hardsiesta

Ok. What are these "a lot of other games", so I can have a look? I've asked many times for this, how about at least one actual example for the sake of the sustained argument? Because as I've said several times, I'm yet to see anything to make the comparison. Sounds like all those exemplary titles are easy to argue with, but very difficult to spell out. Even if there was, the bullets are still doing rapid, high priority physical calculations on CPU, which I sort of relate to doing the "enhanced" PhysX on CPU. Just instead of ethereally moving clutter or gel, you have precise simulations of bullets, so it's not hard to believe these would tax the CPU. Especially if the simulation has to be somehow reprocessed on the server and other hosts as well. Anyway, that's just my guess and it could be completely off, but that was just one example. I'm holding my breath here, waiting to hear about all these games that beat ArmA in these CPU intensive simulations.

What's "probably not much"? If the building change you proposed does a considerable difference in FPS then sure, that's a great idea. You would have my vote on it. Is there any evidence at hand? I'm finding it a little bit suspicious that hiding simple buildings would be less efficient than replacing them with more complex, broken down versions. And what about all the buildings that already have broken down models? Hardware scaling, that I agree with. But it's another subject. If they made the game super tight on the variety of CPU's out there and got the choice between having minimum 60FPS or further improved features, I'd pick the features as long as there's sufficient FPS (that's 30 minimum). There's a quote from DICE dev that says exactly the same on the issue: They could have gone high fps for BF on consoles (which it was built for ground up, if you ignore the PR bullshit about PC lead.), but they chose features, like vehicles and everything that generally sets it apart from CoD over it. Excuse? Are we talking whether BIS can optimize a CoD style game or ArmA, here? Everything that's more advanced or detailed than your standards, because they make the exceptions both ways, for the better as well, not just worse. AI, vehicle detail, character detail (stance, equipment), projectile calculations, for some examples, all related to the superior scale that you mentioned. These obviously make the CPU bottleneck in the end, which isn't a problem in games that don't have either such detail nor such scale, not to even mention those combined. That's why I said I'm yet to see a game that would make decent comparison and beat it at it. RO2 is the only game on different engine, I can recall off the bat, that competes at least in some features, but not all. I don't understand the argument to begin with either. I play games, and 30fps is enough for me to kill players who quite probably have a lot more of it on average, more often than they kill me. So, why use esports pros and arena frames as as arguments if our subject isn't an arena esport. Sure, maybe I would do even better if I had the optimal frames, but how much? Probably not enough to make a real difference, anything I would care about. It's just a game, and whether this relatively slow paced shooter runs visually perfectly smooth is going a bit OCD about it. The rate of fire is a valid concern, though. About competition, I have shit ton of fun competing in strategy, tactics and accuracy with my friends. Don't have that in arena shooters. And I don't have that much to complain about the CQB parts either, altho I do acknowledge it's different experience from gimmick shooters that specialize in it. Compared to A2, A3 is actually pretty damn fine at it, all things considered. That's why I have quite strong trust in people who made the only game all this is possible on, while everyone else went with gimmicks like super fluid CQB action at insane frames, rather than developing niche features what ArmA has. IW engine is notorious on how you can shoot and run faster, jump higher and so on, the more you have frames. That's real MLG shit right there, bro. This was an issue on PS2 at least a while back as well, don't know if they've done anything about it since. These are some I can remember off the bat, but obviously nothing should be taken for granted in how the FPS affects game mechanics. Speaking of competition, at least the frames tank equally for everyone on the server on ArmA, unlike other games. This is actually an equalizer lol. About bullet calculations, check the "Arma 3 terminal ballistics" on Youtube and tell me you don't think 33 of those per second doesn't seem like something to have an impact on CPU, on top of all the other things ArmA needs to handle simultaneously. That's just for one door gun. I know I can forgive some hickups there. But yeah, the RoF is something that deserves close attention. Other than that, to hell with standards in games that aren't even the same genre. ArmA isn't far more complex? Oh boy... How about the other games shouldn't be excused from having advanced and detailed features just for having high FPS? Why would the devs forget about making the game run better? Obviously they would care about it, they're not some f*ing EA. But I bet it's all about choices. They know the best because they've produced the best. You still haven't named even a single title to compare to yet, while I've mentioned a few for you already. I won't repeat or go into more detail here until you come up with something that has at least as detailed features as ArmA, because that's ArmA's niche, not benchmarks. We can even forget the scale to make it easier, although the details are directly related to it, considering the workload. As I said, I'd take the standard 60fps for sure, if it came free. There are more interesting things to do before that though. ArmA isn't about dodging bullets with lightning reflexes, the authentic mobility takes that out. All that's left is complaints about aiming being slightly different than over 60fps, which is a selling point only for the games in which you actually dodge bullets with it, but 30fps is not a universal problem for shooters and shouldn't be for a game like Arma. Most popular shooters out there, CoD (Aka the finest Quake 3 mod out there) excluded, are built for 30fps. "Some people complain because it's a number, and you can compare numbers. And then there are a few people who complain because they say it's a worse experience. That group has their needs and their urges, and then you have the other group that says, you know what? I'd rather have destruction, vehicles, graphics and audio because it's fun. DICE executive producer Patrick Bach"

Yes it's preferential, because there's really nothing like ArmA in terms of features which I prefer over smooth>playable frames, with its subjective effect at point blank in simple run&gun games. I said the real question is what ArmA would have to trade in for the indisputable smooth frames. This is a decision that every dev has to make, even on far more primitive games (no, not just with smaller maps). But are you really implying ArmA is just a first person shooter with just a larger scale? If yes, then you should take a closer look at what you are comparing here. It does, but as I said, as long as it's stable and roughly the same for everyone, it doesn't make difference in how well I play, to my self. At least I'm good enough to do fine against people who most likely have your dream frames, so I guess it's more like I'm just good enough to compensate the "tremendous" difference in frame performance, and this is in games in which the FPS actually impacts even the guns rate of fire dramatically, lol. Maybe you're making the frames an excuse for losing instead? How about someone makes an actual demonstration how important the 60fps minimum is to controls? Because at least I'm not losing while dipping under it. I actually read a bit about it and there are some few 60fps console games. Pretty much the simpler games have it while the more featured games don't. Like CoD does, Battlefield doesn't. They aim for you too, just as much as 30fps games do. The aim assist is there to compensate controller inaccuracy, not the lack of frames. Who cares? It's a perfect example of choice of features on given hardware restrictions. You have console hardware, you get 60fps as long as your game isn't too complicated. Exactly the same applies here, except we're talking about a game that does a shit ton more work than your average competitive shooters that are mostly visuals, and that's it. And still, those games are universally f*ing simple compared to ArmA. I say the problem here is that ArmA's features are more under the hood than on the visual representation of it, while great many people don't understand the difference. Ever seen those Kharg Island trees, by the way? Lmao. Now <30 I agree is too low, but we're talking <60 here. In primitive shooters the gun's RoF is by the FPS. Are you sure this happens in ArmA? Because I tried this once: I started the game on a very crappy computer, cranked all the settings so that it became a slideshow. Then I emptied the magazine with pretty much a frozen screen. To my surprise, it took about what I would say quite the same time as at normal frames. Now this was just one try, and IIRC I was using an AR and not a machine gun, but still, I think that's enough to question your assumptions about whether this feature as well is as you expect it, coming from the primitive shooters standpoint. Edit: Ok I played around with it a litte bit more, dumping mags with both the nato and csat lmgs. I think there was a very small difference in time, like 10% between 30fps and 130fps. Going <20 the time increased more dramatically, so what I said earlier wasn't correct either. Probably the RoF of the AR, sample size and that it seemed to function separately from frozen screen and sounds going all over the place made the difference then. And back then I was primarily trying to see if the RoF wasn't even capped, like in some popular primitive shooters that accelerate the weapons even past their supposed RoFs at extremely high FPS's. Then I dumped a doorgun at once. No difference between 50 and 90 fps, but it did seem to take about 20% longer to empty all the 2000 rounds, when going 50fps to 30fps. While the RoF seemed pretty consistent at around 35 and 40, I had these huge dips in it every now and then. Based on what I played around with, I would make a guess that the minigun starts to slow down at around 45fps, up to about 20% at ~30fps. That said, these were by no means anyway scientific tests, and how much this reflects on actual gameplay is another thing, but the difference isn't exactly huge unless you dip below 30 as a doorgunner. So yes, the fps does have an effect, but let's consider this: The bullet calculations are one of the ArmA's special features that eat up a shitload of frames too, especially when dumping thousands of bullets at extreme RoFs. But on the other hand, I don't know any shooters that wouldn't behave this way, only worse (by not having even capped the rof but directly tied to fps), and that the difference is minimal even under deliberate strain, except perhaps for the door gun. Also, I did this with a CPU that's probably considered the worst in the decade, that noone would buy for playing games even, which could explain the considerable dips in otherwise consistent RoF. Bottom line: ArmA won't be your go-to series for optimal arena shooter experience any time soon. It pays it's awesomeness in frames, where the preferred arena shooters pay for their frames in simplicity.

Just to be fair: "Standard" in games none of which do anything like ArmA does... Really makes a subjective difference in games that have nothing but close quarters combat. (Don't know if I can speak for anyone else, but I'm doing fine with stable 30fps+ in twitch shooters, against people who most likely have far superior fps and hardware on average.) On the other hand, I'm stupefied how much resources those typical primitive action games require, to do nothing (in comparison to ArmA). Not every game was built on and to live on cinema standards, yet ArmA beats the blockbusters single-handedly in so many aspects of quality, other than fps, it's amazing. Even visual quality. I'm quite happy with the tradeoff, although I'd take higher FPS if it came for free on top of what ArmA already is. If not, no prob. That standard 60fps doesn't come free either. That's why the blockbusters are standard craptastic in mostly everything else but fps and hype, too. I guess the real question is: What would we have to trade in for the indisputable, objective smoothness in frames? Apparently it wouldn't be visuals, which is all those "standard compliant" comparisons are. 30fps seems to have worked fine for consoles too. Haven't heard much 60fps cries from that side of the fence myself, though afaik most if not all console games are capped at 30. At least up to last gen. Which is funny, because despite all the advance features in ArmA, it still runs faster than any primitive shooter on the greater console markets. I can tell the difference between 30 and 60 frames if I'm looking for it on the screen, but not by looking at my KDr or SPM or whatever, even in the fastest action shooters.

Haha this is awesome. Good work. :D How about a version with a steel jaw and dual gatling lasers? For epic boss fight y'know.

Well, I was discussing MY opinion replied to someone else, which was challenged by you guys, so if I was taking the (rather obviously) limited resources in assets of A3 into account, and what op said about needing female models more than aircraft being one good example of it, I don't think that's supposed to change to anything else just because you reply something else. I can claim the 65% at hand is low when I'm replying to someone who claims it's "90% of all of users" without reference. See, I actually asked "what voting?". Oh, and I might be part of that 90% once the game actually has everything more important in. For the moment I am not, and I have only discussed my opinion replied to someone else, that you guys chose to argue. I wasn't even trying to make a scientific point, but take it for what you want, it won't make a difference unless you provide anything better either. Fair enough with the yes-no thing. I still think the yes votes represent themselves better than the no votes. Ok, I haven't been into BF4 but I have hard time believing anyone in that community would take it "good deal" serious, especially with the game having far more serious problems than A3 from what I hear. A quick google about it was interesting though. But it seems my opinion has provoked enough discussion for my original replies and point to come rather unclear, so whatever. If BIS decide to make civilian assets a priority or not then so be it, but I will voice my disagreement until the game has at least the campaign and the mentioned aircraft in, like it or not. Just to be clear: I obviously assumed the assets to be implemented officially are competing with each other, and I assumed the OP did too, with their comparison to the lack of aircraft. Then came these confusing "you shouldn't be posting your opinions you selfish pig" replies. Bottom line: My original post was replying and directed to nicholasroger. Peace, out.

Oh, this was your request now? See, you quoted me answering someone else, quoting me answering someone else, etc, making it your discussion. You might want to go back few posts and actually look where and how I actually popped up into this discussion, since you talked about it already. Edit: Btw your signature animation makes this perfect. So, if you think vanilla ArmA should be more about civilians than soldiers, then fine. I suppose I shouldn't disagree, huh.

Ok, that makes so little sense you probably just ignored my last post as much as you did with the ones you were supposedly referring to earlier. Way to contribute to the discussion at hand, by the way. That's enough crazy for me now, have fun telling your mom about the giant rat monkeys I was frothing about earlier.

You're talking by yourself. You are listing some good suggestions for the game there, I can even help you: Vehicle and weapon variety, firing from vehicles, injury system... OFF TOPIC. Even the furniture is a better topic in terms of immersion, than this. Remember what this thread was about? Remember I complimented the poster who said "too much rage" about this? Obviously not. Good job trying to shove this on me. The problem is BIS doesn't agree with your priorities. I'm here trying to reason why, for you, but "immersion is the key word" obviously makes YOU the expert on how the game should be, above the devs even. How about you answer my previous questions properly, instead of avoiding it by trying to make this about me, eh? How about you read what I've posted and then start putting words in my mouth, buddy. Reading the OP would be a good idea, too.

Immersion (by superfluous visual detail) isn't exactly a key word in ArmA, though. The game has always been about soldiers fighting each other, yet people ruminate about wrong kinds of shirts on civilians you hardly even see while doing the thing. It's completely reasonable why BIS hasn't prioritized civilian variety, yet OP says female civilians would be better for "immersion" than airplanes, another mission critical on the front page says "BIS fucked up A3 because no furniture" and so on... This is ridiculous.

For example: BIS didn't priotize civilian variety, and I haven't seen one mission in the series where civilian diversity mattered. There were civs here and there, and that's it. Remind me how it was important in those games? Or tell me a practical application of gender specific civilian in infantry/combined ops fighting scenario? I'm having a hard time coming up any for VBS too...

VBS has many features that would be great and relevant in ArmA 3, from which civilians are again one if not the least important one. But this is ArmA 3 forum, if you want VBS then why don't you get it? Civilian centered scenarios can very well be within VBS's scope of purpose, but not ArmA 3's. Likewise, just because this is important to you, it doesn't mean that it's important to ArmA 3 as a game, which isn't meant to be or compete with VBS. Sorry to tell you this. Yes, women wanting to play their own gender is a valid argument. It still isn't exactly a human right, there are plenty of games where I wouldn't have the option of playing a male PC. But I'm not complaining. And as it was mentioned previously, too many women would break the authenticity of A3 as well. So why should BIS bother if it's not "mission critical" to ArmA 3? Anyone's free to mod their game, unlike in Battlefield, but I can't remember anyone complaining this shit on BF forums... Funny, huh? But it *is* superfluous. It's all about details in models and skins, ffs.

Nice misquote there, bro. Let me repeat, since you felt like ignoring a part of my post: It's not a civilian simulator, so it's not important. Having an identifiable civilians is sufficient while there are better things to do, whether they have tits or clothes that you like is irrelevant. You're free to disagree, though. And what "other thread"? As if lack of authenticity is a problem in ArmA. Lmao. All BIS should do is make it possible to mod in civilians for those who need the extended authenticity in that particular field, as they have done AFAIK. Same for the furnitures and other useless shit. You could just reskin them to look like women in whatever clothes you want, put them in a skirt or whatever, but then you would probably complain they don't look womanly enough at close, because your "civilian simulator" needs to be perfect. What voting? That's 65% on the tracker, and that's pretty low considering how many have probably voted for, just because it would be a "nice to have" rather than "need to have", while some of those who don't give a damn just haven't voted on the issue. Like me, until now.

I ask the same as a player, every time I see all these demands for useless shit that has little to nothing to do with what ArmA is supposed to do. From "we need women more than airplanes" to "civs aren't dressed fashionable enough" to "there's no furniture, BIS totally f*d it up, people are packing their bags" in the other thread. I mean, really?? Sure, let's have female characters with proper fashion and fengshui options and all that in vanilla ArmA, right after there's nothing else left to develop. Meanwhile, if you can think of some good use for it, couldn't you just mod that crap in for yourself? Some times I have difficulty believing I'm reading an ArmA forum.

Because in a settlement, every door and window should be a possible peephole. An aspect you could possibly appreciate if you ever were in a MOUT, real or exercise, or a game of airsoft or something similar. If the building is not enterable, it serves only as a prop, and in terms of functionality it could just as well not be there. Are you really playing this game for the aesthetics? There are plenty of games that are made to please your senses with wonderful props. ArmA's doing something else, and that's why I'm buying, playing and loving it. But I've repeated myself enough times to give this a rest.

If you had read my post I did say I would like to see more variety. It's not necessary, but it's definitely more important than furniture. Yes, Zarkabad is pretty good, but it isn't good because of furniture, it's good because it's the first map that actually looks a little bit like an actual settlement imo. It's also a relatively small map. Dunno how close to reality the "local architecture" is, but it doesn't seem nearly as close to authentic human settlement as A3 cities and towns do. A2 you have different color but solid houses and Takistan towns/cities are really nothing in comparison to what was made after it. You can't even crawl through some rooms because of the carpets. Glitch-y furniture so worth the time and effort, right? Show me this video and where they say "all the buildings on Altis are going to be enterable", please. I remember watching it among other presentations of the game, and never came to expect more than "most buildings", because that's exactly what they ever said, iirc. Again: This game isn't about aesthetics. It's about functionality and authenticity, which it has improved vastly over time, in my opinion. But really, it's a matter of taste if you like the old ones better. A2 isn't going anywhere, so have fun with it until you can play Sims on Altis with a 3D editor. Just know that not everyone has the same problems you have.

The buildings already do pretty much everything that's relevant to ArmA. Cover. BIS already did a great job moving from few enterable buildings to most enterable buldings. I would really hate to see development time wasted on fengshui in my military game. But yes to 3D editor for players to do this for themselves if they want to. Other than that, I'm thinking more different kinds of buildings would be way more important. And more detailed terrain instead of interiors. I would also argue BF3 has just as empty interiors, don't know about the dlc tho because I lost interest to that piece of shit soon enough. Almost every other game is about cinematic experience, and detail such as cozy interiors is pretty much everything they have to work with. Instead ArmA keeps improving on many aspects, which those games never had. Btw, I bet A3 has more enterable buildings than BF, GTA and Skyrim combined.

I'm holding my breath already :x No, seriously. I'm quite excited because this is from people who made ArmA series. Was it DayZ that brought all the bitchy youth & drama queens in or what?

Are you sure about the visibility distance? Because it does look deceptively different with the overcast off or full. The visibility is limited as it should, however. For myself at least. I think this is because with less overcast you have more ambient lighting that makes the fog visible. With heavy overcast everything not lit up is just pitch black, so it doesn't look like fog, like with ambient lighting it does. I tested this using the floodlight at the southern end of Stratis airfield, next to the southernmost hangar. I spawned 300m away from it, along the runway. The amount of fog determined how long I had to run towards the floodlight to see it, regardless of the overcast. Or with full overcast and fog off I could see it from right there, with 50 I saw it partially and with 100 I couldn't see the floodlight at all. Interestingly with brightness and contrast cranked up to the max I could see (only) the ground within couple meters from me better with full overcast, than I did with the ambient lit fog. With those settings back at normal level, it was the other way around, as it should, because full overcast made everything pitch black.

Dude, what you said yourself and quoted from Harzach right now, both were what misled me. Added to that I can clearly remember the sound although the only "shooters" I've played recently have been RV games. Well, whatever. I checked and seems like ArmA2 wasn't where I heard it either. Most other shooters with 'hold breath' actually do this wrong, so it's quite easy to mix up. Especially since there's no sound at all in ArmA. Well, let's just appreciate another aspect of ArmA that wipes the floor with other games, now that we figured it out in a thread that complains about it. :D

Actually, what the hell. I thought I'd test it out in the editor, and haven't got the beginning sound to even play. But in the ending sample the PC actually breathes in first. I could swear it had the take breath-sound not long ago. Have they fixed it recently? Or am I mixing it with A2 or DayZ or some entirely different game? I don't know, but it seems like the PC is already holding breath out, not in. Well, the sync issue should be addressed anyway.

Isn't the the order of the sound samples the only thing wrong, then? Just swap them, done. +100% realism. Such a small fix could be done with extremely little time and effort, if the devs were notified about it. Worth a ticket, maybe? EDIT: NO.

Thanks for clearing this out. If it's like this, then fixing it should be a high priority. This is subjective. The aiming in ArmA still feels as natural as I've seen in a game, whatever range, which is quite extraordinary. I think the iron- and close range sights have the sway just right; You don't have to compensate at all at close range, while you have to compensate a little at the extreme ranges of those sights. Hell of a lot easier than holding a "pixel perfect" aim on something in real life, especially if we're talking about a non-prone stance. It's the magnification that steps up the difficulty, and I think it maintains a very reasonable challenge, relative to real difficulty of holding an aim, all the way up to the highest powered scopes. It's the prone position with extreme magnification that starts to seem exaggerated. Perhaps they should make high magnification scopes have less sway and replace it with heartbeat tremors and timing, something that affects any medium+ range shot IRL. That could be great. I'm fine with the damage to kill, you need just one good hit in the vitals. Too bad that doesn't happen so often, while hitting anything else has too little effect. A bullet directly to the leg should disable the target, and a shot to the arm should ruin the aim, until patched up. Then the damage would be fine.

Did I? I guess you're the one to know better. Yeah, I admit, at the time of writing I didn't recall how the sway is if you just let it go, because I never do that. I was coming from the point of aiming difficulty, which I think is quite alright, so I assumed you might have wanted it fixed instead. It wasn't on topic so I discussed it with the "wall of text", and you answered, except whether you think this is what the OP was talking about. Feel free to point out where I suggested the free sway was realistic. I can point out where I expressed disregard of it. I'm more interested in the overall handling and aiming difficulty in different situations, because I think handling and aiming in ArmA is way easier than handling and aiming a gun in real life. The sway just compensates that a little, and I'm happy about that. Perhaps you are. I'm here only because of the interesting realism. Still, the varying degrees of optional and/or boring realism is more often in the mods, and not in the vanilla. My experience in military was nothing like biathlon either. Endurance sports are all about breath control, they don't have any gear on them, and they shoot very small and light rifles at 50m targets. The sway might have room for improvement, but I myself don't have a problem with it. I think I can see the devs intent and how it serves its purpose. Just reducing the sway all around would probably make the handling too easy for my taste. Then the game would be far more unrealistic because it wouldn't model the handling difficulty well enough AND would be too easy on top of it (which it already is). Now we're on the same page. My point was it's not that utter nonsense because it's the difficulty modifier. Unrealistic in that particular scenario, but irrelevant in that the game has to make compromises in modeling everything, and it doesn't break realistic difficulty, but rather it creates it, even if it is annoying with the high power scopes. Still a smaller problem and more realistic than handling that's way too easy compared to real life. Which game should we look for a better system? ArmA's the best and most realistic I know of. Maybe not perfect, but closer than anything else.

It can. This seems like a problem at your end, works alright for me. Unless I'm forgetting something critical about how fog looks at night, I could swear it looks like fog in dark. Maybe something in the settings breaks it?