ArmA II: Operation Arrowhead discussion thread

[Zipper5 74]

Frankly, I don't know what's up with this requirement that developers must post news, media, trailers, all the time. Sure, for BIS it's good to do that as it builds hype and attracts more potential buyers, but for people who are actually serious about the game all it does is ruin the surprise. That is definitely the case with me, so I'm happy with little news. Patience is a virtue.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Frankly, I don't know what's up with this requirement that developers must post news, media, trailers, all the time. Sure, for BIS it's good to do that as it builds hype and attracts more potential buyers, but for people who are actually serious about the game all it does is ruin the surprise. That is definitely the case with me, so I'm happy with little news. Patience is a virtue.

+1

All the news you need to know at the moment is that the game will have awesome textures and a lot of IEDs. :D

[Scrub 0]

Bring on the fear!

[SASrecon 0]

Just been on youtube and I came across a video which shows some DCS black shark footage with render-to-texture (

); It would be an awesomely cool feature to implement into the real virtuality engine but my question is how hard would it be to implement? Does anyone know how big the hit on performance would be?

Maybe it could be disabled for large multiplayer missions but It would be such a great feature to have in smaller co-op/singleplayer missions e.g with the Apache's uav feature being viewable from the cockpit and also controllable in 'uav' mode.

[dm 9]

Does anyone know how big the hit on performance would be?

How good is A2's performance on your pc? You're not getting 100+ fps I guess. Now imagine having to render 2, 3 or maybe even 4 different scenes all at once. Thats how big the performance hit would be. (Very big)

[wamingo 1]

Just been on youtube and I came across a video which shows some DCS black shark footage with render-to-texture (

);Does anyone know how big the hit on performance would be?

Short answer: Very big. Forget about it.

But it depends on how much you want to render - the number of polygons, shaders and such.

At full detail, and anything less may be unacceptable, you should expect render time to double. Now, doubling render time won't necessarily half your FPS, but it will probably be a very large chunk of it. Big enough that it won't be acceptable.

I think it's a wonderland thing.

[dmarkwick 261]

In my experience, the rendering slowdowns in ArmA2 are less connected with the video settings and more connected with what's going on. I can get very good performance in Chernarus just walking about, even with a lot of empty vehicles about the place. The slowdowns come when it all kicks off and every AI wants a chunk of the CPU.

So, given that the AI considerations are happening in any case, render-to-texture second views might not be as boggy as people think. Particularly if you render those views at dropped settings, take all the PP off them for example, lose the high quality textures and use textures one down on the mip-map scale, same with the object LODs.

[Pulverizer 1]

It could be an optional feature. In a few years everyone could enable it even if it did have a small hit on performance with current cards. It would be useful for so many things (launcher displays, aircraft MFDs, rear-view mirrors, APC viewports).

Rendering a small scene at 200x100 pixels with low details should not cause any crazy FPS drops, unless on a very slow card to begin with.

[Tankbuster 1744]

But I see reflections of what's behind me on the eyepiece lenses on my rifles when the thing isn't shouldered. The DMR in particular. If that isn't a render to texture, what is?

[Kristian 47]

But I see reflections of what's behind me on the eyepiece lenses on my rifles when the thing isn't shouldered. The DMR in particular. If that isn't a render to texture, what is?

Its not up/to date, its something like cubemap. you'll see the same grass in town, at sea... everywhere.

[Pulverizer 1]

But I see reflections of what's behind me on the eyepiece lenses on my rifles when the thing isn't shouldered. The DMR in particular. If that isn't a render to texture, what is?

It's just a cheap fake reflection texture. Not a rendered reflection. Go inside a hangar and set weather to storm. You still see the exactly same blue skies and grassy land on the reflection.

[Tankbuster 1744]

I see. Thanks.

[Flash Thunder 10]

Yes, all the reflections are just some eye tricks.

anyways, render to texture is awesome, but you got to render the ammount of RTT's viewports, so if you got 3 RTT's you have to render 4 views, which is very big on performance.

If BIS did implement it I wouldnt be suprised at all if it was limited to only one addition rendered viewpoint.

They would have to work on the engine, alot on how they do rendering operations, optimize the hell out of it, before render to texture can become even viable as an option.

Damn shame that its so resource heavy, its adds alot of immersion especially like in that video above!

[EricM 0]

It's stating the obvious, but I'm sure BIS knows how much we all want that, and if they didn't implement it, it must be for a reasion, since render to texture exists since DX6 I believe...

Still, even if it's a bit of a killer at the moment, combining small resolution with per-pixel shaders and lower Lods for geometry, shouldn't half your performance if you have one small picture in picture.

I see myself playing arma 2 for a couple more years at least. Some day I will have a gfx card capable of handling both ! I know it.

Let's face it : some people ALREADY PLAY WITH 200% 3D RESOLUTION/Fill rate, so it must be possible to play with 100% resolution with 2 pictures...

(note that 200% resolution is actually 4x the size (twice wide and twice high))

[Defunkt 431]

C'mon EricM, you must know that changing the 3D buffer resolution is nothing like re-calculating the scene (and occlusion and z-order and lighting and God only knows what else). You only have to compare frame rate when zoomed out and in to know that shit is what kills FPS.

I'll say it again, the ability to plot 2D shapes and images to a 3D surface is half the result with virtually no cost.

[Pulverizer 1]

I'll say it again, the ability to plot 2D shapes and images to a 3D surface is half the result with virtually no cost.

"Virtually no cost":

100% = 47 fps

200% = 17 fps

[TimRiceSE 10]

"Virtually no cost":

100% = 47 fps

200% = 17 fps

are you referring to fillrate?

[Steakslim 1]

are you referring to fillrate?

yes he is

[Defunkt 431]

"Virtually no cost":

100% = 47 fps

200% = 17 fps

I think you misunderstand, I'm talking about the ability to send CutRsc graphics to a display associated with a 3D surface (i.e. the cockpit instrument panel). You won't get camera views but you could do a lot of instrumentation very simply and flexibly without having to create & animate polys in the model.

[max power 21]

It's stating the obvious, but I'm sure BIS knows how much we all want that, and if they didn't implement it, it must be for a reasion, since render to texture exists since DX6 I believe...

Still, even if it's a bit of a killer at the moment, combining small resolution with per-pixel shaders and lower Lods for geometry, shouldn't half your performance if you have one small picture in picture.

I see myself playing arma 2 for a couple more years at least. Some day I will have a gfx card capable of handling both ! I know it.

Let's face it : some people ALREADY PLAY WITH 200% 3D RESOLUTION/Fill rate, so it must be possible to play with 100% resolution with 2 pictures...

(note that 200% resolution is actually 4x the size (twice wide and twice high))

I don't think rendering a scene at higher resolutions and rendering two different viewports are analogous, I'm afraid.

[EricM 0]

Fair point, though it shows that some people already have a lot of extra graphic horsepower (I don't) which could be used elsewhere.

@Defunkt : If you're talking about the GPS map or the radar mapped to a polygon that would already be a big plus indeed. And no extra load.

[Defunkt 431]

Yes the GPS/map is a good example but for others you only need to look at what Mandoble achieves with CutRsc's.

If BIS were to setup an instrument panel or a couple of MFD's on each crew interior addressable in this way modders could create all sorts of systems and the hokey default HUD could be ditched entirely in favour of 100% 3D instrumentation.

[Pulverizer 1]

I think you misunderstand, I'm talking about the ability to send CutRsc graphics to a display associated with a 3D surface (i.e. the cockpit instrument panel). You won't get camera views but you could do a lot of instrumentation very simply and flexibly without having to create & animate polys in the model.

Ah yes, I get what you meant now. Somehow I thought it was a continuation of your previous point about doubling the 3D resolution not having a comparable performance hit to rendering the scene twice.

While some things are possible with that HUD animation stuff, it's not an alternative to render to texture in most cases (eg, rear-view mirror, APC viewport, missile camera). Even if you did somehow make it draw in 3D perspective (like vector graphics), it'd look ugly as hell and have wrong colors.

[Defunkt 431]

Even if you did somehow make it draw in 3D perspective (like vector graphics), it'd look ugly as hell and have wrong colors.

I have no idea what you're on about there unless you're imagining camera views made from CutRsc graphics which is (I thought obviously) daft and not at all what I'm talking about.

[Pulverizer 1]

Yeah, so, what you are talking about is not at all comparable to what could be achieved with render to texture.