How Much Is There To See?

[Max Power]

I thought the overall image quality was dictated by the card's technologies, but obviously not

It is, but so is the monitor, your eyes, the ambient lighting of the room, etc. Image quality has nothing to do with game detail like you were talking about in your first post. ArmA 2 is a direct x 9 game, so it should display on any shader model 3 card. The elements of the images in the game (frame count notwithstanding) is model complexity, texture resolution, and post process effects (I don't think the lighting scales in ArmA 2).

What you are talking about in this post is like some weird hardware thing that reviewers spend one paragraph on out of a 10 page hardware review. ATI tends to produce slightly more contrasty images than Nvidia, and image quality probably differs between different types of cards some 1 to 5 percent. Compared to the differences you will see in ArmA by changing the PP from Low to High, it's not even worth talking about. Even in my experiences with Dx11 compared to Dx9 in games like Aliens Vs. Predator 2010, the differences between the two APIs is not really something you notice unless you're staring at very specific static imagery.

[Infiltrator_2K]

you have an Ati 6870 what the F are you talking about? o.O

So that's it.... I've hit the ceiling as far as being able to see attention to detail by being able to game at 1920x1200 on very high settings at a decent frame rate. No matter what card comes out in the future it won't allow me to see anymore detail than I can already see. I now get it, although I did honestly believe there was a lot more to it than that.

[jagheterjan]

The amount of detail is definite by design, any game engine can only manage and draw so many objects before it goes knobs up.

[rundll.exe]

So that's it.... I've hit the ceiling as far as being able to see attention to detail by being able to game at 1920x1200 on very high settings at a decent frame rate. No matter what card comes out in the future it won't allow me to see anymore detail than I can already see. I now get it, although I did honestly believe there was a lot more to it than that.

You could have figured that yourself :
Fire up the good 'ol OFP, IT doesnt look much different from what it did in 2001 right?

[Infiltrator_2K]

I'm quite ignorant when it comes to the science behind graphic processing, so I've always envisaged the developers sat behind powerful computers modelling graphics with commercial cards what cost several thousands pounds: cards too expensively advanced for the consumer market at the time of the game's development. Which in turn would leave the consumer waiting for the same processing technology to come along that was used to create the graphics to become affordable before they could visually appreciate the game and see it to how it is intended to be seen. I now know this isn't the case, which kind of leaves me with mixed emotions. I'm glad I'm now viewing ArmA2 how it's suppose to be viewed, although knowing that upgrading in the future will now only allow me to up the resolution and frame rate is a little disappointing. The idea and anticipation of being able to see more and more detail with every card upgrade was up to now quite exciting.

[Max Power]

Modelling doesn't actually require graphics cards- in fact, 3d modelling software has only just started to use any hardware acceleration at all!

Back in the day, you ideas about the industry were true. I have actually worked on a silicon graphics machine- a computer dedicated to video production. Nowadays, though, any personal computer has the horsepower necessary to run the tools. The special things these companies have now are proprietary software tools and pipelines, render farms (where a room full of computers are set to share render tasks instead of taking up the resources of the artists computers), and so on. The specialization is more or less in the methods rather than any kind of fancy hardware.

[wigz]

So that's it.... I've hit the ceiling as far as being able to see attention to detail by being able to game at 1920x1200 on very high settings at a decent frame rate. No matter what card comes out in the future it won't allow me to see anymore detail than I can already see. I now get it, although I did honestly believe there was a lot more to it than that.

.

the better the card the more attention to detail you will get. and you will get nicer smoother edges with a better card.

he not talking about performance he just saying will it look much better with a nicer card.

[johncage]

attention to detail is dictated by the artist and the player's level of spatial acuity, or how observant he is. a graphics card won't contribute to it at all.

if you mean detail by itself, then yes, better card means you can afford to crank up the settings which raises the level of detail. but attention to detail is separate thing.

[Max Power]

attention to detail is dictated by the artist and the player's level of spatial acuity, or how observant he is. a graphics card won't contribute to it at all.

if you mean detail by itself, then yes, better card means you can afford to crank up the settings which raises the level of detail. but attention to detail is separate thing.

I think more often than not, it's limited to time, budget, and processing constraints rather than a bottleneck at the artist.

[Infiltrator_2K]

Back in day's of 'Return To Castle Wolfenstein', I remember upgrading my card which left me glaring at the game's brickwork walls. I was left thinking "I've not seen that before!" The graphics that were previously looked like blocks of multi-coloured mirky blur now actually looked like textured weathered blocks of natural stone. The soldiers faces also looked smoother, more defined and more realistic. The difference was unreal!