Zooming and LOD switching

[carlostex 38]

@Jockson

I totally 100% agree with you. In OFP the lod changes were much less distracting because they would change immediately. This was one of those things that i immediately hated in Arma and Arma 2.

[bensdale 0]

The OFP LOD change style would be worth a try as a beta patch.

[konrad1 10]

yeah i agree with bensdale they should try it to implent it in the beta.

the LOD switching is mostly annoying

[dmarkwick 261]

I wonder if it's an issue with streaming LoDs from the HD, in OFP I think it was generally in memory already.

[Jockson 10]

Hmm, hopefully not.

It would be great to see it as an option in a beta patch if it's technically possible. The morphing is not only ugly but more importantly it affects the gameplay too. The motion of LOD changing is extremely distracting when scanning around for movement.

Still haven't found my Arma 2 disk but am I right in saying the LOD problem is much worse in Operation Arrowhead? I wonder why, because if anything, I expected it to be much better considering there isn't anywhere near as much vegetation in comparison to Chernarus :confused:

[froggyluv 2130]

I wonder if it's an issue with streaming LoDs from the HD, in OFP I think it was generally in memory already.

I don't believe so as I had almost the entire OA standalone on my Ramdisk, yet the morphing continued.

[Jockson 10]

I don't believe so as I had almost the entire OA standalone on my Ramdisk, yet the morphing continued.

Interesting. I wonder what causes the delay then. Surely it's not like that by design? Because it doesn't seem (much?) system performance dependent from what I can see. Even when I lower all the details and set the resolution to low to get high FPS it's still the same: right click, zoom all the way, delay, trees morphing to another shape.

The optimal solution would be:

- start the morphing process as soon as the zoom button has been pressed, by the time the zooming is over LODs have already been switched and you would be hard pressed to notice it even when looking for it, and:

- disable the morphing and use instant LOD switching for high level zoom

I'm surprised BIS didn't at least implement the latter because the way I see it, there is zero advantage doing it the way it is now. Sniping looks particularly silly in ARMA for instance.

[bensdale 0]

The "good thing" is, the LOD is since Patch 1.55 bad as ever. Now they must work on the LOD and i hope they overwork the LOD.

[Jockson 10]

The "good thing" is, the LOD is since Patch 1.55 bad as ever. Now they must work on the LOD and i hope they overwork the LOD.

It is? Oh man. I finally found my A2 disk and I can confirm what I suspected earlier: the vegetation LOD situation in Operation Arrowhead demo is even worse than in ARMA 2. By some distance too.

Trees and bushes in OA looks worse, LODs differ more in shape and there seems to be more of a performance hit even though there is far less vegetation in comparison to Chernarus. What's up with that?

One thing that particularly bothers me is this multiple LOD morphing that seems to be going on. It's like ARMA 2 LOD problem X2. For whatever reason, trees morph into one shape and then into another:

Q5tRv836CTI

Surely there HAS to be a way to make it better than this? Nothing kills the immersion more than being aware of LODs at all times in my opinion. I know it's hard to compare ARMA to any other game but other FPSs all use instant LOD switching don't they? It would certainly explain why LOD changes in this game are so painfully obvious compared to any other.

Just can't get my head around as to why does the new game have worse vegetation AND performance :confused: Does this mean if I were to buy Operation Arrowhead I would get this even worse morphing system in Chernarus too?

[mr burns 131]

It might just be a subjective feeling, but going back in time on youtube watching some of my older A2 videos it looks as if performance actually decreased alot during the course of patches - just as an example the

i made with A2 v1.0 had higher settings than i´m now able to play on Takistan without throwing a fit, also there doesn´t seem to be any noticeable LOD swapping. Really confusing and, mostly, awfully frustrating.

It happened before with ArmA1, at some version your game was running great, one patch later everything went to shits. Gladly they eventually beat their own engine and made it fully playable on highest settings with patch 1.16 (i mean it, performance wise 1.16 was the holy grail, but....), even though at that point A2 was already out of the door and not many did show further interest in A1 :rolleyes:

edit:

As for OFP LOD swapping:

OFP - ~3 trees per scene

ArmA - ~80 gazillion trees per scene

Think about it :D

Edited November 22, 2010 by Mr Burns

[nkenny 1051]

Despite what was communicated before the release-- Takistan is actually a heavier load than Chernarus is. Perhaps all the enterable buildings? :)

-k

[Jockson 10]

As for OFP LOD swapping:

OFP - ~3 trees per scene

ArmA - ~80 gazillion trees per scene

Think about it :D

I know what you mean ;) but for what I'm proposing it shouldn't matter how many trees per scene are there. Even if there is only one single tree in front of me, it will still do the horribly obvious morphing effect when zooming. Other games with as complex vegetation as ARMA can do instant LOD switching. It is basically a (IMO bad) design decision.

It's not even the RMB zoom that annoys me the most. Whenever I try to use a scoped weapon in this game I just shake my head and lose all interest.

I am fully convinced if they were to give us an option to simply disable the morphing effect the majority of the players would prefer it that way. I know what BIS were/are trying to accomplish with it but 99% of the time, it does exactly the opposite of concealing the switching of LODs.

[carlostex 38]

I would also be happy with a LOD switching distance slider. For instance if i would set up my slider to 1000m there would be no LOD switching until 1000m.

[froggyluv 2130]

Yeah I was pretty surprised that the "tree flickr" actually seemed worse in OA than Arma2 despite less vegetation.

Hopefully it'll be remedied one day as it really interferes with my predatory instinct to have all of that unatural movement on-screen.

[sxp2high 22]

Trees are not as bad in my opinion... but (for me) since 1.55 the LOD from buildings are a pain in the arse. :(

When playing Domination for example i can see all enemies across the village... then after 5 or more sec. the buildings start to show up slowly... I feel like a wallhacker since 1.55. :eek: Really hope they will fix this soon. :rolleyes:

Never had that before the last patch.

Core2duo E7200 @ 3.6

ATI 4850

4GB Ram

win7 x64

[Heatseeker 0]

Despite what was communicated before the release-- Takistan is actually a heavier load than Chernarus is. Perhaps all the enterable buildings? :)

-k

Takistan is only heavier when there are buildings nearby, but BIS compensated by making the towns very small so that shouldnt be the problem..

There must be something wrong with the buildings in A2 and OA, Takistan should run perfectly since its nowhere near as complex as Chernarus or Sahrani and the LOD switching is much more noticeable than before.

[Jockson 10]

Yeah, one of the main reasons why I was excited when OA was announced was because I thought it meant better performance and less LOD issues.

I would also be happy with a LOD switching distance slider. For instance if i would set up my slider to 1000m there would be no LOD switching until 1000m.

In a way, the object detail option is a LOD switching "slider" though. It's not so much that I have a problem with actual LODs being switched (although I do believe ARMA of all games should aim for more consistent graphics at higher ranges as well instead of only looking pretty around the player), I realize LODs need to change at some point and that having no LOD changes at long distances is impossible on today's computers. My main gripe is the actual morphing effect where the two LODs blend one into another. Sounds like a decent idea in theory but in practice it is very ugly and makes for 10 times more visible LOD changes compared to instant switching.

The only scenario where I can see the morphing being better is when you are driving around but considering everything around you is moving in that case anyway, I don't think there would be much perceivable difference in practice either. For the actual combat, instant LODs seem like a far better solution to me.

[Jockson 10]

I fully realize me posting videos isn't going to make BIS change anything so just to be clear, I'm not trying to spam the thread/forum, only want to share some of my further findings on this topic ;)

Now, has anyone noticed that certain trees in ARMA 2 actually do instantly switch LODs at certain distances/angles? Then when you move to a slightly different location the exact same LODs will do the switch but with the morphing effect this time.

Here's an example, on Sahrani but it can be reproduced on A2 islands too:

4GV3EBnLxzk

Notice the tree on the left, it does the usual morphing.

X5AIvCV0sUI

Moving very slightly to the left and the morphing of that tree is now gone with the same LODs being instantly switched instead! Which of the two changes looks less obvious to you? ;)

Now what does this mean? I believe it means the engine is perfectly capable of doing instant LOD switching. The morphing is a design decision so if BIS ever decide to give us an option to turn it off, it is technically doable. It also very likely means the delay is caused by the morphing effect itself ie the time it takes to perform the necessary calculations or whatever it is needed to morph the two shapes together rather than it being a streaming issue.

So yeah, at least it seems technically possible. Meaning there is a chance, however tiny, we might see the option in some future patches :)

[Flash Thunder 10]

I truely believe that this whole issue has just been getting worse since Arma 2 1.03patch

I also assumed that less objects in OA islands would mean better performance and less LOD issues.

BIS did add a few things to OA like more destruction more enterable buildings, improved lighting effects, shader improvements but would this really give us all worse performance?

Vegetation looks worse in Operation Arrowhead and as shown in the videos the morphing effect is alot more noticeable then it was on Chernarus.

A problem could be that when zooming its constantly loading multiple LODs and constantly updating them, like stage 1,2,3, and your final morphing LOD4

then when zooming back again its repeating the LOD thrashing causing unneed strain on the HDD. Most these LODs dont even make a difference anyways I guess less LOD's would be a good thing in this case. :confused:

[rome 0]

You can mod the game and remove the unnecessary lod.

Kju did it for thernarus:

http://dev-heaven.net/projects/proper-projects/wiki/Vegetation_Tweak_Visuals

We need it for OA . Please Kju?

Edited December 2, 2010 by RoME

[Jockson 10]

I truely believe that this whole issue has just been getting worse since Arma 2 1.03patch...

It has been getting worse for some time now, no doubt about it. I only have the demo of OA but people are reporting even more LOD issues in latest patches. I can only imagine how bad it is if it's worse than in the demo. The trees don't even look like they were generated in LINDA anymore and the multiple morphing is just horrendous to look at. Two things would make a world of a difference:

- more consistent graphics, less LODs even at the expense of close up detail - can be done

- remove the morphing effect altogether - might be possible to do by us, definitely possible by BIS

I've been messing around in Oxygen 2 with ARMA models and stuff and I noticed it's only the vegetation that does this moprhing of textures when you zoom in and out in Buldozer. All the other objects/units switch LODs instantly. Moreover, after installing CAA1 and ACE island pack, when playing OFP islands in ARMA 2 the LODs of trees switch just like they do in OFP. That makes me think there might be a way to do the same with ARMA trees as well.

Being a noob when it comes to modding I haven't been able to do it but I did notice changing PixelShaderID and VertexShaderID values to "Tree" can make an aircraft do the morphing instead of instant switching for example. By changing a tree model to different shaders I DID manage to get rid of the morphing effect but that introduced some texture problems. I've sent a PM to a poster who is knowledgeable on this subject so we'll see what he says :) As long as it's possible, I'm willing to learn how and do it no matter how hard it is.

You an mod the game and remove the unnecessary lod.

Kju did it for thernarus:

http://dev-heaven.net/projects/proper-projects/wiki/Vegetation_Tweak_Visuals

We need it for OA . Please Kju?

Yes, kju's mod is a good one. Getting rid of the highest quality LODs and the ugly textures seen at distance. More FPS, less LOD switching, more consistent look. Like I said, I am a bit of a newb when it comes to this stuff but I THINK I could do what he did if I had OA :) It still doesn't solve the issue of morphing effect rearing its ugly head when using binoculars and weapons with optics though.

Also, I very much liked his Resistance vegetation mod. Even if the trees obviously don't look as good as those up close in ARMA, they are good enough for a mil sim and much more immersive IMO due to zero LOD switching. Shame about the bugs though and only one tree model was used. Without the bugs and with more varied tree models it could look very, very good.

[Atkins 10]

Does that Tweak work with CO when playing A2 campaign?

[Eclipse4349 0]

A thread I just came across after reading through here:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=111097&highlight=Lod+switching+popping

Apparently, the problem is the old ahead-of-it's-time-and-unable-to-run-properly-on-today's-hardware ploy. Probably has to do with the higher bitrate of the newer, higher end cards reducing the video memory bottleneck.

Let's face it. Arma is VERY ambitious. No other game that I know of has pushed the envelope as far. The trade-off is that you may need a heavy-duty upgrade to handle the game well. Battlefield 2, back in the day, was one for me. I went from a Radeon 9800 128MB to an Nvidia 7800GT 256MB and had a night and day difference, albeit a pricey card at the time. Same thing with GRAW, moving from my 7800GT's to a 9800GTX+. It appears that it is now time to move on from my current card and run this beast of a game the way it was meant to be.

Personally, I am very glad that BIS pushes the envelope. Otherwise, we would be left with nothing but another over-arcadey FPS clone.

Having said that, the option to turn off LOD switching when zooming sounds like a great idea! For those who cannot afford new hardware, it could be a big step in the right direction. The worst offenders for me atm are the LOD's on vehicles and static objects like MG nests. They pop from blocky, under-detailed bricks to fully detailed and beautiful, back and forth, over and over, as I move around and use zoom.