Why do distant soldier animations jerk?

[johnny vet boy b 0]

I've noticed several times that when looking at soldiers running around over several hundred metres away without zooming in they tend to animate in discrete jerky frames although the rest of the game is still zipping along at a steady 60fps (I use fraps and have a top of the range system that runs the game beautifully so it is definately not a low fps issue).

And when I zoom in on them the animation becomes smooth, zoom back out they jerk etc.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is it something hard coded in the engine to save hardware resources for distant objects by not showing all the frames of animation? And if so, is there a value I can change in a config type file to force all the animations to play, cus it just looks weird sometimes and pulls my eye which is not good for the level of deep immersion I like to get into with this game?

Anyway. No biggie if not. Can live with it. Just curious.

Cheers

Johnny

[JdB 151]

Is it something hard coded in the engine to save hardware resources for distant objects by not showing all the frames of animation?

That was my first thought...

[mr reality 0]

I too have noticed this. It seems like the game uses the very basic of lods and this makes the distant units look strange to say the least. Especially in the movement, like you've already pointed out. To be honest though, i've not really noticed it since the first demo. Maybe i'm just not wanting to see it rather than it not being present though

[Col.Flanders 0]

I notice this all the time and in fact, more so when I am zoomed in than when I'm not.

I've put it down to the game's netcode. Try a multiplayer mission on your own machine. I guarantee that it won't happen (assuming I'm talking about the issue you mention). Now, play that mission online where another machine is hosting the game - units jerk around.

The problem is not bandwidth-related either. I've tried this with an internet game as well as on a LAN - although my bandwidth and ping to my local online server is pretty decent, same outcome.

[mr reality 0]

Try a multiplayer mission on your own machine. I guarantee that it won't happen (assuming I'm talking about the issue you mention).

Actually I noticed it while playing the first demo and that was MP. I just set it up like a SP game and that's when i noticed the tiny little men jerking off

[johnny vet boy b 0]

There aren't many forums where we can say things such as "tiny men jerking off" and still be on topic.

Nice.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Actually I noticed it while playing the first demo and that was MP. I just set it up like a SP game and that's when i noticed the tiny little men jerking off

Makes perfectly sense for me as you ran a local server that applied server rules and I´d like to bet that it´s part of the netcode for server.

Check if you can reproduce it in a SP map you don´t play on a local server.

I haven´t come across this anytime and I only play SP, so imo it is a netcode thingie to avoid bandwidth pacman.

[Junker 0]

i think u will find its to keep down the stress on the computer doing this it uses minimal resources.

Guess its the engine doing it.

[Col.Flanders 0]

Haha! Well the men have never jerked on my local MP games...as soon as it's not a local server, even on a LAN, the jerk-off commences.

[OrLoK 20]

Hello,

regardless of it being netcode or whatever, its a bloody pain for marksmen/snipers as the little men jerk off all over the place and it messes up ones aiming.

Ok, It may be LoDing to reduce lad etc but I'd rather have a smoothly moving ultra low nodel than a mid res one doing the "JerK".

Can I change settings to enable smooth men?

I dont like a man who Jerks.

rgds

LoK

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Netcode? No, this has nothing to do with netcode, it happens in SP as well.

[Snake Man 407]

The first time with the Czech version when I noticed this it was perfectly clear to me and it got me saying "Mmm interesting..." as this is just to free up the CPU cycles when displaying the units at distance. I mean why to "model" tiny infantry movement precisely at long distances as in normal ArmA "action" they blend in the surrounding terrain anyways (well most of the time).

It has nothing to do with netcode.

It has nothing to do with sniping, as when you bring up the zoom, ie you look closer... the units move normal smooth way.

Of course having said all that; I have zero facts to back me up, I have not seen the ArmA sources, nobody in BIS has said (to me) nothing about this, its all my normal observation and assumption. But makes absolutely perfect sense to me.

[wamingo 1]

I always thought it was a catch-up method for desyncing. That or an inefficiency in the streaming engine.

But it doesn't seem to happen consistently, and I've mostly noticed it during lag online so I'm inclined on the former - or a combination.

[Radnik 18]

My opinion is that this behaviour of strange animation has to do with performance safe up, or in other words why do you need animations on units which are in most cases not visible or far away!?.

It has nothing with netcode nor bandwidth.

I remeber I've have seen this behaviour on last ArmA trailer when there were a lot of north Sahrani soldiers runing and when a group of Abrams are roling...pay atention on far units.

[MehMan 0]

Quote[/b] ]Actually I noticed it while playing the first demo and that was MP. I just set it up like a SP game and that's when i noticed the tiny little men jerking off

Makes perfectly sense for me as you ran a local server that applied server rules and I´d like to bet that it´s part of the netcode for server.

Check if you can reproduce it in a SP map you  don´t play on a local server.

I haven´t come across this anytime and I only play SP, so imo it is a netcode thingie to avoid bandwidth pacman.

Try running it on low/normal object detail. You'll see the jerkiness happen at about 500m. In some desert fields, it can get annoying yeah. Luckly combat usually occurs at less than 200m so it's fine, but sometimes it really kills it...

[weegee_101 0]

Its annoying, but its for performance reasons. This is called Level-of-Detail and most games include it. It lowers the processing time required, thereby speeding up the game. While I admit I find it kind of annoying as well, it really helps those of us with slower video cards. (Like me.)

[wamingo 1]

The LOD level-of-detail that you speak of is about scaling model polygon counts to save gfx related cycles, but the soldiers are still being rendered every frame so this issue is not likely about model-LOD's. If this is an optimization at all it's to do with saving cpu cycles on pathfinding and vectors and such and their inability to provide data fast enough for client movement prediction. And likely the issue lies in the streaming engine or in the desyncing catch-up method.

[ChrisP 0]

My guess is that this is an engine 'feature' involving the netcode: it's level of detail in the networking (not graphical) sense, so that far away objects are updated less often over the network - usually good sense. You'll often see the little guys run in one direction and then suddenly 'jerk' or 'pop' suddenly to somewhere else. I'd say this corresponds to when the client-side prediction gets updated with the proper info from the server.

A special check probably needs to be added for the case of scopes and binoculars so that if the player is zoomed in, visible objects that would not usually be seen in such detail are updated at the same frequency as nearer objects. This is problematic though, as it puts extra burden on the client and server, as the client now needs to get frequent updates now only for those objects near the player, but also those that the player can see through the zoom.

It does make long distance sniping a bit of a pain though

[weegee_101 0]

I'm trying to understand what jerking you're talking about? I'll look at it tonight. I've always noticed the animations getting cut out a little, which is still LOD stuff.

[Heatseeker 0]

Never noticed this .

[Big Dawg KS 6]

My guess is that this is an engine 'feature' involving the netcode: it's level of detail in the networking (not graphical) sense, so that far away objects are updated less often over the network - usually good sense. You'll often see the little guys run in one direction and then suddenly 'jerk' or 'pop' suddenly to somewhere else. I'd say this corresponds to when the client-side prediction gets updated with the proper info from the server.

A special check probably needs to be added for the case of scopes and binoculars so that if the player is zoomed in, visible objects that would not usually be seen in such detail are updated at the same frequency as nearer objects. This is problematic though, as it puts extra burden on the client and server, as the client now needs to get frequent updates now only for those objects near the player, but also those that the player can see through the zoom.

It does make long distance sniping a bit of a pain though

If you'd read you'd realize it has nothing to do with the netcode, it happens in both MP and SP.

[Drax 0]

Morrowind did this exact same thing too. It's an lod of sorts but instead of decreased geometry detail in the model, it's fewer frames of animation being rendered, thus freeing up the CPU a bit more.

[BroK3n 0]

This jerking.. or in other words, warping.. happens at greater distances. it's very much more apparent after 1km.

Onyl after the view distance bug was fixed (partly) did i notice this warping.

After all the joy and celebrations of snipers finally being able to engage at real life distances, this warping kills it all.

it happens in both MP and SP. Not sure how it could be fixed though but maybe the value or LOD distance or sth sth sth could be changed to about 2-3km.

Definitely would have an impact on performance though especially with many units moving around.

[ChrisP 0]

Quote[/b] ]If you'd read you'd realize it has nothing to do with the netcode, it happens in both MP and SP.

I did read.

For the case of SP, call it 'simulation update' or whatever else takes your fancy instead of 'netcode' - but the general idea remains. Updating for entities that are far away is conducted less often to reduce load, and this process does not take into account the zoom level of the players view.

In MP, I disagree that the 'jerkiness' has nothing to do with the netcode. To be clearer, I would guess the problem here is the one seen in SP compounded by client-side prediction updates. So the noticable difference when in SP should be that although the movements are still jerky at a distance, they should not suddenly get 'updated' into completely different paths etc. I haven't seen this sort of jerky motion in SP myself, so others should be able to see for themselves if this is the case.

[Blanco 0]

Never noticed this .

Me either.

I did notice it with the early 1.04 version, especially with large vehicles like tanks and such.

But it was gone after 1.05 & higher.