fixed so that camo works this well (as it should) I hope that it will affect how the AI are able to spot their foes, eg. me, as well. Should be an even playing field in this respect

[gammadust 12]

By itself it "won't affect how the AI are able to spot their foes", so a rebalancing in AI detection would be required, if not at low level at the least "spotDistance" and "spotTime" could be rescaled.

[down8 30]

Oh btw - I was suprised how well camouflage worked together with the new texture!!! Spot the soldiers

Greetings

Amazing. Your work can improve the gameplay very signifcantly.

[progamer 14]

Wow @ that picture.

There is a whole squad standing around and you still have a hard time spotting them.

I love it!

Still can't find them. :(

[gammadust 12]

^^ make sure you have the screenshot in 1:1 scale. But you should be happy about it :P

[old_painless 182]

Still can't find them. :(

Hehe, they are quite tiny. Try and follow the 9-12 o clock in the reticule/circle, they will be to the right of that

[gliptal 25]

Solution

Yay!

[dale0404 5]

Solution

Yay!

Bloody spoilsport, my kids were pulling their hair out!