Non-animated trees/grass = more preformence?

[DaSquade 0]

First of all didn't knew where to post it, so posted it here...feel free to move/delete/lock it.

Ok, so we all know that (especially) tree area's are a real FPS eater. Offcourse you could think the tree's aren't very poly friendly, but recently i was thinking if it couldn't be the fact that the trees are animated (wave in the wind). One animated tree must have a small impact on the overall performence, so what about a forrest or a view that has +50 trees?

So ok, it is nice BIS implanted this feature, BUT is it worth it (hard to check, as so far i don't know if it can be disabled, so can't compare)? Don't get me wrong, but imho this can be classified as 'eyecandy' and if it would improve performence i could accepted a non animated world (including grass).

So i'm wondering if this could be disabled in one of the cfg's or if this is hard coded in the engine and only a BIS patch could implant a disable option in the option menu. Maybe even a wildlife/leaves disable option...(eyecandy aswell imho).

Conclussion: and don't get me wrong. But BIS mentioned it didn't wanted to go the way the overall game industry go (that is going the eyecandy-grafic direction), but tend to support gameplay that imho includes performence... .

In the end, animated trees/grass doesn't really affect overall realistic feel and doesn't affect combat awareness. Consider this as a performence boost for low-mid end computers.

Just my .50cent, feel free to prove me wrong.

[Maddmatt 1]

I doubt it. The game handles 100 fully animated soldiers fine. And OFP:Elite has the animated foilage.

[Shins 0]

To the best of my (limited) understanding you get mesh transforms for free on the gpu meaning any deformation of the mesh (which is how the trees etc appear to sway, they're just deformed slightly) doesn't cost anything. So no fps boost for non-swaying foliage I'm afraid.

[smellyjelly 0]

I think the reason why the trees lower performance so much is because of the type of shaders used.

I don't know if this has anything to do with the engine, but Farcry runs great, and it has a lot of trees/bushes/grass. Is there anyway BIS can quickly change the plants to be made like Farcry's?

[Maddmatt 1]

I think the reason why the trees lower performance so much is because of the type of shaders used.

I don't know if this has anything to do with the engine, but Farcry runs great, and it has a lot of trees/bushes/grass. Is there anyway BIS can quickly change the plants to be made like Farcry's?

Trees in Far Cry are just less detailed. Turn shader quality to low and ArmA will ignore tree/foilage LODs higher than 1500 polys. That + object detail at normal/low should stop foilage from draining performance. That should eliminate any lag you get when looking at them, even through scopes.

[smellyjelly 0]

I did that in the demo, but I still get slowdown. It's understandable though because I'm stuck with a 6600GT.

[Maddmatt 1]

I did that in the demo, but I still get slowdown. It's understandable though because I'm stuck with a 6600GT.

I guess you have disabled vsync and set the frames to render ahead setting to 0? You can use rivatuner to get to that setting. Object detail, shader detail and AF have the biggest effect for me with regards to mouselag. You should be able to reduce the mouselag.

[smellyjelly 0]

Co-op and CTF run perfectly fine on lowest-medium, 4x AA (forced with my videocard control panel), at 1024x768. Although CTI runs poorly.

I'll look into this "rivatuner" program.

[MehMan 0]

How about turning off that AA? It's a big hog and isn't really worth it.

[Maddmatt 1]

Co-op and CTF run perfectly fine on lowest-medium, 4x AA (forced with my videocard control panel), at 1024x768. Although CTI runs poorly.

I'll look into this "rivatuner" program.

At the moment CTI in the demo runs poorly for everyone. Atleast after a few towns have been captured. It doesn't take long to become unplayable and the fact that dedicated servers cant run it makes things worse.

[smellyjelly 0]

How about turning off that AA? It's a big hog and isn't really worth it.

AA for AA ( ) doesn't have any effect on the performance, at least as far as I know. There was a topic about that before, were someone stated their specs, and listed how each setting effected the framerate.

At the moment CTI in the demo runs poorly for everyone. Atleast after a few towns have been captured. It doesn't take long to become unplayable and the fact that dedicated servers cant run it makes things worse.

That's good to know, but it's basically unplayable from the start. All well, I just asked about the performance in the demo and retail in the troubleshooting board, and I don't want to go off topic here.

[MehMan 0]

Antialiasing is a big system hog for anyone. Are you thinking of Anisotropic filtering? AF is less of a system hog.

And did you check the guys system specs?

AA is a system hog and not worth it, at least I don't see the point in smooth edges. In most cases you won't notice them, at least in combat.

[Metal Heart 0]

Quote[/b] ]In the end, animated trees/grass doesn't really affect overall realistic feel and doesn't affect combat awareness.

Only it totally affects realism and combat awareness a lot. The eye excels at picking up movement, no camo will help a soldier moving against a static background or a background that causes his silhouette to be visible, not even at dusk (obviously, the observer is stationary). But when every little piece of potential concealment moves, moving in it becomes much safer because it now masks the movement and also overloads the observer to look for movement all around his field of view instead of letting him just wait for that single moving blip to reveal itself.

[NeMeSiS 11]

The sway (for grass) can be disabled in the config of sara.pbo, however i dont think its going to help much, i cut back my grass by 70% but the performance increase isnt very big (altough it helps a bit against the performance drop when zooming in).

[Maddmatt 1]

Antialiasing is a big system hog for anyone. Are you thinking of Anisotropic filtering? AF is less of a system hog.

And did you check the guys system specs?

AA is a system hog and not worth it, at least I don't see the point in smooth edges. In most cases you won't notice them, at least in combat.

Wrong. If you turn transparency AA to multisampling or off then AA has barely any performance impact. 7 series Nvidia cards will hardly be affected by it.

AF actually has a bigger impact, mainly with bushes and grass. Still any card that meets ArmAs min specs can keep in on low at least - same goes for AA.

[max power 21]

I found that turning post processing to high from low and shading to high from normal gave me less of a performance drop than turning AA to off from low to off gave me a boost. I walked away from that exchange with a much better picture quality and better performance. The added bloom effect from the HDR acts as a kind of AA all by itself, blurring jaggies. Also, if you're running an LCD screen in a native resolution, then you're getting a little more AA for free from the upsampling the monitor has to do.

[MehMan 0]

Antialiasing is a big system hog for anyone. Are you thinking of Anisotropic filtering?  AF is less of a system hog.

And did you check the guys system specs?

AA is a system hog and not worth it, at least I don't see the point in smooth edges. In most cases you won't notice them, at least in combat.

Wrong. If you turn transparency AA to multisampling or off then AA has barely any performance impact. 7 series Nvidia cards will hardly be affected by it.

AF actually has a bigger impact, mainly with bushes and grass. Still any card that meets ArmAs min specs can keep in on low at least - same goes for AA.

Not on his card . I have the same card and I can tell you that AA eats away FPSs. At least for me. AF on the other hand is less of a FPS eater.

[Maddmatt 1]

Antialiasing is a big system hog for anyone. Are you thinking of Anisotropic filtering? AF is less of a system hog.

And did you check the guys system specs?

AA is a system hog and not worth it, at least I don't see the point in smooth edges. In most cases you won't notice them, at least in combat.

Wrong. If you turn transparency AA to multisampling or off then AA has barely any performance impact. 7 series Nvidia cards will hardly be affected by it.

AF actually has a bigger impact, mainly with bushes and grass. Still any card that meets ArmAs min specs can keep in on low at least - same goes for AA.

Not on his card . I have the same card and I can tell you that AA eats away FPSs. At least for me. AF on the other hand is less of a FPS eater.

First of all I don't know his system specs .

And you said that it is a "big system hog for anyone". You should replace "anyone" with "people with low end graphics cards". People with higher end cards with performance problems wont benifit by turning off AA or AF. Setting shading detail to low (and object detail if necessary) is a better option.