Armed Assault Annoyances 1.01

[hoak 0]

A Sort Of Preamble

This thread is inspired by the exellent O'Reilly Windows, and Linux Annoyances books. If you're familiar with these books you probably already understand the intentions of this thread...

                     

For those not familiar; the Windows Annoyances and Linux Annoyances books are concise references of functional issues, literal design annoyances, with brilliant and often clever work-arounds and tweaks.

The O'Reilly Annoyances books are great for making these operating sytems perform better, easier to use, and have been instrumental in influencing both Microsoft and Linux Developers in improving and shaping the OS.

Since Armed Assault is a game that's absolutely epic in features and scale that approach the complexity of an operating system; I thought this would be a great venue to start a thread of similar purpose.

This is not a bug thread; though there is sure to be some over-lap as some annoyances do involve bugs and/or are consequences ArmA development that were not the design intentions of the Developers.

Hopefully this thread can be a positive and constructive resource for Fans, Mod Developers, and even BI -- as it hopefully will address material in an organized fashion that for the most part does not appear anywhere else in cogent digest form. I'll update the topic post with everyone's contributions and credits as long as Fans remain interested and contribute constructively to the thread.

So if you have a pet peeve about something you find ridiculously annoying -- that seems so no practical reason; or even better if you have a practical fix, work-around or helpful solution to any of the annoyances posted, this is a place to constructively vent and help out!

Here's some of the latest Annoyances (updated 15.12.2005):

Tactical Navigation Map Slow Load & Game Reload

First mentioned by My_Shortcoming, who also points out that this was not an issue in OFP which loaded the Navigation Maps and mission information quickly...

No Download Progress Display

If you're downloading mission or game info from a server 5133p39 points out that there's no progress information in the form of a progress bar, percentage or Kb counter.  And indeed the waits can be ridiculously long or even stall completely with nothing to let you know what's happening...

No Integrated Frame Rate Display

While ArmA Fans may be able to use third party utilities like Fraps, D3D Gear, or GameCam (Free) to measure frame rate, all these utilities install drivers that:

·  may make games on the installed system more unstable

·  may lower game performance even when not running

·  do not always accurately measure frame rate

·  always lower frame rate when running

·  have known issues with SLI and Crossfire systems

This seems a rather dismal oversight for such a modern game; there's absolutely no reason not to offer these performance metrics built in as Microsoft makes it literally effortless for any DirectX game to incorporate such a display.

True Ping Meter & Net Metrics Display

Low net connection latency and high quality are essential to a gratifying multi-player game experience.  Without detailed empirical data to determine net quality game Fans will have a difficult time choosing the best server to play on, determining fair match server conditions, and may often displace blame from connection quality and it's anomalies to issues of the quality of the game, i.e. a direct quote from a MP game: "ArmA is a crappy, laggy, poorly optimised game!" which is clearly untrue...

These metrics are easy for a Developer to create a proper display in absolutes of:  ping in micro-seconds, number packet lost, and can even be made into nice and very easy to understand real-time graphic displays like the id Software Lag-O-Meter, and the Valve NetGraph...

Non-Functional Tac Light on M4A1SD

LT.INSTG8R has observed that the while the ArmA M4A1SD mounts a tactical light, it's not a functional feature which is odd considering vehicles have working headlights. LT.INSTG8R points out that this may be due to render performance issues, but then one has to wonder why was it even modeled as an attachment in the first place.

Definitely some ammunition for Modders if it doesn't seee attention from BI -- if there's substantial render over-head involved perhaps special maps and missions that indulge these more realistic features can be devised.

Lens Flares

Great for screen shots, and as an effect when looking through optics but ridiculous and completely unrealistic to have on all the time.  The fad of 'look we have lens flares on every bright light source' came and went long ago; it's just silly in a game that's supposed to be realistic...

Rattus points out these are only on the third-person perspective, many do play with this perspective, and consider the lens flar effect an annoyance.  Would be nice as an option for screen shots etc...

Binocular Optics IPD Convergence

When you correctly adjust the IPD (inter-pupillary distance) in any binocular optical instrument (Night Vision Goggles, Binoculars, and any binocular Vehicle Mounted Weapon Sight system) -- you should have a perfectly converged circle, not two merged circles, and definately not an oblate oval. It would be nice if ArmA's NVG and Binocular masks represented properly adjusted instruments -- and not the Hollywood/TV affectations currently used.

Thus far the only game I know of to get this right is Rainbow Six Raven Shield...

HDR Light

In addition to the performance over-head discussed elsewhere on the forums, HDR Light is of questionable realism on several grounds due to it's dynamic nature, the fact that it can only emulate some arbitrary average human response, and that due to limitations of Armed Assaults implementation it will have different light render outcomes on different systems...

The best solution here is to offer the option to turn it off completely, but according to a post by one of the Developers that is not possible, only the precision of HDR can be adjusted...

Update (15.12.2006): Lee_H._Oswald posted this video demonstrating the flaky behavior some of us experience with HDR lgiht, (some have posted here and elswhere they're so annoyed they refuse to play until there's a work-around...

ACI suggested a possible correction with: "HDR response needs to be dependent on viewpoint, not aimpoint"...  If HDR response is indeed point source as it appears to be, I'd add that it should be based on some averaged sum of a view port and not a point source light sample...

Load Screen Schizophrenia

When attempting to join a server, or start a mission the player has to watch a virtual fireworks display of load screens, and on joining a server click through many redundant menus.

The ArmA multiple load screens that restart and have progress indicators on top and bottom lends a another rough-edge to the interface that makes knowing real load progress impossible.   One load screen with one progress bar, that actually gives a better approximation of how far along the load process is would be a lot more polished and professional and less of a hectic eye sore.

UI Design

The current UI is quite inconsistent; employs no less then 14 different approaches to interface layout for related and similar features, and has many redundant features requiring excessive and unnecessery input from the user.  

One consistent interface throughout the game, that only requires the player to execute his choice one time from one place rather then have to go through a three to five menu process as in joining a server would greatly stream-line and professionalize the game.  Menus to select menus is really ridiculous...

FPP TPP Camera Transition Blanking

The screen blanking feature when changing from first to third person appears to be an aesthetic choice to clearly delineate the two perspectives -- it's a choice some may like, but others do not. An option for the legacy OFP smooth zoom camera transition would be a nice touch.

Third Person Camera Features, Behavior & Physics

Armed Assaults Third Person camera is a bit rough around the edges on such an otherwise state-of-the art game. The Armed Assault Third Person Camera appears to be a rather primitive camera/code implementation that has no physics, no damping, and is no axis locking... With the entire ground shifting violently and suddenly at the slightest mouse twitch and zero camera damping on functional axis makes the ArmA Third Person Camera is very hard on the eyes, (some stomachs).

That this all looks (and performs) like something from a game nearly a decade old, rather then the camera that belongs in the state-of-the-art LSS tactical realism game of the decade should be a recipe for some attention. Simple damping, axis locking, zoom, perhaps some damped slew, and simple small latitude damped spring around obstacles would make this a much nicer feature...  This isn't very code intensive either as there's lots of open source camera code freely available...

[funnyguy1 0]

official bugs list on the wiki

topic about bugs here

[hoak 0]

As clearly stated; these are not "bugs"; in most cases these are not even "issues -- so I didn't feel comfortable submitting them to the Wiki...

These are annoyances, that is to say either poor implementations of functionality, aesthetic warts, or game assets and feature implementations that otherwise make the game ugly, awkward, and/or unnecessarily unrealistic...

I guess I was hopeing for some respons from other Fans, and where there is consensus that something really is strongly detracts from the game or is very annoying -- it might get BI's attention, or at that point be worth submitting to the Wiki...

[shortstop 0]

Prolly better to scan through the wish list and add your "annoyances" to that.

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Armed_Assault:_Wish_List

[whisper 0]

For myself, I find the HDR effects really adds to the game. It's annoying, but I got exactly the same annoyance yesterday while driving on the road. Looks fine to me.

From what Suma said, it's not easy to remove HDR as it looks like it's a core component of the current 3D renderer.

[hoak 0]

shortstop if you want to add anything on the short-list here to the Wiki; go for it -- I'm weary of getting squacked at for every post I make, and not putting everything in someone elese's made up order to suit their needs...  If this stuff gets looked at, great, if it doesn't I really don't care...

whisper, I know, HDR Light looks great on some systems, but on others like my SLI rig it's a flickering schizophrenic head-ache that has nothing to do with the positions of the light sources.

I've seen the game on yet other sytems where HDR behaved even worse then mine, and don't imagine my frind pOOdles will be playing much ArmA on that account.

[Rattus 0]

While all tzhe other points are at least arguable, I've never ever experienced lens flare in arma. The screen whites almost out when looking diretly into light sources like the sun or headlights, but no lens flare effect whatsoever is visible... thank god

EDIT: Jus noticed that there is a lens flare effect when in 3rd person mode. I like that, because why should a magically floating camera behind you act like an eye? Additionally, who uses the 3rd person view to actually play?

[frederf 0]

Lens Flares

Binocular Optics IPD Convergence

HDR Light

Load Screen Schizophrenia

UI Design

FPP TPP Camera Transition

Third Person Camera Features, Behavior & Physics

About the lens flares, you're quite right the human eyeball doesn't do that. Thankfully it's an option that's easily ticked off. Having it in (seems a tip of the hat to the GRAW crowd, but hey they have money) allows people to record videos and such with it in which might be simulating camera footage (which do have lens flares).

The black masque for NVGs and binocs should be a circle to be 100% faithful to reality, but I can understand why BIS would choose a more oblique masque because our monitors are wider than they are tall and they wanted to use the max amount of space. I can't remember if the binocs have an oval view or a "two circle" view, the two circle view is complete fiction, it's true. I can only suppose that our friendly developers are game makers first and physicists/neurobiologists second.

HDR, like most new-fangled game advents, gets overused or over exaggerated. Take rag doll physics for example. Most games employing this show lifeless bodies as if they were literally sawdust and cloth toys, not the stiff heavy collections of muscle, bone, and so on they are. When I turn in a 360 in game, my screen darkens instantly when the sun comes into view and it's rather drastic. I do the same outside and the same doesn't occur. HDR, when done right, is mostly undetectable... but then again how do you sell a game when your cool new feature is so subtle you might not notice it? You crank that bad-boy up! A cute quirk of the HDR is when you enter or exit a vehicle (including say a mounted M2 .50cal) your iris gets reset so you are temporarily blinded (in the case of NVGs at night) for no reason. You've noticed that visual options has Post Processing Low High instead of a more rigorous and (ahem) useful selection of options too? I think game devs fear having their advanced options too advanced for some reason. If I ever make a game when you click the "advanced" button in the options, let me assure you there will be at least 3 items on it that you haven't even heard of! I hear there's a text edit for the HDR btw. I'm keeping it because it's a valiant attempt and I enjoy a broken HDR more than no HDR, but to each his own.

I noted that the load screens were rather more "busy" than OFP's, but I do notice how more art can be displayed and you lose the sense that you're waiting a long time if it's broken up like that. I do like the increase in feedback about how it's loading. If I was making a huge mission I could tell how demanding it was by when and where the load bars paused. Didn't you know 3 10second waits are shorter than 1 30second wait?

Like much of ArmA, most of the UI is recycled from OFP, which explains why there are a dozen or more UI layouts in the game. At this point I've taken non-sensible UIs to be the rule rather than the exception. Your criticism is well-noted, but don't be surprised when people are happy it works at all, is in their language, and will probably not share your keen sense of observation.

I have also noted that BIS put a greater "sense of occation" into the 1st-3rd camera switch. It seems more theatric, slower now... but do I feel the old OFP way was undoubtedly better? I think it comes down to personal preference and none is inherently better. As far as making it an option, this is always a nice sentiment but BIS seems heckbent on toning down the option list. If every ArmA/OFP difference was given an option in the options menu it'd be 10 pages long (and we'd both love it) but BIS seems to think this is more which (which it is) and scary to the new players (which it might.) I mean, how many people did Falcon4AF scare away because it had about 30,000 buttons?

[twisted 127]

the onething i agree with you on is the load screens.

everything else is good as is (especially HDR - that great although i have noticed its less sensitive with post processing set to low but i might be wrong on that) for me.

annoyances are matters of personal preference and everyone has there own opinion. yours is very well expressed.

[My_Shortcoming 0]

My one and only real annoyance is the laggy map screen that loads after each use. I would rather have a OFP style and quality map than the new with loading screens, the old was functional and if you were looking at it and a snap ambush hits you you could jump right back into the action instead of Sh*ting your pants at a loading screen hoping to god your not a seagull on return.

Good topic and very fair.

[desertfox 2]

Load Screen Schizophrenia

How about you simply add '-nosplash' to your shortcut ?

UI Design

It's made this way on purpose. In this state, no CS player can find the multiplayer option. A brilliant design !

[5133p39 14]

Load Screen Schizophrenia

How about you simply add '-nosplash' to your shortcut ?

You misunderstood - he isn't talking about the "splash screens", but about the various "LOADING screens" with miscelaneous "LOADING bars" which are being displayed when you are opening some island in the editor, or when you are starting a mission, etc.

[whisper 0]

Load Screen Schizophrenia

How about you simply add '-nosplash' to your shortcut ?

He's not talking about the startup load screen, but the mission launch ones, and even multiplayer ones, which are numerous, to say the least :P

[hoak 0]

Frederf, nice post -- we share a lot of perspective and sentiments.  My only exception would be that if they feel they must use the full aspect ratio of the screen for binocular optics -- they should use a clipped circle, or no masks at all instead of the laughable Hollywood affectations currently in place.

Last I heard (and it was the official word from one of the Developers), you can not turn off HDR Light, only raise and lower its precision...  But if you know otherwise, I'd appreciate a PM about it...

My_Shortcoming makes mention of another great addition to the list -- something that's also bothered me, that I'll add when I get home from work.

I should perhaps amplify that for the most part I regard these are minor issues, but in total they can detract from the game for some where there are on options offered. And they do add some rough edges to the game that if polished up will make it all shine that much brighter.

Desertfox (cute Avitar BTW, most people are so bent on 'butching it up virtually' I love stuff like your Avita):D I wasn't writing about the start-up load and spash screens; but the multiple reload and progress bar screens between mission, maps, and when joining MP games. LOLs about the UI observation, but I'd consider any CS Fan that tries ArmA and loves it "saved"...  

Thanks all for more constructive discussion!

[5133p39 14]

I would also add to the annoyances the absence of any percent, or Kb counter in MP when downloading mission from server.

You are just staring at black screen with some simple statement (something like "loading, be patient", or whatever it is, i don;t remember it exactly) and you have no clue whether your game freezed, or what is really happening.

[hoak 0]

Another excellent addition by 5133p39, and I thought of two more that really make no sense: no real latency metrics in micro-seconds, and no built in frame rate display.

There's absolutely no reason not to offer these performance metrics built in! Especially in the case of frame rate which can no longer be measured on many system (like SLI systems) via external applications like FRAPS and D3D Gear -- and these applications no longer give accurate measure on any system due to the DirectX driver over-head these external apps install...

I'll update the topic post when I get home with the new additions, credits, a clearer statement of purpose for the thread, and it's inspiration by the professional O'Reilly Annoyances Books, and how it's intended as a help to Fans, Mod Developers, and BI...

[desertfox 2]

Gotcha Hoak. Thought indeed you mean the barrage of splash sreens.

One more thing concerning the lightning effects. I really think they add a lot more atmosphere to the game. They even add realism to the game in terms of enemies attacking out of the direction of a low-standing sun are hard to spot. But it needs a lot of fine tuning. Many times it is simply exaggeratedly bright and in other places too dark. Guess that's one of the main things BIS is working on currently.

To the binoculars - You are surely right about how they really should look. Guess it's simply a black 2D overlay anyways, so it could be changed easily. Not a big deal.

Third person camera - I consider 3rd person view as cheating lol. I prefer to play on servers where it is disabled by default.

Concerning my Avita: I think people call it Avatar

And yep, I just luv foxes, they are awesome animals - some of which do bite though. Heh.

[LT.INSTG8R 0]

Not so much about the aesthetics as just another annoyance(tho I agree with all points made so far)

Why does the M4A1SD have a Tac Light but we cant use it? Vehicles have working headlights, I mean if it was to big a performance hit I understand but I can think of many times I could have found it handy with it staring me right in the face and not be able to use it.

[lee_h._oswald 0]

... but on others like my SLI rig it's a flickering schizophrenic head-ache that has nothing to do with the positions of the light sources.

That could be the reason for me stop playing ArmA.

It hurts my eyes, it's pure horror.

Take a look at this: -> Click for small video. <-

Is there no way to get rid of this?

MfG Lee

[yarex 0]

Hoak and similar

[ACF 0]

... it's a flickering schizophrenic head-ache that has nothing to do with the positions of the light sources.

That could be the reason for me stop playing ArmA.

It hurts my eyes, it's pure horror.

Is there no way to get rid of this?

I imagine it could be sorted quite easily.

HDR response needs to be dependent on viewpoint, not aimpoint, i.e. HDR effects should only be seen as your head (or 3rd person camera) moves relative to the light source.

Why not post it as a bug and link your very informative video clip?

[hoak 0]

I just updated the topic post with a sort of digest approach to new contrabutions... If the thread gets popular I'll format the topic post better, and add page links to individual contrabution discussions...

Nice and helpful posts here from everyone, I know I sure appreciate learning more from people that know more then I do about this stuff!

[jaguax 0]

The very first thing I noticed upon loading the game up was the horrible HDR implementation. As I was turning, it seemed to be getting dark outside, so I figured maybe it was cloud blocking the sun or something... Nope, just the twitchy HDR... Depending on the amount of land on the screen, the brightness will vary GREATLY, at some points it makes it look like a completely different time of day until you make a 180 degree turn and it magically gets brighter.

[hoak 0]

Yes, jaguax I've even updated the HDR section of the topic post with some lastest info...  

According to one of the Developers HDR can not be disabled, only it's precision changed so if that's final we're stuck and must hope for adjustments as ACF and I have proposed...

The 1.02 patch has seemed to smooth out HDR a little on my system, but others I speak to see no improvement and are still very, *cough*, annoyed and frustrated...  

I'm very pleased with the progress the patches are making, so I imagine we'll see more refinement to HDR considering the number of people that are finding it to perform very erratically on their systems...

[TheReddog 0]

Well now that I have a German version in my hot little hands I'd like to weigh in on the HDR discussion.

Personally I think that making HDR mandatory is a) lazy from a scalability standpoint and b) screwing all the people with machines around the 'recommended' specs right in the... well you know where the sun doesn't shine?

My simple reasoning for this is that HDR at the moment is in it's infancy and while it definitely will look fantastic in the future (hey I've seen the high end HDR tech demos) right now it doesn't look all that great and costs a HUGE performance overhead. It really hurts performance for anyone hovering around the recommended specs and basically excludes a lot of mid end systems outright from running the game on anything but 'looks like arse' settings and even then without good fps. This in the end limits your customer base as people with the low-mid stuff like 6600's etc just won't buy it or will get little enjoyment out of it when they do (which equals bad word of mouth).

In my opinion the bottom line is that from a hardware standpoint it isn't fair or smart at all to make something so costly performance wise like HDR mandatory until the average PC can handle it well, after all we're not all financially able to buy latest generation PC's you know! It's akin to a game making AA/AF mandatory in the GeForce 2 days.

By all means there's nothing wrong with wanting to have the nicest possible lighting in the game but having no option to turn it off is just leaving so many people out in the cold. Personally my PC is pretty much dead on the recommended specs and the game runs pretty damn well on normal settings with post proc, shaders and shadows low at 1024x768. But it frustrates me because I know if I could turn HDR off I could bump a lot of things up and get better performance than I do now.

Also on top of what I have said above I don't think the implementation itself is all that great either. To put it simply it is downright skittish. There are innumerable instances where the lighting does strange things, like on every single dusk map or in any dark area if I look at my feet the lighting brightens up to 'sunny day' levels, same thing happens in dark areas when I look through the sight of the M136. It also gyrates wildly between bright and very dark depending on which way my charcter is facing on a sunny day, I have never seen that happen in the real world. One compliment though at least there's none of these 'glowing buildings' like in DODS

I know there are arguments for HDR being mandatory, like it won't be fair on people with it on in MP who have their vision glared by the sun against those who don't etc etc. IMHO that's hogwash for people who have it off there could still be flares and bloom used to 'white out' your screen when looking at the sun.

Basically I think that regardless of how hard it may be BIS should work on making it optional in a future update, even if they have to rewrite a chunk of the engine.