Arma II Officially Better Looking Than Crysis?

[Seitan 8]

BIS has probably but new detail level into the graphics options: High ---> Very High ---> Stunning (better then Crysis and Killzone2) :p

[WOMBAT33R 11]

I so some screen shots on IGN the other day which included a shot of the playing area, and one of a rickety fence running along side a single track road. Taken May 1st I believe. The rustic colours are awesome.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/objects/958404/arma-ii/images/arma-ii-20090501110722695.html?page=mediaFull

Edited May 6, 2009 by wombateer
web link added.

[amadieus 0]

some screenshots do look photo-realistic but some don't, next generation we will definitly get photo-realistic games.

[thaFunkster 0]

There's one screenshot from Dsylexic of a UH-1 that got me wondering if it's real or not.

Something like this?

Impressive! :bounce3:

[Provac 0]

I posted the latest ArmA2 screenshots to a football gaming forum I frequent:

Originally Posted by Radiation View Post

Those images are stunning. People labelled Killzone 2 as the best looking game ever made (although to be honest I don't really see why) but this slaps the shit out of killzone 2'

So there we have it, ArmA2 officially better looking than Crysis and Killzone2 ;)

Best looking game ever in terms of artistic vision and graphics technology a definite "no".

Best interpretation of a realistic picture, as far as I know "yes".

Everything else visually like animation, effects and physics "definitely not"

Killzone 2 and Crysis are very different artistically than Arma 2. And the technology in Killzone 2 and Crysis is way ahead of Arma 2.

[Placebo 29]

You know it's quite a lot less fun when someone takes such a silly comparison seriously ;)

[thaFunkster 0]

Best looking game ever in terms of artistic vision and graphics technology a definite "no".

Best interpretation of a realistic picture, as far as I know "yes".

Everything else visually like animation, effects and physics "definitely not"

Killzone 2 and Crysis are very different artistically than Arma 2. And the technology in Killzone 2 and Crysis is way ahead of Arma 2.

Yeah, you may be right, but as you say "Best interpretation of a realistic picuture yes". For me this is the key, whether ArmA2 has the latest and greatest technology is of little consequence, what matters is that it looks real, it looks moody and it creates atmosphere.

It looks great in the screenshots, but we still have to wait and see how it actually looks on our PCs, there is a big difference between stills and seeing something actually in motion.

However it comes out though, I know I will be happy and I will love it. :)

[cm 0]

One area where crysis > arma 2 is water. Having just finsihed the game and it's expansion today, all the visuals are fresh in my mind.

On top of water, you have the explosion effects and of course character detail, which are MUCH better that what I have seen so far.

There are however, a significant amount of things that look better in arma II.

[craig3000 10]

Well my opinion is that Arma 2's graphics are photo realistic.

Agree to that

For me I haven't had a game with all the military elements, the slower pace and teamwork etc

Its all been about COD4 running and gunning

Hopefully this game will be the only game I have got sucked into for a while, there is a trailers that you can watch where its in a jet and he looks over at the other one, just looks so real and the online will just be 10x better!

[craig3000 10]

One area where crysis > arma 2 is water. Having just finsihed the game and it's expansion today, all the visuals are fresh in my mind.

On top of water, you have the explosion effects and of course character detail, which are MUCH better that what I have seen so far.

There are however, a significant amount of things that look better in arma II.

You can't really complain though ARMA 2 has to render much more than crysis, crysis is fairly linear

[Steakslim 1]

You can't really complain though ARMA 2 has to render much more than crysis, crysis is fairly linear

It has to render objects within a rather large, and adjustable view distance. ArmA/ArmA2 doesn't necessarilly render "more" on screen. An interesting thing is, if you were to put the visual and technical effects, and increase the models to match the high polycount, textures, and shaders of Crysis in ArmA/ArmA2, or make the island in Crysis one massive continuous level with the large infantry, vehicle count, and big urban areas like you have in ArmA/ArmA2, neither game would be playable with current hardware (and to some degree they'd almost at "bottom" be the same game at this point), so they are scaled differently. Someday I do hope we can get a game that can have best of both worlds, and at the rate games have been moving along we just might in the next few years hopefully.

Anywho, both games are doing what the other can't, but that's because neither game has the same goal in mind. One's a moderately large yet greatly controlled and segmented environment, and the other is a huge (massive actually, compared to other games) and at times a somewhat untamed environment.

[craig3000 10]

It has to render objects within a rather large, and adjustable view distance. ArmA/ArmA2 doesn't necessarilly render "more" on screen. An interesting thing is, if you were to put the visual and technical effects, and increase the models to match the high polycount, textures, and shaders of Crysis in ArmA/ArmA2, or make the island in Crysis one massive continuous level with the large infantry, vehicle count, and big urban areas like you have in ArmA/ArmA2, neither game would be playable with current hardware (and to some degree they'd almost at "bottom" be the same game at this point), so they are scaled differently. Someday I do hope we can get a game that can have best of both worlds, and at the rate games have been moving along we just might in the next few years hopefully.

Anywho, both games are doing what the other can't, but that's because neither game has the same goal in mind. One's a moderately large yet greatly controlled and segmented environment, and the other is a huge (massive actually, compared to other games) and at times a somewhat untamed environment.

Ok that was what I was trying to say ;)

Crysis was a good game, gameplay and graphics but it was never a smooth game in terms of frames per second which kind of took away the experience for me

[Litos 10]

I dont know about you guys, but I can run Crysis on very high with 25 fps, and high with 32 fps. So it actually looks pretty good and smooth for me.

But it's only recently, so back when I had my 8600 GT, which was about...2 weeks ago, I could only run it on low.

I don't know if Arma 2 looks better than crysis, but according to that trackIR video it looks PRETTY DAMN FREAKING GOOD. In fact I was hugely impressed, I even wtfed.

[Steakslim 1]

Ok that was what I was trying to say ;)

Crysis was a good game, gameplay and graphics but it was never a smooth game in terms of frames per second which kind of took away the experience for me

Yeah most people today play the game with a framerate ranging from 15fps to 40fps on the highest settings (you have to make custom configs to actually achieve that) unless you are running SLI or have a nice juicy gtx285 (or the gtx260 216) then you can achieve more. For those who wanted to run the game on the highest settings upon release were raging unless they had a 8800gtx/ultra. Even though many of the bad memory leaks have been fixed (in Wars at least) the game is still unfriendly to most people's older hardware without turning some settings down. I cant' even play it on my native resolution for my monitor (1680x1050) without getting undesirable framerate drops if I want to keep all the eyecandy.

Truly I hope ArmA2 isn't as vicious on most people's hardware like Crysis was. It shouldn't be, I can't really see it being much more difficult to run than ArmA with newer core support and the like, I guess it depends on what view distance you like to play on.

[Litos 10]

I actually think ArmA2 might be even more vicious on people's hardware like Crysis was. This is most likely because of the open world, and for example, when you fly up in a helicopter you can view a looot of stuff for a long distance and it could really be complicated. I can run crysis on very high, with no problems - but I can run arma good only on high, and even that lags when I'm in a helicopter.

I know I've mentioned this a thousand times but just to repeat myself, Arma2 might actually be pretty power hungry.

[Steakslim 1]

Well if I recall, part of ArmA's problem is it's lack of good multicore support.

[Alex72 1]

blah blah blah... ARMA2 is more optimized and uses multi core supprt like Steakslim mentioned. It IS the same engine just ~3 years newer and thus optimized. Videos where they fly around for minutes and never lag. Testimonials of testers reporting minimal or no LOD issues.

Wait and see instead of blabbering negative comments. So fucking tiring.

[boomar. 10]

If an nvidia 8800/9800 512mb cant run this on high settings fine then many people wont get this game.

Steam have asked a large pool of gamers about there hardware and msot people at the moment have an nvidia 8800.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard

You may not think its reliable source and all, but i do. Many many gamers use steam, playing all different sorts of games. So good sample imo.

[maddogx 13]

If an nvidia 8800/9800 512mb cant run this on high settings fine then many people wont get this game.

Steam have asked a large pool of gamers about there hardware and msot people at the moment have an nvidia 8800.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard

You may not think its reliable source and all, but i do. Many many gamers use steam, playing all different sorts of games. So good sample imo.

An 8800GT should be more than enough for medium settings with an average view distance. I remember reading that BIS have optimized the shaders so that foliage (for example) no longer eats up so much performance.

EDIT: Just realized, you were talking about high settings. That's probably not gonna happen. The 8-series cards are from 2007, the 8800GT itself is 1,5 years old. Expecting those cards to handle newly released games on high or max setttings is becoming unrealistic.

Edited May 11, 2009 by MadDogX

[boomar. 10]

Medium settings looks quite bad from what i've seen. I'll wait for the demo and put everything on top notch, and slowly turn stuff down such as shadows to see how much eye candy i can have. If i ened up having the game look like something from 2003 then i wont bother getting this.

[maddogx 13]

Medium settings looks quite bad from what i've seen. I'll wait for the demo and put everything on top notch, and slowly turn stuff down such as shadows to see how much eye candy i can have. If i ened up having the game look like something from 2003 then i wont bother getting this.

You've seen the latest build of the game on medium settings? I doubt that. Dslyecxis video made it pretty clear that there is a big difference between the old preview build and the newer build he was using. It's very unlikely that medium settings will look "like something from 2003".

If you look back at ArmA1 and OFP, you've got to realize that the graphics settings follow a very different logic than in other games. "Very High" usually means "possibly playable in twelve months on a 3000$ rig", while "High" usually translates to "playable with current high-end hardware". Even today, hardly anyone can fully max out ArmA1 with max view distance. They made it with the future in mind.

And honestly, the times of "I have an 8-series card, therefore I expect to max out gfx on all games" are on the way out. Like I said, those cards are almost two years old. Arma 2 should still look pretty good on medium settings. Would you really refuse to play a brand-new game just because you can't max out the GFX settings on your 2 year old card?

[WOMBAT33R 11]

You've seen the latest build of the game on medium settings? I doubt that. Dslyecxis video made it pretty clear that there is a big difference between the old preview build and the newer build he was using. It's very unlikely that medium settings will look "like something from 2003".

If you look back at ArmA1 and OFP, you've got to realize that the graphics settings follow a very different logic than in other games. "Very High" usually means "possibly playable in twelve months on a 3000$ rig", while "High" usually translates to "playable with current high-end hardware". Even today, hardly anyone can fully max out ArmA1 with max view distance. They made it with the future in mind.

And honestly, the times of "I have an 8-series card, therefore I expect to max out gfx on all games" are on the way out. Like I said, those cards are almost two years old. Arma 2 should still look pretty good on medium settings. Would you really refuse to play a brand-new game just because you can't max out the GFX settings on your 2 year old card?

I read a hands on article by IGN, and they said it run well on a 8800GTX, pretty much a middle end graphics card they said?

"...taken from the article! he graphics engine is a lot better than before, but ArmA II still wouldn't be classified as a cutting-edge game. The art lacks the sheen of a high-end game. Still, where are excels is at creating huge, believable environments. There's nothing quite like staring across a valley floor and seeing a village in front of you, and cows herding in the fields around it. There are also some great effects, particularly with an extensive use of motion blur and the way your eyes adjust to light after putting on or taking off night vision goggles. Rough edges do exist, though. For example, there's a definite "uncanny valley" effect with the people in the game, as they have dead eyes and stiff movements. Unfortunately, the animations still feel rigid and the stilted way that people talk (they sound just like a computer is piecing together different recorded words to create a sentence) is pretty much unchanged since the original game. Still, there's a good sense of a realistic world here. And the good news is that it ran well at very high detail settings with an 8800GTX, which is practically a mid-range graphics card now."

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/974/974654p1.html

[BEEJ24 10]

i have an 8800gtx OC :D and 8GB ram and a 9600 phenom quad core, and i havent played crysis, ive seen it but it doesnt look as good as ARMA2 does, and when i get the game im going to spend my first few hours tweaking the graphics settings until i can get something that runs stable without any lag/jumping

[maddogx 13]

I read a hands on article by IGN, and they said it run well on a 8800GTX, pretty much a middle end graphics card they said?

"...taken from the article! he graphics engine is a lot better than before, but ArmA II still wouldn't be classified as a cutting-edge game. The art lacks the sheen of a high-end game. Still, where are excels is at creating huge, believable environments. There's nothing quite like staring across a valley floor and seeing a village in front of you, and cows herding in the fields around it. There are also some great effects, particularly with an extensive use of motion blur and the way your eyes adjust to light after putting on or taking off night vision goggles. Rough edges do exist, though. For example, there's a definite "uncanny valley" effect with the people in the game, as they have dead eyes and stiff movements. Unfortunately, the animations still feel rigid and the stilted way that people talk (they sound just like a computer is piecing together different recorded words to create a sentence) is pretty much unchanged since the original game. Still, there's a good sense of a realistic world here. And the good news is that it ran well at very high detail settings with an 8800GTX, which is practically a mid-range graphics card now."

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/974/974654p1.html

I'm assuming they meant the basic "very high" option, which is not the same as setting everying to "very high" in the advanced gfx menu. If you select basic very high quality in ArmA1 it sets terrain and textures to normal, shaders and post-processing to very high and everything else to high. I'm assuming it does something similar in Arma2.

Of course it's great to hear that an 8800GTX can run those settings (or rather the Arma2 equivalent) well, but I stand by my assertion that the somewhat slower 8800GT will run the game on medium settings, maybe with some options on high. Depends on how well they've optimized certain things like shaders. :)

[GepardenK 0]

Crysis is far away from arma from a technical standpoint and wow factor. But Arma2 looks way more realistic. Crysis is more cartoony, like a detailed pixar movie, while Arma2`s landscape and vehicles border on photorealistic (even if they don’t look so good close up).

I also love A2`s vegetation, openness and change in landscape, it look much better and more realistic than the repetitive, though beautiful, crysis jungle.

In short: Arma2 feels like a real place, Crysis does not.

Crysis wins on animations and physics though...