Could Arma 2 become a de facto Steel Beasts Pro PE?

[cadmium77 16]

I've been playing the big tank battle in the set pieces with the Russian tanks and it's damned good. It's a bit buggy as you go deeper into the armour bust out mission with vanishing tanks and what not and a clumsy control system that makes it hard for me to coordinate two tanks with 4 crew members that keep wanting to dismount.

But despite that it's awesome realism when it gets rolling.

And my dream is to see Arma get to the point where with 1500 tanks and smoke and artillery, we could be playing a game that rivalled Steel Beasts Pro PE.

But the mod will need an immense amount of work, with coding for a superior supply system to what we have now...one that will make driving suppy trucks a lot cooler...tanker trucks full of fuel in the rear echelons fueling exhausted tanks and then getting hit by Hellfire missiles from attack helicopters... and so on...

[OrLoK 20]

Hello there

I dont know if you ever played Arma1 with the ACE addon but it did make tanks alot more interesting to use.

Hopefully (and Im sure it will be) the same when ACE is released for arma2.

I too ache for a mod to bring the tank warfare inline with Panzer Elite (the first sim , not the awful arcade ones they released after).

Multiplayer though, is the best way to have a lovely tank experience, especially when you have people who know what they are doing and not assuming its an expendable death dealing close quarters machine.

Rarely, when I do get a chance to tank, I primarially use it as a long range weapons platform as they can really shine in that dept.

But my main query is, although I am aware of SB, can you really get that amount of units on the battlefield?

Arma2 takes a hefty rig and to have a battle of the bulge (that was the big tank engagement wasnt it?) style scenario, Im sure fps would drop through the floor on even the most hefty of rigs. (please correct me if im wrong).

Also, I too am "gagging" for a descent supply/support role/system to be enabled.

Yes, there are maps which give more actions to the engie and medic,, but these are destinctly Battlefield in scope.

Even something along the lines of WW2 online (dunno what its called now) would be a great improvement.

But back to tanking, I'd love to see a more "tank sim" type of control system, so that it takes skill and practice to tank rather than the hop in and drive system there is now.

But then again, this equally applies to Helos and planes etc.

Alot to ask i know, but it wold be nice :)

rgds

LoK

Oh btw @ any VBS1 or 2 owners.....

Were there any tank type disks aimed at tanking? I only could afford the vanilla and a couple of the vbs1 add ons back in the day.

[cadmium77 16]

Hello there

I dont know if you ever played Arma1 with the ACE addon but it did make tanks alot more interesting to use.

Hopefully (and Im sure it will be) the same when ACE is released for arma2.

I too ache for a mod to bring the tank warfare inline with Panzer Elite (the first sim , not the awful arcade ones they released after).

Multiplayer though, is the best way to have a lovely tank experience, especially when you have people who know what they are doing and not assuming its an expendable death dealing close quarters machine.

Rarely, when I do get a chance to tank, I primarially use it as a long range weapons platform as they can really shine in that dept.

But my main query is, although I am aware of SB, can you really get that amount of units on the battlefield?

Arma2 takes a hefty rig and to have a battle of the bulge (that was the big tank engagement wasnt it?) style scenario, Im sure fps would drop through the floor on even the most hefty of rigs. (please correct me if im wrong).

Also, I too am "gagging" for a descent supply/support role/system to be enabled.

Yes, there are maps which give more actions to the engie and medic,, but these are destinctly Battlefield in scope.

Even something along the lines of WW2 online (dunno what its called now) would be a great improvement.

But back to tanking, I'd love to see a more "tank sim" type of control system, so that it takes skill and practice to tank rather than the hop in and drive system there is now.

But then again, this equally applies to Helos and planes etc.

Alot to ask i know, but it wold be nice :)

rgds

LoK

Oh btw @ any VBS1 or 2 owners.....

Were there any tank type disks aimed at tanking? I only could afford the vanilla and a couple of the vbs1 add ons back in the day.

Thank you for that comment about close combat death dealing machines. For the most part BF2 Project Reality mod was a bust because of this...the refusal to deal with the tank as a long range death dealer with poor survivability in close contact, like in MOUT, at least without a lot of infantry support. They did have a couple of tank maps, like the redone El Alamein but they weren't popular...everyone seemed to prefer swarming around in a dense chaos where tactics didn't really count for much. I love seeking defilades and getting hull down to pick off enemy vehicles two miles away.

But I see in Arma 2 a really huge potential as a Steel Beasts Pro PE with full 3d soldiers instead of the sprites.

God wouldn't a Battle of Kursk be awesome or an Iraq Iran War with massive tank battles? Or maybe a enactment of the Battle of Fulda Gap in the early 80's that never took place but which would have been an amazing war with the technology of that day...

I love taking advantage of the long range of those big tank guns...

Remember modders...there's more potential to this game than mere MOUT or team deathmatches...

And it would be a mistake to make tanks two man affairs frankly. It's too difficult to find a decent partner online for the most part. Once or twice I've had older guys that were serious wargamers share a tank with me and we kicked ass, a ton of fun, but 95% of the time it was hopeless.

As for VBS2 does anyone here know if it's worth getting? Is it different than Arma 2? Is there a lot of great scenarios out there for it? A good online community?

Edited July 11, 2009 by Cadmium77

[arma2disapointed 10]

I tried Operatiobnflashpoint again, just to find out how many units with full viewdistance and low settings i could have on desert island.

Turned out to bee a whole lot of units, to many to count, the computer was mid nothing special.

What is need to be done is, increasing the viewdistance to 20.000 meters and add everything else from Arma2, but leave the graphics Operationflashpointish.

That would be a very good start.

[Apocal 10]

The downside to using ArmA is a 2.5km (ish) make unit render distance. Beyond that, you see nothing. A.I., under limited circumstances, will though.

[arma2disapointed 10]

I bet it´s possible to make it render on 20 km. It´s just that OFP had some 2000 meters projectile dissapear issues. And many of those things is fixed in arma and arma2.

Going to count the units again, post the fps and what comp i have.

---------- Post added at 08:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:57 AM ----------

To make it clear.

In OPF you can deside to what distance the units will be rendered, its called visual quality and its just a slider, when the slider is to te right it renders to full viewdistance.

Did the test with 400 tanks on dessert island OFP and the Unit render slider to max with full viewdistance, and the result was about 5-7 FPS on my old comp.

400 tanks it´s somthing

Really its all about polygones and model details, i tried to slide the drawdistance slider to the left, 100-200 meters renderdistance instead of 5000 meters, somthing and it just rised the fps by 1 or 2.

It´s about the models are still there, but you can not see them, so it dont affect the fps.

If cut the polycount in half you could have twice as many of them, but they will bee more quadratish.

I like quadratish.

---------- Post added at 08:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 AM ----------

To make it even more clear.

To count polygones, the computer need a fast CPU. Or maybe several of them, as it is not possible to rise Mhz much more now then it was ten year ago.

---------- Post added at 09:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:47 AM ----------

Other thing to do is.

When see a tank (or other unit) i the distance it is quadratish, but so far away so you cant see this clerly.

One thing to do so you can have more units is to halv this distance of when the tank (or other unit) become quadratish, so instead of beeing quadratish at 200 meters, it become quadratish at 100 or even 50 meters.

It will take off the load to CPU for every unit, and will be able to have more of them.

Even better to let them be quadratish all the way.

In the distance let it just be a cube, dont even need to have the gun.

Aim for 30 fps at 200 units. (tanks)

A wheel can be of four polygones at close distanse, or dont have to bee at all, as it´s very consuming CPU power.

Very,very far distance just a dot.

Very far distance a cube.

Far distance cube with a small cube on top. (so you can see if it´s a tank or not)

I dont even need to have wheels at close distance.

Edited July 11, 2009 by arma2disapointed

[Murklor 10]

To count polygones, the computer need a fast CPU.

Dont you mean GPU? The CPU doesnt handle polygons. That's called software rendering and no modern game use it. You would probably render 1 frame per 20 minutes for Arma 2 quality or something :p

[arma2disapointed 10]

Dont you mean GPU? The CPU doesnt handle polygons. That's called software rendering and no modern game use it. You would probably render 1 frame per 20 minutes for Arma 2 quality or something :p

Noticed how the load on CPU rising when the unit count rising?

Pleas try OFP, and you see that you dont even need a GPU there.:p

Then try 400 tanks and see what the GPU says about that in arma2.

And then try to have 400 tanks in OFP with or without GPU, and tell me the difference. It will bee noone.

The 700-800 Mhz a GPU have is rediculus compared to a CPU. Then you can shade what you want.

The goal is to have 1500 units, and no GPU can help you with that.

Call it software rendering or whatever you want.

Edited July 11, 2009 by arma2disapointed

[arma2disapointed 10]

Just tried to do it in Arma2, used 200 tanks in Utes island, the fps where

at 6-7. "same settings as in operationflashpoint"

Arma2 did not render the units as far as operationflashpoint did, and it was clear that the shape of the units (models) was smother, not as quadratish as in OFP.

And it all comes to the cost of redused unit count, as i only used 200 of them.

Render unit at full viewdistance will not have impact on FPS more then let´s say 5%.

So you can have up to 100% more units in OFP then in arma2 with the same FPS.

It seem like it´s going in the wrong direction, or just confirms it.

Every unit must have 100% less polygones.(preferable 200 or even 400%) And the count will increas equally by 100%.(200-400%)

Yes it will not look so smooth and nice, but it´s the cost you have to take, in otherside everything will move 100%(200-400%) smoother.

This has always been the main problem, and i was always locking for a mod that did take away polys from the models, and always find the oposite.

If you want a game with realistic artillery, anti air defance, tank wars, this is the way to do it first of all before you start with other things.

Dont think its wrong to say that this is game physics it´s all about.

Edited July 11, 2009 by arma2disapointed

[Pyronick 21]

Noticed how the load on CPU rising when the unit count rising?

Pleas try OFP, and you see that you dont even need a GPU there.:p

Then try 400 tanks and see what the GPU says about that in arma2.

And then try to have 400 tanks in OFP with or without GPU, and tell me the difference. It will bee noone.

The 700-800 Mhz a GPU have is rediculus compared to a CPU. Then you can shade what you want.

The goal is to have 1500 units, and no GPU can help you with that.

Call it software rendering or whatever you want.

I think that's mainly due to the AI coding.

The problem with AI is that when the amount of bots are increased linearly, the performance loads is increased exponentially.

In this case the difference between 2 and 4 bots is smaller than 122 and 124.

But the GPU is also stressed, only linearly because you simply need to render more characters and their shadows.

If your GPU is too weak, you'll never make it to 1500 individual units.

But modern GPU performance is growing beyond modern CPU performance, unless Intel and AMD come with AVX/XOP, FMA and CVT soon more and more action will run on the GPU and the importance of an expensive CPU will be negligible.

[arma2disapointed 10]

To make this very clear, im now going to try same thing with 400 empty tanks with no AI at all and see if the fps goes down, and then it vill be clear how mutch CPU power the AI consumes.

The question is how mutch a GPU with it´s 700 Mhz can increase the number of units with or without shadows. Sorry i dont think it will do mutch difference.

One solution could bee multiple CPU´s, there is already motherboards with space to fit 4 CPU´s. The bad thing about this is that it probobly will consume a lot of energy, and could be unpractical in that point of view.

Everything above 1500 w would be to mutch i think.

If you want to simulate reality, it must be done in a realistic way. I rather sit in a box and pretend it is a tank but i would know it is for real. Then anything else.

And i would know that the artillery that hit me, really come from the cannon behind the mountains, for that i have no problem to pretend that the box i am sitting in is a tank.

Edited July 11, 2009 by arma2disapointed

[arma2disapointed 10]

The other test was 400 tanks in full battle.

So i did the test with 200 AI tanks on same settings desert island.

Sitting as a gunner doing nothing 10 minutes

I got

Operation flashpoint

200 AI tanks standing

Frames: 29504 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 49.173 - Min: 18 - Max: 67

200 empty tanks, thats with 600 crew´s less than above, it hell of lot less polygones.

Frames: 45300 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 75.500 - Min: 51 - Max: 149

1 tank gunner doing nothing.

Frames: 81613 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 136.022 - Min: 103 - Max: 143

100 moving AI tanks with crew, same as 200 tanks standing. So the passive AI dont consume anything, it´s just when it act. To that it comes a lot of animations and i think the result would be the same in multiplayer with no AI, in that case you could say that the AI dont consume anything, even when it act.

Frames: 28839 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 48.065 - Min: 29 - Max: 55

100 tanks standing.

Frames: 46113 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 76.855 - Min: 57 - Max: 80

Arma2

100 tanks standing at utes island.

Frames: 12169 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 20.282 - Min: 15 - Max: 23

100 tanks moving at utes island.

Frames: 5088 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 8.480 - Min: 6 - Max: 12

The differense in polygones OPF units vs Arma2 units is more than 100%

Edited July 11, 2009 by arma2disapointed

[Murklor 10]

200 empty tanks, thats with 600 crew´s less than above, it hell of lot less polygones.

Again that's probably not so much the polygons (a crewman in a tank, unless he's turned out, bring no increased polygon count whatsoever) but rather the extra work of the AI.

Of course you could improve performance quite a bit by making lower polygon vehicles (although I think you're being a little overzelous in your "box" tanks at 50m view distance) so that you could easily lessen the framerate impact. When I messed around with Blender I made a pretty decent looking M1 Abrams at around 700 polygons I think. You should be able to paint like what, a thousand of those for the same graphical performance of 3-4 Arma2 tanks, haha!

The AI is of course a whole other matter though.

[arma2disapointed 10]

Again that's probably not so much the polygons (a crewman in a tank, unless he's turned out, bring no increased polygon count whatsoever) but rather the extra work of the AI.

The AI is of course a whole other matter though.

You are not blind i think, so pleas take a look at this. Notice the difference between standing and moving Passive and active AI, with everything on low, there is no animations in operationflashpoint.

100 units standing.

Frames: 46113 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 76.855 - Min: 57 - Max: 80

100 units moving.

Frames: 29524 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 49.207 - Min: 35 - Max: 64

200 units standing.

Frames: 33087 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 55.145 - Min: 40 - Max: 59

100 moving AI tanks with crew, same as 200 tanks standing. So the passive AI dont consume anything, it´s just when it act. To that it comes a lot of animations and i think the result would be the same in multiplayer with no AI, in that case you could say that the AI dont consume anything, even when it act.

Frames: 28839 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 48.065 - Min: 29 - Max: 55

Edited July 11, 2009 by arma2disapointed

[Pyronick 21]

You are not blind i think, so pleas take a look at this. Notice the difference between standing and moving Passive and active AI, with everything on low, there is no animations in operationflashpoint.

100 moving AI tanks with crew, same as 200 tanks standing. So the passive AI dont consume anything, it´s just when it act. To that it comes a lot of animations and i think the result would be the same in multiplayer with no AI, in that case you could say that the AI dont consume anything, even when it act.

There is no such thing as passive and active AI.

Artificial intelligence is always active, even if it's idling.

In this case, the artificial intelligence also relays positions and status among eachother.

The best thing to try is probably place units without fuel and munition and try again. You'll notice that the AI can make a huge difference in performance.

Operation Flashpoint uses specific LOD scenes, in which sometimes things are rendered and at others times aren't rendered at all. In this case the crewman are not rendered in third-person view at crewed tanks.

You can check it by using any DX Wireframe (3D ripper for instance) application, there are no polygons rendered for the crew or the interior.

Edited July 11, 2009 by SgtH3nry3

[arma2disapointed 10]

Sorry for the numbers,(now changed to right) it must have been somthing wrong, did the test again and here are the new ones.

100 units standing.

Frames: 46113 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 76.855 - Min: 57 - Max: 80

100 units moving.

Frames: 29524 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 49.207 - Min: 35 - Max: 64

200 units standing.

Frames: 33087 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 55.145 - Min: 40 - Max: 59

And i dont see what´s so funny, the units in operation flashpoint is superior in term of strategical, tactical and huge battles.

At close range, lowest settings there are no wheels at the tanks and that´s take away a lot off load on the CPU.

100 standing tanks 77 FPS vs Arma2 20 FPS.

100 moving tanks 48 FPS vs Arma2 8 FPS

Im sure it could be improved some, but still not as mutch as needed. And the above comparison really says it all.

---------- Post added at 10:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:38 PM ----------

There is no such thing as passive and active AI.

Artificial intelligence is always active, even if it's idling.

In this case, the artificial intelligence also relays positions and status among eachother.

The best thing to try is probably place units without fuel and munition and try again. You'll notice that the AI can make a huge difference in performance.

Operation Flashpoint uses specific LOD scenes, in which sometimes things are rendered and at others times aren't rendered at all. In this case the crewman are not rendered in third-person view at crewed tanks.

You can check it by using any DX Wireframe (3D ripper for instance) application, there are no polygons rendered for the crew or the interior.

More simple is to think of dead bodies, that have a very bad impact on FPS, they are just models with no AI and a lot of polygones.

Cant argue that maybe the AI have some load on the CPU, but it´s not as important as polygones anyway.

---------- Post added at 10:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:10 PM ----------

So i tried with.

100 empty tanks and 600 soldiers (580) to compare with the 100 tanks with 600 tank crew and yes you are right on that one. But it´s hard to see if the numbers would be better in multiplayer where there is no AI.

Frames: 12825 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 21.375 - Min: 14 - Max: 25

Dont even want to try this in arma2.

And then i tried 100 empty tanks and 300 soldiers like it should be.

Frames: 19309 - Time: 600000ms - Avg: 32.182 - Min: 22 - Max: 37

Edited July 11, 2009 by arma2disapointed

[ProfTournesol 956]

@ arma2disapointed : can you enligthen me with the purpose of all those calculations :confused:

[arma2disapointed 10]

@ arma2disapointed : can you enligthen me with the purpose of all those calculations :confused:

Well the fat numbers are FPS.

The thing is that bis was to exited about graphics and forget why this game differs from other, and dont use the whole potential of the game, actually cut the potential in half from operationflashpoint or even more as it seem, all due to glittering nice graphics and detailed models, instead of going the other way.

And now no matter what computer you have, if you want many units on the map, you have to go back to OFP.

Just look at the polygones at close range on the units in both games, and you could soon see that the count on arma2 units is at least 100% more, witch result in more lag and less units on the battlefield.

The models need to be simple with few polygones, the thing you need is good textures.

Look at operationflashpoint tank, at close range on low settings, it have no wheels made by polygones it´s just textures, and they really look very nice.

Who cares if the wheel spins if it is just the cost of lag and bad FPS.

Maybe we should be happy that they dont made the pistons move inside the tank engine yet.:j:

There is realism and there is realism, one bad and one good.

Edited July 11, 2009 by arma2disapointed

[Murklor 10]

There is realism and there is realism, one bad and one good.

And there's a good game too. A game that requires competetive modern graphical design.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with all the numbers either. We already know that Arma2 isnt exactly designed for army corps scale battles, its much too detailed to handle that smoothly. We can declare without fuss that yes, the game runs smoother with less polygons displayed. Its a given!!!

So if you want this, mod it. There's a modding forum.

[arma2disapointed 10]

Arma2 isnt exactly designed for army corps scale battles

It should be. It has always been the intention, but somthing happened on the way there.

About the numbers, 25-30 is acceptable.

Arma2 is going further and furthe away from it´s intentions, and could end up with a animation when a soldier press tooth paste on his toothbrush.

Or even showing his tounge when he speaks.

Be aware of that.

And i bet those things is important for someone.

Edited July 12, 2009 by arma2disapointed

[arma2disapointed 10]

To bad im not a graphic card salesman, or i would agree with you on everything.

[ProfTournesol 956]

@ arma2disapointed : well, of course the more detailed the units are, the less you can put them on the map.

But it isn't as simple as this.

Once upon a time in OFP, i made very simple units (based on bis low lod, just a 100 of vertices, with 2d weapons etc.) with very simple textures (128x128), to figure some Napoleonic wargame. The game was of course more fluid, but, i couldn't have much bigger fights on the map than with my standard napoleonic units. 150 units fighting each sides at the same time was the very very maximum. The reason was : animations (soldier units are more animated than tanks for example), AND the AI during the fights (calculating targets, distance etc.).

From what i feel, those AI calculations are much more complex in ArmA2 - and so far from perfect - , and much more optimized than in OFP. But as they are much more complex, they are very demanding CPUwise. The nice graphics are mainly handled by the GPU, with more or less success, that wasn't really the case in OFP were a low GPU was very enough.

[arma2disapointed 10]

Could say nothing about the AI beside that all i have test so far, point that the AI dont consume anything.

It is like you said the animations and the models, the textures consumes only RAM,(what i can see) and thats not a problem.

Anyway i was using 64x64 textures in all FPS test i made.

And there is so many animations thats not needed.

so i link here, it almost the same thing.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=78221

Edited July 12, 2009 by arma2disapointed

[ProfTournesol 956]

so i link here, it almost the same thing.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=78221

I don't see any links between both topics, apart from you posting in them.

[arma2disapointed 10]

It´s basically the same problem in both. The load on CPU affect both viewdistance, renderdistance, number of units and mutch more.

The solution is simple models, non or very few animations.

Think that 600 units is not impossible, maybe not simultaniusly all togheter shooting, but atleast moving on the same map with a desent FPS.

A huge, as huge as it can be, dessert map would be wise to.

So it would be for

snipers, helis, tanks, airplanes, missiles, antiairdefence, artillery, and unmaned air planes, cars mainly.

The sahara dessert would suit nice for this. Say 1000x1000 km

100 empty tanks and 600 soldiers

Avg: 21 FPS

Now take away some animations from this and the FPS will rise. And then add the "good stuff" from Arma2

What would the CTI be like on this, just imagine. And the need to have fuel and ammo for everything, so it would be costly to go with 20 tanks.

Edited July 12, 2009 by arma2disapointed