Arma 3 NEEDS more varied video options, too many settings piled into one option.

[nodunit 397]

Performance is a foundation for a games success.

You can tweak and optimize a game all you want but if you keep piling more and more things into one option you're going to run into bottlenecks at some point.

You can make the game run on as many cores as you want but in the end that still ignores the majority with less powerful computers.

Arma 3 is taking great strides in visuals but it is running into problems that Arma 2 exhibited and growing worse with higher demand, below this is a summary of what the options are, how they are piled together, and how it could better be dealt with.

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Post processing covers; bloom, depth of field, ambient occlusion a blur filter and more.

Blur and bloom are tied together then comes DOF and finally AO, bloom is a great feature and compliments the HDR nicely but it can be aggrivating due to the blur and DOF is nice but it still relies on the previous two and as such eats up more frame rates as is AO.

Terrain details are another huge hit. With deformation, grass clutter plus distance.

Grass alone is a huge hit but you are combining the amount of grass plus distance, in the end it causes the effect to be more demanding than it needs to be AND screws over the terrain deformation on higher settings.

Texture details are another big one. Special textures such as normal maps require a great deal of memory versus their diffuse counterparts, twice as much in fact!

Having the option to disable rvmats on the lowest texture setting or it's own check box would save MANY people a great deal of frames.

Secondly if you wish to have the highest resolution of textures you must also force your computer to run Parallax Occlusion Mapping, another hog and when combined with full resolution textures, can do more harm than good.

Since POM is a very specific utility, having it optional would be better than combining it with an already demanding feature.

Lights are now more vibrant core and authentic yet shadows are nowhere to be found.

It leaves the feature half baked especially when you consider that indoor combat is a huge possibility in A3 and these lights could create all variety of lighting from calming to eerie.

This could be one of those tick boxes, allowing the USER to decide wether or not their computer is capable (or forceable) to render these.

Further concerns could be addressed by adding a variably for light entities that are not tied to vehicles and flash lights, "iscastingshadow=0" or something like that.

Take for example the carrier mission from Crysis 1, despite the vast numbers of lights upon the carrier deck nearly none of them are actually casting a shadow thus saving performance while allowing the necessary ones to do so.

Objects detail covers; Foliage, Flora, props and people.

Trees and grass are always a big hit in every game (especially when combined with normal maps) so many go around this by setting the render distance to short, blending the grass to ground or separating the options.

Arma 1-3 have all made the mistake of compounding this into one option which EATS frames depending on the scene alone, combined with terrain detail boosting the grass even more and its distance, they DEVOUR frames.

PIP & Shadows. The difference between PIP's setting is marginal once its on, a bit of extra view distance and that is it with little loss in frame rate.

Lacking of PIP shadows also harms it just the same as lights. Again this could become an option setting that would allow those with more powerful PC's to decide how they want to view things and others to tweak it how they need.

Versatility is the name of the game, and what a player wants out visuals will vary based on the environment.

Are you driving through a closed off city with very little in the way of greenery? Are you fighting in a forest? A tunnel? Is the scene day or night? What mood are you trying to set?

Having more varied options would allow both player and developer to expand on scenario's and game modes, but more importantly having more varied options would allow more people to run Arma 3 and thus bring in more revenue.

In conclusion here a rough draft of the more versatile set.

Grass (Flora) Clutter -detail

Grass Distance -detail or slider

Terrain -detail

Terrain Relief On/Off

Shadows -detail

Dynamic Shadow On/Off

PIP On/Off

PIP Shadows On/Off

(optional) texture detail low= no rvmat

(optional) Texture detail and special textures separate, allowing users to high the highest resolution textures without using the normal maps, great for cards that do not support advanced shaders.

Object detail (people, guns, houses, props)

Foliage detail (trees and bushes)

DOF On/Off

Ambient Occlusion On/Off

Post Processing (lower setting allows bloom and higher allows blurring)

The rest I don't mention because they are mostly fine as is.

In closing, you can optimize till you are blue in the face but in the end you will always run into the same bottlenecks, and as fidelity increases and the same techniques are used, these bottlenecks will pop up more and more.

Arma 3 is so demanding because it is always pushing so much on the system, if at least some of these options were considered then it would make the game open to more computer builds, laptop and desktop alike.

Edited April 5, 2013 by NodUnit

[gpha5e 1]

i agree!

[Sneakson 1]

I don't agree a lot. I've always thought the reason foliage generally is put together with some other option is so players won't play with everything maxed but foliage completely removed to give them an unfair advantage.

Same thing with shadows. In multiplayer I think it's the most fair if everyone are playing with one of only a certain set of settings but I could be somewhat wrong. I’ve always thought of being able to turn off shadows as quite the advantage and it also pains me to see players turn down all settings so the games they’re playing look like shit just to be able to see through bushes slightly better etc.

I also don't think detail tweaking makes that much of a difference. Right now post processing takes a ton of power but all you'll lose from turning it down that perhaps shouldn't be lost is some depth of field. Big deal.

Basically extremely detailed tweaking is nice but first of all it usually does not make a whole lot of difference and it can potentially cause various problems.

If they wanna put it in they could put it in I guss. It's hardly like anyone could object to it unless it turns out lowering object detail for example lets players much more easily spot enemies at a distance because of rock shapes changing.

Which could happen.

[PuFu 4600]

@NodUnit: fully agree.

I don't agree a lot. I've always thought the reason foliage generally is put together with some other option is so players won't play with everything maxed but foliage completely removed to give them an unfair advantage.

Same thing with shadows. In multiplayer I think it's the most fair if everyone are playing with one of only a certain set of settings but I could be somewhat wrong. I’ve always thought of being able to turn off shadows as quite the advantage and it also pains me to see players turn down all settings so the games they’re playing look like shit just to be able to see through bushes slightly better etc.

I also don't think detail tweaking makes that much of a difference. Right now post processing takes a ton of power but all you'll lose from turning it down that perhaps shouldn't be lost is some depth of field. Big deal.

Basically extremely detailed tweaking is nice but first of all it usually does not make a whole lot of difference and it can potentially cause various problems.

If they wanna put it in they could put it in I guss. It's hardly like anyone could object to it unless it turns out lowering object detail for example lets players much more easily spot enemies at a distance because of rock shapes changing.

Which could happen.

1. not everyone plays only MP.

2. in MP terrain detail, and view distance are handled by the server, or by the mission. It could just be the same for: Grass (Flora),Grass Distance, Terrain, Terrain Relief, Foliage detail (trees and bushes).

3. A lot of people turn PP effects off due to bloom, (fake) DOF and motion blur (me included). Would like to keep the AO, but i get such a terrible headache after shorts periods of time when keeping motion blur on.

Besides, if with proper made LODs, removing first LOD would change absolutely nothing in terms of perception from farther than 10m anways.

So please, before you voice your opinion, get informed.

[nodunit 397]

...

Foliage being tree's and bushes and Flora being grass, I agree that would be very detrimental. As Pufu said, grass is controlled by the server for MP.

As far as MP goes I agree that some things such as shadows being on or off should be handled by the server (but not what type of shadow, let the player decide what their rig is capable of)

Thing is I'm not thinking of just the strong rigs but lesser ones as well, when I first played Arma 3 on an older rig it ran but not so well and outside of turning everything to the lowest (the setting nobody wants to see) it wouldn't run too hot because several power hungry systems were still present.

Likewise there are some settings that people like (see bloomd vs blur threads) or ambient occlusion but without going through all of the other post processing settings that bring computers to their knees.

Having options takes the fault of performance from the devs since they give you the options rather than force it upon you.

Shadows from lights and in PIP for example, it's a win win (though the coders will probably want to strangle me for saying such a thing)

Oh and consider that if servers did force shadows that someone could still use PIP as it is to cheat since it renders no shadow period.

2. in MP terrain detail, and view distance are handled by the server, or by the mission. It could just be the same for: Grass (Flora),Grass Distance, Terrain, Terrain Relief, Foliage detail (trees and bushes).

Everything but terrain relief (since that is a purely asthetic choice wherein the most defined shape will come up to your foot at best) and detail of tree's and bushes but as you said, if the LOD's are constructed well enough then the players won't gain any benefits by changing the settings other than more fps.

Edited April 6, 2013 by NodUnit

[PuFu 4600]

Everything but terrain relief (since that is a purely asthetic choice wherein the most defined shape will come up to your foot at best) and detail of tree's and bushes but as you said, if the LOD's are constructed well enough then the players won't gain any benefits by changing the settings other than more fps.

I thought by terrain relief you meant the actual shape of the terrain (especially at distance). I do remember A1 when i most servers were set to lowest terrain level, which lead to being able to see the enemy over a hill, but unable to hit it because in fact, he was on the downslope and you'd be hitting the (un-rendered) geometry of the terrain.

[nodunit 397]

Oh okay, nah terrain relief would be the Parallax Occlusion Mapping, the effect that makes the terrain 'pop' best seen in the scuba diving here

(which could use an boost in render range..) Edited April 6, 2013 by NodUnit

[dragon01 902]

Very good idea. I'd love to see more fine-tuning options for the graphics.

[Flash Thunder 10]

BIS didn't read my thread back in the day apparently...

[afp 1]

Same about sounds, there should be ambient sound volume, footsteps voulme, guns / explosions volume etc. The game is too complex for simple settings.

[Sneakson 1]

As long as settings are determined per server having any settings would be fine then.

Same about sounds, there should be ambient sound volume, footsteps voulme, guns / explosions volume etc. The game is too complex for simple settings.

Same thing here, really. Being able to turn all sounds except for footsteps down could give you a big advantage and that's why it's usually all clumped together. And this request is ridiculous. All sounds should be heard as they would in real life.

Music should be adjustable and it already is.

[Bee8190 10]

More options would be welcome of course but I think more will get added later? IMO it looked like they just tried to get the alpha finally out

[nodunit 397]

BIS didn't read my thread back in the day apparently...

Takes em a while I guess, are you going to change your signature now that they have added new shadows?

More options would be welcome of course but I think more will get added later? IMO it looked like they just tried to get the alpha finally out

I sure hope so (not for my sake, I get 40fps on the infantry showcase easy though I would like to see shadows in all fronts), I'm a bit hesitant because A1 and A2 shared much the same options the only difference was that you could disable the rvmat shaders in A1.

[Flash Thunder 10]

Takes em a while I guess, are you going to change your signature now that they have added new shadows?

I haven't actually read the patch notes from previous and just saw this. Yeah a nice improvement still can be better and get some artifacting.

Now for Terrain textures and some low res building textures..

[afp 1]

As long as settings are determined per server having any settings would be fine then.

Same thing here, really. Being able to turn all sounds except for footsteps down could give you a big advantage and that's why it's usually all clumped together. And this request is ridiculous. All sounds should be heard as they would in real life.

Music should be adjustable and it already is.

No Sneakson, your post is ridiculous.

- "All sounds should be heard as they would in real life." - that's impossible, I really doubt you want a canon explosion inside your house.

- Someone who wants to cheat can really find easy ways in ArmA, either we talk about third person, crosshair removal or footsteps. They can simply turn volume louder if they really want to hear you coming or they can put a marker dot on the center of the screen, or they use third party cheat addons. Stop being paranoic, use private servers with custom settings and mature gamers if you dont want cheaters.

[almanzo 144]

Same about sounds, there should be ambient sound volume, footsteps voulme, guns / explosions volume etc. The game is too complex for simple settings.

I agree completely, especially since vehicle sounds are so extremely loud that they simply destroy ACRE and teamspeak in game. My slider for "effects" is set to allmost nothing due to this, but it's sad that I'm not able to enjoy firefights as much as I would if I could only turn down vehicle sounds.