Altis - Info & Discussion

[daze23 1]

reducing my texture quality from 'very high' to 'high' helped with a lot of the stuttering I was getting. I have a 2gb vid card btw

[sqb-sma 66]

I've just noticed that AI soldiers are completely incapable of stepping over the little 3 inch curb at the main airport terminal :icon_lol:

They simply take the long way around and which usually leads them so far away that it eventually triggers their "report position" communication, lol.

Ooooh, why didn't I think of that. Man, my mission kept going awry and I just couldn't figure it out. Ha!

[nodunit 397]

reducing my texture quality from 'very high' to 'high' helped with a lot of the stuttering I was getting. I have a 2gb vid card btw

Texture options in general seem to have a funky effect..when I was at the altis airport, looking down over the small palm trees and flickering through my options I noticed it changing not only the leaf texture (as though it were modifying the LOD) but also on the lowest setting the plant virtually had NO leaves.

Ooooh, why didn't I think of that. Man, my mission kept going awry and I just couldn't figure it out. Ha!

Well on the flip side they are a bit more articulated in complaint as opposed to sims who just wave their arms and yell gibberish before stamping their feet and pissing themselves.

[call_911 10]

The domes are enterable FYI.

Hospital is enterable too/stairs an ladders, even main lobby 8)-

[grillob3 11]

I made a mission with eos markers in each town/village (over 30 markers) and just flew around with some AI looking for action + ars_ai, los and jsrs... I think can say that by far alits will be my favorite video game map for a long time! This place feels so real! Performance Is really good compared to when chernarus came out! I'm sure in the next few days -weeks lots of bugs will be fixed and we will get a good beautiful stable map to play for years!

Thanks BIS

[GrindedCorpse 1]

"Finally, now could be a good moment to revisit your video settings, previously optimized for Stratis alone. Altis is a much larger terrain and balancing your details, view distances and similar settings can help a lot. ... we recommend care when evaluating what configuration is right for your hardware. The auto-detect option is a good starting point."

Taken from the sitrep.

So now... I look at my current gear and I'm like "Uh... ok!"

I tried Altis yesterday, I was amazed how good it looked but it also felt like my GTX 570 was choking a lot trying to run it with the settings I use for Altis... -_-

Sort of wandering if there's anybody out there running Altis with a GTX 570 ... just want to share and compare settings.

(I know it's going to be hard running Altis @ 60fps but there sort of has to be a way!!!)

[Ekko 1]

"Finally, now could be a good moment to revisit your video settings, previously optimized for Stratis alone. Altis is a much larger terrain and balancing your details, view distances and similar settings can help a lot. ... we recommend care when evaluating what configuration is right for your hardware. The auto-detect option is a good starting point."

Taken from the sitrep.

So now... I look at my current gear and I'm like "Uh... ok!"

I tried Altis yesterday, I was amazed how good it looked but it also felt like my GTX 570 was choking a lot trying to run it with the settings I use for Altis... -_-

Sort of wandering if there's anybody out there running Altis with a GTX 570 ... just want to share and compare settings.

(I know it's going to be hard running Altis @ 60fps but there sort of has to be a way!!!)

I am using two GTX 570s in SLI so there might be a slight difference, but I am running the game at about 50-80fps, and thats with a lot of settings on ultra, can't remember exactly what, but I know shadows were on ultra and 200 on shadow distance. My view distance is set at about 3000, and object distance is at about 1200-1500, and object detail is at very high or high. The fps stays at about 60-80 in fields and such, but when I get into any little settlement or town it drops to about 30-50 with a lot of stuttering when turning around and such, really makes it dangerous to look to the side sometimes cause you can't react correctly or fast enough to engage or dodge any hostile contact, its a shame, I find the island to be so amazing to look at, but this totally ruins it for me.

The stuttering is however everywhere when turning around and such no matter what the fps, its just slightly harder to notice on fields, but if you get occupied with its tiny presence then things can get annoying. Something worth noting is that the new nvidia 326 driver gave me a 3-5fps boost when I switched to it yesterday. I also tried playing without SLI cause I forgot to switch back after installing the new driver, and it was a pain to be anywhere on altis with ultra settings.

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

Altis performance limitation will be on your CPU way before your GTX 570 is the culprit. You'd have to be running an insanely high resolution with good amounts of AA before your GPU bottlenecks.

Object Quality, Terrain Quality, View Distances.

These are the 3 main settings you need to tweak in order to get great gains in frame-rate. I used to be able to run 5000/2500 view distances with High Terrain and Standard Object and get a solid 60 fps everywhere in Stratis. Now in Altis, this gives me somewhere in the ballpark of 40-50 just about anywhere I go. Only the truly barren areas of the map give me that 60 fps.

Forget about cranking everything to Ultra. That's like a disaster waiting to happen to your poor CPU. It makes me wonder:

A) What system the devs are playing on if the one in my signature isn't good enough

and

B) What frame-rates are they actually playtesting at that they think it's acceptable

I realize there's a drastic discrepancy between the way one person perceives frame-rate compared to another, but come on, no one can say 20 fps on pure Ultra settings is acceptable for top end gaming PC's.

[james2464 176]

Anyone found the inescapable prison cell yet? Hint: can only be accessed by helicopter and it's hidden within a castle. :D

Edited August 28, 2013 by James2464

[nikiforos 450]

"

I tried Altis yesterday, I was amazed how good it looked but it also felt like my GTX 570 was choking a lot trying to run it with the settings I use for Altis... -_-

Sort of wandering if there's anybody out there running Altis with a GTX 570 ... just want to share and compare settings.

(I know it's going to be hard running Altis @ 60fps but there sort of has to be a way!!!)

Well I run a GTX ASUS 570 and Im quite happy(ofcourse it could be much better :) ) the game runs for me. Actually I was almost sure to upgrade to GTX 770 next month but now I might consider putting that option off.

I don't play with AA and my view distance are 2000 and 1200 for objects.

[metalcraze 290]

Villages are big (as far as usual ArmA villages go) and nicely laid out. However streets are way too clean. Need more junk like on Stratis. Urban areas are certainly the strongest part of the island.

However everything else is a problem. The moment you exit villages the dream is over. There's just a bunch of empty hills that are little more detailed than Takistan. And just like Takistan overpowered snipers will be an issue again. Since there is not going to be windage sniper rifles (which themselves have less recoil than assault rifles making them even more unrealistic) will completely rule this deserted terrain.

The island is big, sure. But it consists of... mostly nothing. Empty hills do not provide for interesting scenarios at all. It could've been smaller and it would've actually become more interesting as well as allowed for a better terrain grid providing for more ground detail. Size is not everything when half of it is wasted.

Edited August 28, 2013 by metalcraze

[sproyd 2]

Villages are big (as far as usual ArmA villages go) and nicely laid out. However streets are way too clean. Need more junk like on Stratis. Urban areas are certainly the strongest part of the island.

However everything else is a problem. The moment you exit villages the dream is over. There's just a bunch of empty hills that are little more detailed than Takistan. And just like Takistan overpowered snipers will be an issue again. Since there is not going to be windage sniper rifles (which themselves have less recoil than assault rifles making them even more unrealistic) will completely rule this deserted terrain.

The island is big, sure. But it consists of... mostly nothing. Empty hills do not provide for interesting scenarios at all. It could've been smaller and it would've actually become more interesting as well as allowed for a better terrain grid providing for more ground detail. Size is not everything when half of it is wasted.

Are we playing a different map to you? You do realise that this is based off a real island with more or less real settlements? Hence recreating war in a real location. You can choose where to plan your missions you know... If you want something dense I can introduce you to Crysis 2?

[liquidpinky 11]

He needs to get out and walk more, the island has plenty of detail and hidden gems.

Done my full Scube tour of the coast and now onto my tour of the coastline, maybe using a UGV as they are nice and slow and have plenty of visibitity from the passenger seat. Unarmed one of course.

[metalcraze 290]

Oh it has gems alright. But mostly it's too empty.

And yeah I know it's based on a real one. But it doesn't automatically make it fun.

Stratis itself has no forests IRL iirc, yet BIS added them. Altis needs a lot lot more forests or at least a lot more bushes (like McNools did on Hazar-Kot and Aliabad despite them being an actual middle eastern desert effectively solving the issue with arcade sniper rifles of ArmA). I mean you can take a sniper rifle, get up on those solar power plant towers and you have kilometers of easily sniped terrain around you. So unless an enemy will have a sniper rifle himself he is as good as dead. And that issue goes on for the most of the island. There are areas with vegetation sure and some spots with tall swamp(?) grass but mostly it's not dense enough to provide for a better gameplay like comparable Sahrani did.

And really, what scenario will you have on empty hills? The majority of Takistan was not used by mission makers exactly because of this issue. It's not too interesting to explore it. The distances are too large between villages and on Takistan we had a lot of them if you just moved down the road and on Chernarus forests made it scarier and more interesting even if you were on foot. Don't get me wrong I like real distances but terrain should be more interesting - when I can see enemies a kilometer away (or they can see me) and they (or me) can do nothing about it - it's not interesting.

I'm also disappointed BIS cut out lakes going back to ArmA1-style solution for using sea for them. But it doesn't look natural at all. It looks as if those lakes just go under ground then go up and it's possible only at sea-level. Looks very unnatural.

This is really strange considering the engine is capable of separate lakes.

Edited August 28, 2013 by metalcraze

[soapsurfer 12]

Wow, I'm so impressed. Finished the download over night (the 2nd time..) and I love it. Had only 10minutes of testing this morning but I managed to see quite a lot interesting things. Especially the villages look much better than those in Arma 2. The feeling on the island is just great.

At first I did not like the destroyed houses in cities as it somehow restricts you in making your missions being set before everything started (with this beautiful island even a tourist tour mission would be so damn awesome!). However, it looks very immersive, it is perfect for the setting.

Also no issues with fps. I have 60fps, in cities it goes down to something like 45, nothing which bugs me. The issues seem to be caused by 32bit, aren't they? I wonder why so many here are even using 32bit. :p

[Matt@RS 10]

Not too jerky flying wise. A few stutters for no apparent reason but am going to enjoy exploring this great island...I am a bit worried to hear its using 1 core a lot more than others.

Haswell 4670k @3.8ghz on stock cooler

120gb ssd

gtx460

[nikiforos 450]

What is this? Flighsimulator? Love the game and I love the plane too :)

[Matt@RS 10]

Much better than fsx mate ,,, we can get get out and blow something up. lol

Arma is what we make it.

Edited August 28, 2013 by Matt@RS

[HitmanTwoActual 188]

Whenever I start up Altis, it's pretty choppy in the beginning. To the point where it will stop "responding" and freeze so it can load parts of the island. And that's just spawning. Maybe to the fact that I have my view distance all the way up. I don't have a crazy gaming computer (Missing some parts that could boost performance) But it is still a powerful computer. Running Stratis on Ultra, view distance all the way up.

[kavoriken 1]

Yea, view distance above 10k does freeze your pc for quite some time until youve turned 360 degrees and it has loaded everything around you.

What also needs to be fixed is the "camera" getting stuck as soon as you open the map. When youre onboard a chopper on the way to your objective and look at the map to get a decent overview of the area around the LZ, the game needs to reload all the objects and textures around you as soon as you close the map. Kinda sucks on Altis with that much stuff to load.

[comp_uter15776 1]

That would make sense though, after all you are loading 10k+'s worth of stuff... Just lower it a bit. I doubt much weaponry would be that effective at range (maybe the aircraft DAGRs or something) anyway.

[sproyd 2]

Stratis itself has no forests IRL iirc, yet BIS added them. Altis needs a lot lot more forests or at least a lot more bushes (like McNools did on Hazar-Kot and Aliabad despite them being an actual middle eastern desert effectively solving the issue with arcade sniper rifles of ArmA). I mean you can take a sniper rifle, get up on those solar power plant towers and you have kilometers of easily sniped terrain around you. So unless an enemy will have a sniper rifle himself he is as good as dead. And that issue goes on for the most of the island. There are areas with vegetation sure and some spots with tall swamp(?) grass but mostly it's not dense enough to provide for a better gameplay like comparable Sahrani did.

And really, what scenario will you have on empty hills? The majority of Takistan was not used by mission makers exactly because of this issue. It's not too interesting to explore it. The distances are too large between villages and on Takistan we had a lot of them if you just moved down the road and on Chernarus forests made it scarier and more interesting even if you were on foot. Don't get me wrong I like real distances but terrain should be more interesting - when I can see enemies a kilometer away (or they can see me) and they (or me) can do nothing about it - it's not interesting.

Do you even play Arma, bro.

Arma is a realistic simulator so if someone has a sniper rifle and kills you go and have a cry, that's war. If you have a bigger gun you win. That's why you have a huge range of options available to you... heard of cover? flanking? armoured vehicles? CAS? Drone Strikes? Artillery? All of these are used in Arma and in IRL to flush out and kill entrenched sniper positions. The problem in BF3 is the maps are closed in like a tunnel and CAS and Mortars are a joke. In Arma you can cause some serious damage to snipers with these tactics.

---------- Post added at 13:18 ---------- Previous post was at 13:14 ----------

Much better than fsx mate ,,, we can get get out and blow something up. lol

Arma is what we make it.

Awesome vidyo

[Flaky 10]

One thing I will say is there should be some 'still under construction' concrete skeleton style apartments/high rise buildings on the outskirts of some towns. These would be great for those long-range rocket attacks on convoys ala. syria. Hopefully this would be relatively simple to implement before release *crosses fingers*

Edit: as for people complaining about snipers... there is hardly any elevation on many parts of the map, good luck even acquiring a target.

Edited August 28, 2013 by Flaky

[maddogx 13]

Arma is a realistic simulator so if someone has a sniper rifle and kills you go and have a cry, that's war.

To be fair, the point he was making is that sniper rifles are currently over-powered, since wind does not affect ballistics. So if Arma3 was a slightly more realistic simulator in that regard, it would be less of a problem. ;)

[-ghost-tf 12]

Do you even play Arma, bro.

Arma is a realistic simulator so if someone has a sniper rifle and kills you go and have a cry, that's war. If you have a bigger gun you win. That's why you have a huge range of options available to you... heard of cover? flanking? armoured vehicles? CAS? Drone Strikes? Artillery? All of these are used in Arma and in IRL to flush out and kill entrenched sniper positions. The problem in BF3 is the maps are closed in like a tunnel and CAS and Mortars are a joke. In Arma you can cause some serious damage to snipers with these tactics.

Regarding the sniper issue, BIS just needs to finaly introduce wind to the vanilla gameplay experience. Mods have been doing it for years now, saying that you should use other game elements to counter these overpowered snipers is a way around the issue, not a solution. But Ill stop going offtopic now (I think there was a dedicated thread for snipers somewhere) :)

Altis is amazing, devs did a very good job on this one. Only on some places (mostly hills) you notice the ugly midrange textures, other then that, IMO best island in the arma series so far.