What does ARMA 2 have that Operation Flashpoint 2 doesn't?

[Skeptic 10]

I wish Codemasters well. What A2 has over OFPDR? The answer is easy...

1. OFP

2. OFP2 (Arma)

3. OFP3 (Arma2)

That's true unpatched there were some issues, but they get fixed. OFPDR is simply unknown and make conclusion before game is even released makes little to no sense.

[Calradian 10]

Goddamn Calradian, why on Blood's nuts so much? Especially for being your first two posts.

As if post count/registration date would excuse that... but you're right - nothing personal BloodBomb - you just happen to be in the wrong time & place for me - I just finished a similar discussion with some pals IRL.

Nonetheless - this is a useless thread and you are rationalizing your laziness IF you made it to learn which game is more realistic/OFP-like. Now, if the goal of this thread would be compiling in the 1st post an objective and easy to understand for all newcomers differences list... but than again - somebody has to PLAY them both for the list to be of any real use.

[Gedis 0]

I advice to forget ofp:dr, since arma2: vme pla dragon mod is rising.

codmasters bankrupt is here

[snipman 0]

ArmA2 has the magical hands.

[M2]The mythical Cover and feed mechanism assembly opening by itself and cocking handle pulling back.

Don't even get me started with the dead run M240 reload in 4 seconds lol.

[^Th0mas^ 10]

ArmA II doesnt have exploding barrels, omg :eek: ...

[maddogx 13]

ArmA II doesnt have exploding barrels, omg :eek: ...

I does with a bit of scripting... :)

[householddog 10]

ArmaII seems to have a fair bit of the modding community behind it.Which is a plus. Arma 1 and 2 are sort of cult games. They have a small, but very strong following.

To be honest the actual engine on ArmaII pretty well sucks. People are calling on more improvements to physics etc. I just don't know where the processing power is going to come from. The thing already punishes the best PC setups.

ARMA 2 has a higher theoretical MP limit.

Arma 2 comes with the editor shipped.

Arma 2 is a fairly easy port (from what i hear) from old Arma I

OFP DR claims to have a more destructible environment.

OFP DR, claims to, allow you to enter all the buildings.

You can put attachments on weapons etc.

I think the OPFP II is going to have much better physics, for a start. Its probably going to have better performance too. That simply comes from having a much newer engine, that has been proven on other games. In particular the physics should be top notch, as the engine has been used in car racing games.

If you are wanting to see which one to buy. I would wait for OFP DR to come out. Hopefully ArmaII, will get some better performance, and you can see what the alternative is like.

PS BI is thinking of releasing Arma II on console aren't they. The whole console argument is a little bunk, if this is the case.

Edited June 12, 2009 by householddog

[^Th0mas^ 10]

I does with a bit of scripting... :)

Yeah, but I dont want exploding red barrels. If so I would play Far Cry or any other arcade game. Red barrels in Dragon Rising is a epic fail. Hope they remove them before release. First of all they dont explode as that in real life, and they are really in the game just for the Hollywood effects and ragdoll physics.

[Deadfast 43]

To be honest the actual engine on ArmaII pretty well sucks.

No, it does not...:rolleyes:

[EricM 0]

To be honest the actual engine on ArmaII pretty well sucks

: Visually, the engine has been praised even by some harsh critics, saying it looked and ran great. On the physics side, OFPDR may have the lead on certain aspect (collisions), but Arma2 has good ballistics.

OFP DR claims to have a more destructible environment

You can blow up anything in Arma2 beside carrier and dam, what else could they have (apart from the obvious red barrels)?

OFP DR, claims to, allow you to enter all the buildings

: Yep, that's right, all 4 of them... (j/k) Jokes aside, that may be possible, but it seemed that the real island was rather barren, so if they stayed true to the real world reference, there won't be many buildings anyway.

Let's wait and see how they deliver...

[householddog 10]

: Visually, the engine has been praised even by some harsh critics, saying it looked and ran great. On the physics side, OFPDR may have the lead on certain aspect (collisions), but Arma2 has good ballistics.

You can blow up anything in Arma2 beside carrier and dam, what else could they have (apart from the obvious red barrels)?

: Yep, that's right, all 4 of them... (j/k) Jokes aside, that may be possible, but it seemed that the real island was rather barren, so if they stayed true to the real world reference, there won't be many buildings anyway.

Let's wait and see how they deliver...

I really think the engine is pretty poor. An engine is not about how good a game looks, per say. Rather how much performance you get with those visuals. It's not particularly efficient IMHO.

It scales very poorly, most of the main settings seem to have effect on performance. The only that seems to have any effect is the fill rate but its impossible to fine tune it to any degree. There is little to no culling in cities, which would really help with fps.

I am not having a go at the game as such. Just, so far, I really can't recommend it, in its current incarnation. Quite likely, by the 505 release these things will be fixed and optimised.

I hear, a lot of posters, saying Arma2 can't be optimised further. If this is true I couldn't really recommend it to anyone, without a top notch, computer ever. I would say to these people, you are really not doing the game any service by saying this. In effect you are telling people their computer's will never handle it. Not good for promoting a game.

But if the question is; what is the difference, between a game, that isn't finished, as opposed to a game that hasn't been released? My answer is exactly the same as yours eric. Let's wait and see how they deliver...

Honestly I like Arma2. I wouldn't have just forked out A$700 to upgrade my computer to play it, if I didn't like it. It's just that its not finished, something that I hear, second hand, BI agrees with.

Roll on 1.02 ;)

[whisper 0]

E6400, GT8800, 2G RAM here, pretty much average to say the least.

I play the game every day without issue. I don't have the performance seen in CoD4, point being I don't need to as the twich skill part is much less important (well, for those considering twitch skills are important in CoD4 :D )

As for the game not scaling good, point me to another software scaling that much, mmh?

[householddog 10]

E6400, GT8800, 2G RAM here, pretty much average to say the least.

I play the game every day without issue. I don't have the performance seen in CoD4, point being I don't need to as the twich skill part is much less important (well, for those considering twitch skills are important in CoD4 :D )

As for the game not scaling good, point me to another software scaling that much, mmh?

What you are saying is that you don't need performance? So playing at 20fps is better than playing at 35fps? All else being equal. That is a fairly poor argument.

If somebody is reading this, wanting to know if they can buy the game. If the only argument, for poor performance, is that you don't need good performance, you are going to turn people off.

You are also telling them, that Arma2 is not a game that performs well.

Crysis is a good example of software that scaled well. Pretty punishing on hardware, but you could easily tone down the settings and have a decent game. In fact, the game detected the hardware for you and made the settings itself. Most games these day, do.

In Arma 2 its not that easy.

For instance, people report, not getting any performance increase, from lowering the resolution. Its hard, to find a game, where, lowering the res, does not increase the fps.

[Pyronick 21]

I think the OPFP II is going to have much better physics, for a start. Its probably going to have better performance too. That simply comes from having a much newer engine, that has been proven on other games. In particular the physics should be top notch, as the engine has been used in car racing games.

I'm not so sure.

The DIRT and GRID series have poor physics aswell, at least in the driving part.

Operation Flashpoint 2 seems to have even worse driving.

I think it will have better performance, since the engine isn't anywhere near as feature rich as Real Virtuality (OFP, ArmA, ArmA 2, VBS, VBS2) is.

AFAIK there are no proper projectile ballistics or Foley sound system in the Ego (GRID, DIRT, OFP2) engine.

In terms of dedicated gameplay physics, Real Virtuality, CryEngine and the Lizard engine from Simbin are one of the best engines.

I really think the engine is pretty poor. An engine is not about how good a game looks, per say. Rather how much performance you get with those visuals. It's not particularly efficient IMHO.

Depends what game you are building.

CryEngine for instance is very feature rich, but it does not have simulated ballistics, wind and weather or dynamic AI pathing. Also the environment is pretty small compared to ArmA 2.

And for race games, the Ego lacks proper suspension, tyre and aerodynamics simulation. The Lizard engine has tyre deformation, Pacejka-like tyre simulation, undertray air dynamics, wing(let) air dynamics, multi-link simulation, etc.

I can't imagine the Ego engine being anywhere near as feature rich as CryEngine, Real Virtuality or the Lizard engine.

Edited June 12, 2009 by SgtH3nry3

[householddog 10]

I don't really think the ballistics are going to be a major issue. They are certainly not difficult to calculate. They have been calculating them for over 100 years, with pen and paper.

Any coder could program it themselves with little difficulty.

Thats not really what an engine is designed to do. An engine is a shortcut on the environment, physics and modelling that speed up development.

It helps the developer create software quicker by having routines that provide a basis for their project. It means that the coder does not have to write, from scratch things like gravity, shadowing, occlusion, animation, etc etc.

Generally the designer can easily change the settings. They could put in gravity similar to the moon, for instance. These are reasonably easy things to change.

They can always code the things that the engine lacks. Or adapt its routines for a different project. The developer is not entirely limited to the engine.

The efficiency of the graphics engine would be of most importance, to arma2 and ofp2. Mainly due to the large draw distances.

All I know is that holding onto legacy systems for development, hardware, networking or anything computer related, often hampers progress and performance.

Edited June 12, 2009 by householddog
100yrs not 200 ;)

[whisper 0]

What you are saying is that you don't need performance? So playing at 20fps is better than playing at 35fps? All else being equal. That is a fairly poor argument.

If somebody is reading this, wanting to know if they can buy the game. If the only argument, for poor performance, is that you don't need good performance, you are going to turn people off.

You are also telling them, that Arma2 is not a game that performs well.

Crysis is a good example of software that scaled well. Pretty punishing on hardware, but you could easily tone down the settings and have a decent game. In fact, the game detected the hardware for you and made the settings itself. Most games these day, do.

In Arma 2 its not that easy.

For instance, people report, not getting any performance increase, from lowering the resolution. Its hard, to find a game, where, lowering the res, does not increase the fps.

I'm not talking about 30 FPS in twitch games..... 30 is what I get in ArmA, and tweaking my parameters change my rendered FPS, I just don't get the 60FPS needed in what I call twitch games (this is not a derogative term for me, I actually play some of these ;) )

Tbh the slowdown I get in ArmA, I saw them in pretty much all games I played. Yes, I need to tweak down graphics more in A2 than say FC2 to achieve the same result. OTOH I'm going to play A2 way more :p

EDIT : about your latest comment above : All I know me, is that until now, Virtual Reality Engine is the ONLY ONE achieving the scale seen in OFP/ArmA serie, other games trying to get somewhat large scale were kind of ridiculous in comparison, though ofc they had better performance. Like I said many time, I see a correlation there and it's not by chance that BI are the only ones. OFP DR will tell us how it can be done differently, and if we can have scale + performance all in one. I believe, not yet.

Edited June 12, 2009 by whisper

[householddog 10]

I'm not talking about 30 FPS in twitch games..... 30 is what I get in ArmA, and tweaking my parameters change my rendered FPS, I just don't get the 60FPS needed in what I call twitch games (this is not a derogative term for me, I actually play some of these ;) )

Tbh the slowdown I get in ArmA, I saw them in pretty much all games I played. Yes, I need to tweak down graphics more in A2 than say FC2 to achieve the same result. OTOH I'm going to play A2 way more :p

EDIT : about your latest comment above : All I know me, is that until now, Virtual Reality Engine is the ONLY ONE achieving the scale seen in OFP/ArmA serie, other games trying to get somewhat large scale were kind of ridiculous in comparison, though ofc they had better performance. Like I said many time, I see a correlation there and it's not by chance that BI are the only ones. OFP DR will tell us how it can be done differently, and if we can have scale + performance all in one. I believe, not yet.

When you mentioned scale, it go me thinking about a test I forgot to do.

I dropped my view distance from 1700 down to 500 in the settings.

This netted me 12 extra fps. From 40-52. This is a massive reduction in the amount of objects it has to draw, but nowhere near a corresponding increase in FPS.

Try it yourself. It shows that it is not the size of the environment that is the problem. There is something, fundamentally holding back its performance.

If you reread my original post on this topic. My advice is to wait for the patch. Maybe see what OPFP2 is like. I didn't say buy it. I just gave my opinion on what seems to be wrong with ArmaII and what ArmaII

Also, if you guys are correct, about the game being optimised, then I would expect no performance tweaks in the next patch. Correct?

If I see one single performance increase, from the next patch. I am going to come back and rub you nose in it. ;) :)

Of course, if it doesn't, this post will mysteriously disappear. :lol:

Edited June 12, 2009 by householddog

[Razorman 10]

:popcornsmilie:

When you mentioned scale, it go me thinking about a test I forgot to do.

I dropped my view distance from 1700 down to 500 in the settings.

This netted me 12 extra fps. From 40-52. This is a massive reduction in the amount of objects it has to draw, but nowhere near a corresponding increase in FPS.

Try it yourself. It shows that it is not the size of the environment that is the problem. There is something, fundamentally holding back its performance.

If you reread my original post on this topic. My advice is to wait for the patch. Maybe see what OPFP2 is like. I didn't say buy it. I just gave my opinion on what seems to be wrong with ArmaII and what ArmaII

Also, if you guys are correct, about the game being optimised, then I would expect no performance tweaks in the next patch. Correct?

If I see one single performance increase, from the next patch. I am going to come back and rub you nose in it. ;) :)

Of course, if it doesn't, this post will mysteriously disappear. :lol:

:popcornsmilie:

[st!gar 3]

Once a game has 30 FPS, you don't really see much difference the higher it goes, anyway...

[Scrub 0]

LOL Razorman.

Hey Householddog, Just because you lower the VD doesn't mean that all the invisible stuff goes away, it's just not drawn. The streaming engine is still doing it's thing, if there was anything going on, infantry battles, arty crossing the island, that is still being chewed on by the CPUs. The VR engine has a heavy base footprint, overhead, what ever you want to call it, for the facilities servicing all the virtual world.

Basically, you gave your video card a breather.

Put several hundred soldiers fighting in the editor. There is where Arma II shines. In scale, teamwork, tactical skill, not uber-reflexive FPS. That is something I'd REALLY like to see done in DR. Being a racing engine, I don't think it will be possible, especially in MP. They tend to focus on the details of an exclusive few, in an amazing environment, that is not all that big. I believe this is one of the major reasons why DR is cutting back so much on the MP and AI unit counts. As Walker hypothesises, 'They didn't do the math'.

And if you know anything about BIS, they are ALWAYS optimizing, and improving (sorry for your nose Whisper..:o )

Edited June 12, 2009 by Scrub

[MulleDK19 21]

Addition to my already posted reasons as to why OFP 2 is shit.

Air vehicles are AI controlled. There's no airplanes.

You can't lean.

Explosive barrels (red, btw xD) >.>

You won't notice if you get hit in the head.

PS: Read my signature below.

Edited June 12, 2009 by MulleDK19

[whisper 0]

When you mentioned scale, it go me thinking about a test I forgot to do.

I dropped my view distance from 1700 down to 500 in the settings.

This netted me 12 extra fps. From 40-52. This is a massive reduction in the amount of objects it has to draw, but nowhere near a corresponding increase in FPS.

Try it yourself. It shows that it is not the size of the environment that is the problem. There is something, fundamentally holding back its performance.

If you reread my original post on this topic. My advice is to wait for the patch. Maybe see what OPFP2 is like. I didn't say buy it. I just gave my opinion on what seems to be wrong with ArmaII and what ArmaII

Also, if you guys are correct, about the game being optimised, then I would expect no performance tweaks in the next patch. Correct?

If I see one single performance increase, from the next patch. I am going to come back and rub you nose in it. ;) :)

Of course, if it doesn't, this post will mysteriously disappear. :lol:

Don't think you got what I said. I'm not saying it's optimized. There's still work to do, plenty of it.

I'm saying pseudo 3D-engines experts should stop drawing comparisons to games that never achieved what Virtual Reality does, and patronize BI on what they should do because "hey, every other game do it and it works!".

Returning your own argument : If I expand the range of area and visibility of a ID Tech engine, simply put, it's on its knees and can't work. If I do the same with BI's engine, it handles it fine (ie short or large scale is the same for him). Why should BI apply the ID Tech techniques? It's obviously not working for what they intend.

[householddog 10]

LOL Razorman.

Hey Householddog, Just because you lower the VD doesn't mean that all the invisible stuff goes away, it's just not drawn. The streaming engine is still doing it's thing, if there was anything going on, infantry battles, arty crossing the island, that is still being chewed on by the CPUs. The VR engine has a heavy base footprint, overhead, what ever you want to call it, for the facilities servicing all the virtual world.

Basically, you gave your video card a breather.

Agreed razorman, but I did this in an empty mission. Thee should have been nothing going on at all.

OK so long as we are all in agreement with what I said, (its not really finished yet). I am happy.

Don't think you got what I said. I'm not saying it's optimized. There's still work to do, plenty of it.

I'm saying pseudo 3D-engines experts should stop drawing comparisons to games that never achieved what Virtual Reality does, and patronize BI on what they should do because "hey, every other game do it and it works!".

Returning your own argument : If I expand the range of area and visibility of a ID Tech engine, simply put, it's on its knees and can't work. If I do the same with BI's engine, it handles it fine (ie short or large scale is the same for him). Why should BI apply the ID Tech techniques? It's obviously not working for what they intend.

Finally, don't most flight sims use huge draw distances? Or am I being a "pseudo 3D-engines expert" by making such an observation?

Comparing an ID engine game to ARMA is an apples an oranges test. QUAKE maps are drawn in small areas and crammed with objects. The maps are designed to be small with a lot of details. Arma maps have much less detail.

To do a propper test, on anything, you need to change one thing and see the result. IE you need to put an ARMA2 map in quake or a quake map in ARMA2. Not so easy.

My main argument is to do with hardware scaling, not distance scaling btw,

IE

As for the game not scaling good, point me to another software scaling that much, mmh?

By the way. I am not the only person who thinks it doesn't scale well. Its the equal 3rd problem on the bug tracker.

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/1770

Edited June 13, 2009 by householddog

[Azamato 0]

What does OFP 2 have that ArmA 2 doesnt?

The ability to get shot in the head, and bleeding badly, and still being nothin serious ;)

[bloodbomb 12]

Once a game has 30 FPS, you don't really see much difference the higher it goes, anyway...

Thats actually a reall good point. Agreed. Most (except the most anal FPS twitch player) won't notice really, it wont have much of an effect on the overall gameplay.

What does OFP 2 have that ArmA 2 doesnt?

The ability to get shot in the head, and bleeding badly, and still being nothin serious ;)

Ahahah I fuckin cracked up when I heard the DR Dev say that...that one comment alone (let alone the noob red barrel comment) was enough to stop me from wanting to buy it