Increased view distance, quite stunning

[dslyecxi 23]

This is some great news, guess it means you can actually snipe at real distances now.

It doesn't really have much to do with sniping. The previous higher view distances, though foggy at times at the extreme ranges, were more than high enough to accomodate sniping.

Tank combat, flight, artillery, etc are much more heavily affected than anything infantry related.

[Infam0us 10]

Awesome screenshot mate, I can't actually believe how far you could see

[Heatseeker 0]

Thanks for sharing the good news, in OPF there was a problem with increasing the view distance that affected the a.i. in MBT's and armor in general (they would shoot you behiond visual range/fog). Hopefully everything will work well here.

[walker 0]

This is some great news, guess it means you can actually snipe at real distances now.

Hi All

in reply to Mabes

The existing view distances people are already playing at are well within known sniping distances. What Dslyecxi is talking about is a step change in view distances that brings the ArmA engine into true flight simulator engagement ranges and view distances.

ArmA already leaves all other FPS simulations choking in its dust for view-distance. There is not a single other engine that is even on the same planet. Like most people I play online in MP with 1200 view distance. I know of many who with even a half descent card who play at 3km; so already beyond the maximum needed distance for sniping. Good MP mission makers give snipers and pilots a higher view-distance than normal players. This means if you have a rig capable of it and you play a sniper in such MP missions you have a commensurate increase in view distance to allow you to use your weapon properly.

Sniping begins at as little as 200m and the longest ever range kill was by a Canadian sniper of the 3rd battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry at less than 2.5 kms:

Quote[/b] ]The current record for the longest-range confirmed sniper kill is 2,430 meters (7,972 feet or 1.51 miles), accomplished by Corporal Rob Furlong of the Canadian Forces. Born in Newfoundland, Furlong had taught himself to fire a sniper rifle ambidextrously. In 2003 he served in the 3rd Battalion of the PPCLI, as part of Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan's Shahikot Valley. His sniper team included MCpl. Graham Ragsdale (Team Commander), MCpl. Tim McMeekin, MCpl. Arron Perry, Cpl. Dennis Eason. Furlong later left the forces to pursue a career as a police officer. A three-man al-Qaeda weapons team was moving into a mountainside position when Furlong shot and killed one carrying an RPK machine gun from an accurately measured distance of 2,430 metres (1.51 Miles). His first shot missed entirely, and his second shot had hit the knapsack on the militant's back. The third struck the target's torso. The weapon used was a .50-caliber McMillan Brothers TAC-50 rifle. The bullet's time of flight was around four seconds, and it dropped some 150 feet.

The previous record-holder was U.S. Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock, who achieved it during the Vietnam War, with a kill at 2,250 meters: he had a career total of 93 confirmed kills. The deadliest sniper in the world is generally believed to have been the Finnish soldier Simo Häyhä, with 505 confirmed kills within 100 days in the north-west European Winter War of 1939-40.

In contrast, much of the U.S./Coalition urban sniping in support of operations in Iraq is at significantly shorter ranges, and often at 200 - 400 metres. But in a notable incident on April 3, 2003, corporals Matt and Sam Hughes, a two-man sniper team of the British Royal Marines, armed with L96 sniper rifles, each killed targets at a range of about 860 m with shots that were “fire[d] exactly 17 meters [56 ft] to the left of the target for the bullet to bend in the wind.â€[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SnipingFollow the link for more on sniping and links to the original articles that source this wiki

Kind Regards walker

[LeftSkidLow 1]

Sure you could crank the view distance up to 10km on an 8800, but you would still only see about 3400m, there is some lame fog that wont let 8800 users see further than that.

[dslyecxi 23]

Sure you could crank the view distance up to 10km on an 8800, but you would still only see about 3400m, there is some lame fog that wont let 8800 users see further than that.

I'm pretty sure the "lame fog" you're talking about is exactly what this fixes. Unless it just somehow happens to be an identical problem caused by something completely different.

[malick 0]

I just can't say anything else but: WOW...

Now, all we need is :

1 - a bigger island, because a view distance of 10km makes Sahrani really feel small

2 - a bigger comp

3 - nah, a really bigger island

Malick

[LeftSkidLow 1]

Sure you could crank the view distance up to 10km on an 8800, but you would still only see about 3400m, there is some lame fog that wont let 8800 users see further than that.

I'm pretty sure the "lame fog" you're talking about is exactly what this fixes. Unless it just somehow happens to be an identical problem caused by something completely different.

Hmm maybe, I was under the impression you were talking about a bug on all cards that doesn't produce a change in view distance from 5km and up. An 8800 can't even get up to 5km, you can set it, and you FPS will drop, but you will still only see about 3.4km.

[dslyecxi 23]

Hmm maybe, I was under the impression you were talking about a bug on all cards that doesn't produce a change in view distance from 5km and up. An 8800 can't even get up to 5km, you can set it, and you FPS will drop, but you will still only see about 3.4km.

I'm pretty sure your "8800 bug" happens on all cards and is the result of the issue cited in the root post.

[JimLad 0]

Sure you could crank the view distance up to 10km on an 8800, but you would still only see about 3400m, there is some lame fog that wont let 8800 users see further than that.

Yep, though amusingly the performance decreases

[sbsmac 0]

Fantastic screens - thank you.

Quote[/b] ]

I'm pretty sure your "8800 bug" happens on all cards and is the result of the issue cited in the root post.

As the owner of an 8800 GTX I can assure you this card has problems that are peculiar to it.  The effect is easiest to demonstrate with a picture from another game.  See this picture from this thread  Note the very flat, almost cell-shaded effect on Alyx and the nearby machinery.  I've seen the same effect as 'banding' on nearby buildings in ArmA though it's to a lesser extent and it's generally more noticable as excessive fog at medium distances.  Discussion on the forum leaves it unclear whether this is an Nvidia driver problem or an issue with DX9/DX10 compatibility in the Source engine.

That said, this may be a bug that affects all cards at high view distance and which BIS has uncovered through investigating the 8800 behaviour where it appears at short distances.  Only Suma or one of the devs could conclusively answer that.  

[GAU-8 0]

thats sweeet.

a flight of helos, at treetop level using live players to "reach out and touch someone" is just what i needed...

homer:

mmmm.... deliciously sugary frosted fog of war..... ..ggggggaaaaaahhhhh

or is that NO FOG fog of war?

[INNOCENT&CLUELESS 0]

@Dslyecxi : Is your system naked? I mean only OS + ArmA? I wondering why a lot of player have with even much better rigs then yours much less quality and stability. I guess the usual nerd PC contains to many office applications and 10 games where installed/uninstalled + the newest (less stable) driver gives a lot of odd side effects.But like anderson you must have the golden setup.

[causticwindow911 0]

Another gigantic, fundamental change. I honestly can't wait for this.

[maddogx 13]

@Dslyecxi : Is your system naked? I mean only OS + ArmA? I wondering why a lot of player have with even much better rigs then yours much less quality and stability. I guess the usual nerd PC contains to many office applications and 10 games where installed/uninstalled + the newest (less stable) driver gives a lot of odd side effects.But like anderson you must have the golden setup.

You are referring to "the golden setup" as if only one or two people are able to play ArmA properly, because they have a special combination of hardware. I think you'll find many people are able to run ArmA very well - myself and my friends included. It's all down to sufficient hardware, using the right drivers and keeping away from Vista.

Back to topic: the pics are awesome!

@Dsylexci: Are you a beta tester for BIS or something? How come you have screenies of future features/fixes?

[Metal Heart 0]

Quote[/b] ]ArmA already leaves all other FPS simulations choking in its dust for view-distance. There is not a single other engine that is even on the same planet.

Wrong. Soldner had view distances of like 30km. Sure, with the terrain grid lodded to hell and back and no objects visible beyond about 1km but it's still very good for flying. Way better than the uber thick light blue pudding of OFP which makes strafing or bombing pretty much impossible with faster jets. Shame Soldner was such a horrible horrible arcade shooter with utter science fiction flight physics, the engine did a couple of things nicely.

Speaking of which, I wish ArmA would've had this very low-res terrain nearing the horizon instead of the traditional wuss out fog.

[dslyecxi 23]

As the owner of an 8800 GTX I can assure you this card has problems that are peculiar to it. The effect is easiest to demonstrate with a picture from another game. See this picture from this thread Note the very flat, almost cell-shaded effect on Alyx and the nearby machinery. I've seen the same effect as 'banding' on nearby buildings in ArmA though it's to a lesser extent and it's generally more noticable as excessive fog at medium distances. Discussion on the forum leaves it unclear whether this is an Nvidia driver problem or an issue with DX9/DX10 compatibility in the Source engine.

That said, this may be a bug that affects all cards at high view distance and which BIS has uncovered through investigating the 8800 behaviour where it appears at short distances. Only Suma or one of the devs could conclusively answer that.

If that's the case, I guess 8800 users will have to wait and see. Hopefully it's addressed in the next patch, assuming that the community has made BIS aware of it.

[walker 0]

Hi all

In reply to Dslyecxi

The fog problem appears to be specific to the 8800 cards.

Lee_H._Oswald posted an example shot of ArmA with a 7600 having better view distance than the 8800 and able to render beyond 3 kms.

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....5;st=15

As has just been posted above it is also a problem that 8800s are having with other games. So it is an indisputable fact that it is problem with the 8800 cards. Most people are putting it down to bad drivers the 8800 being a DX10 and Vista early adopters card. I would not recommend being an early adopter to anyone unless you have enough money to buy a back up system that is 6 months behind the curve.

If Suma and the rest of the BIS team have solved this I think Nvidia and the other games makers would like to know. I hope that is the case but until we get confirmation from someone with an 8800 card we do not know.

I have noticed like many other on the forum that most of those complaining about ArmA graphic performance are either 8800 owners or are having problems with AC97 on board sound causing graphic glitches and low performance.

Some are not even aware they have AC97 sound cards as it is not their main sound card but the one on their mother board and is not even plugged in to their speakers. The AC97 sound card caused graphic problems seem to be solveable those with such an on board sound card need to check up how to fix this as people are saying they are getting a 15 to 20 FPS imrovement by fixing it.

Those with 7600 to 7900 Nvidias and those with X1950s seem as happy as Larry.

That said the fact your x1950 shows that a card a third the cost of an 8800 can render ArmA out to 10km is amazing. With that kind view distance ArmA is leaving other games in its' dust.

Kind Regards walker

[INNOCENT&CLUELESS 0]

Crap! I just bought a 8800 GTX. That's why we have this fuzzy situation that medium rigs have excellent results and 8800s getting just moms kitchen

[neswrossi 0]

@Dslyecxi : Is your system naked? I mean only OS + ArmA? I wondering why a lot of player have with even much better rigs then yours much less quality and stability. I guess the usual nerd PC contains to many office applications and 10 games where installed/uninstalled + the newest (less stable) driver gives a lot of odd side effects.But like anderson you must have the golden setup.

You are referring to "the golden setup" as if only one or two people are able to play ArmA properly, because they have a special combination of hardware. I think you'll find many people are able to run ArmA very well - myself and my friends included. It's all down to sufficient hardware, using the right drivers and keeping away from Vista.

Back to topic: the pics are awesome!  

@Dsylexci: Are you a beta tester for BIS or something? How come you have screenies of future features/fixes?

Im running Vista on an AMD X2 4000, 2gig ram and 7900GS and it runs perfectly.

[dirtylarrygb 0]

7 Series cards or ATI 1900+, 2 GIG ram, And a CPU over 3ghz means in general many "hardcore" gamers with decent kit are running ARMA great.

It takes a little bit of testing to find the perfect balance of eyecandy vs FPS. But most of us are there.

Vista has known issues with ARMA, but it did not say VISTA on the box, so why not try ARMA on Linnux or Mac-OS and if it does not work you can come here and berate BIH about that as well.

I have the 8800 mist issue, I accept the fact that arma is a bit foggy, looks like BIH have found a way to beat it so 2 thumbs up to BIH yet again.

I'm almost sure I have found the fog worse and better when I mess around with shader detail and HDR level 8/16/32 in the cfg file of ARMA.

The 8800 is a mighty big upgrade, the hardware works very differently than compared to all previuos cards. I can live with fog no issue as I have faith it will be fixed soon in DX9 games.

[dirtylarrygb 0]

7 Series cards or ATI 1900+, 2 GIG ram, And a CPU over 3ghz means in general many "hardcore" gamers with decent kit are running ARMA great.

It takes a little bit of testing to find the perfect balance of eyecandy vs FPS. But most of us are there.

Vista has known issues with ARMA, but it did not say VISTA on the box, so why not try ARMA on Linnux or Mac-OS and if it does not work you can come here and berate BIH about that as well.

I have the 8800 mist issue, I accept the fact that arma is a bit foggy, looks like BIH have found a way to beat it so 2 thumbs up to BIH yet again.

I'm almost sure I have found the fog worse and better when I mess around with shader detail and HDR level 8/16/32 in the cfg file of ARMA.

The 8800 is a mighty big upgrade, the hardware works very differently than compared to all previuos cards. I can live with fog "problem" no issue as I have faith it will be fixed soon in DX9 games.

[Undeceived 392]

This isn't "cool" or "great news"...

This is CRAZY! PSYCHEDELIC!!

Wonderful!!!! I love the screenshots, man!!

Very, very good work!

Damn, Sara seems so small from 3 km altitude, doesn't it?

Ah, forgot the question... How did you find it out??

Are you from the BIS Team? (asking because of the sentence: "I had my doubt on ArmA" in your first post)

[Blue_Flight 0]

As an 8800GTX owner i can recall the fog problems here.

It´s such a shame to see all the money for the card and you can´t use the card with its great performance actually

i can only hope that this will be fixed some day.

[bravo 6 0]

When BIS fix this (if we can consider this a bug) they will open doors to new possibilities and more new ideas and inspirations for bigger, better and serious missions.

I just wonder by the time its done and working properlly (fixed) will people experience more lag or will it be solved aswell, because i have the feeling that when BIS fix all these bugs and make this thing working (runing fluid in high details) we might need a better computer and the recommended specifications will be changed for higher. (correct me if im wrong)

A fluid game is very importante to this ARMA. Hope BIS reachs the top on nearests patches.

Go BIS!