Shaders

[-=seany=- 5]

I was wondering.

We all know how when you look through a scope/tank optics at certain bushes/foliage you get a considerable drop in frame rate. When I turn Shading detail to "Very Low" this drop is not noticeable at all. But, turning the shading detail this low makes the ground textures ahead of you look terrible and also removes the nice sun "glint" from vehicles etc. Both of these things do not impact my frame rate at all, just the dang flora.

So my question is, would it be possible to have a separate Shading option for foliage and one for everything else? Or do shaders work like AA, in that you cant adjust it for certain objects, it just effects everything?

Anyway I believe such an option/ community mod would improve the game considerably for a lot of players.

[max power 21]

Shaders aren't global and can be enabled and disabled per object.

[Heatseeker 0]

I wanted to bring this up too, for best playability i use the shadders at low, just because of those situations where you bring up a scope to kill someone running in a forest, etc.

And only because of the trees and bushes (dense areas). Ground, water, vehicles, etc dont have much if any performance impact at all.

I'd like to apply high shadder effects to everything except the vegetation.

Bullet decals shouldnt depend on this setting but texture detail instead, with low shadders they dont show..

[-=seany=- 5]

So it is possible. Could any developer let us know if this realistic for a future patch, or would it be too time consuming to implement?

I wish I had made this a simple Yes/No poll to see how many people would be interested in this option. I have a feeling it would be quite a few..

[Sevan 0]

I haven't seen any system not see considerable slow down, when zooming into a dense vegetation area. Even tall grass areas cause some slow down in even top-of-the-line machines.

[ColonelSandersLite 0]

I haven't seen any system not see considerable slow down, when zooming into a dense vegetation area. Even tall grass areas cause some slow down in even top-of-the-line machines.

I don't have that problem anymore since I upgraded my video card. Well, there's a very small unnoticable frame rate hit on vegetation I'm sure, but it's not stuttering and laggy and stuff. My full system build and settings can be found here:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=64950

[mamasan8 11]

I notice this a lot too, can't snipe because of it. Well I can but then I have to lower settings and the game looks like OFP.

MG/M16 and graphics OR snipe and no gfx. Always the dilemma.

[twisted 128]

I haven't seen any system not see considerable slow down, when zooming into a dense vegetation area. Even tall grass areas cause some slow down in even top-of-the-line machines.

i don't get considerable slow down from vegetation. and my system is a modest one (amd64 3200+, 2GB RAM). only by gfx card is sorta good (8800GTS320MB).

but more visual tweaking options would be great for sure.

[jasono 0]

It's annoying to have to force your settings to low just because there are times now and again where you need your options low, else your stuck. If the vegetation graphic settings was seperate, I would be much more happy.

[ModaFlanker 0]

I haven't seen any system not see considerable slow down, when zooming into a dense vegetation area. Even tall grass areas cause some slow down in even top-of-the-line machines.

I don't have that problem anymore since I upgraded my video card. Well, there's a very small unnoticable frame rate hit on vegetation I'm sure, but it's not stuttering and laggy and stuff. My full system build and settings can be found here:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=64950

So can you confirm that if you use a sniper weapon and look for the biggest, most dense patch of trees and zoom in, that your FPS doesn't drop below 25 fps?

Before finding this thread I definitely was trying to find settings that would allow me to snipe.

What happens is that I'm running through a city and turn a corner and see the enemy. It's kill or be killed, and I bring up the scope only to drop to 5 fps because he is surrounded by 4 trees.

Like someone else said here-- you want to snipe, run around in blurry blocky land. You want to run around and relish in the beauty of the graphics and effects, you use all other weapons.

I was hoping the 1.08 patch would have made a difference but there wasn't. Hopefully it IS something they are aware of and can do something about.

Now if you are able to maintain stable FPS then I would feel very hopeful that a graphics card with a lot of memory (512mb like yours) might benefit ArmA more greatly. Not only that, but the newer cards have better shader performance and it was in those texture/shader settings that my FPS were impacted the most.

EDIT: Added-- I read other threads and here is a statement on the issue from Ohara, Lead Artist,

"Drop of FPS in vegetation is caused by overdaw, it means that grafic card is not able to draw so many pixels that scene needs. When GC draw scene, it automatically cut hiden pixels, BUT only if this pixels are not alphatransparent. Vegetation is builded from polygons with some opacity textures, so this cuting (early Z test on HW) not work here. There is no simple solution, better performance will be with low shading detail settings (simplified pixel shader), but overdraw is still there. Also using of worst LODs will not help so match, because less polygons means worst tree shape aproximation and final surface (what is most important for overdraw reduction) will be similar. We are still woring on some research in this area.

"

[ColonelSandersLite 0]

I haven't seen any system not see considerable slow down, when zooming into a dense vegetation area. Even tall grass areas cause some slow down in even top-of-the-line machines.

I don't have that problem anymore since I upgraded my video card. Well, there's a very small unnoticable frame rate hit on vegetation I'm sure, but it's not stuttering and laggy and stuff. My full system build and settings can be found here:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=64950

So can you confirm that if you use a sniper weapon and look for the biggest, most dense patch of trees and zoom in, that your FPS doesn't drop below 25 fps?

Yes, I can confirm it.

I've now added frame rate information and a few screens with frame rate noted in the top post here since so many people have asked that:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=64950

In all honesty, a 512mb 7950 won't cost very much at all here in about 6 months to a year. When that happens, ARMA will *really shine* for most people.