Arma Reforger/Arma4 VR Support

[Team SFS 8]

I start this thread, to keep it by now here, if the admins will make a new forum dedicated to Reforger/Arma4 development, please move it there.

We need to figure out if the devs are planning in develop VR support by themselves or we can do it, with this engine, i don´t know if the modders community will need access to the engine core files, at least partially. OR it can be done with the Toolbox "Enfusion Workbench"..

But WE NEED VR SUPPORT...

Alot of people like myself dreamed of The Arma series with VR support, since the whole VR launch and different headsets releases..

We need to throw ideas on how to implement it, to play along with flat screen players, mechanics, etc...

I know there was a mod attempt in ARMA 3, but the guy didn´t have the access to the core files to modify 3d rendering, i hope we can do it this time.

PLEASE IF YOU DON´T LIKE VR, or DON´T LIKE ARMA with VR Support, don´t waste time posting here... only possitiveness


Here is the link at discussion in STEAM too.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1874880/discussions/0/5019836142104713455/

[Sightline 3]

I have about 3200 hours in Arma III but I stopped playing after getting a VR headset because the immersion from VR is a billion times better than looking at a flat screen. The devs need to grab a HP Reverb or Varjo headset.

 

On 5/19/2022 at 2:06 PM, Team SFS said:

We need to throw ideas on how to implement it

I don't think anything needs to be changed really, menus in DCS are mostly the same regardless if you're in VR or not.

[dragon01 902]

I'd propose an "ArmA VR", a separate title that would use the same assets and be able to take most of ArmA content for Enfusion, but would have extra features. The problem is, the VR shooter gameplay is just too different. For instance, you no longer need to toggle stances, this is accomplished by just changing your actual stance (measured by height of the headset from the floor). You no longer need controls to bring up the gun, since all weapon handling is taken care of by moving your controllers. OTOH, your marksmanship will go to pot, because it'll now depend on what you physically do with your rifle. So, it wouldn't be fair to put VR players in the same server with pancake ones. Most other controls will have to be similar to the console version, admittedly designing for a gamepad is already a factor, so hopefully that won't be a big issue.

 

Yes, you can have a simple port, like Skyrim VR, but we should aim for something more than that. ArmA VR needs to be a proper VR shooter, which unlike flightsims is a very different beast from the regular thing.

[bigshot 64]

I dont believe at this point in time you could actually get arma size maps and all it's assets (such as all the heavy armor vehicles) to run well enough in a headset all while looking good and at a proper fps rate. There would have to be severe limitations imposed, including things like graphics, AI, heavy vehicles as well as greatly diminished map sizes.

 

I don't see it happening right now...but you cold probably make something like it but with tiny maps, different AI, and no tanks and reduced graphics, etc...but then it wouldnt really be arma anymore, IMO.

 

I'd also like to see arma in VR one day, but i think that the vr tech needs more time to improve first. Arma is just too "deep" right now for the vr platforms.

[Jackal326 1181]

2 hours ago, bigshot said:

I don't see it happening right now...but you cold probably make something like it but with tiny maps, different AI, and no tanks and reduced graphics, etc...but then it wouldnt really be arma anymore, IMO.

 

I'd also like to see arma in VR one day, but i think that the vr tech needs more time to improve first. Arma is just too "deep" right now for the vr platforms.

This. 100% this.

You would need to massively scale down the environment size and graphical fidelity for VR to function, and if you scale back the world size, rendering distance and graphical fidelity its no-longer ArmA...

[jumpinghubert 49]

There is nothing wrong with letting the mod community create VR mods. The Developers just need to allow  access to their engine. They don't have to do anything else. Even in arma3 a lot was possible, even weapon handling via motion controller:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1UzLh-WVVw

 

Claiming that you have to reduce the view distance, graphics or depth of the game so that it runs in VR can only come from people who don't do VR themselves. With reprojection it is sufficient not to get below 45 fps. Modern graphics cards do the rest. They have enough power.

 

the naysayers incoming..

 

 

[bigshot 64]

1 hour ago, jumpinghubert said:

There is nothing wrong with letting the mod community create VR mods. The Developers just need to allow  access to their engine. They don't have to do anything else. Even in arma3 a lot was possible, even weapon handling via motion controller:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1UzLh-WVVw

 

Claiming that you have to reduce the view distance, graphics or depth of the game so that it runs in VR can only come from people who don't do VR themselves. With reprojection it is sufficient not to get below 45 fps. Modern graphics cards do the rest. They have enough power.

 

the naysayers incoming..

 

 

We understand...not sure you do VR though...do you understand that in order to get 4k in VR you need to proc 8K in reality? The minimum you would need right now is to proc 4k and that is just for the graphics having nothing to do with the heavy cpu loads that the terrain processing, AI and armored vehicles require. CPU's need to be stronger, VR needs to be able to handle much higher res, and arma needs to utilize more than 1 proc...VR needs another 5 years+ before it's ready for prime time...and this comes from a real VR fan with lots of time in MSFS VR, which is basically the limit of what you can do in vr right now (albeit kinda half-arsed).

 

Opening it up makes no difference if it wont run. I've seen much less cpu intensive games that wont run well..its the norm right now...vr has made some nice headway in the last 5 years...but it needs at least another 5, if not longer really...it's just not powerful enough yet.

 

Could you make an Arma version that was built for VR from the ground up? No I really dont think you could, right now, and still have it resemble the flatscreen gameplay and performance. Again, by the time you had it running well enough for ppl to stop yelling it would no longer resemble what we know as Arma.

[twisted 128]

personally i have no interest in VR at the stage it is right now. Maybe when it gets more sophisticated in ten years or so but even beyond the perfomance needed - theres the warping around to get places on foot isnt a great idea. the shooting experience may be for sure though. But then its like a fairground shooting range more than anything.

[britforce 9]

Arma and VR, just doesn't seem to be a match.

[jumpinghubert 49]

17 hours ago, bigshot said:

We understand...

 

do you speak of yourself in the plural or do you represent a group? Anyway, I only speak for myself.

 

It's not about arma3, but arma reforger and arma4. It can be assumed that the cpu will not be the bottleneck to the same extent as with arma3. do you know vorpx? With a slightly reduced range of vision and a graphics card from 2080Ti and with an HMD with reverb resolution, arma3 is already fully VR suitable. It can even be used in full functionality in vorpx via virtual screen with a hotkey. At the time there was only the rift and the vive your arguments would have made sense, now I'm just subsuming that under "naysayers incoming". It's not about presenting a 100% working VR-Arma, it's a request from the thread starter to initiate the first steps from BIS  that the modding community can tinker some mods themselves. E.g. to vorpx hand controller support. Excuse my English, it's not my first language.

 

one further amendment. It's basically just a mod request for access to VR functionality, namely: for those who are interested in it. Up to now it has been my basic understanding that it is pointless to explicitly speak out against a mod just because you don't like it. There are about hundreds of mods in arma, which I personally don't like. It would never occur to me to go into great detail hundred times why this mod shouldn't exist, this mod shouldn't exist in this form or should only exist in the future. That's crazy.

[dragon01 902]

It seems like Enfusion will be very easy to mod, and Reforger tools are already ridiculously powerful. That said, VR support goes really deep, into the very rendering engine. Basically, you have to render the scene twice, from a slightly different point of view, each time at half the headset's resolution. Plus, you have to work with your driver of choice to drive the headset and talk to its sensors (I recommend OpenComposite/OpenXR, SteamVR has too many bugs). I don't know if the modders will be able to reach this far into Enfusion's guts.

 

BTW, voprX is not real VR, you have no depth perception there. It's a hack, basically turns the headset into a 1:1 trackIR. For a proper VR experience, you need stereoscopic rendering. For a shooter like ArmA, this is crucial, since depth perception is kind of important for how you use most gunsights.

[SwiftVengeance 0]

I love flying the apache and f16 in dcs vr, my trackir became useless over night. There is always naysayers like above and their words holds no truth... All the vr games I have played so far have been able to run at 90 fps on my hp reverb g2 which is way more then you need, and I can crank up the settings so it only does 45 fps locked which still feels extremely smooth but looks amazing. This year there are new gpus coming out and before arma 4 comes out there will probably be another new generation of gpus, so graphical performance is the least of my worries. What worries me is the devs not adding vr support the game, I hope there will be full support for it from the ground up, also I hope there will be support for things like foveated rendering. I don't really care about being able to move my gun around with the controllers because I want to mostly be a pilot  with my own flight sim gear but it would be a welcome feature if I come out of my helicopter or plane after a crash landing and have to protect myself. Its simple choice for me, if the game has VR support I will buy and if it doesn't I wont.

[dragon01 902]

31 minutes ago, SwiftVengeance said:

All the vr games I have played so far have been able to run at 90 fps on my hp reverb g2 which is way more then you need, and I can crank up the settings so it only does 45 fps locked which still feels extremely smooth but looks amazing. 

So... 3090? 🙂 Remember that while ArmA always required high-level hardware, it's not a flight sim, so they need to think about people who don't quite spend thousands of dollars on top-level gear. That said, there are lower cost Oculus headsets that still look good, and they have lower graphics requirements, as well. I fly with a 1080ti and a Reverb G2, and it's not always a smooth ride. Most of the time it is, but far from 90fps.

 

Support from ground up is unlikely, if only because Enfusion got its start back when VR was still a gimmick, and the devs don't seem to have anticipated it coming out. That said, Enfusion was said to be incredibly modular, so perhaps it's not a problem. Adding VR to an older engine is hard, but something like Enfusion is made according to modern paradigms, and as such, should be much more expansible than those that came before.

[jumpinghubert 49]

14 hours ago, dragon01 said:

BTW, voprX is not real VR, you have no depth perception there. It's a hack, basically turns the headset into a 1:1 trackIR. For a proper VR experience, you need stereoscopic rendering. For a shooter like ArmA, this is crucial, since depth perception is kind of important for how you use most gunsights.

vorpx has geometry 3D rendering for arma3, which is true stereoscopy. I use it for flying in arma3 with my HP Reverb. Via wmr motion smoothing (45fps to 90fps), my 1080Ti is enough. With a simple hotkey you can switch to the monitor view (virtual) so you have full access to all arma3 functions, including the editor. What I'm still missing for 100% immersion is motion controller support so that I can play the infantry part with gunstock :)

[Team SFS 8]

At today standards, they MUST give us VR support, the engine runs very well, and at this stage is were we need the tools to make it happen, or early support.. to develop further mods.
Fps won´t be a problem, we suffer alot with arma3 in that regard, until it was optimized (mostly)... so now we have a more optimized engine, suitable for VR with large scale maps... if the people who have vr headsets wants to play it at 29999 fps, well,,, time to upgrade, simple as that, as always.

ARMA SERIES born for VR.. that would be an incredible upgrade for Bohemia... well.. BIS with VBS4 they put VR, ok different engine, but it´s NEEDED.
We who support bohemia, buying this tech demo, need answers from the devs about this matter.

[Jackal326 1181]

24 minutes ago, Team SFS said:

At today standards, they MUST give us VR support [...]

Why? If you use the VBS4 argument, have you seen the graphical difference between VBS4 and ArmA3? VBS4 is on par with ArmA1 in terms of graphical fidelity because its a training tool designed for functionality, not a game designed to look good. Granted, not all games need to look good to have good gameplay - however in terms of advertising - graphics, like sex, sells...

Don't get me wrong, if they added VR support I'd be putting my Valve Index to good use, but to demand it is simply childish. Your "we need" position, is more of an "I want"...

[Team SFS 8]

Yes but they render the entire planet with VBS Blue..and i was talking more about the simulation aspect, rather than engine power, well.. WE who own a vr headset need VR support ha!,

[Jackal326 1181]

8 hours ago, Team SFS said:

Yes but they render the entire planet with VBS Blue..and i was talking more about the simulation aspect, rather than engine power, well.. WE who own a vr headset need VR support ha!,

I own a VR headset and would like VR support, but I'm not going to drop dead if they don't add it - so need is a stretch...

[dragon01 902]

Well, VBS makes sense as an argument, since one day they'll want to make VBS5, and that might use ArmA4 tech. Since the underlying engine is where VR support ultimately resides, it makes sense, from a futureproofing standpoint, to add it to Enfusion at some point. However, developing the gameplay to go with it. Soldiers training with VBS can be made to endure clunky UI and poor graphics, but we have higher standards. 🙂  

 

I would certainly pay for ArmA VR, that much I know. It's a weird intersection of the hardcore sim market and the tactical FPS market, the former want VR, the latter not necessarily, but I believe a product catering to VR fans and hardcore simmers would sell just fine, if done right, and it could contribute to popularizing VR on the FPS market. 

[jumpinghubert 49]

I hope vorpx supports reforger soon. What is missing is controller support.

[Sightline 3]

On 5/23/2022 at 8:16 AM, britforce said:

Arma and VR, just doesn't seem to be a match.

 

Why?, because you said so?

 

I don't know what's up with the anti-VR shilling, but MSFS 2020 renders any part of the planet as you fly along. Furthermore motion controllers would be fine I guess, but I'll be seated when playing just like I do in DCS.

[dragon01 902]

IMO, standing would work better for ArmA VR, at least for the infantry experience. Not running around, but adjusting your stance and such. It'd be a very immersive way to recreate all the movements the human body can do, and allow you to use a much wider variety of stances than the built-in ones. In DCS, seated works because, well, that's what you do in a real airplane.

[NutzMcKracken 18]

To start, the naysayer's that are relatively new to the "Armaverse" (less than 10years) just need to put a cork in it and see what happens. Buckle up and see where the journey goes as a lot of us here have seen ArmA make some interesting twists and turns you couldn't have predicted years ago.

As a long standing ArmA player & Mod dev (since ArmA 1, missed OFPS), I've seen things come and go, wishes for this and that come to fruition.

Be patient is all I can say, all the stuff we were wishing ArmA 1 had; ended up in A2 and A3; and I'm pretty certain VR is a big initiative (or should be). 

 

While the dev's are in their early days of Reforger, they do need to make this (VR) a #2 or #3 initiative in the grand scheme of things. If they don't I fear that Bohemia again, might miss the boat and opportunity to capture new players that are dead set on VR. For the idea of making the game more approachable (which Reforger is, thank god as my friends have complained about this for years) , capturing the VR scoped players will be $$$ in the bank, a good ROI from a business stand point.
 

As for the performance angle, this can not be assessed with advent of new hardware on the horizon (AMD RDNA 3 or Zen 4 on the X670E along with much more...Intel, Nvidia, etc). In about a year or 2 the hardware arena will be much more attainable and approachable and making VR in ArmA much more than a pipe dream.

[froggyluv 2135]

I would defintely love it. Thought VR was a joke but its far more immersive and further along than i expected and shooters are a real treat as are sword games. heck im not much of a Skyrim guy but after seeing what the modders have added (crazy physics interactions) had to go out and rebuy Skyrim just to check it out -pretty amazing stuff tbh

[Jackal326 1181]

22 hours ago, froggyluv said:

I would defintely love it. Thought VR was a joke but its far more immersive and further along than i expected and shooters are a real treat as are sword games. heck im not much of a Skyrim guy but after seeing what the modders have added (crazy physics interactions) had to go out and rebuy Skyrim just to check it out -pretty amazing stuff tbh

Same here. Its probably the third or fourth time I've purchased Skyrim since it came out over 10 years ago (GOTY editions and PC/XBONE) but had to get it (again) once I saw what modders had done to the VR version with physics interactions with NPCs etc. Plus, it was on sale 😃