Grass object-detail option

[Dead3yez 0]

As most people know, terrain detail on high settings cripples performance on most PCs. If possible, I am suggesting a separate option for the grass detail; that the actual LOD detail for grass is controlled by a different setting in the video options UI. (If not possible make it possible ;) ) . This suggestion will mean that terrain grid (grass draw distance) can be increased with less impact on performance, without having to sacrifice object detail or any other setting.

Pros:

• Increase immersion and visual satisfaction without loss in performance.
  
• Less suffering on servers with forced grass on. Means you don't have to lower other settings like the object detail.
  

Cons:

• None. :D
  

Just to give some idea of performance differences I have took screenshots comparing the grass at different details. I have used a view distance of 500 to minimise the effect of the detail of other objects interfering with FPS between the shots.

High detail - 15FPS

Low detail - 39FPS

More shots

Give the ticket a thumbs up if you are in agreement, give feedback if possible and check for a little more concise information: http://dev-heaven.net/issues/9771

As a side-suggestion, remove wind animtion from lower detailed LODs in distance.

Edited March 25, 2010 by Dead3yez

[gL33k 0]

thump up !

Proper vegetation low already has a pbo for clutter tweaks. but some server doon't allow addons so ....

[Dead3yez 0]

Yes, as my FPShelper addon also has a few grass tweaks. Which really helped a lot on my old system. I think implementing something like this should be high priority, performance is one of the biggest problems in ArmAII.

Bald patches of terrain is really ugly. Putting up the terrain detail causes massive frame-rate drop. Lowering object detail then causes everything else to look ugly. Grass-detail option is a solution!

[galzohar 31]

Wow, that's a big FPS difference... I don't get nearly as much difference between very high and very low grass settings.

What's the default server grass setting anyway?

Anyway, for now you can try SAP clutter and see if it helps.

[Dead3yez 0]

Wow, that's a big FPS difference... I don't get nearly as much difference between very high and very low grass settings.

It's not comparing terrain detail, but object detail. There is no option to adjust the object detail for grass. I am proposing an additional option which seperates the grass's LOD/object detail from the overall settings.

To do the test you need to:

• Set VD low as it can get (500m) - This lowers the potential amount of objects/detail that can be drawn, so it's easier to compare low and high settings of object detail.
  
• Find a highly cluttered area (just west of Chernogorsk)
  
• Set Object detail to high then low, compare FPS whilst looking at grass. - You might need to exit the settings and look around to get more accurate results.
  

Anyway, for now you can try SAP clutter and see if it helps.

It does help slightly, I have my own addon which does even more to the grass (see sig). :) Thanks though.

All this does is scale down the grass, it doesn't change the LOD detail which is processed. PROPER mods which reduce the LOD details are the closest thing to this effect. However, I'm not sure whether there's a clutter specific one. But this is besides the point. As said before, most servers don't allow these addons, this is something that would be much better implemented within the game itself.

Edited March 25, 2010 by Dead3yez

[Evil_Echo 11]

I just add an option to setTerrainGrid in the mission's server parmeters. You pick the grass level and it sets it the same on all clients to make the TvT fair.

[Dead3yez 0]

I just add an option to setTerrainGrid in the mission's server parmeters. You pick the grass level and it sets it the same on all clients to make the TvT fair.

That's helpful. But does not accustom for everyone. With an object detail setting which applies to grass only, then players are able to adjust that themselves to help reduce performance issues on their side which relate to the grass settings chosen. From the screenshots I showed, you can see it doesn't really bring that much un-fairness, which can be adjusted with the current object detail settings that we already have.

[Evil_Echo 11]

Fairness is subjective certainly.

For my TvT missions I deemed it unfair to have one player with no grass and another unable to locate his/her opponent because weeds are in the way. So grass level is mission-wide in this case.

In COOP, grass level is more an individual thing just for getting a comfortable FPS rate.

The primary point though - you can use setTerrainGrid in your mission config to clear out the grass. How and where you chose to do that is up to y'all.

[galzohar 31]

Yeah, while reducing the actual amount of grass can be unfair, reducing the quality in which it is displayed can keep fairness if it still blocks your view with rather similar effectiveness.

Currently it seems all grass settings do is change the distance at which clutter gets drawn, and have absolutely no affect whatsoever on how the grass looks.

[Dead3yez 0]

I have some screenshots from laying down with the different object detail settings.

Very low

Low

Normal

High

Very high

Personally, I even think the low settings look better than having a massive blade of grass in your face. Low detail/density grass is only giving you a slightly better view for about a meter or two. After ~2 meters the grass builds up and your view is obscured as much as the settings on high.

All object detail is effecting the frame-rate, I am assuming that because of such low viewdistance it's mostly grass causing the drop.

[Flash Thunder 10]

For me Terrain detail is the biggest performance hit, I assume it makes the terrain higher in polygons? I have to keep object detail on very high or high, because the LOD is horrible on low.

Soliders turn into mush at 10 meters so on...

But yes we need to see more graphical settings very soon perhaps in OA or next patch.

Seperate post process options

Grass draw distance

Foilage detail

[bensdale 0]

For me Terrain detail is the biggest performance hit, I assume it makes the terrain higher in polygons? I have to keep object detail on very high or high, because the LOD is horrible on low.

Soliders turn into mush at 10 meters so on...

But yes we need to see more graphical settings very soon perhaps in OA or next patch.

Seperate post process options

Grass draw distance

Foilage detail

Yes more options for more graphic settings would be very nice

[Evil_Echo 11]

Agree also. More settings would help much.

[Defunkt 431]

Voted. Based on those screenshots I'd probably opt for a lower LOD in favour of better performance or a longer grass draw distance also.

[AnimalMother92 10]

Good idea and helpful screenshots, voted up.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

When I lower my texture setting, grass have little to no impact at all. What we need is for server/missions to be able to dictate the minimum allowable difficulty/graphics setting, but anyone can choose higher. Grass I can force on in mission, and let everyone choose whatever above it, but not shadows or difficulty settings. If players can turn it off completely, it opens up unrealistic tactical elements that are unrealistic and not equal.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/death-in-the-corn-part-ii-of-iii.htm

Of course grass is a realistic obstacle. :)

The grass distance setting doesn't affect tactics much at all (I think). At those distances where it kicks in, the grass layer takes care of hiding instead of the visible grass. At close ranges however, grass and shadows combined with uniform camouflage is extremely effective.

I'm all for separating terraingrid and grass render distance though, in render settings.

[forteh 11]

Voted :)

To me the object detail should affect rendered models such as units, weapons, vehicles and buildings, personally I want this as high as possible. Grass LOD on a seperate slider would be a massive bonus, as demonstrated by the screenshots there is a huge increase in fps but still plenty of grass clutter to provide concealment.

[galzohar 31]

Carl, I think what people want here is that the amount of grass will be forced by the server, but the quality of grass will be up to the user in a way that changing it will not give a noticeable advantage/disadvantage, just like making the tanks look like cardboard boxes by setting object detail to minimum doesn't give any significant advantage/disadvantage.

[Dead3yez 0]

Another idea perhaps worth mentioning is to remove the wind animation from the lower lods of the grass in the distant. It isn't all that noticeable, and if taking away the animation has any performance increase then I think it's worth it.

Of course, if you zoom in on the grass a high LOD will load and you will see the animation again.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

@galzohar: Yeah, I see that now. I think I read it all wrong before - it happens when I get tired :) From what I understand now, the thing is to have separate controls for object detail and grass detail, instead of letting grass detail be slaved to object detail.

If so I'm all for it, can't really see any drawbacks of that compared to being able to turn grass off completely. It should still work well "as a place to hide" at least when near.