Sorely Unimpressed with Arma 3's Graphics as they exist in the Alpha.

[Failberry 10]

Nothing but another troll thread....

Are you joking, or you just having fun at my expense? Do you really think I am trolling, where do you go when you ignorance (do you even know the real definition of that word means,) when you want answers. Ignorance is not a bad word at all, it simply means that you haven't been exposed to something. Ulterior motifs run abound in this thread coming from you and the other user, but I don't think you are smart enough to even know what they are. I don't have an ulterior motif, congratulations. I am just trying to learn, and relay what I've learned from others. For your pathetic attempt to kill my thread by describing as a troll thread, I award you the medal of "sad, sad man." Congrats, you won it. Many others may in fact had in the past, but your confidence, and your distrustful nature won your that award.

I LOVE this game, and me and others with gtx 690's are experiencing PIP bugs. That is a fact, Jack. I don't see why moderators take you by the scruff of the neck and toss you in a river. I guess it's because they aren't paying too much attention. I'm real, maybe you aren't; maybe you are fake, but I mean what I say. To hell with whatever I don't understand completely. You want to disparage my character, go for it. It just makes you look like a fool.

---------- Post added at 01:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:02 AM ----------

Nothing but another troll thread....

There is a fix for PIP - works for me:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?152869-Tutorial-How-to-fix-pip-flickering-sli

Thank you for deciding to edit your post, however it's unfortunate you didn't edit out how you thought this was just another troll thread. I watched and enjoyed your video btw; it was neato! I am going to try your PIP fix.

[marcai 1]

Are you joking, or you just having fun at my expense? Do you really think I am trolling, where do you go when you ignorance (do you even know the real definition of that word means,) when you want answers. Ignorance is not a bad word at all, it simply means that you haven't been exposed to something. Ulterior motifs run abound in this thread coming from you and the other user, but I don't think you are smart enough to even know what they are. I don't have an ulterior motif, congratulations. I am just trying to learn, and relay what I've learned from others. For your pathetic attempt to kill my thread by describing as a troll thread, I award you the medal of "sad, sad man." Congrats, you won it. Many others may in fact had in the past, but your confidence, and your distrustful nature won your that award.

I LOVE this game, and me and others with gtx 690's are experiencing PIP bugs. That is a fact, Jack. I don't see why moderators take you by the scruff of the neck and toss you in a river. I guess it's because they aren't paying too much attention. I'm real, maybe you aren't; maybe you are fake, but I mean what I say. To hell with whatever I don't understand completely. You want to disparage my character, go for it. It just makes you look like a fool.

---------- Post added at 01:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:02 AM ----------

Thank you for deciding to edit your post, however it's unfortunate you didn't edit out how you thought this was just another troll thread. I watched and enjoyed your video btw; it was neato! I am going to try your PIP fix.

No offence, but your long rants about how people should be punished sound like a ten year old. I support your right to bring points up (and supported it earlier in the thread), but try not to defend yourself too hard here, it detracts from your original point.

[dnk 13]

To be fair, the graphics are bad but the landscapes/feel are realistic. But there's a lot of eye candy that's missing that's been in games for years. God rays and volumetric lighting being one, good FX including spatial distortion, shockwaves, volumetric smoke and explosions, and good particle systems being another (even BlastCore wasn't that good, though it was a considerable improvement from vanilla A2/OA). As much as A3 looks better than A2, it's still a good ways behind games released at the time of A2 in terms of graphics being used. The visuals are still nice due to viewdistances, a much improved natural lighting/fog system, and nice terrains, and they get model lighting right, but all that extra candy is sorely missing. And, yeah, vegetation needs a big upgrade .

[Sixgears2 1]

@failberry

Just for the record, "motif" and "motive" are entirely different words. I don't think it's possible to have an ulterior motif, but if I had to have one I'd probably go for paisley.

In other news, I played more ArmA 3 tonight and it still looked fantastic right up until I ran into a clump of six buildings and watched my FPS plummet into the 30s for no discernible reason. Poor engine design is the biggest issue we're facing, not "puffy looking" trees or slightly blurry textures. I don't care how good the game looks if it can't actually use the hardware I'm providing for it to run properly.

[chortles 263]

Poor engine design is the biggest issue we're facing

Unfortunately, if the Steamworks announcement's implication of "we had to cut down development time a bunch to make 2013 at all" is true, we may be stuck with this engine, what with RV4 having already been in development for two years.

[xXxatrush1987 10]

@failberry

Just for the record, "motif" and "motive" are entirely different words. I don't think it's possible to have an ulterior motif, but if I had to have one I'd probably go for paisley.

In other news, I played more ArmA 3 tonight and it still looked fantastic right up until I ran into a clump of six buildings and watched my FPS plummet into the 30s for no discernible reason. Poor engine design is the biggest issue we're facing, not "puffy looking" trees or slightly blurry textures. I don't care how good the game looks if it can't actually use the hardware I'm providing for it to run properly.

i would highly appreciate better textures and better trees, maybe because i´m not everywhere complaining about my 100$/€ cpu capable of steering a moon rover with luck.

and that you are not able to read is shown here too, as you start whining with the gtx690 user, when at least 90% already know that sli profiles is a nvidia thing and has nothing to do with BIS

and for such a highly simulating engine it´s quite capable(not perfect- no way).

dx11 and physx will give us at least a perfomance boost, as both are far more optimized as dx9 and physics by BIS, espacially in terms of vegetation and lightning.

[tet5uo 4]

when at least 90% already know that sli profiles is a nvidia thing and has nothing to do with BIS

Actually it's almost guaranteed to be the way that the shader is written that is causing the problems, not the NV drivers. When making a shader that uses data from previously rendered frames, you need to take into account for SLI or glitches like this will occur.

[Sixgears2 1]

i would highly appreciate better textures and better trees, maybe because i´m not everywhere complaining about my 100$/€ cpu capable of steering a moon rover with luck.

and that you are not able to read is shown here too, as you start whining with the gtx690 user, when at least 90% already know that sli profiles is a nvidia thing and has nothing to do with BIS

and for such a highly simulating engine it´s quite capable(not perfect- no way).

dx11 and physx will give us at least a perfomance boost, as both are far more optimized as dx9 and physics by BIS, espacially in terms of vegetation and lightning.

I'm officially bored of you. And the fact that you are thread stalking me is rather childish.

Again (and for the last time) my rig runs every single modern game I've played at a minimum of very high (usually ultra) at 50-60 FPS. ArmA is not doing anything that other games don't do, yet it can't seem to stop itself from dropping into the 30s every time I look at a hut. Until you can tell me why it is that a game like Battlefield 3, which has much, much more going on in a 64 player match and looks better than ArmA by a factor of ten, runs at 60 FPS on ultra with my "budget" hardware while ArmA struggles with 30-40 deep FPS swings depending on the direction I look with nothing going on at all, I'm going to keep believing you have no idea what you're on about.

I'm glad you finally have a game that allows you to justify having spent $300 on a processor that's completely unnecessary in a gaming rig, but please stop acting as if a third-gen i7 is listed in ArmA's system requirements. It isn't. And as I've mentioned multiple times dozens of i7 users are reporting the same issues.

This is the last response you'll get from me as I can't be bothered to argue the same points over and over and your inability to write properly makes my head hurt. Have a nice day.

Edited April 13, 2013 by Sixgears2

[[frl]myke 14]

Again (and for the last time) my rig runs every single modern game I've played at a minimum of very high (usually ultra) at 50-60 FPS.

1. ArmA 3 isn't "every single modern game". Don't compare apples with pears. Simply because you do shoot it doesn't make A3 the same game as "every single modern game" you may refer to.

2. You aren't really comparing a Alpha Software with final software, aren't you?

[Stlkrash1 1]

I don't have any issues... Is your pc able to run it? You're not on a Pent 4 are you...

[Sixgears2 1]

Edit: apologies for the triple post, my phone had a seizure and multiposted

.@Myke

1. Please enlighten me as to what ArmA 3 does that allows it to be measured by a different standard than any other for-profit game on the market. Or am I meant to simply write it a pass because it bears the name ArmA? Go on, tell me what spectacular thing ArmA is doing that makes it so much different than any other game on a technical level. Is it calculating the meaning of life? Simulating the every thought of each soldier? Pondering the nature of existence? Rendering objects down to a molecular level? If so, why does it only use 50% of my hardware? Why does hardware usage go up during empty missions and down during intense ones? I anxiously await your definitive answers.

2. Yes, I am comparing alpha gameplay to final code. If the engine is flawed there's little chance they'll fix it before release, and ArmA 2 had similar issues that weren't ever fixed. It therefore seems reasonable to me to assume these types of issues will carry over into the full release. Not that I doubt the reliability of blind faith, but would you kindly point me towards any post in which the issue is even acknowledged by a dev?

I don't have any issues... Is your pc able to run it? You're not on a Pent 4 are you...

For the love of Pete, read the full conversation. You'll have far fewer questions afterwards.

Edited April 13, 2013 by Sixgears2

[Failberry 10]

Edit: apologies for the triple post, my phone had a seizure and multiposted

.@Myke

1. Please enlighten me as to what ArmA 3 does that allows it to be measured by a different standard than any other for-profit game on the market. Or am I meant to simply write it a pass because it bears the name ArmA? Go on, tell me what spectacular thing ArmA is doing that makes it so much different than any other game on a technical level. Is it calculating the meaning of life? Simulating the every thought of each soldier? Pondering the nature of existence? Rendering objects down to a molecular level? If so, why does it only use 50% of my hardware? Why does hardware usage go up during empty missions and down during intense ones? I anxiously await your definitive answers.

2. Yes, I am comparing alpha gameplay to final code. If the engine is flawed there's little chance they'll fix it before release, and ArmA 2 had similar issues that weren't ever fixed. It therefore seems reasonable to me to assume these types of issues will carry over into the full release. Not that I doubt the reliability with blind faith, but would you kindly point me towards any post in which the issue is even acknowledged by a dev?

For the love of Pete, read the full conversation. You'll have far fewer questions afterwards.

Man... What a whiner ;) The devs must get so depressed reading this. ;)

Also, why is arma 3 not able to have the texture fidelity of those games let alone the textural fidelity of the screenshots that BIS posted back in 2011. While sixgear hasn't a clue why this engine can't process to the extent of other "high profile games, (he clearly doesn't, that's why he begs the question), I can't understand why the game's environment will sometimes look so terrible and, on top of that, RUN terrible as well. Personal note for sixgears: what the VR engine processes has been discussed in a multitude of topics so you might want to use the search bar to answer your question as it seems like the majority of us are talking graphics, at least in this topic. :)

Now if the game looked amazing and ran terrible, that would make sense. I would rather have the devs leave in all the graphical details, add more even, and damn the performance problems if these performance problems have time and time again proved to be unfixable. If the developers decide, let's give them a minimal performance boost using a not so novel approach that would give 5 fps boost at the cost of removing tons of graphical features or not adding any more; I would call that a lose.

Btw, just responding to Six, I've been running around on empty maps and the performance goes down due to processing power: looking at forests, objects, towns, and rendering all those things. Damned if I know how it all gets allocated, but these random drops are because something large is being processed. So, I disagree that you actually are aware of the circumstances that occur when your hardware usage goes up or down or the extent to what arma has to process, and you have an all-around bad attitude. You have suddenly turned into a full-on hypocrite considering your statement about game forum discussions; I can't imagine people would want to answer you. I can assure you, however, that it'd be redundant for people to tell you anyway, as plenty of topics exist addressing your very question regarding the engine and why it acts the way it does. I am sure that many others may know where the performance problems lie. So you're just in the wrong thread, bud.

I think what a lot of us don't understand and what a lot of us haven't asked about are the artistic choices that have been made. Are the performance improvements worth having if the game is going to look rather ugly in some of the largest and most immersive parts of the game?(the overlays, the textures, the forests). Also shouldn't the performance improvements have gone hand in hand with raising the graphical fidelity? They made this new engine that seems perfectly capable of making a detailed medium overlay and beautiful forests, but they aren't there. Finally, are these things going to be changed? Let us talk about the graphical bugs and how the engine could produce something better than what is in the alpha. Is this all this engine can do? It seemed like it was doing much more back when BIS was showing it a year ago. To answer my own questions, my guess is yes, and that we should urge for a push towards certain better graphical aspects of the game or at least inquire about them.

I want a dev to say to me, he is happy with the way the forests look in Arma3, or that was the best they could do. Or that they are still working on them. Or that they it's alpha, idiot, and it's going to change. But let that be said from a developer, okay. Doesn't everyone concerned with the graphics want to hear that? :)

[froggyluv 2135]

I want a dev to say to me, he is happy with the way the forests look in Arma3, or that was the best they could do. Or that they are still working on them. Or that they it's alpha, idiot, and it's going to change. But let that be said from a developer, okay. Doesn't everyone concerned with the graphics want to hear that? :)

They haven't shown us any forests yet. I too thought the vegetation looked a little broccoli-like from a distance but then I saw this http://i1133.photobucket.com/albums/m594/froggyluv/MirinaLimnosGreece_zps88cd39e0.jpg

It IS broccoli-like. ;)

I wouldn't expect towering, European medieval like forestry in the Mediterranean.

[Failberry 10]

They haven't shown us any forests yet. I too thought the vegetation looked a little broccoli-like from a distance but then I saw this http://i1133.photobucket.com/albums/m594/froggyluv/MirinaLimnosGreece_zps88cd39e0.jpg

It IS broccoli-like. ;)

I wouldn't expect towering, European medieval like forestry in the Mediterranean.

LOL, good point. A beautiful vista, btw. In terms of forests that exist in the Mediterranean, yeah, there are a lot of brush forests like what you'd find in the Mexican arid regions and arid regions just in general. In the game, I like the look of those broccoli bushes down at South of the map by the guard emblem. I think they did a good job getting the vegetation to look pretty good there in that brown arid region. Good use of palette. You know, though, it's best when it's sparse, unfortunately.

The bigger ones can look a little goofy and the lod flickering can really screw with them too. Out of the two bushes, the small ones are good, the big green ones need some hep.

But the trees, they just plain messed them up. They aren't even the most flattering trees in real life, but in game; way too low res, especially the tops. They turn into these light, white washed, muddy yellow green blobs on brown sticks that have no blending with the foreground. Them messing up the coloring a bit is one thing, but there is just zero resolution on them what so ever, and maybe the light engine has something to do with it, but it just looks like puke. BEST example: the menu screen. Turn up the object detail and view distance all the way and everything looks good, the bushes look fine, then those damn trees, omg they look like a somebody took a bile-ridden shat on your screen. They are nothing special to look at when you are right underneath them either. They are all identical and that's what really what makes them look even worse. Also, the effect of running through a forest of them... it has to be the lighting engine, because it just seems flat, there is no brightness, no little plants or shrubs, no leaves that get cast in the light and make the floor glint a bit. Arma 2's, bottom forest layer did this right. It had so many more objects, leaves, details. It wasn't just a ground texture, it was risen. You could look straight down and even though it was technically flat besides the grass and stuff, it looked layered.

Arma 3 should have a ground layer with twigs and sticks, and brown needles and crusted leaves. They dedicated so much time to these details in ARMA 2 why not in this game. Look down, it looks pretty unimpressive. Completely drawn on, with no density. Really sucks too, because then the ground under these forests is just a clean brown, makes soldiers blend right in to the foreground. No detail on the ground, all you see is puke green trees, a flat single texture ground, and a group of brown soldiers running around underneath them. Oh, yeah. No shadows either in these circumstances. Must be another lighting problem.

[Sixgears2 1]

@failberry

I haven't insulted the devs in any way, shape, or form. I've simply brought up an issue that has been dismissed as "that's just ArmA," which I don't find to be a satisfactory answer. Pointing out problems and demanding real, verifiable reasons for them is part of the development process. My issue is with people outright attacking devs or calling something garbage or trash, neither of which I've done. You need to reread my posts to you and brush up on the meaning of the word "hypocrite."

You are right that I have no idea what the engine is doing that's causing the issues, and the lack of actual answers here suggests that nobody else does either. I've read all about the engine here and elsewhere and nobody seems to know, including you. I'm not interested in the engine's functions; I'm interested in its underpinnings and how they translate into low hardware utilization. As you said yourself, ArmA 3 isn't doing anything spectacular visually, so why does it suffer such massive performance swings? Unless you have the answers--and I'm quite sure you don't--I don't think you and I have much to discuss.

And to be told that I have a bad attitude by you of all people is hilarious. Go back and read your long, ranting diatribes earlier in the thread. After all that you want to hold yourself out as a beacon of civility and lecture me about the nature of hypocrisy? No thanks.

Edited April 13, 2013 by Sixgears2

[froggyluv 2135]

@failberry: Yes I guess I see what you mean. The startup screen particulary and I guess i spend most of my time in the urban area and there the vegetation looks pretty swanky to me at least. In Agia Marina, with everything maxed out at Ultra 2560x1440, its pretty spectacular though your right if I jump in a helo and fly aboot I can see that the trees start looking a little, erhm, abstract :p

In some aspects the game looks outstanding where in others theres still a bit of work to do. I guess Im used to strange trees because even though Arma 2 had some great forests, they also had those orange/yellow blobs that looked like Monet slipped on Shrooms. Also the undulating ground in Arma 3 somewhat distracts me from vegetation looks as I admire the functionality more than the form though I also would welcome a little more ground clutter.

Edited April 13, 2013 by froggyluv

[[frl]myke 14]

1. Please enlighten me as to what ArmA 3 does that allows it to be measured by a different standard than any other for-profit game on the market. Or am I meant to simply write it a pass because it bears the name ArmA? Go on, tell me what spectacular thing ArmA is doing that makes it so much different than any other game on a technical level. Is it calculating the meaning of life? Simulating the every thought of each soldier? Pondering the nature of existence? Rendering objects down to a molecular level? If so, why does it only use 50% of my hardware? Why does hardware usage go up during empty missions and down during intense ones? I anxiously await your definitive answers.

I would love to enlighten you what A3 does differently than other games. Sadly i don't have access to A3 source code nor access to any other AAA game source code. What i can say that A3 is designed to be a SP and MP game, going as far in simulating as the term "fun" allows to go. It has AI where other games have bots. It has large areas where other game has corridors. It has ballistics where other games have "bullet hit where cursor points at". So A3 does a lot of things different than other games which makes A3 different. The least of those things jump right into your face but they would be missed very quickly if taken away.

Obviously you still think that a good game can be reduced to what you see on the screen. Maybe that's why other developers have decided to go the way for Hollywoodish special effects and reduce gameplay to a itchy triggerfinger. Or, as a "famous" game developer said once: "as you see i was shot in the head. Nothing serious but i'm bleeding badly".

2. Yes, I am comparing alpha gameplay to final code. If the engine is flawed there's little chance they'll fix it before release, and ArmA 2 had similar issues that weren't ever fixed. It therefore seems reasonable to me to assume these types of issues will carry over into the full release. Not that I doubt the reliability of blind faith, but would you kindly point me towards any post in which the issue is even acknowledged by a dev?

This tells me you have no idea how a development process works. I respectfully ask you to develop a several thousands line containing script suite for A3, develop it, test it, tweak it, improve it until you consider it final. I think this will get you a idea what "alpha" means.

[zapat 56]

Go on, tell me what spectacular thing ArmA is doing that makes it so much different than any other game on a technical level. Is it calculating the meaning of life? Simulating the every thought of each soldier? Pondering the nature of existence? Rendering objects down to a molecular level?

I would throw the question back at you: what does eg. Battlefield or other games do better than Arma - besides the prittey (eye-candy is a better word) graphics and the 142 fps?

[Failberry 10]

@failberry

I haven't insulted the devs in any way shape or form. I've simply brought up an issue that has been dismissed as "that's just ArmA," which I don't find to be a satisfactory answer. Pointing out problems and demanding real, verifiable reasons for them is part of the development process. My issue is with people outright attacking devs or calling something garbage or trash, neither of which I've done. You need to reread my posts to you and brush up on the meaning of the word "hypocrite."

You are right that I have no idea what the engine is doing that's causing the issues, and the lack of actual answers here suggests that nobody else does either. I've read all about the engine here and elsewhere and nobody seems to know, including you. I'm not interested in the engine's functions; I'm interested in its underpinnings and how they translate into low hardware utilization. As you said yourself, ArmA 3 isn't doing anything spectacular visually, so why does it suffer such massive performance swings? Unless you have the answers--and I'm quite sure you don't--I don't think you and I have much to discuss.

And to be told that I have a bad attitude by you of all people is hilarious. Go back and read your long, ranting diatribes earlier in the thread. After all that you want to hold yourself out as a beacon of civility and lecture me about the nature of hypocrisy? No thanks.

Okay, wow. There has been some miscommunication here. I never said that you were insulting the devs or calling the game garbage; in fact, no one has as far as I can tell. Your inferences are astounding; baffling really. You bring up civility and proper discourse in every post you I've seen you make in this thread, and you do so after demanding answers, becoming argumentative, and promoting discourse in way that can only be considered as somewhat less than constructive. Challenging posters is the least constructive way to go about your point, unless your point is aimed solely at disparaging the game and arguing with people. Especially considering you are trying to get answers about your confusion with performance in a thread that was created to discuss the game's graphics.

It is mainly your constant tangential bickering and our discourse that serves no purpose. You're correct; we don't have anything to discuss. If you get an answer here, I'd be surprised. That's not even because of anything having to do with your perceived notion of... well whatever it is that you think that I declared myself in relation to you, but rather, that you would post it here in an unrelated thread. Make a topic about your issues with performance if you are unhappy with the answers you are receiving here. I would even bet you'd attract a serious discussion regarding performance or the inner workings of the engine.

I would mainly like to see more points about the graphics.

[ben_s 11]

Myke;2372458']This tells me you have no idea how a development process works. I respectfully ask you to develop a several thousands line containing script suite for A3' date=' develop it, test it, tweak it, improve it until you consider it final. [b']I think this will get you a idea what "alpha" means.[/b]

Somehow I don't think people will ever learn the meaning of 'in development' of 'Alpha' software.

I'm sure it's all down to big AAA titles using 'Alpha' or 'Beta' as glorified demos for their games, people become deluded and forget that software can actually have real development cycles.

As for what ArmA3 does differently than other games, one could just point at the size of the islands and the number of entities on the island and all the other big processing/graphics drains that we call 'features' ;)

[chortles 263]

You're thinking "beta", we haven't seen any "AAA game alpha" (well, officially acknowledged) since BF3.

Re: Arma 3 -- don't forget the AI! For all the 'good' that does, what with how often it fails. :p

[Dwarden 1125]

can I get screens of the 'incorrect' SMAA / FXAA image in-game versus injected SMAA / FXAA ?

(still static scene, same content, so save mission for this)

[ben_s 11]

You're thinking "beta", we haven't seen any "AAA game alpha" (well, officially acknowledged) since BF3.

Re: Arma 3 -- don't forget the AI! For all the 'good' that does, what with how often it fails. :p

I said both alpha and beta. But that's kinda the point, people use alpha and beta as synonyms for demo. Just not BI, they'd never do that... ;) :)

As for the graphics, I'd like to see companies broaden the range of systems that can run the game well. BI are pretty good with this actually - I've been running BI games on mid range hardware for a long time and been doing just fine with them.

[Sixgears2 1]

@Myke

If you can't even tell me why or how this game is different than others, then why should I agree to measure it by a different set of standards as you suggest?

As far as it being an alpha, I'd like to point out that both alphas and betas are designed to allow players to find and report issues. I found and reported an issue. You then told me to bugger off because ArmA is just "different." Are you sure you understand how this works?

@Zapat

Fair question. My answer is that they run better despite also looking better and handling hardware-intensive situations. The followup question there is why. That's what I'm attempting to determine.

@failberry

You call me a full-on hypocrite, tell me I have a bad attitude, write numerous posts chiding me as if I'm some petulant idiot, and then try to come back as if you're some victim and I'm the big, bad wolf? No. You're delusional, and you'll get no more responses from me.

For the record and as I've said before, I love ArmA 3. I don't take the time to create profiles and report issues for games I care nothing about. The fact that I love it is precisely why I'm so disappointed with the performance issues I'm having on what I know to be perfectly good hardware. I'm still going to play the hell out of the game, but I'd sure like to do so with a stable engine that doesn't drop my frames into the mid-thirties just because I look west towards the airfield or happen to encounter a three-house village.

Graphics and performance are two sides of the same coin; that's why I brought this up here.

Edited April 14, 2013 by Sixgears2

[chortles 263]

I said both alpha and beta. But that's kinda the point, people use alpha and beta as synonyms for demo. Just not BI, they'd never do that... ;) :)

But then people never thought that they'd go Steamworks... that thread is still legendary :icon_twisted:

As for the graphics, I'd like to see companies broaden the range of systems that can run the game well. BI are pretty good with this actually - I've been running BI games on mid range hardware for a long time and been doing just fine with them.

That's seemingly been a consensus coming out of media reviews...