Arma Reforger/Arma4 VR Support

[britforce 9]

On 5/26/2022 at 5:13 AM, Sightline said:

 

Why?, because you said so?

 

 

Yeah, pretty much, seeing as it was me that wrote it. 😉

[Sightline 3]

On 6/10/2022 at 9:13 AM, britforce said:

Yeah, pretty much, seeing as it was me that wrote it. 😉

 

Cool, I was just confirming that you have no legitimate reason.

[FirstPanic 39]

On 5/23/2022 at 1:21 AM, bigshot said:

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,

 

 

Resolution of current VR googles: Quest 2 = 1.8k / Index = 1.6k. Means: overall resulotion to render is <4k in total. Also current VR systems have VR performance features implemented so that you have an acceptable experience with 30fps (Don't remember the names of all the technologies but can confirm that this actually works). VR software shoots foe 60-90fps max to be in sync with the display framerate. And keep in mind: even future VR system will not have 4k per eye.

 

So, overall there is no performance issue with Arma and VR. Actually you can play Arma 3 with VorpX very well... but it's way to immersive as Arma 3 and all camera settings are not optimized for VR.

 

The basic issue is about the controls, the camera and shader settings and that the gameplay is basically different.

 

I also keep fingers crossed that there will be an option for the modding community to develop VR support.

 

 

[bigshot 64]

Heh, forget the numbers on paper because it just doesn't reflect the reality of the real world perf. here...which can be problematic as it is, without even bringing VR into the equation.

Sure, fps in Arma is ok as long as there are careful restrictions in place limiting the AI and vehicles spawning in at one time, but in larger more popular missions it's already a severe challenge on a desktop proc, never mind a mobile.

I've spent the last 8-9 years modding DUWS for Arma3 and have learned a bit about the AI and it's performance issues. To say it's been frustrating is an understatement, but to take on that sort of a headache in VR on a mobile processor?... I'd have no will to, honestly (not in 2022/2023 anyway).

[zilfondel 11]

I’m just going to reply generally to this thread as there is a lot of uninformed opinions and misinformation being promulgated in the comment replies.  This topic has come up several times over the past few years on the Arma forums as well as Arma subreddit, with a vocal minority of supports/enthusiasts being downvoted and attacked by flat screen gamers.

 

First of all, VR-ifying existing games is a solved issue.  There are dozens of mods for existing games, from Doom to Star Wars and many other titles that have fully functional VR mods for them.  These games work and offer solid VR gameplay in legacy titles on modern gaming hardware from several years ago - we’re talking 1060 and RX580 GPUs deliver 90 fps in these games.

 

Secondly, myself and several other community members HAVE been actively playing Arma 3 in VR via VorpX.  This is a fully 3D rendered environment in contemporary hardware.  Yes, it has issues - some performance related, obviously viously the software costs money, as well as complete lack of tracked controllers in some title like Arma.

 

Personally, I have put several dozen hours gameplay on my old oculus Rift CV1, but other people have played in the Reverb G2 - which is a GREATER than 4K display - its 2161 x 2161 per eye.  Yet you can see flawless rendered gameplay on this headset right here:

 

 

 

(Sorry no sound here - recording issues)

 

Best video showing Reverb G2 - 4K display in Arma:

 

 

 

 

And if you for some reason don’t believe me, there is even an Arma VR only unit which is on discord.  They do a lot of Apache flying.

 

Shit, we’ve got youtube videos showing people playing Arma in full 3D VR SEVEN YEARS AGO:

 

 

 

In sum, it is high time that Bohemia Interactive support its hardcore enthusiast members by providing tools for enabling VR in its games.  At the very least, they should stop banning players for using VorpX.  However, there are no critical hardware performance roadblocks to allowing fully 3D playable VR in the Arma engine as shown above.  The game engine is 2 decades old, probably as old as the average Arma player and with DLSS and other rendering technologies modern hardware can easily render 4K at 60 fps.

 

So stop with the negativity, the Arma gaming engine is possible of quite a lot and the future is VR.  Modern gaming hardware can easily handle it.

[zilfondel 11]

Anyways, there are a few key features that need to work to make VR viable in Arma:

 

• Controller tracking
• Interactive gun models
• Gun sights and optics that work from different viewpoints - that aren’t “painted on” like is currently done.  Parallaxing must be supported for them to work.  This is a major limitation that makes the VorpX 3d not work so well
• Inverse kinematics for player model/arm/hand interpolation - will allow players to do gestures with their controllers.  This would up the immersion from flatscreen gaming by a thousand percent.
• Ability to interact with environmental objects without using a clunky inventory system - enabling hand tracking to pick up an object from the ground and placing it into a visual inventory that is projected on your player model’s chest
• Updated view perspective with locked (but moddable) FOV.  No more FOV shifting at high speed.  No more random head movements when running or standing still.  This induces massive nausea for VR players
• Ultra low latency controller input - otherwise insta vomit fest for most players
• Allow unlocked 3d person view upon death - overriding any game settings.  To avoid nausea/vomiting.  Cut scenes and any player movement not controlled by the player should be done in 3rd person or an unlocked camera view
• Ability for modders to write directly to the VR rendering API  to do the necessary rendering
• The big one - the bull in the china shop - is an actual object based physics engine.  The ability to drop items and have them react realistically.  Vehicular crashes to not cause them to takeoff into space.  Climbing and walking up steep inclines likewise need realistic speed adjustments as VR is in some ways a walking simulator.  If everyone runs around at 25 mph it can also induce nausea.

Anyways, it does sort of seem like I am describing features for a totally different game. And yes, thats the point.

 

Am I missing anything?

[Jackal326 1179]

On 8/25/2022 at 8:36 PM, zilfondel said:

Anyways, there are a few key features that need to work to make VR viable in Arma:

[...]

Anyways, it does sort of seem like I am describing features for a totally different game. And yes, thats the point.

A long list of reasons why VR will (most likely) never be a fully supported feature in an Arma game.

[rn_max 4]

ArmA 3 and VorpX prove that it is already a viable and immersive experience, just waiting for the overdue developer support.

 

Now I have my Reforger controls sorted, I might try the ArmA3 profile.  VorpX works with Enfusion in DayZ ... if only the killjoys stop BattlEye-blocking VorpX by default even on offline shards.

 

Popping on my Valve Index and hopping in a Little Bird, for some low-level coastal hang-out-of-the-canopy time is always a blast.

 

[jumpinghubert 49]

I don't think anyone is asking Bohemia to create a perfect VR integration. Just that only the engine is changed so that everyone can create a VR mod with this engine that brings the basic features like 3-D rendering and controller motion support. And who would be so negative and destructive to be against another of hundreds of Arma mods. Or is there comparable "reasoning" with other mods? It would be the mod that would deliver by far the biggest immersion gain. 

 

[k3rnelpan1c442 0]

Wow, can't believe so many haters. Clearly they get the awesomeness and immersion of VR. I say we yes, we make it known it's a priority for us. We make it know that we either want VR out the gate or the tools (access) needed to do it ourselves. I've been fighting getting GTA V for the last week to work in VR. But there's no perfect solution. I either want to barf from the nausea, or just break things in general from the frustration of systems not working. I don't want to feel that way about the new Arma, a modern game made in 2023/24/25. There's really no excuse to not support VR in this modern age.

[Jackal326 1179]

16 hours ago, k3rnelpan1c442 said:

There's really no excuse to not support VR in this modern age.

Other than the direction of the game not fitting with VR inclusion. By your definition 'Stray' should have VR.

I don't hate VR, I just don't feel it "fits" with Arma given how it feels like a gimmick when you look how VR games are designed for it. Games such as 'Half-Life: Alyx', 'Boneworks', 'Hard Bullet', 'Blood Trail' etc have it as such an integral part of the game functionality itself. I don't want to lie on the floor of my room to go prone in a video game, whilst that might appeal to many people you again limit those who have VR but play games using it in confined spaces. Whilst many games offer this an option, given the many mechanics at play in Arma I just can't see its full-implementation the way a few here seem to see it.

Whilst there are games that support VR and have non-VR (and more main-stream) versions (Skyrim, Fallout 4 etc) they require seperate versions to play using VR. The "main/regular" games don't support VR and you can't play the VR versions like the regular versions without VR equipment. Ergo, for "proper" and "from the ground up" support for VR you'd require 2 albeit similar games developed in tandem, requiring the division of the development team to necessitate the dual-development. Otherwise, you end up with a disparity of versions where the VR version lags behind with fixes and updates where-by you would lose the "dreamed of" cross-compatibility everyone would cry out for.

I wouldn't mind seeing a smaller-scale Arma title developed solely for VR, I just don't see it being practical for inclusion in the "mainstream" version...

[froggyluv 2133]

On 10/13/2022 at 4:16 PM, Jackal326 said:

. I don't want to lie on the floor of my room to go prone in a video game,

 

I dont either but you'd  be surprised what you end up doing in VR in which youd never imagined yourself -like reading Tomes and Books while balanced on a ladder....my neighbors cat must think im loco

 

[Sightline 3]

On 10/13/2022 at 3:16 PM, Jackal326 said:

... I don't want to lie on the floor of my room to go prone in a video game...

Why in the world is everyone getting caught up with this? DCS is a sitting VR sim, it doesn't require me to build a G-force simulator or any nonsense like that. You just sit there, like normal, except you see with depth.

 

We

want

sitting

VR

for

the

immersion

 

 

 

[Dark Monarchy 0]

Spent half my gaming life on Arma franchise , bennys mod arma2  controlled  my life ,  VR  is yet a pipe dream tbh   , have a look at Wardust  VR   ,    The modders can make any vehicle  , character   in vr ,    weapons modding  is not yet stable but holy fuck  its already what arma vr  could be ,   superb vr graphics / terrible  desktop graphics,   Bohemia aint gonna move on this untill recent top end hardware is low end , have a look  peace

But its at a cost , dont expect chernarus to ever be rendered in vr  for the next few years

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Dark Monarchy

[Ady-Judge 0]

I defo think native support is coming quickly

arma series are ideal for VR With point & click for menus/commands maybe a virtual  tablet too

 

a big new market sector will open up as the best vr users have right now is onward which is no where the scope of the Arma series 

 

 

[Ady-Judge 0]

To use on a static 2d separate screen was fine in pre-2018-ish it’s a pure crime right now & like going back to pac man

( again after experiencing vr in milsim like onward that’s no where near as in-depth or as big as Arma  )

 

my pc can run arma3 flawlessly in VR and that’s using VorpX but a 3rd party software add-on isn’t a firm solution 

[Ady-Judge 0]

To add I’m running arma3 in VR rock solid 90fps

It’s sharp & crisp & I can see way more than in a monitor 

 

Nice 3d (Z buffer method not geometry as geo takes to much power  )

 

it works just fine & that's using a 3rd party app

arma 3/4/reforger is very well suited to Vr 

[ASHOT3359-6c8a91e782d9616e 0]

On 5/22/2022 at 11:18 AM, dragon01 said:

I'd propose an "ArmA VR", a separate title that would use the same assets

Separating VR players from the main ARMA playerbase is a worst mistake you could make. There is not gonna be enough players to populate 1 big battle. The most popular VR shooter Pavlov have something like 10 half empty servers.

 

On 5/22/2022 at 11:18 AM, dragon01 said:

you no longer need to toggle stances, this is accomplished by just changing your actual stance

I'm over 30 y/o, working at a factory 12h a day, i'm not doing that shit. In most VR shooters you have an option to crouch with a button press. It's always an option for the people who want to roleplay. Like me, then i'm not tired.

On 5/22/2022 at 11:18 AM, dragon01 said:

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.

Just add the option for VR people to create their own VR-only servers. Most of VR players are still gonna play on "flat" servers because most ARMA players have friends who don't own VR. Better play with slight disadvantage than trying to have fun on almost empty server.

[Sniperturtle 1]

On 5/22/2022 at 11:41 PM, Jackal326 said:

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...

That's not true as evidenced by games such as Skyrim or Hitman. And why would it be, since you just take what is already there and render it twice from 2 different angles, that was no problem back in the days when i played OG Operation Flashpoint on shutter glasses so it's most definitely not a problem now.

[Jackal326 1179]

1 hour ago, Sniperturtle said:

That's not true as evidenced by games such as Skyrim or Hitman.

Both of which have maps/levels that are tiny in comparison to a game such as Arma...Even Skyrim's "main" map is small when compared to Altis, but even if you were to seamlessly add all of the dungeons and interiors (which of course are separate "levels") it still would not come close.

 

Quote

[...] since you just take what is already there and render it twice from 2 different angles, that was no problem back in the days when i played OG Operation Flashpoint on shutter glasses so it's most definitely not a problem now.

Are you seriously saying "it was possible in OFP, so it will be possible in Reforger"? You're forgetting one big difference between Operation Flashpoint and more modern titles - Graphical fidelity. OFP's graphics were shit compared to Reforger which is a much more demanding and system-taxing engine due to higher detail terrain, object rendering and texture resolution. I don't think you'll find doing the same thing to be "no problem" nowadays...

[Sniperturtle 1]

14 hours ago, Jackal326 said:

Both of which have maps/levels that are tiny in comparison to a game such as Arma...Even Skyrim's "main" map is small when compared to Altis, but even if you were to seamlessly add all of the dungeons and interiors (which of course are separate "levels") it still would not come close.

 

Are you seriously saying "it was possible in OFP, so it will be possible in Reforger"? You're forgetting one big difference between Operation Flashpoint and more modern titles - Graphical fidelity. OFP's graphics were shit compared to Reforger which is a much more demanding and system-taxing engine due to higher detail terrain, object rendering and texture resolution. I don't think you'll find doing the same thing to be "no problem" nowadays...

To 1: That does not matter at all since most of the map is not loaded into the graphic memory so long as it is not required.

To 2: OFP was as taxing on hardware at its time as ArmA 3 is on current hardware.

[Jackal326 1179]

On 6/30/2024 at 10:01 AM, Sniperturtle said:

To 1: That does not matter at all since most of the map is not loaded into the graphic memory so long as it is not required.

True, to an extent, but you'd have to seriously limit the view-distance as I am unsure whether you would get away with a 20km view distance in VR given the double-rendering required...Who knows, I'm not a game engine developer...

 

Quote

To 2: OFP was as taxing on hardware at its time as ArmA 3 is on current hardware.

Was it though? Was it really?

[Phan Jacky 0]

Squad works perfectly fine with VR for example 72 fps on my 3090. very sharp resolution with quest pro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t40cjqWzFgc

 

[Phan Jacky 0]

On 10/13/2022 at 10:16 PM, Jackal326 said:

Other than the direction of the game not fitting with VR inclusion. By your definition 'Stray' should have VR.

I don't hate VR, I just don't feel it "fits" with Arma given how it feels like a gimmick when you look how VR games are designed for it. Games such as 'Half-Life: Alyx', 'Boneworks', 'Hard Bullet', 'Blood Trail' etc have it as such an integral part of the game functionality itself. I don't want to lie on the floor of my room to go prone in a video game, whilst that might appeal to many people you again limit those who have VR but play games using it in confined spaces. Whilst many games offer this an option, given the many mechanics at play in Arma I just can't see its full-implementation the way a few here seem to see it.

Whilst there are games that support VR and have non-VR (and more main-stream) versions (Skyrim, Fallout 4 etc) they require seperate versions to play using VR. The "main/regular" games don't support VR and you can't play the VR versions like the regular versions without VR equipment. Ergo, for "proper" and "from the ground up" support for VR you'd require 2 albeit similar games developed in tandem, requiring the division of the development team to necessitate the dual-development. Otherwise, you end up with a disparity of versions where the VR version lags behind with fixes and updates where-by you would lose the "dreamed of" cross-compatibility everyone would cry out for.

I wouldn't mind seeing a smaller-scale Arma title developed solely for VR, I just don't see it being practical for inclusion in the "mainstream" version...

Do you even play VR? none of thwat you say is true. None of the VR games require you to crouch or lie down to lie down ingame.

While there is ofc an additional effort in development it´s all a spectrum. Things can already be very fun an a base level of integration. Basically change nothing except that you can use guns with vr controllers and body moving accoridngly. That´s really all that is needed.

The main reason SkyrimVR and FalloutVR are seperate games are bc they wanted to cash in again on the product. Literally almost all mods created work for the VR version as well.

Hence I think an inclusion into the main branch wouldnt be much of an issue at all.

[Jackal326 1179]

1 hour ago, Phan Jacky said:

Do you even play VR? none of thwat you say is true. None of the VR games require you to crouch or lie down to lie down ingame.

While there is ofc an additional effort in development it´s all a spectrum. Things can already be very fun an a base level of integration. Basically change nothing except that you can use guns with vr controllers and body moving accoridngly. That´s really all that is needed.

The main reason SkyrimVR and FalloutVR are seperate games are bc they wanted to cash in again on the product. Literally almost all mods created work for the VR version as well.

Hence I think an inclusion into the main branch wouldnt be much of an issue at all.

Yes I do play VR. I've owned a Valve Index for several years now. Thank you for your interest.

 

As I'm sure your vast game-development history can help BI in their inclusion of such features I can't wait for them to hire you. Then you can begin your work on the inclusion of the myriad of features immediately given that you say the inclusion will be easy and "not much of an issue". I look forward to VR's inclusion and you will have the community's thanks...

 

Whilst your cash-in comment may be true, and the cross-compatibility of (some) mods is certainly true, you must acknowledge that given the distinctly different versions of the games in question that if multiplayer were to be factored in (I appreciated Fallout 4 and Skyrim are not multiplayer - but Arma certainly is), there is certainly the potential that the community could be divided if VR and non-VR players were unable to play together? That was the point I was trying to make that clearly a few people here have misunderstood.

 

A few of you seem to think I'm against the inclusion of VR in the Arma franchise, that is simply not the case. However none of you seem to realise that VR's inclusion would not be an easy task - you all just seem to think that BI can conjure up some sort of magic-wand, wave it and have VR functionality included just because we (I use the term broadly to include the whole community as many of you don't seem to understand the 'us vs them' debate) want VR to be included. The fact is I would love for Arma to have VR included as an optional feature, that doesn't divide the community with a separate game version or site behind a DLC pay-wall. However, I'm slightly more pragmatic that I realise that arguing with people on a forum, posting my opinions as facts and throwing my toys out of the pram when people disagree with me wont get me very far.