Complaints about DOF/Blur/Bloom/HDR/Cholesterol etc.etc.

[f2k sel 164]

Unless you can turn it off I'll probably have to cancel my pre-order, from past experience I'll be affected and it isn't a pleasant experience. No game should make you physically sick and cause headaches that can last two or three days. (Farcry2 same problem)

[sluggCDN 0]

72;1295106']Talked to some friends of mine that has ARMA2 and they said they get motion sickness from paying as well. Even headaches. They like me arent youngsters anymore and it seems from what i see here should be optional in the settings.

I suggest those "friends" should also consider taking Gravol for motion sickness disorder before playing ArmA2. I think this should be included in the Warning Statement below the "Graphic Content Warning - BIS is not responsible for the "soldier-wanna-bees" dying from electricution after they barff all over their keyboard".

I would also assume the postprocessing effects can appear overdone on nVidia cards that have insane amount of "bloom" added by default in-game or otherwise. On my ATI card ArmA2 looks splended, the DOF seems very realistically implemented. ATI cards usually have more crispness in their rendering.

[hoak 0]

I suggest those "friends" should also consider taking Gravol for motion sickness disorder before playing ArmA2. I think this should be included in the Warning Statement below the "Graphic Content Warning - BIS is not responsible for the "soldier-wanna-bees" dying from electricution after they barff all over their keyboard".

I would also assume the postprocessing effects can appear overdone on nVidia cards that have insane amount of "bloom" added by default in-game or otherwise. On my ATI card ArmA2 looks splended, the DOF seems very realistically implemented. ATI cards usually have more crispness in their rendering.

Nausea cogenesis, or simulator sickness has little to do with real world motion sickness, in fact people that have zero proclivity to actual motion sickness (Astronauts and Pilots) were getting sick in state-of-the-art simulators, and it it was found that it was caused by view vection, redender effects, and sensory preperception latency -- all not being to-scale... The U.S. Navy spent billions researching these effects in simulators -- and the knowledge gleaned applies to games as well...

:butbut:

[bushlurker 46]

I would also assume the postprocessing effects can appear overdone on nVidia cards that have insane amount of "bloom" added by default in-game or otherwise.

One thing BIS DO do well is listen... I think we've made the general opinion on "motion blur" fairly clear... I very much doubt it'll be left in its present state...

On the "bloom", etc front however... maybe slugg has hit the nail on the head here... I for one find it radically overdone... I'm on Nvidia... might be worthwhile if people post their card type ATI/Nvidia - along with their whinge... see if a pattern emerges....

Theres another thread here currently, focussing on an annoying "flicker" that seems confined to the right hand side of the screen... this "bug" seems to only affect Nvidia owning peepz... maybe "overbloom" is an Nvidia thing too

Just a thought...

Edited June 3, 2009 by Bushlurker

[thegunnysgt 1]

Just curious, but can someone please explain to me what post processing and filtrate video options does for a game such as ArmA or any game for that matter? I know the filtrate settings allow you to be able to tone down the HDR effect of bright objects and the 'glowing' effects on them. What does post processing do for the game, and what would the effects be of these two settings in game if they were turned down or up?

One last thing, what would be the best setting of these two video options? Don't take into account how powerful the computer would have to be, but simply the settings for the best effect in ArmA 2.

Thanks.

[aus_twisted 0]

Fillrate changes how many pixels your video card has to render, a bit of a example

I run 1920x1200 in game res and manually set fillrate to 1920x1200 (in ArmA2.cfg C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\My Documents\ArmA 2) so the game is rendering the exact same pixels as my monitor, if I set fillrate to 200% then the game is rendering each frame at 3668x2293 pixels which is a lot clearer but uses up far more resources, think of it like viewing a high res photo on a monitor set to the same width as the monitor but only has half the resolution of the photo

Post processing adds things like blur for depth of field like cameras can do, I personally like this disabled/low to show the raw pixels of the game.

Edited June 3, 2009 by AUS_Twisted

[EricM 0]

Not blur related, but certainly effect-driven :

Anyone else notice a huge framerate drop when going from mainland to the shore/see ?

I did multiple tests on Utes and Chernarus, with normal settings to have a good FPS, and I can fly smoothly over the trees, houses and such, but when arriving at the sea I get a huge FPS drop and the game stutters.

Don't know if this should have a separate thread or not...

Please can other people confirm (or not). I have a G8800 GT by the way.

Edited June 3, 2009 by EricM
typo

[whisper 0]

From my experience last night :

- sickness comes mainly from headbob for me, and fortunately this can be switched off (ofc, it makes for less dramatic action)

- Fix your framerate first! Once you get decent framerate and you have post-processing set to low, the blur, most of the time, remains acceptable (I felt nothing bad until I re-enabled headbob, at which point nausea appeared again ;) )

Again, bad framerate will make the game put more blur in! the lower the FPS, the more blur you get, so you better be sure you have decent FPS in the first hand.

That said, BI, make it optional. It's currently way overdone.

[f2k sel 164]

Now I'm in my mid forties my eyes have built in blur I don't need games to add anymore.

As for bloom I've yet to see it done well in any game, your rarely see it in the real World but you do see more of it when filming but applying that when looking through the players eyes is wrong.

When I played Crysis Warhead I changed from a CRT to LCD and I could never get the game to look right , so it's not just the graphics card effecting things.

[Balschoiw 0]

- Fix your framerate first!

Problem is, it´s not that easy to find right settings. The FPS changes alot depending on the scenary you are operating in. While some settings may give you perfect FPS in a woods area on Utes it gets catastrophic in bigger towns on Chenarus.

I´m fiddling with the gfx from the day I got Arma 2 and I have not yet come up to the best solution in terms of playabilty and optic.

Needless to say that undocumented features like the maxmem - command or the right settings for video-Ram doesn´t make it easier aswell for buyers to get these things sorted if you are no oldschool BIS customer who´s used to work with stuff like that.

Personally I think that there should be more possible with Arma 2 than there is right now.

Other games show that an astounding level of detail is possible with streaming terrain and lots of AI stuff going on while Arma 2, at least imo, really has some deficits there.

All that popup errors, LOD issues and streaming hickups are there and they are there since Arma 1, so imo there is something unoptimized going on with engine that needs a basic overhaul as finetuning doesn´t seem to do the job.

It´s hard to understand why BIS has to use limitations like the moving blur to optimize performance and on the other hand make the game look washy once you start moving. Scopes and optics in some vehicles give you such a washed picture while others work fine. It´s no stringent line BIS is following here and imo it simply boils down to unwanted effects for the players.

The result simply looks bad, while the performance is not up with other comparable (terrain streaming titles) products.

I hope there will be progress in this section, but I don´t think it can be achieved by fiddling with the current render modules. An overhaul may be needed and I´m not sure if BIS has plans for such.

Edited June 3, 2009 by Balschoiw

[mach1ne 10]

Fillrate changes how many pixels your video card has to render, a bit of a example

I run 1920x1200 in game res and manually set fillrate to 1920x1200 (in ArmA2.cfg C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\My Documents\ArmA 2) so the game is rendering the exact same pixels as my monitor, if I set fillrate to 200% then the game is rendering each frame at 3668x2293 pixels which is a lot clearer but uses up far more resources, think of it like viewing a high res photo on a monitor set to the same width as the monitor but only has half the resolution of the photo

.

I play arma2 at the resolutions 1920x1080 , if i want to set similar config file as your is this what I change:

Render_W=2155;

Render_H=1212;

to

Render_W=1920

Render_H=1080

Have you noticed better graphics by doing this. If i change the config file to the above when I set filtrate at 200% It will remain at 1920x1080 with X amount of AA enabled right?

Edited June 3, 2009 by mach1ne

[kutthoat5150 10]

Not blur related, but certainly effect-driven :

Anyone else notice a huge framerate drop when going from mainland to the shore/see ?

I did multiple tests on Utes and Chernarus, with normal settings to have a good FPS, and I can fly smoothly over the trees, houses and such, but when arriving at the sea I get a huge FPS drop and the game stutters.

Don't know if this should have a separate thread or not...

Please can other people confirm (or not). I have a G8800 GT by the way.

I have the same problem on mine, huge FPS decrease when near a large body or water. I'm also starting to have problems with the screen going completely white when running for too long but goes back to normal when I stop. Is this a PP effects issue?

[EricM 0]

I have the same problem on mine, huge FPS decrease when near a large body or water. I'm also starting to have problems with the screen going completely white when running for too long but goes back to normal when I stop. Is this a PP effects issue?

I have PP on lowest... don't think it PP issue...

Having a closer look at the water from ground level, there seems to be some form a image distortion going on underwater... maybe the effect isn't properly set up and renders at a greater distance than needed, so that when you fly over a large water area, the game has to render a large "distorted" sea bottom, thus putting a heavy load on the GPU ?

Otherwhise, the other surface effects are pretty standards : normal mapping, specular and bloom...

[aus_twisted 0]

I play arma2 at the resolutions 1920x1080 , if i want to set similar config file as your is this what I change:

Render_W=2155;

Render_H=1212;

to

Render_W=1920

Render_H=1080

Have you noticed better graphics by doing this. If i change the config file to the above when I set filtrate at 200% It will remain at 1920x1080 with X amount of AA enabled right?

If your native resolution for your monitor is 1920x1080 (16:9 Wide) then yes I'd manually change the Render W+H (Fillrate setting in game) to 1920x1080

BTW Fillrate is not Antialiasing and there's no option for AA as yet, probably in next patch from what I've read.

[mach1ne 10]

If your native resolution for your monitor is 1920x1080 (16:9 Wide) then yes I'd manually change the Render W+H (Fillrate setting in game) to 1920x1080

Sweet I have a benq e2200hd so i'm pretty sure native is 1920x1080. If I change the Render W+H settings in the .cfg to 1920x1080 this will not drop the fps as much as it used to once I set optimizer at 200%?

Edited June 3, 2009 by mach1ne

[aus_twisted 0]

Sweet I have a benq e2200hd so i'm pretty sure native is 1920x1080. If I change the Render W+H settings in the .cfg to 1920x1080 this will not drop the fps as much as it used to once I set optimizer at 200%?

No, when fillrate is set to 200% it doubles the number of pixels to render in game which is why it lowers FPS so much.

[dvolk 10]

This can be seen in real life when looking at sceneries to the side of you when traveling in a car. When you look at objects passing by at a small distance away, they do not appear very much blurred as the eyes constantly track the motion of the object to try to present a clear picture. If you look at something that is very close (such as the road surface right next to the vehicle) the eyes can no longer keep up with the speed of the motion and everything suddenly becomes blurred, but you need a rather fast relative motion for this to happen and I cant seem to do it by spinning my head for example, unless I by purpose avoid looking at anything.

The ArmA 2 engine seems to do this. Note how sharp the soldier is.

[kegetys 2]

The ArmA 2 engine seems to do this. Note how sharp the soldier is.

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8885/arma22009060121324559.th.png

That's just the distance cutoff for the motion blur effect. It would be the wrong way if it were related to anything I was describing.

[mach1ne 10]

No, when fillrate is set to 200% it doubles the number of pixels to render in game which is why it lowers FPS so much.

Then what benefit is it setting the .cgf config setting to my native reso? I can just do this in video options.

[mcvittees 0]

I concur with everyone here that strongly dislikes defocused post-processing effects in games; they are also seriously flawed in terms of realism. Even DOF which some argue 'is realistic because we can only focus to one point/plane of DOF in reality' -- aren't evaluating this 'feature' in full-context of reality........

......alias artifacting is far more dramatic, unrealistic, distracting and out of scale then any simple vision mechanics of focus.

:butbut:

Good post - very succinctly put. :ok:

Edited June 3, 2009 by mcvittees

[aus_twisted 0]

Then what benefit is it setting the .cgf config setting to my native reso? I can just do this in video options.

Well setting the fillrate to 100% is not accurate to the resolution used in game which is why a lot of people have set fillrate manually in the cfg.

[Padooka 0]

Now I'm in my mid forties my eyes have built in blur I don't need games to add anymore.

LOL :laugh: That cracked me up.

As far as the Bloom it is way over done even with the post-processing turned to low. What gets me is that in the very 1st scene of the campaign, on the carrier , right there in front of you are 3 glaring examples of this over done bloom effect. The two crew members with reflective patches on on the back of their helmet/uniforms and the radar dome up by the speaker are just ridiculous. How anyone can look at that and think it looks natural is beyond me.

Other than that I'm absolutely loving this game. For some reason the firefights just feel more natural than Arma 1.

[hoak 0]

I finally got a chance to see the game in action, and it's very impressive! But the post processing effects are even more of an eye sore (I literally had a headache after watching the game for twenty minutes), then others have politely described in this thread. The HDR is not even remotely to-scale or realistic, and the Blur effects are simply awful and completely inappropriate the way it's used.

ArmA II Blur and HDR combined are so hard on the eye/brain it's more like getting hit on the head hard then anything that scales realistic human visual artifacts. If BI needs some means of culling for performance and is using Blur to that end -- there are better ways...

Still worse 'Fillrate' which is supposed to supplant FSAA; appears to be little more then a cheap software driven scaling and descaling effect that does not filter alias artifacts, it just moves them around depending on resolution and setting.

The Fillrate/scaling trick is a really a bad idea, on par with or worse then GRIN's ridiculous 'Edge Smoothing', and due to the added performance hit it will bring most systems to their knees with settings that only make the alias artifacts (that you probably haven't seen in games for a decade) bearable, as even at the highest setting it doesn't do as good a job as simple 2x FSAA -- and most people won't even be able to use this setting which is tragic and very bad decision making at BI IMHO...

How cheap, ugly, poorly performing and unrealistic DirectX post-processing effects got to be more important then efficiently removing alias artifacts which are hideous and grossly unrealistic, in a game where precise separation of detail at long draw distances is essential -- is beyond me. Please BI, fix this -- I'll still buy the game, but wow is this capitally yucky!

:butbut:

Edited June 4, 2009 by Hoak

[njmatrix 2]

Well I can say that bloom is way too much and that carrier example is right on. I love the ghillie suit and rifle that is probably the best i have ever seen. The player models are pretty sweet and the building are 1000% better in my opinion.

Now the bad stuff.

Why is everything fuzzy like R6 Vegas? I mean you went all that way to make everything look great and then fuzz it up for what? if i wanted hazy graphic i would play Farcry 2 lol.

Why do trees flicker when I scope or use binocs?

My Ai aren't intellegient because in one of the CQC missions they line up against a wall and proceed to stay there going prone then standing up... going prone and standing up.. all the while yelling out stuff that makes no sense..you get the jist.

I have AI walking thru walls. I wish i would have got a screens of one of em halfway thru it firing at AI.

Enemy AI tracked me thru walls I was fired on all down a wall and there was no way they could see me on the other side. Which of course as soon as I leaned out I was headshotted.

I belly crawled up a raised railroad track and got stuck in the platform/rails and had to kill and restart the game.

Also my framerates are terrible but I assume its the new engine and my system combining for a not so playable experience.

Game crashes on me about 10 minutes into every mission. (SP and MP)

And whats the deal with all the squawking? It gets to be unbearable. You can't hear a damn thing except your teammate yelling. "OH FUCK Mike is down" and "Enemy gunner over there" What is with the "over there" directions now?

Anyways a couple nice improvements. I cant see me playing it online too soon until I can get it out of the 20 FPS range or someone tells you how to kill every thing to run it (which then ruins the look of it which is by far the best thing about ArmA2)

[maddogx 13]

...bloom is way too much...

Agreed.

Why is everything fuzzy like R6 Vegas?

Set the Fillrate optimizer to 100%.

Why do trees flicker when I scope or use binocs?

That's apparently due to fault LOD loading. They will hopefully improve it soon.

My Ai aren't intellegient ... going prone then standing up... ... AI walking thru walls ... Enemy AI tracked me thru walls... I got stuck in the platform/rails ...

Bugs. Already present on the bugtracker. The AI are pretty intelligent when they work properly though.

Also my framerates are terrible but I assume its the new engine and my system combining for a not so playable experience.

What system do you have and what settings do you run the game on?

Game crashes on me about 10 minutes into every mission. (SP and MP)

That is weird. I've played the game for four hours straight without a single crash. Could be anything... driver problems, hardware problems etc.

And whats the deal with all the squawking?

It's called communication. You have a team, they communicate. You can turn radio volume down if it bothers you. I agree though, the voices can be annoying.

What is with the "over there" directions now?

Needs some getting used to, but they're not so bad. Could be a little more accurate.