What if CryEngine was used as Arma 3 future engine?

[IronTrooper 0]

Are you going to call us dull who have fun hours and hours without missing what you call "key improvements"?

Why would I call you dull for enjoying the game as it is? They're just suggestions for the future engine.

And these "key improvements" is a sum of stuff most people complain about on the forums, not something I just made up "coz it wud b c00l" :j:

You sure that you are asking for something that COULD be done in an afternoon, are you? Blaming BI to only be able to do this in Arma4?

I'm not blaming anyone for anything. I know these things are some major engine changes and I don't expect them anytime soon. ArmA4 is an estimation based on their progress so far, as much as objective as I can be.

You sure show us a milsim where everything you blame BI for that it's missing now - is already working bugfree? At best "since years"?

Each part of that is already working in some other game, but it's nowhere as a whole. Wouldn't it be nice to have just one game where everything is possible? And again, I don't blame them for anything, I only expect them to keep improving the game.

And at the same time doesn't need a more-than-high-end-pc?

High-end is relative. We'll see when it's done.

Sorry, but I found it so arrogant ... just assuming BI developers are normal persons, I wouldn't mind them, calling you right like that.

I'm not trying to be arrogant.

From my POV it's people who suggest BI to throw away their engine they've been working so hard on and buy a new one.

I'm just saying that improving their engine is sufficient.

[Raficoo 0]

Dam... at the Video

1:10> 1:17

imagine we could have that Physics effect on Nuking a City!! imagine.. ArmA3: Armageddon AirStrike xP

[S-M 10]

Now why would we want that?

So they can maybe make some money? instead putting all the eggs into the PC market, and letting the vast hoardes of filthy stealing PC pirates take profits away from them ?

Switch on your brain!

[randir14 10]

I cant believe people think teh destruction is top notch in this game when its not. i ask again how can you blow a hole on a side of a building using a tank?

Maybe something is wrong with your game. Almost every building can be progressively destroyed until the whole thing turns into a pile of rubble. It's not a super advanced destruction model with nice physics, but it's still better than a lot of games.

Edited October 17, 2009 by randir14

[kklownboy 43]

they day i see a Cry3 mod with a real veiwdistance and or over 36 AI fighting in a urban area well, is the day i DL that MOD. But the C2 C3 can not do what A@ can do.. no matter the guys who say they mod for both.(How do you mod for C3...) Yeah i hope they keep tuning up the engine for more real world action DUH.

[Flash Thunder 10]

Full optimizations for QuadCore CPU's

Support for 64bit OS also would be nice.

and with expansions before Arma 3 it would be very nice if BIS

Improved the lighting system, no very black shadows, No Light "cones", vertex lighting I think its called, make it look more real.

Physics I hope this happens with the OA expansion this game with physics would be pure entertainment! :D

Multiple animations per action support like reloading a gun two different ways.

and Actual Advanced AI without scripting anything!

I believe some of these will be in A2 before OA or with OA.

Kick A** job BIS.

OA looks amazing already!

[Steakslim 1]

they day i see a Cry3 mod with a real veiwdistance and or over 36 AI fighting in a urban area well, is the day i DL that MOD. But the C2 C3 can not do what A@ can do.. no matter the guys who say they mod for both.(How do you mod for C3...) Yeah i hope they keep tuning up the engine for more real world action DUH.

....I think I've played user made singleplayer missions like that in Crysis, if not it can easily be set up in the editor for Crysis (unfortunately the editor was not as accessable to to everyone like ArmA's was, but once you figured it out it was actually amazing, being able to change the look of the game in realtime if you wished). Only thing was the AI in Crysis were mostly scripted and quite poor compared to ArmA2's, though they did act and move more believable but that was due to better models and flexability with them. Your post is very incoherent. What's wrong with the view distance in Crysis? It's actual draw distance is actually further than the draw distance in ArmA2 is right now without the handy addon.

Also when we speak about modding for Crysis, we mean the Cryengine2, as CE3 is not released and again, seems to only be a console port of CE2, but Mod's for Cryengine 2 were already being made before the release of Crysis itself (Crytek actually gave some groups the opportunity to make some mods before the release). Unfortunately the modding community seems to have slowed down some, or is at least no where near as impressive or dedicated as ArmA's. I know some of the mods I was looking forward to had either ceased development, or are in limbo for whatever reason. You can check www.CryMod.com to see some of the work people had done.

Edited October 17, 2009 by Steakslim

[ModeZt 0]

Just look at cryengine2 it has lots of destruction too.. In single player.

ArmA2's destructions are really really good when you understand that they do work in multiplayer. There is NO engine in the world that can do the same in realtime with 100+ players.

[Windexglow 10]

^Except it isn't really destruction. The building keeps track of it's health. When health <X, than the building is replaced by a destroyed variant of itself.

[norsu 180]

^Except it isn't really destruction. The building keeps track of it's health. When health <X, than the building is replaced by a destroyed variant of itself.

True and also not true.

Building collapsing fully is hitpoint related in A2 but you can still blast away parts of some buildings depending on where you hit it, like the control tower on Utes.

I believe if BIS had the time (and money) they could easily develope a multi-part (dozens of hitzones) destruction system for buildings which could even work well enough in MP. Adding proper physics to it would probably kill even high end systems though.

[ModeZt 0]

All the fancy physics systems like physx or anything else don't work in multiplayer.. You can make it look candy with rocks flying in all directions, but those rocks wont' do any damage to players cos you cant' synchronize every particle even for 2 players ( forget about 100 players )

Don't be fooled by the movies from cryengine3. That's single player.

[subs17 9]

^^ That is the dream sim... :)

Didnt DCS (ED) work on some (collaboration?) infantry module that will work together with their upcoming A-10 for mil usage? Think i remember seeing some image of units on a roof top lasing a target for the A-10...

Im a bit scared though of how everything will turn out in the future as in milsims will decline in popularity due to we being a dying breed of hardcore gamers, and the rise of those horrible (IMO) consoles and instant gratification games. Because no matter how much i would want to look forward to a simulator like that described by SUBS17 i cant help get a small feeling of that it will never happen. Not on the civ market anyway. Ofcourse anything made for the mil that companies see civs want could be realized, but...

I just think it wont happen for some reason. But i do hope. If there is a god - he should know i do hope, and i hope hard.

FighterOps is supposed to hopefully branch out into other sim types once they've finished the aircraft but that won't be for a few years. DCS will be the first of that type though as the A-10C is merging helicopter with jet sim.

[Sniperdoc 0]

I would love to see a game with over 100 players! Sure Arma 2 is capable... but I've yet to see servers loaded with people at that level. I've seen 32 people maybe... but that's about it. What good is an engine that can do 2000 people when the most you see on there is 32?

[whisper 0]

I would love to see a game with over 100 players! Sure Arma 2 is capable... but I've yet to see servers loaded with people at that level. I've seen 32 people maybe... but that's about it. What good is an engine that can do 2000 people when the most you see on there is 32?

Topmost server in list is often around 100 players. Even though the gamemode is abandonned, just saw 80 of them on the server today

[Sniperdoc 0]

Weird...I only see the 50 to 64 player servers. The entire gaming community for Arma seems to not even top 400 players... why would 1 server have 100 players? But... still falls short of that 2000 number that was quoted earlier...

Back to on topic though... the Crysis engine definitely has way more to offer than the Arma engine as a whole. If people claim that Arma's engine does stuff better, then why do less players play Arma? Because it's a niche game and even total die-hard players can't see the flaws for what they are. They're so blinded and locked into Arma that nothing else could possibly be better.

I can admit that Crysis has its flaws... it requires a really powerful machine (But so does Arma) but at least it runs as it's intended to run if you scale the systems... keep this in mind... the INTENT. Arma has an INTENT, but fails to deliver on that intent. Despite super gaming rigs with SLI setups and Extreme quad-core processors and 12GB of RAM... Arma 2 can run like crap. As anyone with 8GB of RAM can attest to. That to me... is a major flaw that should have been fixed a SHORT time after release... not 6 - 8 months down the road. And I don't think they'll ever fix it, because it's a limitation of the engine. You don't see other game developers having to have their players put a special switch into the shortcut to fix the game's addressing problem do you? Their games just run and they run well. Arma 2 struggles to run well.

So, in this case, someone (the OP) made an observation about a new engine that's coming out, and all he got was flack by Arma fanboys... not really fair is it?

[madine75 0]

I was part of a team that looked at creating something similar to OFP/Arma a few years back and we came to the conclusion that there was no ONE engine out there that was capable of doing everything on the same scale. Some came close, but would still have needed significant work in order to get them happening. It's not things like destruction that are the issue - it's the fact that the engine needs to be a flight sim, a driving sim, a boating sim and an infantry sim. There's nothing out there that will do all these things even at a basic level, let alone at the level RV currently provides.

I've also created content and mods for various other games, and I will comment that the tools for the Arma series leave a lot to be desired. In fact, I'm almost to the point that I refuse to believe that BIS used V3 to create Utes or Chernogorsk.

[Chunk3ym4n 10]

I was part of a team that looked at creating something similar to OFP/Arma a few years back and we came to the conclusion that there was no ONE engine out there that was capable of doing everything on the same scale. Some came close, but would still have needed significant work in order to get them happening. It's not things like destruction that are the issue - it's the fact that the engine needs to be a flight sim, a driving sim, a boating sim and an infantry sim. There's nothing out there that will do all these things even at a basic level, let alone at the level RV currently provides.

I've also created content and mods for various other games, and I will comment that the tools for the Arma series leave a lot to be desired. In fact, I'm almost to the point that I refuse to believe that BIS used V3 to create Utes or Chernogorsk.

Whats V3?

[EricM 0]

V3 : Visitor 3

[dmarkwick 261]

I would say if the engine runs like crap because it IS keeping track of so much stuff then it IS an engine problem. Personally I believe it HAS those problems, because it's tracking things that are unnecessary. Kind of the, "If a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound?" methodology. Why would the system need to track how Natalia is walking from City A to City B because her car blew up and that there's military guys hidden in the woods. Is she walking left foot first or right foot first? How is she turning her head to observe the military guys in the woods? (Just using generalized examples)

If it's story line specific and the military guys killing her has some effect on the game... it can just be a scripted event. Reducing the amount of calculations being done... but instead, we get a full fledged, free environment that has soooo many options that the system gets bogged down.

You moaning about this ability the ArmA2 engine has reveals you don't think engine fidelity is important. Instead...

And that's what's happening with the Arma engine. There's too much freedom for the AI to do STUFF even when the player isn't even aware of what is happening...! How does that STUFF affect the next mission? NOT ONE IOTA!!! The only thing that affects the next missions is what the player has done. SO... in effect... the whole process of giving non-visible or non-storyline affecting entities the FREEDOM to do what they want... is pointless and consumes CPU cycles that the ARMA engine just does not have to give.

... you believe that it's unimportant. I have to assume that you believe the ability to shred trees and balance barrels is of supreme importance, even if it's not even available in real-time play. I cannot argue against such inverted logic, instead I will enjoy the fact that the ArmA2 engine has the sort of fidelity that I enjoy, while acknowledging that you find immediate gameplay chuckles of more importance.

That's ONE place where the Crysis engine is way ahead of the Arma engine. Sure even if it can ONLY do 63 entities as was "assumed"... why does it matter... are you EVER fighting more then 60 guys at one time in Arma? It's not relevant and not conducive to making the most out of the gaming experience.

For me it is. I don't really care for shredding trees. I can even live without ragdoll on dead entities. Fidelity is what I care about, and that means that if I choose to set up some distant apparently non-gamer centric actions across the island, that my decisions and actions are affected by that at some point, depending on outcomes elsewhere. I don't particularly care for tightly scripted scenarios.

---------- Post added at 05:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:21 PM ----------

the Crysis engine definitely has way more to offer than the Arma engine as a whole. If people claim that Arma's engine does stuff better, then why do less players play Arma? Because it's a niche game and even total die-hard players can't see the flaws for what they are. They're so blinded and locked into Arma that nothing else could possibly be better.

Perhaps you should amend that to mean SINGLE PLAYER players. And even then, only in your immediate gamespace vicinity. Crytek's engine is designed to look and behave really really spectacularly around the single player gameplay environment. None of the things you seem to like about the Crytek engine is apparent in MP games. Physics suddenly disappears and you're trapped in a specified area. ArmA2 engine has different parameters that opens the entire gameplay world to everyone, anywhere. Crytek cannot do that, it's really that simple.

So, in this case, someone (the OP) made an observation about a new engine that's coming out, and all he got was flack by Arma fanboys... not really fair is it?

LOL, actually the OP is talking about using the Crytek engine in the context of using it in ArmA, which is what this discussion is about. It'd be a fine thing if it could be done, but like most other super-capable engines there's a lot of hidden limitations that excludes it.

[subs17 9]

I was part of a team that looked at creating something similar to OFP/Arma a few years back and we came to the conclusion that there was no ONE engine out there that was capable of doing everything on the same scale. Some came close, but would still have needed significant work in order to get them happening. It's not things like destruction that are the issue - it's the fact that the engine needs to be a flight sim, a driving sim, a boating sim and an infantry sim. There's nothing out there that will do all these things even at a basic level, let alone at the level RV currently provides.

Yeah I think something like that would require cooperation between companys as ideally you would want the aircraft aspect to be separate from the other types but all to use a common MP code and map. As it is with FO if you look at their screenshots you'll see that they modelled underwater terrain as well as preparation for just such a sim. That would allow the FPS Navy Seals to be deployed from submarines etc. I think the technology is there its just a matter of some companys having a go at it. Maybe for the Global map you would definately have to use the same bubble approach as Falcon 4 especially if it has a dynamic campaign.

[Alex72 1]

FighterOps is supposed to hopefully branch out into other sim types once they've finished the aircraft but that won't be for a few years. DCS will be the first of that type though as the A-10C is merging helicopter with jet sim.

Sounds nice. Hope that turns out well then. :)

What i said about DCS and then A-10 was for mil use only. An image of infantry on a roof top (human played like in ARMA) lasing a jeep i think (terrorists kinda), and the A-10 used to carry out the bombing. Graphics wasnt top notch, but damn... Infantry and those aircrafts... :)

[dayglow 2]

the problem with DCS is that the terrain is already to simple for the helicopter part of the sim. The A-10 is going to be an amazing addon and fits right in. The developers have already said they aren't looking at armor or even infantry combat because the terrain issues.

[subs17 9]

Its a pity that they won't make a mod to allow weapons in the FPS mode as its quite cool to walk around in DCS after you eject.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

are you EVER fighting more then 60 guys at one time in Arma?

Lets examine one of the more popular game modes, Domination:

40 players now.

15 or so vehicles in the base when you start.

20 or so base defense and base build elements, very modest estimate.

3 sets x 4 vehicles x 2-3 crewmen for isle defense system: minimum 24.

Thats 100 entities before you even start to add:

Main targets:

4-8 armor with 3 crewmembers each: 16 minimum (incl the actual vehicle).

4-8 cars with 2 crew members each 12 minimum (incl the actual vehicle).

40 entities used on a well populated server for main target airdrops.

16 entities used for base saboteur attacks.

16 entities for regular static defense systems.

lets assume 40 infantry units (too random to try to estimate)

Thats 140 entities on the main target.

Recaptured main targets, mobile forces, of which there can be three of at any given time iirc:

4 armor with 3 crewmembers each: 16 minimum (incl the actual vehicle).

20 infantry units.

That's 108 entities on the recaptured targets.

Side missions:

3 vehicles with 3 crewmembers each (typically): 12

2 groups of infantry (typically): 10

That's 22 exluding the side mission objects, boats, static tanks, flag etc.

Other stuff:

Boats, enemy planes, choppers, ammocrates, I'll even add markers: 100 (50 without markers?).

Summa summarum: 470 entities (not enemies) on one example mission at any given time as long as a lot of players are present. On a streaming map without any tethering limitations etc - full map used. Some of the estimates might be big, but I think most are extremely modest.

I guess Domination for OFDP won't happen in the near future :)

---

One problem I got in a mission in OFDR was when I returned to a previous location, the area would have despawned into desertion, while being very crowded before. That did not look good at all.

Edit: I don't know the Crysis engine, so I don't know if an entity is only an AI, or if it is like OFDR where an entity is *anything* you put on the map.

Edited October 18, 2009 by CarlGustaffa

[Steakslim 1]

I don't think very many things will happen for OFPDR in the near future.