Terrain detail - wow!

[Guest]

RAM does wonders more or less, if you have some spare money for your computer and want to upgrade it a little, go for the RAM.

I will go for it tomorrow. I am really curious if I can switch to "very high" terrain with 1024mb ram.

I will post a report here tomorrow.

[Milkman 1]

RAM does wonders more or less, if you have some spare money for your computer and want to upgrade it a little, go for the RAM.

I will go for it tomorrow. I am really curious if I can switch to "very high" terrain with 1024mb ram.

I will post a report here tomorrow.

You will need more than 1024mb of ram to play very high detail without lag. You need a nice video card like iNeo's 9800. I played on very high detail once, 15fps steady, but I wouldn't suggest any sudden movements.

[pitufo 0]

hmmm i upgraded awhile ago from 512 to 1024 RAM, mind you it's SDram, with a 2GHz P4 and I haven't noticed much improvement on anything anywhere on my system I got a ATI 8500 LE 128MB too. Mabye I'll wait a couple years and buy a superdooper computer.

[theavonlady 2]

I played on very high detail once, 15fps steady, but I wouldn't suggest any sudden movements.

http://img22.photobucket.com/albums/v67/Milkman1/5-30-04d.jpg

I don't think that guy's gonna make any sudden movements ever again.

[Guest]

Is there a way to enable a FPS counter in OFP?

[Placebo 29]

No, there's not an inbuilt function, but you can use FRAPS.

[Guest major gandhi]

my specs:

pentium 4 2ghz

256 mb ram

radeon 8500

I once tried to put always one of the settings to max (like view distance = 5000) and it always became a dia show at least when the game didn't crash.

i'm playing on terrain detail low, visual deatil between 6-7 and view distance 1800.

When normally playing combat situation it already lags a little bit,especially when a lot of units meet eachother. now i have a little bit of extra money and i'm thinking about buying more ram. do you think this would pay off? how important is ram for ofp, especially if you have a lot of units on the map?

[Mister Frag 0]

Yes, if you don't mind playing with a short view distance, you can play with "Very High" terrain detail and no lag.

However, I find that "Very High" kind of wrecks the game if the mission involves ground vehicles, so I avoid it. I also prefer being able to see a good distance, I never play with it set to less than 2500 meters. I also minimize the frame rate and max out visual quality, use the lowest LOD, use the largest textures available, use AA and AF, and play at 1600x1200 (or 1280x1024 if I record a in-game movie).

My system has a 3.06GHz P4 @ 3.2GHz, 1GB of RAM, a GeForce FX 5900XT, and Windows XP.

[Homefry 0]

Yes, adding RAM will make quite a difference. You'll benefit in OFP, Windows, and pretty much any other application with more RAM.

[shinRaiden 0]

From the commented config files, config.cpp : class defaultworld

Quote[/b] ]

// fractal and white noise random offset are added

// white noise generated more "wild" terrain

// fractal tends to generate smooth, varied terrain

class Subdivision

{

// fractal component of subdivision

// changes are smaller for smaller rectangles

class Fractal

{

// texture roughness factor

rougness = 10;

// max. value for squares containing road

maxRoad = 0.2;

// max. value for squares containing track

maxTrack = 1.0;

// max. coeficient depending on slope

maxSlopeFactor = 0.05;

};

// white noise component of subdivision

// change size is independent on rectangle size

class WhiteNoise

{

rougness = 5;

// max. value for squares containing road

maxRoad = 0.1;

// max. value for squares containing track

maxTrack = 0.5;

// max. coeficient depending on slope

maxSlopeFactor = 0.025;

};

// do not divide surfaces that are under given limit

minY = -0.0;

// do not divide flat surfaces

minSlope = 0.02;

};

Also, 1024mb is really an absolute minimum. When I run up the detail level, OFP bloats to ~700mb, mainly on the step from High to VeryHigh. And that's on 12km maps. 102km's start there on very_low, and ctd any higher. While you're at it, get 2x512's and dual channel them.

[MrZig 0]

You'll only see a real improvment with dual channel if you use P4's I think.

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX 0]

Nope, but that wasn't what this was about, according to Mr Frag Suma said that "the hardware to play on "Very High" doesn't exist yet," nothing was mentioned about view distance.

...Because that's obvious... if you put the viewdistance to 50m you could run maximum terrain detail on a p3 450 and 3dfx card

[Guest]

Yes, if you don't mind playing with a short view distance, you can play with "Very High" terrain detail and no lag.

However, I find that "Very High" kind of wrecks the game if the mission involves ground vehicles, so I avoid it. I also prefer being able to see a good distance, I never play with it set to less than 2500 meters. I also minimize the frame rate and max out visual quality, use the lowest LOD, use the largest textures available, use AA and AF, and play at 1600x1200 (or 1280x1024 if I record a in-game movie).

My system has a 3.06GHz P4 @ 3.2GHz, 1GB of RAM, a GeForce FX 5900XT, and Windows XP.

You minimize the framerate in the options menu? What is that good for?

Oh and how can you adjust the LODs? You mean the two sliders in the preferences? Doesn't the game look a bit blurry with the LODs set to it's minimum?

[Placebo 29]

Mr. Frag will give a better more tech answer but the smaller the LOD number the higher the image/model quality/sharpness,the lowest it will go to is 0.005.

Minimising the framerate is good to stop that annoying pop-up you often see with vegetation/trees where they change texture in front of your eyes because the game thinks it's running too slow or something

[toadlife 3]

You'll only see a real improvment with dual channel if you use P4's I think.

Athlon64s' on chip memory controller will give you the same (or better) performance with OFP as any P4 rig.

[MrZig 0]

Yes but not many people have A64s yet..

[Mister Frag 0]

I maximize the video quality and minimize the framerate in the Video Options because I'd rather play at a lower framerate with all the trees etc. visible all the time, instead of playing at a higher framerate with objects appearing out of thin air. Since the eye and brain are easily distracted by movement (especially in the peripheral vision), minimizing the number of objects that suddenly appear as you move around or scan the horizon will help let you concentrate on spotting enemies.

If your system is sufficiently powerful, in the end minimizing the desired framerate has little effect, because even though you only asked for a low framerate, the system can actually deliver a higher one, and will do so quite happily.

The LOD (Level of Detail) bias controls when higher-detail models and textures are displayed as the distance of the object to the viewer decreases. If you want OFP to select the highest detail model and textures, you want to minimize the LOD, i.e. move the slider all the way to the right. If your system lags or you prefer high framerates over visual detail, move it left. If you are asking OFP and your graphics card to still draw a detailed model and resize textures to fit a tiny spec that is 2000+ meters away, it will obviously have to do alot of extra work...

It is also worth noting that the major video card drivers have an LOD setting, even if it isn't exposed in their stock control panel dialogs. Besides minimizing the LOD in the Advanced section of the OFP Preferences, I also apply a negative LOD bias in the ForceWare drivers using RivaTuner.

[Guest]

Thanks for the explanation Mr.Frag!

I'll try that out.

As I said I wanted to give a little report when my system has 1024MB ram. This is the case now and I am very happy with the results.

My system:

AMD 2000+

Geforce FX 5900XT

1024MB ram

Windows XP

I switched the terrain to "very high" and it runs really smooth. I had huge problems with 512MB ram running "very high" terrain.

Great for the infantry squad leader! Horrible for the tank commander !

[sanctuary 19]

Hello

After looking at those wonderfull screenshots, i have a question.

What happen on an online game, if one player have selected this very high terrain setting, and another player a normal one ?

New geography features seem to appear on the very high terrain (new "holes" , new "hills" ) and provide new potential cover for units and vehicles or will "bounce" vehicles moves , how the netcode will understand this and report to the player with normal terrain ?

[MrZig 0]

Quote[/b] ]What happen on an online game, if one player have selected this very high terrain setting, and another player a normal one ?

In mutliplayer, the terrain setting is set automatically for all users to very low.

[B-2-0 0]

Quote[/b] ]What happen on an online game, if one player have selected this very high terrain setting, and another player a normal one ?

In mutliplayer, the terrain setting is set automatically for all users to very low.

Not so.

The terrain detail and view distance is governed by the server settings.

You can of course override these settings by defining your desired levels of terrain detail and view distance in the init.sqs of a mission.

[sanctuary 19]

The terrain detail and view distance is governed by the server settings.

You can of course override these settings by defining your desired levels of terrain detail and view distance in the init.sqs of a mission.

Thanks for the answer.

[Silent N Deadly 0]

Quote[/b] ]Not so.

The terrain detail and view distance is governed by the server settings.

You can of course override these settings by defining your desired levels of terrain detail and view distance in the init.sqs of a mission.

Wow, I did not know that. So in an online game everyone has the terrain detail set to a predetermined setting? Hmmm, interesting.

[llauma 0]

Quote[/b] ]Not so.

The terrain detail and view distance is governed by the server settings.

You can of course override these settings by defining your desired levels of terrain detail and view distance in the init.sqs of a mission.

Wow, I did not know that. So in an online game everyone has the terrain detail set to a predetermined setting? Hmmm, interesting.  

It would be quite strange if the players had different terrains in MP.

[suma 8]

The terrain detail and view distance is governed by the server settings.

No, it is not. "Low" setting is used as, no matter what setting is used on the host/server computer.

Quote[/b] ]You can of course override these settings by defining your desired levels of terrain detail and view distance in the init.sqs of a mission.

This is however true. Mission setting applied using setTerrainGrid is respected.