iFEEL, FFB, TrackIR, DirectX10, Physx...

[x al 1]

I'd like to see ALL current support from ArmA included into ArmA2...and some more

1. iFEEL mouse support

2. ForceFeedback support for Joysticks

3. Multiple Joystick support

4. DirectX9 & DirectX10 support

5. Soundblaster X-FI support

6. Physx support "Ageia & GPU"

7. Intuitive Voice Commanding, maybe multiple language support

Let's see what we will find in the final product...the more we see included, the better will be the "USPs" compared to OFP2!

I'm a very loyal costumer of BI Studio products ever since, I'm sure they won't let me down with ArmA2. Dunno about OFP2...codemasters NEED to earn their merits first in that genre  

[x al 1]

Will iFEEL support be included as in ARMA? WOULD BE GREAT!

Any information about multiple joystick support?

The rest of my suggestions are basically answered.

[suma 8]

Quote[/b] ]1. iFEEL mouse support

We will drop iFeel mouse support. The product is no longer sold and there is no support from the manufacturer to it any more - e.g. we are unable to get manufacturer signed driver dll.

Quote[/b] ]2. ForceFeedback support for Joysticks

Yes, this will continue to be supported.

Quote[/b] ]3. Multiple Joystick support

Yes, this will be supported.

Quote[/b] ]4. DirectX9 & DirectX10 support

There will be no specific support for DirectX 10 API - we see no point in this. DX10 does not bring any significant new technologies and it does provide any better performance compared to DX 9.

We will concentrate on making the DX9 implementation as good as possible, including techniques like Cascade Shadow Maps or Parallax Occlusion mapping.

Quote[/b] ]5. Soundblaster X-FI support

Based on our past experiences we will drop support for any sound HW acceleration and we will switch from OpenAL to XAudio2. This way all customers will get the same functionality (hopefully including reverberations), but in a robust manner (not having to fight with moody DirectSound drivers).

Quote[/b] ]6. Physx support "Ageia & GPU"

Three will be no PhysX support.

Quote[/b] ]7. Intuitive Voice Commanding, maybe multiple language support

There will be no built-in voice recognition in ArmA 2. That said, we are still designing the interface in such a way 3rd party solutions should work with the game the same way as they did with OFP and ArmA.

[MehMan 0]

We will concentrate on making the DX9 implementation as good as possible, including techniques like Cascade Shadow Maps or Parallax Occlusion mapping.

Will cascaded shadow maps bring far away shadows? As in, will this increase shadow draw distance, meaning that shadows won't cut off after xy distance?

[Pyronick 21]

Who needs PhysX when you can get Havok with OpenCL support (scales on both multithreaded CPU's aswell as SP GPU's) soon?

[lecholas 2]

There will be no built-in voice recognition in ArmA 2. That said, we are still designing the interface in such a way 3rd party solutions should work with the game the same way as they did with OFP and ArmA.

Good decision. 3rd party programs are accurate, free to use, not resources hungry and I don't think we need anything more. Good to know that you keep in mind them while designing. I was affraid a bit that you won't remember about them while making the new command interface.

[4 IN 1 0]

Quote[/b] ]4. DirectX9 & DirectX10 support

There will be no specific support for DirectX 10 API - we see no point in this. DX10 does not bring any significant new technologies and it does provide any better performance compared to DX 9.

We will concentrate on making the DX9 implementation as good as possible, including techniques like Cascade Shadow Maps or Parallax Occlusion mapping.

i think that should be "and it does not provide any better performance compared to DX 9" right?

Who needs PhysX when you can get Havok with OpenCL support (scales on both multithreaded CPU's aswell as SP GPU's) soon?

sad thing is that i dont think they are going for havok as well

[narc 0]

Will multiple GPU's be supported, ie SLi and Cross-fire?

[Provac 0]

Animated death is so 20th century. Hope they bring some kind of physics system into it.

[Dwarden 1124]

Quote[/b] ]5. Soundblaster X-FI support

Based on our past experiences we will drop support for any sound HW acceleration and we will switch from OpenAL to XAudio2. This way all customers will get the same functionality (hopefully including reverberations), but in a robust manner (not having to fight with moody DirectSound drivers).

from this decision i feel sad for all owners of Audigy1-4 and X-fi cards (Creative Labs and Auzentech) as they stuck then w/o hope ...

yes i myself own several these cards

from STEAM statistics You can see that in past 6 months is number of users (Creative Labs SoundBlast/Audigy/X-Fi) on rise (due to cheap price of eXtreme gamer)

stats are monthly based on random picked 100-300k accounts

and things were shaping so great, Creative released OSS driver for linux, fixed theirs XP, Vista and Seven drivers (yes there is beta driver already)

then  Miles implemented support for EAX HD (2-4) and recently improved support ...

http://www.radgametools.com/msshist.htm

well known FMOD supports EAX HD (2-5) too

next to OpenAL they both support software and hardware mode (even mixed)

so i wonder why the OpenAl drop (it's still being updated)

as it works nicely with XP, Vista, Seven and Linux offers software and hardware mode + EFX for both

but i'm not aware of xAudio2 to support any hardware acceleration so all would be on CPU

i was always under impression that missing hw support was one of reasons why bigger studios always choose Miles Sound System or FMOD or OpenAl

i assume main reason for the drop is crossplatform ability of xAudio2 to XBOX360

ofc i hope i'm all wrong and this is non issue ...

[PhilippRauch 0]

Well, i always had troubles with HW on since OFP days...

[Mr_Tea 0]

Well, i always had troubles with HW on since OFP days...

Me not.

In ArmA i use Hardware Acceleration, and play with 5.1 Surround Sound on my Audigy 2. I had no problems so far.

[mr.g-c 6]

Since i switched to Vista X64 i was unable to activate surround-sounds at all....

No matter how actual my drivers are....

[Pyronick 21]

Quote[/b] ]5. Soundblaster X-FI support

Based on our past experiences we will drop support for any sound HW acceleration and we will switch from OpenAL to XAudio2. This way all customers will get the same functionality (hopefully including reverberations), but in a robust manner (not having to fight with moody DirectSound drivers).

from this decision i feel sad for all owners of Audigy1-4 and X-fi cards (Creative Labs and Auzentech) as they stuck then w/o hope ...

yes i myself own several these cards

from STEAM statistics You can see that in past 6 months is number of users (Creative Labs SoundBlast/Audigy/X-Fi) on rise (due to cheap price of eXtreme gamer)

stats are monthly based on random picked 100-300k accounts

and things were shaping so great, Creative released OSS driver for linux, fixed theirs XP, Vista and Seven drivers (yes there is beta driver already)

then  Miles implemented support for EAX HD (2-4) and recently improved support ...

http://www.radgametools.com/msshist.htm

well known FMOD supports EAX HD (2-5) too

next to OpenAL they both support software and hardware mode (even mixed)

so i wonder why the OpenAl drop (it's still being updated)

as it works nicely with XP, Vista, Seven and Linux offers software and hardware mode + EFX for both

but i'm not aware of xAudio2 to support any hardware acceleration so all would be on CPU

i was always under impression that missing hw support was one of reasons why bigger studios always choose Miles Sound System or FMOD or OpenAl

i assume main reason for the drop is crossplatform ability of xAudio2 to XBOX360

ofc i hope i'm all wrong and this is non issue ...

Isn't XAudio2 a very problematic API in Windows XP, so that prob means you need at least Windows Vista?

AFAIK, XAudio2 doesn't support hardware acceleration. But that might change soon because the competition will use this against Microsoft.

[Maddmatt 1]

Nice to see these answers from Suma

Well the lack of H/W accelerated sound means no EAX support. So the surround sound I get through my headphones (stereo headphones with X-Fi CMSS 3D) is going to be more limited. I wont be able to tell sounds that are above/below me any more. Unless the new sound engine is able to simulate that somehow?

Well it can still simulate 7.1 speakers so the loss isn't big.

I wonder what cascaded shadow maps means?

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

Does this mean that a nice sound card will bring no added benefits?

All sound simulation will be handled by the CPU then?

[Nicholas 5]

Quote[/b] ]Based on our past experiences we will drop support for any sound HW acceleration and we will switch from OpenAL to XAudio2. This way all customers will get the same functionality (hopefully including reverberations), but in a robust manner (not having to fight with moody DirectSound drivers).

Well, that just makes me kinda upset, considering the fact that I JUST bought a X-Fi card. I upgraded my computer specifically, and mainly for ArmA II. Anyways, thanks for the answers, Suma.

[Maddmatt 1]

Does this mean that a nice sound card will bring no added benefits?

All sound simulation will be handled by the CPU then?

I believe a good sound card will still give better sound quality. It's not a complete waste. Pity about losing HW acceleration though, but even that's no big loss with a good CPU.

And of course it's still great for music and movies

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Three will be no PhysX support.

Bad thing to hear as most of the newer NVIDIA gfx-card have native support for PhysX and the effects that can be achieved without any CPU-load are quite interesting. Blowing leaves, glass fragments, shockwaves...all that could be incorporated without any stress for CPU.

Bad news for me.

[x al 1]

Thank you for the quick answers.

Hmmm...how about implementing the old ifeel immerson drivers? They worked well enough in OFP & Arma.

But of course i can understand the decision to drop stuff when resources are limited.

Too bad that most of my hardware is not directly supported anymore, but all is getting more and more CPU related.

Simply a fact of standardization.

So my dear little iFeel mouse

So my still barely used DirectX10.1 card

So my little Ageia Physx card

So my dear X-FI card

So my old Xeons...all will depend on you now  

Well at least my TrackIR will still be supported  

ARMA2 still will be a must have...but getting a funny feeling after these statements. Software solutions are good for standardization but quality wise always a 2nd best solution.

[Pyronick 21]

So my little Ageia Physx card

So my dear X-FI card

The Ageia PhysX PPU addon card probably won't work at all, due to nVidia's latest PhysX drivers which don't have support for the PPU anymore.

PhysX should die anyway, proprietary standards kill the fun for others anyway.

Havok or an in-house physics solution with OpenCL acceleration is the only right way to go.

Your X-Fi card might actually accelerate sound in the future, if Microsoft updates the XAudio2 API to compete with the newer OpenAL API's.

Quote[/b] ]Bad thing to hear as most of the newer NVIDIA gfx-card have native support for PhysX and the effects that can be achieved without any CPU-load are quite interesting. Blowing leaves, glass fragments, shockwaves...all that could be incorporated without any stress for CPU.

Bad news for me.

PhysX only works on nVidia hardware and less and less on Ageia hardware.

A more optimized physics engine that would work on all (discrete graphics) processing hardware would be much better.

[Dwarden 1124]

Does this mean that a nice sound card will bring no added benefits?

All sound simulation will be handled by the CPU then?

I believe a good sound card will still give better sound quality. It's not a complete waste. Pity about losing HW acceleration though, but even that's no big loss with a good CPU.

And of course it's still great for music and movies  

that's true today even MSI offers X-fi onboard or as external card (bonus packs) http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=newsdesc&news_no=749

there are several mainboard makers using Soundblaster/Audigy/X-fi onboard on theirs hiend models ...

also there is software package which adds some of the X-fi features to onboard chips ...

tho ASUS atm using C-Media audio chips (they signed exclusive deal - reason why Auzentech now using X-fi chip as core for theirs excellent cards)

still what You said apply, these cards usually have better sound quality / recording etc. than onboard

[x al 1]

So my little Ageia Physx card

So my dear X-FI card

The Ageia PhysX PPU addon card probably won't work at all, due to nVidia's latest PhysX drivers which don't have support for the PPU anymore.

PhysX should die anyway, proprietary standards kill the fun for others anyway.

Havok or an in-house physics solution with OpenCL acceleration is the only right way to go.

Your X-Fi card might actually accelerate sound in the future, if Microsoft updates the XAudio2 API to compete with the newer OpenAL API's.

Quote[/b] ]Bad thing to hear as most of the newer NVIDIA gfx-card have native support for PhysX and the effects that can be achieved without any CPU-load are quite interesting. Blowing leaves, glass fragments, shockwaves...all that could be incorporated without any stress for CPU.

Bad news for me.

PhysX only works on nVidia hardware and less and less on Ageia hardware.

A more optimized physics engine that would work on all (discrete graphics) processing hardware would be much better.

I wish people would NOT assume  

Up till the latest driver Ageia PPU is supported and works very well. The Ageia PPU in combination with latest ATI cards outperforms mostly all NVDIDIA GPU solutions (big german game maginzine tested that recently). No indication that Ageia is not supported or outperformed

Physx should die anyway...well...Intel and ATI are working on a prorietary solution as well atm  

FYI: Physx SDK supports now PS3 and Wii, officially.

Uhm...my X-FI has HW acceleration in most games, even under Vista. Too bad miles etc. is getting stronger again in this market, as well as on-board solutions.

More troublesome, less efficent...just simple.

[mr.g-c 6]

Quote[/b] ]Three will be no PhysX support.

Bad thing to hear as most of the newer NVIDIA gfx-card have native support for PhysX and the effects that can be achieved without any CPU-load are quite interesting. Blowing leaves, glass fragments, shockwaves...all that could be incorporated without any stress for CPU.

Bad news for me.

Yes same here....

On certain levels (i mean especially physics) the Engine is not up to date as it seems.

But hopefully with enough sales, BIS will upgrade the engine with patches/ commercial expansion-packages (like resistance was for OFP).

So i simply don't believe BIS will stop with development at the time Arma2 is released....

[Deadfast 43]

Well, PhysX support means you'll effectively piss off half of the player base.

Yes, I'm talking about ATI users (and I'll admit straight away I'm one).

I know PhysX also offers CPU support in case your videocard doesn't support it, but try to play Mirror's Edge with ATI and PhysX on.

I'd never imagine a few flying papers can effectively cripple my FPS from 60 to 20 (with a Q6600).

I'd rather not even mention what happened when a window got broken