OA: Figured out why the game looks so ugly for some

[jpinard 10]

I was pretty flummoxed when I read Snakeman's scathing assessment of OA in the general discussion thread. It was disheartening because he's done great work with GL4 and I hope to see GL4 ported specifically for OA. At any rate, I couldn't understand his statements as things had looked fine for me - but now I see what he (and many others) have been referring to:

1. There's a problem with the LOD variables. Sometimes everything looks fantastic and the game runs well. But I'm seeing this happen in the new maps (please watch video in 1080P full-screen to see the watercolor effect and LOD issues I mention below)

rESXoriS_c4&hd=1

...the reason I believe this isn't just slow LOD re-draw is in the first part of the video there's a bunch of trees to the distant-right which are farther away, but in proper LOD resolution vs. the tree I highlighted which looks like a watercolor artist splashed it on. In the second half of the video the same issue appears with the bush. The bush is at a lower (and stretched) LOD than when I was further away and it won't "snap" back to sharpness until I close in on it. This is behavior I hadn't seen in ArmA2.

2. Earlier today when I loaded up the Takistan map everything suddenly looked abysmal. I thought it was because of the Post Processing so I went to turn it off in case it was creating too much haze (like it does in the oil fields). The game had somehow adjusted my 3D resolution to a much lower res, but also one with the wrong aspect ratio. No big deal - just set it back to the proper setting, but some people may not think to re-check video options as it can happen when you haven't been in the options screen.

All video options set to Very High including Post Processing.

Edited July 1, 2010 by jpinard

[enad 11]

The trees really do just look terrible. They wont load their proper texture untill less than 30m away. It's really bad. :/

OA reminds me of ArmA 2 Patch 1.01.

Hopefully in a month or two these problems will be fixed and I can enjoy OA fully!! :(

[jpinard 10]

The trees really do just look terrible. They wont load their proper texture untill less than 30m away. It's really bad. :/

OA reminds me of ArmA 2 Patch 1.01.

Hopefully in a month or two these problems will be fixed and I can enjoy OA fully!! :(

I'm sure it'll be great. As with all new digital products needs a little tweaking and refining.

[MavericK96 0]

Honestly, I had a similar issue in ArmA2 and changing Video Memory from Very High to Default pretty much fixed it for me. LOD switches aren't instantaneous but they don't stay at a low LOD as long when you zoom in/get close to them now.

[Bulldogs 10]

I thought the trees looked good, but haven't noticed LOD problems with them yet, only LOD problems with Zagrabad.

Many people have noted that they have an issue with video settings changing or not saving, so everyone should check their settings but the 3d resolution should be noticable on all fronts, not just the trees.

[maddogx 13]

According to Maruk, OA is still lacking the multicore improvements introduced in Arma2 1,07. Hopefully, once they're in, we'll be seeing better LOD switching. :)

[-)rStrangelove 0]

With 1.52 OA is using all my 4 cores, i checked with ProcessExplorer. Dunno about improvements, but so far the games runs & looks ok for me.

[Windexglow 10]

Is there any point in not setting memory to default?

[Bulldogs 10]

For some people it runs better set at high or very high, some it runs better on default. There was an issue with Windows XP on many systems (may still be there, haven't checked lately) in that the game would artifact if you ran it on default, setting it to high or very high fixed it in most cases.

[jw custom 56]

The same issue we have been discussing here:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=101243