ARMA 2 OA: Post Process Settings Decoded

[jpinard]

I would kill to turn off the bloom with having to affect the other graphical effects. If someone have a mod where you can choose from Low to Very High but with bloom always off, pls link it to me.

Same here - cept add rotational blur as well.

[metsapeikkoo]

PP is kinda killing the performance. By disabling it I gained about 30-40 fps more.

Q9550
HD4890 1GB
8GB RAM.

[oktane]

As with anything, yes, it would be nice to have more options, more GUI, more... but we always have to balance work load and this is simple but very functional solution. I hope we will be able to give further control in future, btw, over PP effects to users.

I don't have OA yet, but please, looking forward to you putting my noBlur out of business so to say, all that is needed is ini options(on/off) for:
Bare minimum:

• rotBlur shader (biggest issue, was this improved in OA? If not, any kind of way to disable just it, would be nice.) This is the #1 offender!

Good additions, that people always ask for: (see discussion sources below)

• glow shader (some people have issue with this, perhaps on bad contrast monitors) However, more people LOVE IT. Which is why it breaks my heart that your 'Very Low' setting disables it, tossing the baby out with the bath water.
• LSD or Tired(?) shader (provides 'tired distortion', the issue is that it looks like crap when it turns on suddenly, it looks like it interpolates the framebuffer to 1/2 size. This is most noticable when you have the rotBlur disabled, granted you didn't design it for that situation! )
• radialBlur shader (provides radial screen-edge blur when running, most inconsequential)

Due to the ambiguities of people's complaints, it is a bit confusing to know what someone means by 'blur'. When I say blur, I usually say rotBlur, because I mean that specific, atrocious fullscreen blur shader. I don't think people are complaining about 'being shot at' blur, explosion blur, any of that. Very few complain about the tired blur, and I actually find it useful. However, I use ACE and don't sprint. Other people don't have the same gameplay tactics. When the rotBlur is disabled, you can easily see the Tired shader kick on and off, it looks like 'lower' resolution all of a sudden, I think that is the complaint from all.

Discussions:
http://dev-heaven.net/issues/5932 (rotBlur bug)
http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/3718 (feature req for bloom + blur)
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=97853 (noBlur replacement shader thread)
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=90414 (older noBlur thread, used pboprefix to override)

Thank you Maruk! Congrats on OA release, have a beer (and many more). I hope you guys have developer release party hosted by BIS! (I have good/hazy memories of previous game release parties myself)

[NeMeSiS]

Very few complain about the tired blur, and I actually find it useful. However, I use ACE and don't sprint. Other people don't have the same gameplay tactics.

Yeah, the one with the wave-effect when you get tired annoys the hell out of me personally. I guess its 'WetDistortion'.
I love all the others though, and i would be happy with options in the .cfg.

[Brainbug]

I can only support the wish for separate switches for the various effects. Although Oktane did a great job with his addon, it is unusable on servers that don't allow this addon, so we need some built-in options, a few lines in the config would definitely be enough.

So far I did well with completely disabling PP effects, because I really don't like the weird bloom that looks like the elite soldier you're playing has taken some bad drugs.
With AO however, I'd like to use SSAO, because it gives the objects a much more realistic look, and I applaud the decision to put this feature into AO. But I won't pay it with said "halluzination sim", so unfortunately I'll have to play without SSAO to avoid the unwanted stuff. Not a satisfying situation.

[Vipera]

I also wish to split Bloom and Blur in game config.

[Maruk]

I agree separate control would be best and yes, allowing it by changing configuration file manually will be first step in this direction, UI can be second.

Until this can be implemented (which I can not tell but there is a lot higher priority work atm), there is quite good way to customize blur level even in the current version. If you don't like it, you may obtain very good result by

lowering brigthness to 0.8
compensating for it by increasing gamma to 1.1

bloom

[jpinard]

I agree separate control would be best and yes, allowing it by changing configuration file manually will be first step in this direction, UI can be second.

Until this can be implemented (which I can not tell but there is a lot higher priority work atm), there is quite good way to customize blur level even in the current version. If you don't like it, you may obtain very good result by

lowering brigthness to 0.8
compensating for it by increasing gamma to 1.1

AWESOME. Thanks!

[metalcraze]

I'd recommend turning the intensity of bloom down if not looking through NVGs. It's too high on Takistan where during the day the ground just shines. But in NVG it's at OK levels and light sources do blind well.

[oktane]

I agree separate control would be best and yes, allowing it by changing configuration file manually will be first step in this direction, UI can be second.

Until this can be implemented (which I can not tell but there is a lot higher priority work atm), there is quite good way to customize blur level even in the current version. If you don't like it, you may obtain very good result by

lowering brigthness to 0.8
compensating for it by increasing gamma to 1.1

Thank you.
I'm sure you understand the limitations of your own engine, being able to load and activate the shader cache file.. What I mean is only ONE can be loaded, the last one loaded overrides all others. This is what drives me crazy, as you can see in this post where I try to explain my issue as the maker of such shader mods, to people that want many options: http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost....&postcount=129 Please do make my mod useless, I will forever be in debt and can spend time on better things.