How many use the Postprocessing effects?

[Mr_Tea 0]

As it was already said, PP is good for taking pictures or making movies. But it`s nothing i want to play with.

I have tested it, but disabled it very quickly, even before i could have noticed an drop in the performance.

[-DirTyDeeDs--Ziggy- 0]

I use pp on low. sharper image ftw

[dmitri 0]

On my old AMD X2, no way would I use post-proc. Upgraded recently, using it all the time now. Looks quite good at 1920. Like the "atmosphere" it adds in the distance.

It's not something I think is critical to play.. Bloom = cheap HDRI.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Voted "no, don't have the power". However, I do turn it on for intros and such in singleplayer missions. Some people are using depth-of-field as it should be used; to focus on what needs to be in focus. Check any movie, and you'll see it used to great extent.

IF I had the power, I'm not sure if I would use it ingame. As some has already mentioned, there are problems in vegetation triggering the focuspoint which can leave you "blind". If this issue was fixed, I might have considered it because it is real.

A center blurring I would turn off, because it has nothing to do with proper DOF.

Curious slightly offtopic question though; I'm doing some photography and understand the basics of aperture and depth-of-field. But how does the eye work in this respect? When it is dark, the pupil (aperture) opens to let more light in. Should depth-of-field be shallower at night? Also ingame?

[lecholas 2]

I use it since I bought a comp that can handle it. IMHO it gives the game more non-gameish look.

Btw. when reading the topic I'm beginning to wonder why there was so much hype and hurray screams when Kegetys released dxdll for OFP which added postprocessing to the game. (I know that it added a lot more than just pp but judgeing from feedback it recieved pp was one of the most blessed features. Or am I missing something?)

[Seitan 8]

1280x1024. 8800GT. Could use it. But wont use it. I keep it low. Never liked any "blur" effects on games. And in ArmA the iron sight gets so blurred that you cant shoot anything. Useless effect if you ask me.

[Yoma 0]

The game is hard enough without PP on.

(you can't spot infantry half as well with it on then without it)

It could have been nice, but as often, a nice theory doesn't make a good practise.

If i do put it on i notice my eyes get tired a lot faster when playing. To me it's like detailed vegetation(GRASS!!: nice on screenshots but only harms gameplay. I'd rather they put the effort on it in other eyecandy like heat flares on engines/hot summer days, fluid anims, better damage modelling and stuff like that. Stuff that could enhance gameplay.

It's only my 2 cent, but i bet that about noone that seriously plays this game turns PP on. Stuff like this made elements of the old OFP community (wrongfully) turn away from Arma.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

1280x1024, 8800GTX.

I play with everything cranked, PP included. Never been a problem for me. One adapts.

[dmitri 0]

If i do put it on i notice my eyes get tired a lot faster when playing. To me it's like detailed vegetation(GRASS!!: nice on screenshots but only harms gameplay.

Yeah, clutter trumps all other Arma features (even pp) on the useless scale.

[KeyCat 131]

Yeah, clutter trumps all other Arma features (even pp) on the useless scale.

Disagree! For me personally clutter as well as grass adds alot to the atmosphere. Without it it feels like crawling around on a huge grenish/brownish paper. Clutter, grass in all varieties, bushes, twigs, rocks you name it, I wish there where even more of it!

Sliding a bit off topic here so lets keep it to the PP for this thread...

/KC

[-Total- 0]

I have it and everything else on too. heck, when rX had it's server going, I had modified Evolution Blue to have the grass on too. Having things tuened off just to see better for miles defeats the purpose of ArmA imo.

I bought ArmA becuase it is a simulator by design. PP on creates a realistic enviroment because humans cannot see everything sharply and clearly over long distances. It's a feature that more games should have turned on imho. The same goes for clutter.

Heck, the insects and such flying around the grass need to be there too. Having to wait to take a sniper shot cuz there is a moth flying in front of your scope may be annoying, but it's realistic too.

[Jex =TE= 0]

Curious slightly offtopic question though; I'm doing some photography and understand the basics of aperture and depth-of-field. But how does the eye work in this respect? When it is dark, the pupil (aperture) opens to let more light in. Should depth-of-field be shallower at night? Also ingame?

I don't think you can really compare the two. For a start you have two eyes (to judge distance) and a brain to actually make the image (your brain forms the image of how you seet hings, not necessarily how it is seen) and a camera lens is no comparison to this.

However I don't like games that include what the eye would do. I have enough trouble with the stupid lighting (is that the HDR thing?) - my eyes adjust millions of time faster than what I'm subjected to in arma and it's a little frustrating.

Having a restricted view on a screen that resticts your view seems a little weird to me. However it is an option which is a good thing, unlike HDR.

[sic-disaster 311]

I turn it off for 1 reason only: it blurs stuff out in the distance, but even worse, it blurs out my ironsights so horribly that i cant aim or shoot an AK with any precision at all.

It's not that bad for an Aimpoint weapon but still noticeable. When i turn the stuff to low, my accuracy improves a ten-fold.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Off. It only looks good in some pics and vids. Sitting in front of your screen - how should the game know where/on what are your eyes looking at?

It's good to have these PP effects as an option.

[Viper23rd 0]

I try to keep my Armed Assault running smoothly in all acceptable scenes, as well as my other games, and PP often makes it go below 'acceptable', which for me ruins the gaming experience.

Besides, I have textures set to sharp and in high detail (video card settings as well) as I prefer nice crispy textures over blurriness anyway.

On the point of blurriness, someone mentioned it earlier, the eye automatically "blurs" things that you aren't focusing on, so to blur objects and/or areas doesn't feel natural and can even disturbing if overdone. Luckily the blurring in ArmA just doesn't cross the line of 'too much'.

A game which does have great blurring, in my opinion, is Call of Duty 4. Admittedly, it doesn't look right sometimes, especially when you're looking at something and it's blurry while the grass in front of you isn't, or other objects that shouldn't be blurred but are. Good thing it only happens very often and I think it looks fine.

Of course, Call of Duty 4 and Armed Assault are two different games, the blur probably suits CoD4 better, due to the fast action and fast zooming and focusing on targets, rather than Armed Assault which is generally played less fast paced, with more patience. Armed Assault isn't about eye candy anyway, it's about the experience of combat, not about showing the prettiest grass or flowers available for the customer gaming market.

BIS did excellent by making post processing optional in Armed Assault. There would be too much performance hits complaints anyway, I guess.

Yours truly,

[Col. Faulkner 0]

I turn it off for 1 reason only: it blurs stuff out in the distance, but even worse, it blurs out my ironsights so horribly that i cant aim or shoot an AK with any precision at all.

This, apart from performance issues, is also the main reason

why I abandoned it very quickly. All it seemed to "simulate" to

me was some bizarre problem with my eyesight. I got weird

effects like if I lowered my gun it was sharply in focus but if I

raised it to shoot it was all blurry (even - and especially - the

foresight). A nice idea from BIS but obviously somewhat

wanting in the actual execution (for those of us compelled to

run it at a lower resolution?)

[Binkowski 26]

its a great idea, but it does cause massive fps lag. i have a very good computer and graphics card. but i turn it off. simply because when playing in north sahrani or even south sahrani my fps drops to about 15 - 10 when i aim down the sites

[dmitri 0]

From a pure eyecandy standpoint, I wish PP could be used as hit effect to defocus the players vision.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

If you were able to turn off HDR, I don't think you'd like the results (did some experiments with Oblivion). HDR is a must for any game that tries to simulate a varying time of day and the shades of light this represents.

The "HDR transition time" I believe is a good balance between the two extremes; one being far too slow and the other just way to instant to look good. I think if you try to shoot a subject with a point&shoot camera (you'd get blown out skies), then point it at the sky (now "good" skies), it would take some time for the camera to adjust to the new dynamic range (16-20EV instead of say 8-12EV with blowout skies).

The eyes and brain can separate a much greater dynamic range than most devices are able to capture and display. We would still see a blue sky and a pole with writing in pure backlight with ease, where any camera would fail to capture both sucessfully. Without HDR dynamic adjustment, you wouldn't be able to see anything when you go into a dark building.

As for sighting, don't you usually focus on the front sight in real life? The back sights would then be blurry in real life too. Maybe focus on the target if using scope or red dot sights though.