Object drawing distance tweak

Testing grunts, this is the first one for you. :D

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= Preface =

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ArmA supports up to 50.000m (50km) viewdistance.

Yet objects, means vegetation and objects of a world, as well as units or

mission placed objects are drawn in general way less (~45% and

max ~2000-2500m...).

This also results in objects popping into view - very ugly.

Especially with low viewdistance.

There are more issues related to it, yet not that important for the start.

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= Solution =

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There is always the chance of BI improving the visual impression and object

drawing distance in a future patch.

There is a new config value called featureSize introduced by ArmA II.

It does make the TV tower, the castle or other special buildings drawn at

longer distance..

So the design concept is to (ab)use this value for our needs.

You find a set of small addons to set this value for static objects (houses,

and other type of building) as well as infantry and vehicles.

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= Change =

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Focus on the houses and units. And ignore the SAT issues and vegetation

for now. Also take note that always max zoom in of AH1Y or F35b was used.

ArmA II default (50k VD):

ArmA II tweaked (50k VD):

Mi-8 is normally drawn 2200m.

Mi-8 is drawn 3000m with featureSize = 100.

T72 is drawn 3000m.

It seems that 3000m is the max unit drawing distance not matter the

featureSize value (tried 1000).

The static object like houses seem to be drawn even way further away.

Ingame it is quite hard to see the units. The compression makes it even harder.

More examples screenshots:

• Sample 1
  
• Sample 2
  
• Sample 3
  
• Sample 4
  
• Sample 5
  

Comparison videos - again focus on the houses and units:

standard_popup_objects_at_drawing_distance (9 MB)

vs

featureSizeTweak_active (8 MB)

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= Your job =

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Test this set of addons. See if it works for you. Share your impressions and

possible other ingame changes made by it.

Can you experience any performance impact?

Test with very low view distance (500-1500m) and focus on object popping in.

Test very high (5000-50000) and look at distance objects and units are drawn.

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= Download =

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Object drawing distance tweak

Intresting, i give it a try :)

Now if someone makes something that solves object poppin then even better, maybe by forbidding to swithc to lowest lod or something... but i guess that will not be very performance friendly.

Yet nothing more immersion killing than paper cut trees and soldiers.

Thats number two. ;)

(powered by T_D)

Wow, that's massive, especially as the next thing I want to work on is a fixed-wing air-combat mission, well done!

How's the performance?

AMD 5000

2 GB DDR 2 - 800Mhz

9500GT

Tested Very high on all settings flying around cherny with a av8b - vd 8000, (resolution 1024 x 768 @100 percent fillrate)

FPS hit 30 mark while flying - all I can say is Kju you are a god amongst men.

Also tested on a very busy map - chernogorsk with about 500 units fighting went from normal to very high settings and adjusted view distance between 1600 and 10k.

Found my FPS didnt drop much to be honest about 3 - 4 fps from low to high end - (granted my system was crawling at 4 fps at max settings due to all the activity). In conclusion this mod has very little negative impact at all - in fact it improves my options so much that i am able to test on very high settings at 10k vd.

Will test further and post in this spot.

Funny thing that I just finished tweaking this here and that you release the same thing in the same hour.

Will give yours a go, cheers.

Regards,

TB

VERY nice indeed kju !

Was flying around at 10km VD with everything looking smooth (well with the normal microstutters !)

What impressed me a LOT was that Chernogorsk looked LOVELY in the distance.

Will test some more and get back to you, but great work so far !

I think a special version just for aircraft would be a major hit (in fact there's a thread about this subject in the suggestions forum I believe). Then a separate version for everything? As a grunt who likes to creep from cover to cover, being able to see aircraft further out is a nice feature :) but as a low end user, I'm not too fussed about all the other stuff.

Just IMO ;)

Agreed, vanishing aircraft is the most obvious failing where draw distance is concerned.

There is a small FPS hit but it's worth it for the big visual improvement especially from the air. I have the game running at 1280x1024 with low AA, very high AF, normal textures, low terrain detail, normal object detail, post processing off, view distance 2015. Average FPS was about 50-60 in the air if I wasn't near a huge town like Cherno, on the ground in Cherno FPS was around 25-30.

AMD 7850 @ 3.0 ghz

ATI 4850 512 mb

4 gigs ddr2 1066 ram

windows 7 64 bit

Sounds good lads. :)

How about posting some screens from your testing - to see the gameplay situation

effected or created by the change or just the view is interesting. :bounce3:

Awesome, just awesome, gonna test it right now!

btw, kju - I see that you have modded hud text color in the screens.. is that released too? :)

...maybe by forbidding to switch to lowest lod or something... but i guess that will not be very performance friendly

In OFP changing the LOD values helped for a stable FPS because of less lod changes and less hdd activity.

Tweaks/Addons like this, is what I'm waiting for!

Fixing the game before the dev's can...

Flashpoint style!

MfG Lee ;)

In OFP changing the LOD values helped for a stable FPS because of less lod changes and less hdd activity.

Tweaks/Addons like this, is what I'm waiting for!

Fixing the game before the dev's can...

Indeed.

Regarding the LOD issue, I wonder whether there will be a major FPS impact if we keep only the highest LODs and get ride of the lowest ones, just to make the "LOD Auto-Switching" less visible in-game.

Regards,

TB

Wow awesome work Kju and crew! :)

Tested and Cherna certainly looks amazing now. Seeing all the cities/villages in the distance is superb. Getting little extra strain on my PC wich is natural, but its not bad at all.

Superb work guys. Thanks!

Alex

I reckon in the coming months, this mod is going to be one of the essentials that everyone has.

I'm assuming it's client side only?

Indeed.

Regarding the LOD issue, I wonder whether there will be a major FPS impact if we keep only the highest LODs and get ride of the lowest ones, just to make the "LOD Auto-Switching" less visible in-game.

Regards,

TB

Interesting idea Thunderbird. How could this be done? Is there a script that needs to be written or is this a hardcoded issue ?

what i think is more important than tweaking distance of pop ups is tweaking the way they appear. i dont think its possible via simple mods but BIS should have incorporated a fade in effect instead of the ugly pop in.

if making trees FADE in instead of pop-in is possible than ppl wouldnt mind so much about the pop ins.

@ Tankbuster

Yes it is client side only. It could be enforced, yet not sure if thats a good idea.

@ topeira

Did you watch the vid or tried it ingame yet?

This is to improve this aspect and it does so very very well IMHO.

kju,

Do you think Thunderbirds idea of ONLY showing the highest LOD would be scriptable ?

See post #3.

LOL mate. Sorry.

You get my FULL support !

Good idea!

Quick test with Kamov vs M1A1:

Tank appeared at 3000m with 10.000m viewdistance - gunners sight with full zoom. With vanilla Arma2 the tank appeared at 2100m.

Still the AI wasnt able to take advantage and keep on flying towards the enemy. This AI behaviour is wrong/bugged since a very long time. Bit strange that missiles/bombs arent fired from safe/standoff distance by AI.

Well AI is a different topic. You can see this even yourself.

You need to identify units before you know if its hostile or not.

AI is simulated doing that as well. Of course the values aren't too well tweaked for large

distances.

accuracy should be the most important here, as is irScanRanges.

camouflage = 2;

audible = 1;

accuracy = 0;

spotableNightLightsOff = 0.05;

spotableNightLightsOn = 4;

visibleNightLightsOff = 0.1;

visibleNightLightsOn = 0.2;

sensitivity = 1;

sensitivityEar = 0.0075;

crewVulnerable = 1;

damageResistance = 0.004;

irScanRangeMin = 0;

irScanRangeMax = 0;

irScanToEyeFactor = 1;

irScanGround = 1;

as well as engagement ranges for weapons/ammo.