X-Cam prototype map

[t-800a 151]

There will be a civilian airport at the main city of the island. Also there are two 'bigger' military garrisons and several smaller military installations.

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

This map looks so extreme epic, hope for a soon release. Wonderful

[taumargin 13]

Wow this looks awesome :cool:

[warden_1 1070]

What? It looks awesome. Cluttered? Most community maps are terrible. Like 9 out of 10 make you feel sorry that someone wasted that much time and effort on a map that no one will ever use. But some people don't care and are happy just playing around a world of obstacles.

With good maps, there are still bad places. You can find a few good screenshots where there are areas that make the download worth it. But when I see this map, It's difficult to find a bad picture at all. There are A LOT of pics and all show an awesome map. Even the videos. All I see is good. The vegetation has a great mix, the huge rocks are perfectly placed. It's not "filled" with fillers everywhere. It's as if everything was created to be beautiful, rather than a few "awesome" (which usually aren't) FOB's and a couple of detailed towns with the rest of the country filled randomly.

I can't wait to go around in this place. Even as is. Great work

We would like to play it online, which we can't do at 10FPS which is what so many objects will do to the game, Siola knows this and is simply showing off how robust and amazing his tool is, though he is very humble about it ;)

[mcpxxl 2]

First post of Silola

We want to let our creativity run wild on this map, and want to use the possibilities

of many object combinations that result from the object libraries of all Arma parts.

So, maybe the result will not be very realistic, but we have this intention either.

This map is more a kind of a play and test ground.

[hellsan631 11]

We would like to play it online, which we can't do at 10FPS which is what so many objects will do to the game, Siola knows this and is simply showing off how robust and amazing his tool is, though he is very humble about it ;)

While I don't think the performance will be the best, I also don't think that it will be such a giant hit to FPS. The videos have been very smooth, without many fps drops whilst recording. Has anyone actually played this in multiplayer? Even maps like the Manhatten map are somewhat playable with a set of beefy PCs. I think this will definitely be better performance wise then that map.

[mcpxxl 2]

YES we CAN and did it

6 Players against DAC Groups and T800

we had a lot of fun

[bullet purveyor 85]

Do the AI navigate the map well with so many objects?

[Rich_R 1087]

All this is a lot of teasing :)

Really looking forward to the map and the utility!

[weaponsfree 46]

Important question first :

Can you give us the rig stats for the machine that was running the map for your 3 videos? It seems to be pretty smooth sailing in the videos, and I'm curious what kind of rig it takes to get that level of smoothness. (been through the entire forum post, and pretty sure they were stated previously). Viewdistance seemed to be in the 4k range as well?

Important gushing praise second :

I have no idea why I never came across this project before now. But it is simply amazing. Hands down the best map I’ve seen (at least with screenshots) in the Armaverse since FDF Podagorsk. Hopefully it is relatively playable and not just a proof of concept / prototype. Keep up the great work guys.

[stephsen 79]

Wow this is simply godlike, i hope the fps looks so as well ;)

[t-800a 151]

I am running the X-Cam / X-Cam map in 640x350 EGA just fine on my i386DX (be aware I have the 33 MHz version), luckily I got some 16MB SIMM's cheap ... I think I get around 5 FPM.

On a less serious note: I have a FX-8320, a 7950 and some RAM and an SSD ... In the missions we played so far it was "playable". Playable for me: above 25 FPS most of the time. But in the missions we had Viewdistance around 1000m ... because you really can't see any further most of the time playing as Infantry. As soon as I start flying around very low with a higher Viewdistances, it kills my FPS, especially over the big town.

BUT the map is about creativity and not about FPS, AI pathfinding (wich works quite good), general playability, ...

[CoA|Saint 5]

...reverently stucked in praying position...

set me free Silola, my great Master ;)

[weaponsfree 46]

I am running the X-Cam / X-Cam map in 640x350 EGA just fine on my i386DX (be aware I have the 33 MHz version), luckily I got some 16MB SIMM's cheap ... I think I get around 5 FPM.

On a less serious note: I have a FX-8320, a 7950 and some RAM and an SSD ... In the missions we played so far it was "playable". Playable for me: above 25 FPS most of the time. But in the missions we had Viewdistance around 1000m ... because you really can't see any further most of the time playing as Infantry. As soon as I start flying around very low with a higher Viewdistances, it kills my FPS, especially over the big town.

BUT the map is about creativity and not about FPS, AI pathfinding (wich works quite good), general playability, ...

lol for the first point. I had a moment of WTF he sayin?

Thanks for the info. It's no surprise since it's been stated time and time again this is more of a creative project than a level built from the ground up to be played. Still, your rig is not completely out of range, I'm sure some cool missions can be built for the map. Also it was mentioned at some point in the thread that a lower item count version could be made. Obviously a lot of work and something of a luxury, but I'm sure it would be appreciated!

Thanks again for the great project.

[silola 1086]

Important question first :

Can you give us the rig stats for the machine that was running the map for your 3 videos? It seems to be pretty smooth sailing in the videos, and I'm curious what kind of rig it takes to get that level of smoothness. (been through the entire forum post, and pretty sure they were stated previously). Viewdistance seemed to be in the 4k range as well?

Important gushing praise second :

I have no idea why I never came across this project before now. But it is simply amazing. Hands down the best map I’ve seen (at least with screenshots) in the Armaverse since FDF Podagorsk. Hopefully it is relatively playable and not just a proof of concept / prototype. Keep up the great work guys.

My rig (used for all the videos):

i7 2600k@defaultSpeed

GTX 780 with 3GB vram

16 GB RAM

3 x 256 GB SSD Samsung 830

Win7 64-bit

The primary frame killer at this map is the viewdistance because the object density is high, in some areas very high.

The videos running with 2000m viewdistance, but if we play a MP DAC mission, we reduce the viewdistance to 1000m.

And this is not really a bad thing, because there are so many objects in front of you, that u can't see all the objects in the distance ;)

It's a real challenge if you fight against the AI within the HD areas, and it's true ... the AI is not really able to drive on these "nice looking" roads.

Maybe the AI has the same problem as we have: We allways looking to the right and to the left, because is't so beautiful around the roads :p

As you can see in the picture down below, I only get 11 FPS, but this is because I have increased the viewdistance to 5000m and the shadowdistance to 1500m.

Both are real framekiller. If you set these settings to normal values, you get playable framerates.

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Greeting

Silola

[SavageCDN 231]

I am running the X-Cam / X-Cam map in 640x350 EGA just fine on my i386DX (be aware I have the 33 MHz version), luckily I got some 16MB SIMM's cheap ... I think I get around 5 FPM.

If you're using DOS I recommend running "smartdrv.exe 1024" (you have 16MB of RAM!!??!! crazy...) - this will give you a 1MB disk cache to work with.. should speed up that 540MB Quantum drive :rolleyes:

[weaponsfree 46]

It's a real challenge if you fight against the AI within the HD areas, and it's true ... the AI is not really able to drive on these "nice looking" roads.

Maybe the AI has the same problem as we have: We allways looking to the right and to the left, because is't so beautiful around the roads :p

As you can see in the picture down below, I only get 11 FPS, but this is because I have increased the viewdistance to 5000m and the shadowdistance to 1500m.

Both are real framekiller. If you set these settings to normal values, you get playable framerates.

Thanks for the info.

The general takeaway for mission building seems to be :

- Generally Fixed position AI, maybe some very precise waypoint useage for the cities

- Minimise AI vehicle driving, so mostly infantry based missions

- Human controled CAS to be avoided

- Maybe avoid long range sniper missions?

All told you can still make some fun missions if you respect this. I'm thinking some civilian populated town/special ops infitration type missions.

[rafael09ed 31]

Amazing, great work.

[silola 1086]

On the last meters the motivation goes down :(

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Silola

[serjames 357]

Holy Crap... Looks amazing... Some great back alleys there.. Can see some awesome Grenade out Calls coming our way !

[b00ce 160]

That aerial view looks spectacular! :computer:

[astrell 3]

On the last meters the motivation goes down :(

After spending all this hours in one project without ending it everyones patience will go down. You used lot of motivation and creativity as well.

Your "prototype" Map is the most beautiful and plausible map since the beginning of community map making ( without to say the other works were somehow poorly ... ). If you need some time to gain new strength, take your time. I´m totally sure it´s worth the wait.

[laxemann 1673]

Oh sweet baby jesus babbedie-boo!

That looks stunning!!

[kremator 1065]

http://i.imgur.com/NKl68tL.jpg

This one looks photorealstic ! Well done Silola.

[cjph 0]

Just wow. I wish I had half your talent.

cj