What's up with the physics in this game?

[Eagle911 10]

For a military simulator, why is the physics engine pretty terribad?

[Moosed 10]

apparently it would have required too much processing power... so they didn't both with a proper physics engine.

[paragraphic l 2]

50 tanks moving down a hill in just a bit more natural way, grinding my system to a complete halt while simulating that. Would love to have that! :D

There are physics in the game, but there isn't a proper physics engine.

As there are so many parts in the game, the physics part of the game is both modeling and scripting, both engine and model. That's how I believe it works.

But even though you think you have everything correct, you end up with some strange rock model sending your tanks straight up in the air, like they weigh nothing.

With 100% perfect coding and modeling you'd probably wouldn't even notice the lack of the none proper physics engine.

[cjsoques 0]

..what physics? :)

[LJF 0]

There are physics and they have the potential to be brilliant (OK, passable), but as it stands they're just no ... quite right. Needs much ... much ... much tweaking.

[TankCommander 3]

The physics are basically the same as from OFP. Arma physics are there just to prevent you from walking through walls, adding suspension to vehicles and making your smoke grenades bounce like a mother fu**er!

lol

Realistically I would imagine that irregardless of how large the game is, a proper physics engine would be possible but for whatever reason be it monetary or other, it's just not there. Simply put, games have had physics engines in place for many years now and they have not created performance impacts of noticeable size. There are parts in your computer dedicated to those sorts of simulations.

[Maddmatt 1]

Simply put, games have had physics engines in place for many years now and they have not created performance impacts of noticeable size. There are parts in your computer dedicated to those sorts of simulations.

LOL

Sorry but that is just so wrong it's funny.

There are no special parts dedicated to physics, unless you have one of those barely used physics units or the game uses Nvidia physx, but that can't be relied on because many current PCs do not have them.

And physics definitely does have a major impact on performance, depending on how much it is being used.

ArmA 2 is already a very CPU intensive game. A "proper" physics engine would increase that. More complex calculations generally means more CPU strain, obviously ;)

There are some oddities in the games physics that could be fixed, and there sure is plenty of room for improvement of course.

The tanks getting launched into the air is one thing, although I don't know how bad that is in 1.03.

[max power 21]

That kind of reminds me of that 'popular wisdom' that floated around about ten years ago about how humans 'only use ten percent of their brains'. Yuhuh.

[TankCommander 3]

There are no special parts dedicated to physics, unless you have one of those barely used physics units or the game uses Nvidia physx, but that can't be relied on because many current PCs do not have them.

And physics definitely does have a major impact on performance, depending on how much it is being used.

ArmA 2 is already a very CPU intensive game. A "proper" physics engine would increase that. More complex calculations generally means more CPU strain, obviously ;)

I was more referring to CPU as well as generally GPUs are a lot more tuned for such operations.

The first Hitman game had ragdoll physics and that was running on very simple systems. Just from logic, I'd be guessing that adding some ragdolls to Arma wouldn't necessarily be too strenuous on the CPU in most situations. Now keep in mind I'm not an expert so throw away the stupid derogatory comments.

This isn't to say Arma needs ragdolls or most forms of semi-complex physics as it would be seldom noticed over the current systems.

It is VERY obvious that including a physics engine that simulates a large amount of calculations would impact performance more, and that is why games use scaled back methods where a ragdoll doesn't use the meshes geometry to interact with the environment, but a low density mesh such as cubes to do the calculations.

I think there is a general attitude that Arma is already so large that it couldn't get any more bells or whistles attached because it's somehow not possible. The game is great, but I'm sure a lot of people could agree it's not the most optimised. And so I'm sure if some issues were resolved, or even if not, the game could handle some more complex physics than it currently boasts.

[Quiet Blue Jay 10]

I was more referring to CPU as well as And so I'm sure if some issues were resolved, or even if not, the game could handle some more complex physics than it currently boasts.

ArmA 2 version 2.0, maybe? :bounce3:

[Maddmatt 1]

I was more referring to CPU as well as generally GPUs are a lot more tuned for such operations.

The first Hitman game had ragdoll physics and that was running on very simple systems. Just from logic, I'd be guessing that adding some ragdolls to Arma wouldn't necessarily be too strenuous on the CPU in most situations. Now keep in mind I'm not an expert so throw away the stupid derogatory comments.

Yes, but how many people are shooting each other at once in Hitman compared to ArmA 2? There's the main difference, and why the same physics would use up much more CPU power than in most games.

ArmA 2 often has a lot more of everything going on at once, which is why seemingly common things in other games can be a bit more demanding here.

I'm sure you could have ragdoll physics and the like running just fine if your battles involved less than 20 units at once

And so I'm sure if some issues were resolved, or even if not, the game could handle some more complex physics than it currently boasts.

Agree with that. It could be improved. But on the other hand, imagine how much more "buggy and unoptimised" the game would be if they tried to add more to the game within the same timeframe.

You can't get something without sacrificing something else :)

[TankCommander 3]

Yes, but how many people are shooting each other at once in Hitman compared to ArmA 2? There's the main difference, and why the same physics would use up much more CPU power than in most games.

I'm sure you could have ragdoll physics and the like running just fine if your battles involved less than 20 units at once

Hitman was just a base example of old tech running on old hardware effectively. If you look at Left 4 Dead, there are dozens of zombies being killed all over the place with full ragdoll effects consistently at any given time. Arma on the other hand would most of time involve short engagements where you may see 5 men getting shot over several seconds to several minutes. Needless to say that when people are dying out of the view range of the player, the physics are not being generated.

Other games such as counter-strike source have full physics with multiple objects and players which handles itself quite well under weights of 30 people. These are just examples and if Arma used half of their physics power then it would still be in a very nice place and run respectively. It would hardly just flop under something that gets calculated over the course of 1-2 seconds.

Agree with that. It could be improved. But on the other hand, imagine how much more "buggy and unoptimised" the game would be if they tried to add more to the game within the same timeframe.

This is purely hypothetical and doesn't keep with the point that there is room for better physics of more modern standards.

You can't get something without sacrificing something else :)

This is true. When I buy a loaf of bread I sacrifice a few dollars. Not quite sure what point this is trying to make.

Mainly I believe it's well possible for Arma to support this even tho personally I don't really see a need for it. Physics simulations for things such as ragdolls only last a couple seconds and then would leave the model static. If you wanted to counter scenarios where a bomb drops on 20 infantry and fries your computer as a result, a rule could be put in place that could for example disintegrate those soldiers by the blast. But I still think that even 20 would be acceptable by todays standards.

One last example may be for Crysis. The Crytek engine is capable of extreme physics simulations. The environments are large and complex some what on par with Arma, and yet it can handle building destruction, advanced ragdolls or even a tower of 300 barrels all acting physically realistically (meaning they interact with each other, influenced by gravity, wind, etc).

Edited August 8, 2009 by TankCommander

[Decerto 10]

All I want is to be able to ride the motorbike up a hill, at the moment this is nearly imposible to do.