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

[householddog 10]

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

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

If you went for a driving test with that kind of eyesight, I wonder if you would get your license.

Seriously though. I agree the blur should be turned off. If I am having framerate issues, its a lot easier to diagnose, if the blur isn't there.

Edited June 4, 2009 by Sniperwolf572

[Helmut_AUT 0]

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:

Amen!

It seems these days every time a new game comes out, it uses some sort of rendering method that does NOT support FSAA - something so basic that is has been a standard for computer game graphics since the days of 3dfx Voodoo 5 cards.

Most games eventually manage to enable FSAA again, but why oh why does it get taken out firsthand?

And not being able to select post processing effects individually is just annoying. It costs frame rate and drives the shader unit requirements for the card much higher.

[njmatrix 2]

Thanks for the info I posted on. As for my system it is a core 2 duo and a 9800GT. I am sure the vid card is ok but the system is a little lite in the loafers (2.13 ghz or something) Either way until I drop another cpu into it or there is a tweak guide made for us low end users I dont see me getting too much into it. Like i said if i cant get it to stay in the 30 frames range it is just is hard to enjoy.

[Dr.Pulp 0]

I really hope BIS takes this issue serious, the permanent blur when runnig kills this game as you got to stop every 15m....waiting 10 seconds for your view to get un-blurred again...check the enviroment....run 15m....repeat.

[Jex =TE= 0]

It's called "motion blurr" and I fear its not a bug but a feature.....but it sucks like hell. I have to zoom in whille running just to see whats in front me. And its getting worse the longer you run.

http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u250/Eisbaer68/ArmA%202/th_Move.jpg

After a while it really makes me sick. Hope that BIS will make this optional too, cause some people like it. But some people also like Cheese with Marmelade.....;)

Looking at your picture and focusing on the middle - can you read the text in the lower left? I can't because it's blurred meaning my eyes already have this blur feature which is 100% realistic. Now the game seems to think that when you look around, you always need to turn your head whereas in reality, I just move my eyes to that area and focus on it. This feature seems redundant as it looks as though they are trying to implemement something my eyes already do so in effect, they are doubling up.

Edited June 5, 2009 by Sniperwolf572
Quoted pic

[Jex =TE= 0]

Are you saying that when you look around quickly in Armed Assault, you can see everything just as well like you were completely still? If that's the case, you're an advanced lifeform. I'd say human eyes already create the motion blur/image processing delay effect by themselves, there's no need to amplify something that we already experience in and outside games. Motion blur and depth of field are like having a visual aid to show which direction a sound is coming from even though you have (at the very least) stereo sounds and a pair of ears to listen. Only they don't aid you at all, only make things harder to see than you would in real life.

I should have read a few posts further lol.

This is my thought exactly. When driving fast or turning quickly, my eyes cannot focus on things that fly past. I never experience blur at all unless I'm off my face on something.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Imho visual stuff and eyecandies should be all easy to customise/adjust.

Btw. is there a tweak that sets the vehicle FOV into better + outzoomed view? Glueing "-" on numpad isnt a option.

[Operation Currywurst 10]

Putting Postprocessing on low does help to reduce the blur a bit I think.

[horror1 10]

looking at a wide screen makes ur eyes already have tunnelvision and blur on the edges.

try to sit in first row in cinema and u have the same effect left and right .

this artificial blur is not realistic as it doubles the already natural given blureffect and destroys the reality when i look at the edges and cant focus it, while it should be in focus when im looking at it.

[bushlurker 45]

Despite the fact that there seems to be no visible reduction in this insane blurring in the final 1.01 patch, I'm still confident there will be a hi/med/low/off switch or something similar by the time of the UK release at least, or certainly the USA one... for one simple word...

Litigation...

Lets take a look at what we're actually dealing with here..... this isn't covered by the usual videogames disclaimer about epilepsy, etc that may affect a fraction of the population... what we're dealing with here is a "feature" in a videogame, which has resulted - so far - in DOZENS of complaints of headaches, nausea and other medical reactions... the forums are full of such complaints - the company are therefore aware of the problem... and that it could affect ANYONE, not just people with a prior medical condition... to therefore do NOTHING about it is, another simple word... "Negligence"... "Criminal Negligence" in fact... a lawyer might argue for "Comparative Negligence" (I knew it would make me sick but I played anyway)... but Negligence nonetheless...

#edit# - actually, I've just been told the "comparative negligence" angle wouldn't work - HOW did I know the game would make me feel ill? (apart from the fact that it did). Was I Informed by the Company? nope - they haven't acknowledged the issue - I "read about it on a forum" - that constitutes "word of mouth" - theres a difference between "knowing" and "Knowing" apparently...

Now I know easty and others like to squeak that if you "turn your settings down" the effect might largely go away... maybe it does, maybe it doesnt, but for a large percentage of users, turning their options down any further quite simply isnt really an option....

Could we quantify this "turning down to non medically-threatening levels"? Yes we can - the company has stated a "minimum" and a "recommended" system - presumably if a user has such a system, or better, he will be safe from this, lets call it "motion sickness", even though strictly speaking, it isn't.

Is this the case?? Sadly not...

OK - maybe the package disclaimer could be altered... to read what?

"this game may cause headaches, nausea, dizziness (to name but three reported reactions) unless you...

Buy a system at least 3x beyond our recommendations and then turn everything down to virtually unplayable levels and pray, just pray you don't hit a busy bit in a mission, cause then your framerate will drop and you might get sick, but thats not our fault, honest...

Walk - Don't run, and turn very very slowly...

Seriously though... without a definite and clear warning that the blur aspects of the game could have quite uncomfortable medical side effects - regardless of age, health or current medical status AND a clearly labelled switch so that such potentially nasty FX can be turned off BIS are just BEGGING to be sued...

I have a friend who is a lawyer here in the UK - he mainly deals with commercial injuries litigation and compensation claims... (..an "Unprincipled Legal Vulture" is how he puts it.) After a casual explanation of the current situation, and - without seeing the official UK/USA packaging, and also assuming no blur off/on switch to be present in the official release, he described it as "commercial suicide" and was of the opinion that "the yanks will have a field day with this"...

I think we've all heard the story of the little old lady who sued McDonalds - and won millions$$ because their hot coffee was..... hot... it clearly said so on the packaging that it was hot, but the warning "wasn't big enough"...

Now the days of such "frivolous litigation" are largely over in the USA, and McDonalds are a big enough company to absorb the $million payout - not to mention the staggering legal costs... but would BIS be able to weather even one such situation, let alone many???

Somehow I don't think so...

Fortunately, BIS are an established company with an excellent reputation - their games are - quite literally - unique... they're smart and they mean to stay in business... they have lawyers, they listen to advice... hell, they even listen to US! :) I REALLY don't think they'd jepordise their future as a Company over something as trivial as making some cheap console effect non-optional.

Therefore - I still maintain that optional motion blur will be implemented Very Very Soon...

an "official" statement by BIS would put all our minds at rest I think.....

The crazy postprocessing blur/bloom/cholesterol is another matter entirely.... thats annoying, but it isn't "All-Time Favourite Software Company Bankrupted By US Legal Sharks" annoying.....

B

Edited June 6, 2009 by Bushlurker

[hoak 0]

I wonder if the lack of FSAA as an option is tied to the ugly post-processing effects. Technically it shouldn't have to be as this is a DirectX 9 game, and the post-processing + alias artifacts is so profoundly ugly that one would think BI would be very carful not to use any sort of deferred render foo-faw that makes these exclusive. Three other Developers have made such a giant step backward with costly consequences; maybe the demo will reveal all...

:o

Edited June 6, 2009 by Hoak

[galzohar 31]

Even ignoring the legal stuff, if it makes you sick in game but does not make you sick IRL, it is not realistic.

A few tests you should do before saying you like these effects:

- Stare at a point in the monitor while shaking your head (but not at super-high frequencies that make your jaws resonante) and try to read the text. If you didn't go crazy like I said, you should be able to read it, be it shaking head up-down or left-right. You will also notice that unless you move it beyond a certain angel, you will keep seeing pretty much the same image. This experiment shows how unrealistic head bobbing is.

- Re-size your browser window so that it takes no more than 1/2 your screen. Grab it and move it around and at the same time try to read stuff on it. Notice that you can't read anything even though windows does not have any motion blur. This shows how realistic motion blur is (you already have the effect, no need to multiply it artificially).

- For DOF I can't really come up with an experiment, as after all distance focus/lack is not simulated without DOF, however blur of objects far from your center of focus is already simulated without DOF. Therefore simulating DOF, while providing the effects of blurring objects at a distance you're not focusing at, also multiplies the already existing effect of blurring objects that are far from your center of focus. DOF also has another flaw that it forces your character's focus to be the center of the screen rather than what your eyes are really focusing at, which is pointless until they come up with eye tracking devices - in fact they'd need a full VR kit before they could implement something like DOF realistically (that is, only for distance and not for distance from center of focus).

There's a reason those things make people sick. They're simply hurt realism more than they help it.

[hoak 0]

I made an earlier post here that elaborates on some of these points as well... I could also cite references if that were needed.

:butbut:

[nodunit 397]

Even ignoring the legal stuff, if it makes you sick in game but does not make you sick IRL, it is not realistic.

A few tests you should do before saying you like these effects:

- Stare at a point in the monitor while shaking your head (but not at super-high frequencies that make your jaws resonante) and try to read the text. If you didn't go crazy like I said, you should be able to read it, be it shaking head up-down or left-right. You will also notice that unless you move it beyond a certain angel, you will keep seeing pretty much the same image. This experiment shows how unrealistic head bobbing is.

While true this isn't something that deserves to be complained about, there is a slider ingame that adjusts the amount of head movement like the weaponry floatzone.

[galzohar 31]

Yes, fortunately head bobbing has a solution in the options, but the 10 other issues don't. And yes, they're issues, not features, as they are not realistic and cause unpleasant physical feelings you wouldn't get IRL.

[EricM 0]

Good FPS, low Post-Processing and very little Head BOB solved all these issues for me at least.

[Helmut_AUT 0]

Something more to consider: When you go third-person over the shoulder view, this is all gone. No tunnel vision, no motion blur. And it gives me 20% more frames that way on my 9600GT playing high-res.

For me this means the blur and DOF effects are massive shader hogs, killing performance on cards that do not have a lot of shading units. I like the effects and the idea behind them (when you run full tilt, you lose situational awareness) but not at the cost of 20% framerate.

[Balschoiw 0]

Kegetys just posted his mod to disable Bloom and Blur.

Here It allows disabling the motion blurs and optionally the "bloom" as well. Disabling the motion blur effect seems to increase the fps as well, an official fix would propably increase it a bit more since this one just replaces the PS effect with a direct copy "effect".

Download here.

Just tested it and it works like a charm. I sometimes have the impression that the sky is flickering, but I guess it was there before. With the mod I am playing on all setting "very high" now and have set my fillrate to 150 percent without problems. Need to do more testing though but the performance rise is really remarkable and the blur is gone.

Still...there are gun optics that have the blurry look. This should be fixed by BIS.

I like the mod Keg has made and I guess something like this would really fit well for Arma 2 if it is included by BIS within a patch.

As I said, there is a real rise ion performance with the mod and it looks crisp.

Thanks Keg !

You should set up a thread in Addons/Mods complete to spread the word.

[hoak 0]

As there are already vision mechanics at work that are much more realistic and to-scale then the wasteful post-processing effects, I can't feature what there is even to like about 'the idea behind them' which isn't remotely realistic. The right intention may be behind it, but not the research if this is the motivation... That, or someone at BI just likes how it looks (God knows how or why)...

[Dr.Pulp 0]

Good FPS, low Post-Processing and very little Head BOB solved all these issues for me at least.

even with cosntant 50 fps the blur while running makes my eyes hurt and after some minutes they start to cry. its to hard for the eyes to permanently look at a blurred picutre.

[Rista 0]

Kegetys just posted his mod to disable Bloom and Blur.

Download here.

Just tested it and it works like a charm. I sometimes have the impression that the sky is flickering, but I guess it was there before. With the mod I am playing on all setting "very high" now and have set my fillrate to 150 percent without problems. Need to do more testing though but the performance rise is really remarkable and the blur is gone.

Still...there are gun optics that have the blurry look. This should be fixed by BIS.

I like the mod Keg has made and I guess something like this would really fit well for Arma 2 if it is included by BIS within a patch.

As I said, there is a real rise ion performance with the mod and it looks crisp.

Thanks Keg !

You should set up a thread in Addons/Mods complete to spread the word.

Wow, using the "B" mod to disable both bloom and blur really did noticeably improve performance on my system. Makes the game look better too except that I also notice the sky flickering at times which I'm pretty sure wasn't there before.

[bushlurker 45]

WOW!

THANKS KEGETYS!

KNEW you could solve this!

SoftTH is working fine, blur gone... now all I need to do is get Freetrack working and things will almost be back to normal!!!!

Thanks again Keg!!

B

[hoak 0]

Wow, that was fast! With this mod enabled can you force FSAA? If it's actually disabling post-processing. and the Fillrate/overscale feature could be similarly disabled -- it would seem plausable we could get real FSAA...

:butbut:

[moosenoodles 0]

Wow, that was fast! With this mod enabled can you force FSAA? If it's actually disabling post-processing. and the Fillrate/overscale feature could be similarly disabled -- it would seem plausable we could get real FSAA...

:butbut:

Im going to guess that will have to be a code change via the exe somewhere with possible other file alterations.. But im all for it if or when it happens.

[InsaneDruid 0]

And another long OFP/ARMA/ARMA2 Gamer that signs the list of the Bloom&Blur&DoF Haters!

It's total unrealistic and kills immersion. Its a movie-reality effect.

DOF:

In reality, though dof occurs, the rapid changing of points that the eye focusses on makes dof MUCH less intense to be felt. Also, in reality you can choose to focus on long or short distances, whereas an artificial dof effect FORCES you what you see.

Its a MOVIE effect. While it can be nice in a cutscene or a screenshot, it hinders actual gameplay.

Bloom:

also more of a movie effect, though bloom can occur when a really bright light source is present, the human eye can counteract this to a large degree, so its often MUCH less intense and you have some sort of control over it. Artificial bloom takes this control and makes it a movie world reality effect. Please tone it down and/or make it user selectable, best with an amount slider.

MotionBlur:

completely senseless, as "real" motion blur occurs automatically under the right and real circumstances. You just need a fast enough moving object and a high enough framerate to display this movement smooth enough.

In reality, you can track a fast moving object with movements of body, head and eyes, so see the object that moves is rather clear and the background gets blurred. Or you focus on the background and the object gets blurred. An artifical motion blur takes away this control, and forces you what you can see. Nice for movies, but a killer for games.

So please give us complete control over these effects. Let us turn then on and off, just how we like, and maybe give us a slider or acfg entry on how strong we want those effects.

ARMA isn't a movie where a camera dictates what we see, what we see clearly or what we see blurred, and on what object in a scene whe shall focus. Its a Game where the player should decide if he looks and fokuses on the tree in the background or the bush in the foreground. Or his weapon or the sky.

Please give this Freedom back to us.