Tech wise (arma3 vs other huge map games)

[freemangl 1]

I probably should not saying this, but it keeps me wondering is BI's technology(engine) isn't advanced enough to achieve beautiful water effect, terrain shadow cast... think about 3 years ago Just Cause 2 have all these and a huge map(around 900km^2) too...

Edited May 21, 2013 by freemangl

[dmarkwick 261]

No engine will have all the things... :) there'll always be engine techs that have concentrated on different aspects.

[ProfTournesol 956]

The actual ArmA3 map is very small compared to the main one (Altis).

[metalcraze 290]

The map in JC2 was big but very low detailed.

Sure water on PC looked nice but everything else looks a lot worse than A3 - and what else is there in the game? The whole map was static, everything gets deleted/respawned when you move 50-100m away.

ArmA3 already puts enough strain on hardware as it is - because it's not just about map size, it's about what's going on on that map.

The map in TDU2 is even bigger than JC2's but 4/5 of it is the exactly same tree model copy pasted to infinity.

[Raible 1]

Arma3 terrain looks like crap plain and simple. You can excuse it however you like but it is poor and I am personally a little disappointed by it.

[Droikka 1]

Arma3 terrain looks like crap plain and simple. You can excuse it however you like but it is poor and I am personally a little disappointed by it.

That is caused by a bad mid-range texture. There are several fixes to it.

[PMartin 1]

At first I was disappointed with Stratis, but recently I was able to increase the graphical settings due to performance tweaks... And god, the terrain is beautiful. It's very well thought and made me realize how similar the Mediterranean landscape is with the Brazilian.

It has great details that bring a lot to realism, like the brown dry grass among the green one... And also I've never played a game where the temperature changes where so well represented visually. All thanks to the incredible new lighting and fog. Early morning in agia marina is beautiful. I think it's a great achievement tech-wise. Even more on such a old engine.

[chrisb 196]

I’ve not played JC2, so don’t know, but I think the water here in A3 is pretty good. The waves hitting the shore might be a little better, but overall the graphics are really nice.

900! that’s a big map.. Was it desert-ish ?

[Kemeros 1]

I can't believe some people think stratis is small... It's so freaking big that i'd get lost if it wasn't from the map and compass. Then the next island is 10 times larger. It's gonna be epic!

[metalcraze 290]

I’ve not played JC2, so don’t know, but I think the water here in A3 is pretty good. The waves hitting the shore might be a little better, but overall the graphics are really nice.

900! that’s a big map.. Was it desert-ish ?

More than half of it is water so it can be no bigger than Altis.

[chrisb 196]

More than half of it is water so it can be no bigger than Altis.

Thought there had to be a reason..

[xyberviri 1]

I probably should not saying this, but it keeps me wondering is BI's technology(engine) isn't advanced enough to achieve beautiful water effect, terrain shadow cast... think about 3 years ago Just Cause 2 have all these and a huge map(around 900km^2) too...

Just Cause 2 used the Avalanche Engine ver 2.0 which has no multiplayer support built into it, there is a mod that adds it in but the game was designed to be a single player.

You can simulate anything single player when you dont have to deal with simulations, physx and syncing data.

Engine wise you can either have high performance with allot of objects but you need to lower details for those, the more the objects become unique the less of them you can have with out making some cuts some where else.

I have a feeling we wont be seeing the 5 hour long 100 player missions that you could have in arma 2, the engine feels sluggish at 45 players, that's with standard death match style missions that don't have many variables.

[.Taffy 10]

JC2's island is certainly beautiful, in particular it's vistas. However as previously stated most of it is sea (pretty sea granted) and then vast swathes of the land mass are simply oversized mountains which aren't all that detailed up close. I don't think the two games are all that comparable to be honest.

[-macaskill- 10]

That is caused by a bad mid-range texture. There are several fixes to it.

Do you have a link to said fixes? I'm interested to try these out for myself. :cool:

[purepassion 22]

Do you have a link to said fixes? I'm interested to try these out for myself. :cool:

Here is the experimental midrange texture replacement by Bad Benson

[Flash Thunder 10]

JC2 uses sprites, low poly count and a lot of blur. Also very low object view distance there is tons of popup in that game with no ability to change it.

Edited May 21, 2013 by Flash Thunder

[-macaskill- 10]

Here is the experimental midrange texture replacement by Bad Benson

Thank you so much! I will try this when I get home later.

Are there any other tweaks you're aware of the help with texture quality?

I have a great PC setup for this game; and I'm not trying to increase FPS; but rather qualitative aspects.

[gpha5e 1]

yeah, plus there's physics for everything on the map, you can trample the grass, you can hit a tree with a chopper and it will go down, lots of particles, not bad imo, as it's been said previously - it's all about what's happening on the ground

[Smurf 12]

And most important - it's player centric.

[nodunit 397]

Exactly, and "The" player centric, the one player...one should not compare games too much when they are completely different overall goals and mindsets.

[froggyluv 2136]

And most important - it's player centric.

Can't be stated enough. I was excited to think how OFP/Arma stacked up against other 'non-player centric huge maps' but I'm having a hard time thinking of any :confused:

Maybe some of those flight sim-type games but generally the ground terrain are pretty poor.

[Smurf 12]

Yes, but that doesn't mean that RV\ArmA isn't really lacking in some aspects. Is kind of ridiculous to think that one of the "major" features for A2 was reload animations while moving and for A3 is proper reload animations for some *cough*GL\AT*cough* weapons. Just an example.

Guess we have to accept the whole package then. I would go for anything similar that does what Arma does better, but there is none. Not even close!

One could say that competition is\could be better but I can see BI pushing their limits in a very narrow market and not going (too deep) to the easy\dark side.

[Ghillie 10]

Terrain doesn't look too bad if you aren't like zoomed in staring at the textures. But you're right, when you start staring at them it looks kinda poop.

Overall I think the graphics look beautiful in ultra. BI definitely needs to improve game performance in higher texture settings though for sure.

[metalcraze 290]

For whiners about low res satmap:

1. Go here http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?150645-midrange-terrain-texture-replacement

2. Download the pack

3. Install the 'strong' version

4. Enjoy the world of difference

Optional: make all server admins sign/allow the usage of it

BIS just uses the takistani midrange detail texture which is very out of place on Stratis due to how vibrant (for the first time in the series) its terrain is.

[l mandrake 9]

Optional: make all server admins sign/allow the usage of it

Yeah, good luck with that...there are still 100s of numpty admins who wont allow JSRS in Arma2!