If A4 actually came to fruition, is it even necessary/possible for BIS to use a new modern engine?

[IndeedPete 1038]

I doubt this would make sense for a three year old game. But we'll see, I read they want to share their road map for the coming year soon.

[kerodan 25]

What I'm trying to say is that arma 3 engine could be just as much improved as dayz if leadership decides to do it.Yes is a long and complex process.Yes it requires manpower, time and knowledge but is

essential for actual longer term improvement where they finally break down frustration of phrases "not possible" "not within the scope" and so on.

 

Although this is true, you have to consider the implications of such a change. For DayZ this was an okaish investment as it only pissed of people who expected a working product right of the start or had no idea what kind of work was involved in such a change. Aka switching out huge chunks of your underlying engine code while also developing assets and the like. Speaking of ARMA 3, it is not feasible to do such a thing as it is a finished product with a huge amount of user-made content. Content which would be put in jepardy by making such drastic changes at this stage in development.

 

Best guess is that they will consider switching to the Enfusion engine for the next installment of the game but not before. Otherwise, they would have no window to prepare the endless creators of user-made content for the changes to come and provide them with a reasonable explanation of why their content - most likley  - will not be useable anymore. Introducing such drastic changes in a DLC or Patch is just bad policy in this regard as it not only annoys the user-base your game heavily relies on but also forces the studio to further invest in the conversion of all original A3 assets.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Those focused solely on Fps should play standard fps shooters, there are plenty of them. What Arma has, is that it's simulating what ai is doing without any player's presence. I love to be part of a world that is simulated without me being useful. Most of the games i know aren't doing anything as long as the players are where the action takes place.

That's why the new campaign is completely out of what Arma is made for.

[Guest]

About VR:

 

- If you look to your foot, and its not there, or its in the wrong position, you get nausea.

- If the car you is in game pass over a rock and jump up, but your real chair does not move, you get nausea.

- If you touch something with your real hand that don't exists in the virtual world, you get nausea.

- If you touch a metal wall but in true it is made of cardboard, you get nausea.

 

In a nut shell: If your brain by default tries to be coherent, you get nausea.

 

Our brain can change with the years, yes, but just a complete VR experience will be perfect. This is why in most games you can't even walk, this is to try to mitigate the problem... a bit.

[Harzach 2505]

Ah, no, I haven't tried VR yet. Closest thing I experienced was some prototypic 3D stuff back in ~2010 on the CeBIT trade fair. But as I said, there's no real incentive for me to buy a device myself. Partly because I already spend way too much time on the computer and I feel having a monitor attached to my face wouldn't be beneficial for my eye sight.

Just a side note, I own a Vive and find that it stresses my eyes far less than my primary 32" display. With my primary display, my eyes are always focused at the same distance, the distance between eyes and display. With the Vive, my eyes are constantly changing focal distance, depending on the virtual distance of the object I am looking at. The first time I put it on, I was shocked by how comfortable it was.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Just a side note, I own a Vive and find that it stresses my eyes far less than my primary 32" display. With my primary display, my eyes are always focused at the same distance, the distance between eyes and display. With the Vive, my eyes are constantly changing focal distance, depending on the virtual distance of the object I am looking at. The first time I put it on, I was shocked by how comfortable it was.

 

Interesting point. I wasn't aware that the eye could be tricked so easily.

[spanishsurfer 58]

So it sounds like we can all agree that there really isn't another engine out there that does what A3 does.  However, pardon my ignorance but some have mentioned Enfusion like it's the engine that will deliver us from low FPS and that it's different from RV4. Can someone explain why/how it's so different? It looks the same, feels the same, smells the same, and has no problem absorbing A3 tech; am I missing something here?  It doesn't look like a new game engine, just a slightly modified RV4.  Do correct me if I'm wrong.

[Fresh- 6]

I have to admit, there are times when i wish BIS would look into a new engine, but overall, i don't see how they could feasibly do it. From this perspective, just losing the AI commands so many of us have memorized from the original 'OFP' would be a massive turn off.

 

As i see it, BIS should keep the same engine, but seriously work on tweaking it in ways that could revolutionize the experience, such as, fix the wacky physics that cause vehicles to fly or be damaged in the smallests of collisions. Fix all the other broken or bad stuff, without necessarily focusing on making it 'massive multi player'.

 

If I was the boss at BIS, I'd hire a 'flight simulator' expert and a 'race car simulator' expert and i'd pair them with engineers to tweak vehicle behaviors. As much as i love flying, the flight model feels a bit arcadish and unrealistic. Keep it simple in the cockpit (as it presently is), but make flying/landing (airplanes) more realistic, especially with the way the throttle behaves. 

 

As for the vehicles, the day ARMA can be connected to a force feedback steering wheel and deliver an authentic driving experience, complete with accurate physics and feel, will be the day the 'racing' community might discover a real gem, alongside the rest of us. I don't know if that's even possible, but as an avid fan of 'rFactor' for many years, i've experience the potential of that 'driving experience' and was left spellbound. I have always hoped for that kind of evolution from the ARMA engine. Until then, i have to say, despite its shortcomings, in my opinion, playing ARMA3 is still the best thing going out there. 

 

Let's hope they tweak it into perfection  :)

[bonchie 39]

What computers are some of you guys using?

I get 40+ FPS on Tanoa. I make missions with 100+ AI assets routinely for our sessions and never have an issue. No one else ever complains either and I know some of them are using very budget GPUs. It looks pretty killer too, especially on a map like Tanoa that is done right.

 

To me, the engine isn't an issue as much as lack of effort into content. We've been waiting for another long, well done campaign for more then a freaking decade now. I've resolved myself to the idea that it's just never going to come.

[domokun 515]

What computers are some of you guys using?

I get 40+ FPS on Tanoa. I make missions with 100+ AI assets routinely for our sessions and never have an issue. No one else ever complains either and I know some of them are using very budget GPUs. It looks pretty killer too, especially on a map like Tanoa that is done right.

 

To me, the engine isn't an issue as much as lack of effort into content. We've been waiting for another long, well done campaign for more then a freaking decade now. I've resolved myself to the idea that it's just never going to come.

Do you run those locally? Using a headless client? Or from a dedicated server?

[IndeedPete 1038]

What computers are some of you guys using?

I get 40+ FPS on Tanoa. I make missions with 100+ AI assets routinely for our sessions and never have an issue. No one else ever complains either and I know some of them are using very budget GPUs. It looks pretty killer too, especially on a map like Tanoa that is done right.

 

To me, the engine isn't an issue as much as lack of effort into content. We've been waiting for another long, well done campaign for more then a freaking decade now. I've resolved myself to the idea that it's just never going to come.

 

More importanty, what mods is your group using? I can get away with roughly the same frame rates. However, once I add ACE, MCC, and ALiVE to the mix, my FPS won't go beyond 25. Even with dedicated server, HCs, and all that stuff.

[spanishsurfer 58]

Lets not derail this thread on what issues BIS needs to fix, this is about the game engine. As for performance, fps drops a lot when you have 30+ players and running a dedicated server, small #'s of players arent much of an issue.

[xxgetbuck123 945]

I'm 100% sure that BI would be using a vastly more upgraded engine than what they are currently using. I also presume that would be attempting to implement all the new engine based technology and graphic based technology to the best of their ability to bring Arma up the ranks even more. I'm keen to see where they head for Arma 4 though. 

[spanishsurfer 58]

I'm 100% sure that BI would be using a vastly more upgraded engine than what they are currently using. I also presume that would be attempting to implement all the new engine based technology and graphic based technology to the best of their ability to bring Arma up the ranks even more. I'm keen to see where they head for Arma 4 though.

Hopefully better performance is their #1 priority. I don't care about visuals as much as I do as a good working game. IMO, BIS did not deliver in improving performance in a significant way. Also, the A4 release needs to go MUCH smoother then A3, that release was god awful, felt like a beta version for a year...

[kerodan 25]

 BIS did not deliver in improving performance in a significant way.

 

When I compare it to my experience in A2 it is a huge step-up! Maybe it is due to me playing mostly small coop missions (10-20Players max with 100++AI) but my FPS doubled in comparison to the FPS I got in the same kind of missions in A2. Futhermore, you are forgetting the Geometric Occlusion feature added with Eden which improved FPS in cities tremendously in my opinion.

 

Of course you cannot compare it to the changes made in DayZ where some achieved performance jumps from 30 to 90+ FPS but do not sell A3s improvements that short...

[J. Adams 145]

This is my thought on the whole thing:

 

Yes, this is due to what we would like to see from a sandbox game in the coming years. With the advancement of technology, I would most likely not expect them to release A4 without some form of dynamic terrain editing e.g. digging trenches. They will almost certainly need to optimize their engine so more people can run it etc too. 

[kerodan 25]

With the advancement of technology, I would most likely not expect them to release A4 without some form of dynamic terrain editing e.g. digging trenches.

 

Not wanting to derail the thread but are there any game engines with such a feature? And I mean games which, like ARMA, do not work with some kind of voxels for their terrains?

[spanishsurfer 58]

We're derailing again, lets focus on keeping it about the engine.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Not wanting to derail the thread but are there any game engines with such a feature? And I mean games which, like ARMA, do not work with some kind of voxels for their terrains?

There are games that do such a thing, but RV4, or Enfusion, are not on that list.

 

As for a new Modern Engine... I think BI should spend the time rebuilding with what they have on Enfusion, but keeping the best parts, like that we have in A3. I think it would take more time building from scratch, rather than robustly improving their newest achievements.

[froggyluv 2130]

We're derailing again, lets focus on keeping it about the engine.

 

 How is this derailing? Asking questions what engines can handle _x desired features seems pretty relevant.

 

 Dont know is engine related or what but dont get why animations force characters to clip/ghost thru walls and would support any engine or upgrade for that alone.

[esfumato 75]

 How is this derailing? Asking questions what engines can handle _x desired features seems pretty relevant.

 

 Dont know is engine related or what but dont get why animations force characters to clip/ghost thru walls and would support any engine or upgrade for that alone.

 

Just for that the whole game engine must be updated is a complete shame that players fall through the buildings floor!!!

The engine do things great but have some mistakes from the year 2001 that are unacceptable right now.

[bonchie 39]

More importanty, what mods is your group using? I can get away with roughly the same frame rates. However, once I add ACE, MCC, and ALiVE to the mix, my FPS won't go beyond 25. Even with dedicated server, HCs, and all that stuff.

 

One session is Unsung Charlie.

The other is our own mod-pack that's a mix of a bunch of stuff.

[rekrul 7]

About VR:

 

- If you look to your foot, and its not there, or its in the wrong position, you get nausea.

- If the car you is in game pass over a rock and jump up, but your real chair does not move, you get nausea.

- If you touch something with your real hand that don't exists in the virtual world, you get nausea.

- If you touch a metal wall but in true it is made of cardboard, you get nausea.

 

In a nut shell: If your brain by default tries to be coherent, you get nausea.

 

Our brain can change with the years, yes, but just a complete VR experience will be perfect. This is why in most games you can't even walk, this is to try to mitigate the problem... a bit.

Where are you getting this from? According to this logic, all flight simulators (or any other simulator) made since the 70s would cause 100s of thousands of sick pilots and instructors.

[Guest]

Play flight simulator on my 2 color screen cell phone make me sick because the imersion is enough to make the brain completelly exclude one of the possibilities.

 

Also, some incoherences can be worse than others. You may forgive a bad texture, but you can't forgive camera shake without real move.

[theevancat 277]

Not wanting to derail the thread but are there any game engines with such a feature? And I mean games which, like ARMA, do not work with some kind of voxels for their terrains?

I feel like Spintires is brought up a lot when people mention terrain deformation in Arma. It runs off of the Havok engine.

I found a little blog post about how it works, which basically boils down to the terrain having a density set by the engine and the object on top of it causes the terrain's mesh to subdivide and simulate interaction with said object.

https://alexgolen.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/spin-tires-and-havok-physics-engine/