Dragon Rising has been released

[eble 3]

I'd hazard a guess this is the most active DR thread on the net? The CM forums (which I check daily) seem very quiet.

I've still got DR installed but at pre-dlc 1 version as I hated the idea of loosing what little mods were created.

I've heard DLC2 improves the vehicle physics (badly needed) I made some vids a while ago below showing the insane settings for tanks and helicopters (tanks doing back flips from hitting a rock etc and Helicopter able to backflips/front flips).

Lets cut the name calling and stay on topic, if templargfx wants to script missions for DR good for him, he has shown his skill at mission making and who knows in a few months might be scripting for arma2 (Operation Arrowhead).

He could even use the arma2 island being created kiska/Skira http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=88362

Add in the PLA mod that has been released and you could create missions/battles way beyond what DR could offer being a console port.

[reconteam 19]

Is there anything Dragon Rising can teach ArmA2 about improving performance? The biggest problems in my experience is not draw distance or any number of vehicles or men, but looking at vegetation up close.

I can render an AV-8 or LAV-25 fine, I can fly over the country side at a really smooth rate, yet going on foot in the grass or looking at a treeline with your ACOG has a ridiculous drop on my FPS.

It just doesn't make sense to me, it makes me want to burn all of Chenarus' forests to the ground.

[Bulldogs 10]

The DR vegetation on trees are basically 2d, so while it would improve performance, it's not the best step forward.

Arma needs some optimisations on both the building/vegetation rendering and the AI complexities. Not saying to dumb either one down, I'd just hope that the engine could be altered to not bottleneck so much, but I'm not a programmer (best I've done is scripting for automation of networks) so I've got no real idea how to do it all.

[-RIP- Luhgnut 10]

Yes they were, they weren't however entitled to push their game as a sequel to our Operation Flashpoint, yet they constantly did, they weren't however entitled to imply that they created Operation Flashpoint, yet they constantly did, those two constant "slight of hands" are what has left a bad taste for many, many gamers and is essentially the primary reason why users of this other game are often met with less than open arms here and elsewhere, dishonesty leads to distrust.

I think this is spot on. For me, the constant reference from CM aligning DR to the original, and constantly reminding the consumer base that " everything that made the original great has been included." Just watch Lenton stating this over and over at E3 vids and vids he did on national television.

This set expectations very high. In reality, nothing much from the original was included into the game. They mislead people for a very long time, from the onset, and even on the boxes.

Then their spokesman (Lenton) suddenly vanishes from the scene after launch. I find the whole thing scummy. You couldn't get away from him before launch, he wouldn't shuttup. Then suddenly within a week of launch, there isn't a peep. You would think that if it was a massive success, he would be grabbing the spotlight. It speaks volumes with the silence.

Edited January 8, 2010 by [RIP] Luhgnut

[instagoat 133]

Is there anything Dragon Rising can teach ArmA2 about improving performance? The biggest problems in my experience is not draw distance or any number of vehicles or men, but looking at vegetation up close.

I can render an AV-8 or LAV-25 fine, I can fly over the country side at a really smooth rate, yet going on foot in the grass or looking at a treeline with your ACOG has a ridiculous drop on my FPS.

It just doesn't make sense to me, it makes me want to burn all of Chenarus' forests to the ground.

Performance always has been a problem in the OFP series (I include Arma and Arma 2 for obvious reasons.) At 1000 m viewdistance, and 20 full groups per side in a large battle, I get about 10 fps in OFP:CWC. I run Arma 2 on 60 fps flat when no AI is around.

THat some of the vegetation has an overly strong impact on performance is true, however. I think it has to do with all objects in view suddenly switching to close LODs... I´ve not checked this, but I also observe that in other games, zooming in causes performance drops because the LODs suddenly switch. Arma 2 is -nowhere- near as bad as Empire, though, so at least that is something.

DR draws its performance from doing comparatively little at the same time: the only real superlative is the drawdistance (which is impressive to behold, I have to add), but the rest is rather low. There is only one or two types of grass clutter, very few trees, a handful of buildings and that´s it. The textures are relatively small, and don´t seem to use -any- kind of advanced shaders beyond self shadowing and dynamic shadow effects.

Arma 2 seems to use massive textures, very detailed (and very varied) soldier models, very high resolution models for all terrain objects, vehicles and foliage, never less than three or four types of ground clutter in the same scene, and on top of that it adds weather effects, butterflies and pollen, leaves adrift in the wind, dynamic shadows, reflections, etc, etc.

DR draws its nice looks from a very tight colour palette, and a very clearly cut-out visual language, as the devs put it in one of their videos. It´s got style for sure, but I think from the responses, it wasn´t what people expected.

In gameplay terms, it´s awkward too, at times. I once waited for nightfall in the demo level, just to find that when using NV the picture was way too bright, and too dark without it, even when the sun had completele disappeared. So in the end I ran around with the flashlight on all the time. DR has a lot of other fancy gadgets vanilla Arma 2 is missing, IR lasers for example, or the somewhat weird thermal vision. It -sort- of has the edge there, but it feels as if it´s not really trying to keep it.

It doesn´t just feel soulless and incomplete, when you think about it, it even comes across as a bit half assed.

That the AI is decent doesn´t help it out of its ditch. I think the only thing Codemasters can learn from this is that you don´t ruin a name such as OFP in the way they did without suffering for it.

Edited January 8, 2010 by InstaGoat

[Aeneas2020 10]

still trying hard to finish off the SP i'm on the last mission now, man it's been a slog but i'm determined to get some value out of this thing...i've been listening to MJ's pretty young thing while playing it on repeat. It's almost a trippy experience and actually improves the game greatly. try it for yourself...i may even post a vid.

[eble 3]

When BIS release OA you will see FPS go through the roof as desert style maps do not hinder PC performance unlike a 1million trees do.

Just grab one of the desert maps already map for Arma2, greated they are missing a lot of structures but I get 200 fps on them.

It's a real pity BIS didn't port Arma1 islands as standard as they also perform great under the revised arma2 engine.

Arma2 is so damn big, computer systems just can't cope well at the moment, were talking next gen Hardisks to move all this data.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Eble

[-RIP- Luhgnut 10]

The DR vegetation on trees are basically 2d, so while it would improve performance, it's not the best step forward.

if you still have DR loaded (yeah that's a stretch) get your mission editor out and drop yourself into a bunch of trees. Look at them. Really look at them.

For those that are fortunate to not have DR, you will see:

Every tree is a clone. They don't even go to the effort of rotating them. They are solid as can be. They aren't objects they are part of the ground mesh I think. Every tree the same diameter, same shape, same foliage, even the branches all point the same direction.

Now, look at Arma2, each tree is an object that can be pushed, burned hid behind, and all levels of variation. A tank can push over a tree and it can be hid behind by troops. Not in DR. In Arma2, hit a tree with a Sabot round and it falls over. In DR? Hit a tree and that explosive doesn't even knock bark off.

If BIS would would do this same horrible trick, the FPS would go way up as well.

What the real US military can learn from CM, is to cover an Abrams with the bark of one of the Dragon Rising trees. It's light, impervious to the most powerful explosives, cheap, and readily available in the battlezone.

[wiggum2 31]

Luhgnut;1538833']

What the real US military can learn from CM' date=' is to cover an Abrams with the bark of one of the Dragon Rising trees. It's light, impervious to the most powerful explosives, cheap, and readily available in the battlezone.[/quote']

They dont block the rounds of tanks, just small arms i think.

If i shot at a tree in DR with my 120mm the round goes through it !

[rasdenfasden 12]

Luhgnut;1538833']What the real US military can learn from CM' date=' is to cover an Abrams with the bark of one of the Dragon Rising trees. It's light, impervious to the most powerful explosives, cheap, and readily available in the battlezone.[/quote']

But first you'd have to find a way to get that stuff off one of those trees!

[NeMeSiS 11]

But first you'd have to find a way to get that stuff off one of those trees!

Just ducktape the whole tree on your tank. :p

[rasdenfasden 12]

Just ducktape the whole tree on your tank. :p

You'd have to uproot the tree first which as we all know would require you to drop something at least the size of an aircraft carrier onto it.

Damn, there's gotta be an easier way to harvest this source of great power... :p

[NeMeSiS 11]

You'd have to uproot the tree first which as we all know would require you to drop an aircraft carrier onto it.

Damn, there's gotta be an easier way to harvest this source of great power... :p

Just dig around it, leave the roots intact. If they are pointy you can use them to ram the enemy.

[rasdenfasden 12]

whoops

*snip*

[Madus_Maximus 0]

You'd have to uproot the tree first which as we all know would require you to drop something at least the size of an aircraft carrier onto it.

Damn, there's gotta be an easier way to harvest this source of great power... :p

Who needs Dorchester armour when you have DR trees?

[jblackrupert 14]

But first you'd have to find a way to get that stuff off one of those trees!

I'm working on doing that

I'm even thinking a creating a poll to see how much people are willing to pay for some once I get ahold of some DR tree bark.

[Janxy 10]

ok, boy I cant wait for the smart ass comments your all going to throw at this one!

Singleplayer plain old sucks.

Singplayer sucks because the AI is terrible. they get stuck, they ignore people being shot right next to them, even when they should have full morale, they often dont do what you tell em, or they decide they should do something else first.

death animations look like something out of a cartoon

did I mention singleplayer sucks? thats the main reason I dont like, I dont give a flying shit about multiplayer, I dont wanna play multiplayer

Those who can, do. Those who can't, complain. I guess sadly, you fall into the latter.

[templargfx 10]

Those who can, do. Those who can't, complain. I guess sadly, you fall into the latter.

smartass comment #3

[Zipper5 74]

I think, templar, you're falling into the category of "troll" with comments like that. You may be on the fast track for a ban but, unlike that "other" forum, you'll be notified about it and given a reason. ;)

[templargfx 10]

and Janxy wasnt trolling?

you mean kind of like me being given an infraction for listing what I dont like about the game, yeah, this forum is "so much better" than that "other" forum

[jibemorel 10]

Trolls and trolls feeders are usually both unwelcome on any forums

[Second 0]

Trolls and trolls feeders are usually both unwelcome on any forums

Yeah and offtopic section seems to gather worst of them from every direction. Worst kind ArmA fanbois are here, i'm here, few OFDR-supporters are here. Bitter soup is ready, spiced up with bit if intelligence and several spoons of anti-intelligence.

[cross 1]

you mean kind of like me being given an infraction for listing what I dont like about the game, yeah, this forum is "so much better" than that "other" forum

Well you should be happy that you were not banned with that language..

Having spent some money on the game does not give you the right to come here and swear around, for whatever un-satisfaction you have.

The community has been most helpful to you at this thread -> http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=90454

with lots of tips and tricks which would solve most of your issues/problems.

Yet you failed to follow any of them or probably did not have the will to try them. Yes there are bugs, just like DR has its own, but you fail to understand the complexity of AA2 engine or the underlying technology which is quite different than open terrain FPS.

This complexity gives you almost endless modification possibilities in your mission in the editor. AA2 never advertised itself as the best FPS or best indoor game but the best large scale combat simulator and that it does great....and as every simulation it is frequently un user friendly but can do 1000 times more stuff than FPS or open-terrain-FPS.

Anyhow, you made your choice and went back to DR shelving AA2. You can do it again if you can't get over it.

If you have any bug reports however feel free to report it in the Community Bug Tracker and it gets solved if it bugs enough people or if it is critical enough -> http://dev-heaven.net/projects/cis/issues

Just because this thread is in the offtopic section doesn't give you or anyone spamming/trolling right, does it. Also there are some other AA2 vs DR thread where you can have all sorts of hot discussions.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Cross

[max power 21]

He's allowed not to like it, Cross. Instead of saying he fails to understand the game, I think that it would be more accurate to say that he fails to appreciate it.

@templargfx

Perhaps it was not what you said but the way you said it? I'm not sure what statement you got a warning for in particular, but a lot of people have said a lot of harsh things about BIs games on this forum before. They managed to pull through without any warnings, as far as I know.

[wiggum2 31]

AA2 never advertised itself as the best FPS or best indoor game but the best large scale combat simulator and that it does great....and as every simulation it is frequently un user friendly but can do 1000 times more stuff than FPS or open-terrain-FPS.

I never get tired to say it, but calling ArmA2 a simulator sounds really strange to me. I thought it uses still some kind of Hitpoint system.

But ok, today every PC game is a simulator...

To get back to topic, i just played another DR mission from the Intel contest, here are some screenshots:

The Intro:

http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=snap0032e024.jpg

At the LZ:

http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=snap0034z008.jpg

A enemy camp is spoted, i order my team to give them some fire:

http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=snap0036m3w5.jpg

...and they do very well:

http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=snap0037z4oz.jpg

All enemies dead so we go to our next target:

http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=snap0038h34i.jpg

I cant see enemies so i just ordered my team to storm that place and soon a firefight starts so i have to go into action too:

http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=snap0039p3gv.jpg

http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=snap0040h4zl.jpg

On the way to the next target we run into a enemie patrol and i died... :D

Edited January 8, 2010 by Wiggum