Orange-yellow bushes are complete fps killers

[.kju 3240]

Well if you make a set of simple missions. In each starting in front of a tree/bush.

Now say, i want x replaced with y.

[lee_h._oswald 0]

Made a quick test.

Made a screenshot of an "empty" place.

Then placed 13x the same tree and made a screenshot of the fps drop.

==========

It looks like that all trees drop the fps by ~50%.

ArmA2 - The ultimate tree simulator!

MfG Lee

[Colossus 2]

I consider grass and bushes to be alot worse. Maybe it is because there are alot more of it. I suppose it's all about optimalization. I'm not even sure they need to be so dense with leaf,

considering this is afterall fall/autumn.

Great test. :)

[Flash Thunder 10]

Good test Lee

My guess is that they require alot of shaders and they weren't coded optimally. :)

BIS needs to look into this.

[Heatseeker 0]

The trees in south Sahrani (Armed Assault) were detailed, pretty and well optimised, even before BIS reduced their LOD quality in some of the later patches :confused: .

On top of the low fps i also get bad vegetation lods wich im unable to fix even if i turn every graphics setting all the way up (or down), half the trees in any scene look worse than Operation Flashpoint..

I cant enjoy the game with bad lod and scenes that drop the frame rate to 20 fps... even if i disable the grass.

[Alex72 1]

Those red/yellow trees are damn beautiful but the fact remains. Any island to me flows superb until i get close to those trees. Kinda like everyones experience i guess. Pine trees works good however.

Another thing is how they pop in from being bright yellow and then "POP" and they are very dark red/green. I even noticed that there are bushes and trees that look bright yellow from a distance, but up close they are dark green.

At the same time i also noted that the standard MARPAT on the soldiers look like desert camo from a little distance. Not so good in PvP against woodland. I think this will all be better in OpA. Not so many trees (yellow against yellow ground) and desert camo against desert. You cant fail. :)

But the trees should be looked at by BIS for sure. If they were easier on the performance it would balance the game up performance wise when moving between forests and open areas.

Alex

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I completely agree. These trees are ruining it for me. I have to lower the graphical settings to make it playable, but then it just look as utter crap, and I'm basically blind in forest fighting.

Another thing that annoys the hell out of me, tree wise, is the amount of foilage at the lower part of the trees. Or should I say, on too many of the trees. IRL you would be able to prep a firing position almost anywhere, in Arma2 most foilage loaded positions will cause you to go blind.

I'm not saying that no trees should have low area foilage, like OFP trees (stem only). I'm just saying lower the amount of "user unfriendly" trees. I'd like to hear others opinions on this.

When I'm in the open, I want to be in the woods. When in the woods, I want to be in the open :D Wooden areas feels more like jungle than any woods I'm used to around my own parts.

[ohara 0]

Its just this model of bush? If yes, send me sshot, i will look at model, if we can do something wih that to some patch.

[mattxr 9]

I completely agree. These trees are ruining it for me. I have to lower the graphical settings to make it playable, but then it just look as utter crap, and I'm basically blind in forest fighting.

Another thing that annoys the hell out of me, tree wise, is the amount of foilage at the lower part of the trees. Or should I say, on too many of the trees. IRL you would be able to prep a firing position almost anywhere, in Arma2 most foilage loaded positions will cause you to go blind.

I'm not saying that no trees should have low area foilage, like OFP trees (stem only). I'm just saying lower the amount of "user unfriendly" trees. I'd like to hear others opinions on this.

When I'm in the open, I want to be in the woods. When in the woods, I want to be in the open :D Wooden areas feels more like jungle than any woods I'm used to around my own parts.

i dont agree. i like the dense forrests, but then again i dont see any fps drops what so ever so couldnt really complain.

[ohara 0]

I expect that problem is overdraw, it mean CG is not able to draw so many pixel so fast. In that case LODs cant help (overal surface will be similar), what can help is simplified shaders or smaller resolution 3D ressolution.

[-RIP- Luhgnut 10]

The problem with BI is that they did everything in house, which means it wasn't solidly tested, or this wouldn't have happened.

Next time use Speedtree.

yeah Speedtree is very good.

[sparks50 0]

I expect that problem is overdraw, it mean CG is not able to draw so many pixel so fast. In that case LODs cant help (overal surface will be similar), what can help is simplified shaders or smaller resolution 3D ressolution.

Great to have developer input, can we expect any attempts at "fixing" this issue in a later patch?

BTW I recommend the Firefox auto-dictionary, its a lifesaver for my English spelling as a non-English speaker.

Edited September 21, 2009 by sparks50

[bushlurker 45]

I've noticed this effect with little orangey bushes too... at distance they're a fairly bright papery yellow/orange colour - a very low detail LOD - almost a smudge... as you approach closer they flip abruptly to a different colour entirely, although detail remains blurry... a little closer and they shift to a detailed LOD and change colour again to a normal detailed little dark brown/green bush...

Its quite hard to describe - as if the detail LOD stays at "distance" until you're VERY close... texture LODS seem to switch a couple of times - but each seems to be a completely different colour, so that a light orange/yellow bush at distance, is a dark green/brown bush up close...

Wierd...

Some broadleaf brown trees behave similarly... a strange colourshift from bright orange, thru vivid scarlet, to normal autumny brown..... additionally, they seem to follow different "LOD distance rules" from other objects, and flip to "higher detail" differently from other objects at similar distances...

I suspect shadow detail might play a part... I keep mine on "normal" for performance purposes... I might try playing on "high" for a bit, see if its any different...

[Alex72 1]

I will take some screens of how it looks for me personally. Like CarlGustaffa says us that have to play with normal object detail, and personally with normal shadows it does not look good at just little distance. Most of the yellow trees are in 2D and its impossible to see anyone behind it. Im sure the AI sees me though. They become a "smudge" as CG said to me as well (2D flat completely solid - not able to see anything move behind).

I remember in ArmA1 as well when lowering the shader option (at normal. High removed the problem), bushes and trees would be light green at some distance and when moving close to them they changed into dark green so i think its the same "problem". Would be nice if the color change could be fixed somehow. At least to not change so drasticly like from yellow to dark green. It hurts the camo on units.

Screens coming up.

Alex

[Flash Thunder 10]

I've noticed this effect with little orangey bushes too... at distance they're a fairly bright papery yellow/orange colour - a very low detail LOD - almost a smudge... as you approach closer they flip abruptly to a different colour entirely, although detail remains blurry... a little closer and they shift to a detailed LOD and change colour again to a normal detailed little dark brown/green bush...

Its quite hard to describe - as if the detail LOD stays at "distance" until you're VERY close... texture LODS seem to switch a couple of times - but each seems to be a completely different colour, so that a light orange/yellow bush at distance, is a dark green/brown bush up close...

Wierd...

Some broadleaf brown trees behave similarly... a strange colourshift from bright orange, thru vivid scarlet, to normal autumny brown..... additionally, they seem to follow different "LOD distance rules" from other objects, and flip to "higher detail" differently from other objects at similar distances...

I suspect shadow detail might play a part... I keep mine on "normal" for performance purposes... I might try playing on "high" for a bit, see if its any different...

@Ohara, Thanks for the reply, I would say give us an option to turn down or up the Vegetation Density and or shaders, It would really help with preformance, otherwise just have the art department scale down the pixels of the trees, it wouldn't be to noticeable plus alot of players don't care they simply run/walk past trees ingame.

@Bushlurker yeah I have notice this also, it seems that all shadows whether on high or Minimal only draw at 50 Meters or so, which would make a brightly colored yellow bush look dark brown at close distance, I have tested this, Bushes have around 5 -7 different RES Lods, BIS should limit these to 3, 1KM, 500M, 50M this would make them less noticeable also try Kju's Proper mod this helped me out alot FPS wise and theres not as much LOD switching.

[ericfr 0]

Its just this model of bush? If yes, send me sshot, i will look at model, if we can do something wih that to some patch.

This problem exist since the beginning. :banghead:

When a performance patch is coming ? :confused:

Thanks the Dev to pay attention only today. :couch:

[Alex72 1]

Ohara i will check the bushes if its only 1 or more.

Im going in...

EDIT: Ok i found out what the problem is. Its shadows set to NORMAL. I tested a bunch and im not sure if there are other bushes maybe that change color even on HIGH shadows. Will test that. But here is what happens with normal shadows:

So its the shadows making them appear green at closer distance. Changing it to high shadows (wich i cant play with due to lower FPS) it looks better. However i will do some more test with high shadows.

While im at it, please Ohara can you pass on to the guys about the ground textures for Operation Arrowhead to not make them so blobby. Smoother like Piccoly's ground texture addon. That would mean a lot. :) (IMAGE) (sorry for sneaking that in here).

Alex

Edited September 21, 2009 by Alex72

[bushlurker 45]

Well Done Alex!

That's exactly what I was trying to describe!... quite noticable colour change.... also - in the bushes pic - you can see the "shadow" overlaid on the orange bush, but not completely, so it looks like 2 different coloured bushes in one that switches depending on distance.....

High shadows isn't really an option for me either... between the artifact crashes my framerate is feeble enough without additional load, sadly...

B

[MEDICUS 0]

So its the shadows making them appear green at closer distance. Changing it to high shadows (wich i cant play with due to lower FPS) it looks better. However i will do some more test with high shadows.

Sorry, somehow OT, but shouldn't it be more FPS-friendly to set shadows to high/veryhigh? Thought the gpu(s) take the whole work to calculate the shadows if they are set to high/veryhigh.

MfG

[Flash Thunder 10]

While im at it, please Ohara can you pass on to the guys about the ground textures for Operation Arrowhead to not make them so blobby. Smoother like Piccoly's ground texture addon. That would mean a lot. :) Alex

Amen to that maybe some farther draw distances for the grass?? :)

[Alex72 1]

Medicus: To me i get lower FPS quite noticeably when i go high. Tested that a lot.

BushLurker: Yep your right. The shadows on normal cuts off sections of the vegetation making the sun lit parts show another color. Im aware of the normal is not supposed to be as good as high ofcourse, and i can take that the ground shadows in normal/low are straight instead of showing every detail like leafs. However the straight edges cut off on vegetation looks bad. If the colour wouldnt change so dramaticly it would be ok with sharp edge shadows. Hope this helps a bit in making it a bit better.

And im sorry for throwing in the Operation Arrowhead suggestion here - i first thaught it was the OpA thread... (Too little sleep).

Alex

[bushlurker 45]

Yup.... just tested again myself... no pictures since I got the artifacting bug while looking around for a Photogenic Bush (apart from myself of course :D)...

but yes... there DOES seem to be a slight mismatch between colours of the varying distance textures... most noticable with one tree that goes bright red at certain ranges... and those textures DO display somewhat inappropriately at certain distance ranges - or at least, different ranges from other stuff - leading to the "watercolour", "2D" or "Smudge" bush and tree effect standing beside say, a house which IS being displayed appropriately for the distance...

However - the actual problem under question IS related to shadow detail.... As Alex has noted, the crude shadowLOD employed on "normal" settings doesnt exactly match the bush in question, leading to the "two different coloured bushes superimposed" effect we can see on the bushes in the foreground in Alexpic #4...

Moreover - and this seems to be the root problem... when a shadow has been imposed on a bush - the shading effect changes the colour dramatically - from a light brown to a definite dark black/green... combine THAT with the fact that shadowLODs have their own "ranges", so shadows are only displayed out to a certain distance..... so it's when the shadowLOD kicks in that the bush flashes to an entirely different colour (sometimes not completely because of shadowdetail level)...

Changing shadow detail setting in game changes the detail of the shadows (obviously) to a better one - so setting to "high" pretty much eliminates the "2 overlapping different coloured bushes" effect... It might also change the range at which shadows kick in (crashed b4 I could test that point), and therefore the "colourswitch" would happen further away, but it won't actually cure it...

All of this of course, is compounded, as mentioned above, by the - in some cases - not entirely matching distance textures, plus the fact that some trees/bushes seem to have different "range" values where the switch takes place from other stuff nearby, which changes at a different time from the trees... that's an issue too, but a different one...

phew! :) Did any of that make sense???

B

Edited September 21, 2009 by Bushlurker

[desertjedi 3]

What everyone has expressed in this thread has been my biggest issue with this game since day 1.

I greatly preferred the much "cleaner"-looking vegetation of Arma 1. It's VERY hard to see anything in the forest and if it's dawn/dusk and HDR is kicking in...well..."hey, have any you guys seen the Humvee?" In that situation, I've actually used NVGs - no joke.

And going prone in all the weeds and ferns simply isn't an option if you want to see anything.

I use Terrain Detail=Very Low, the SAP Clutter mod, and the PROPER Low Vegetation mod and it helps with seeing and framerate.

Edited September 21, 2009 by DesertJedi

[Alex72 1]

Bit more clearly showing yellow to green. Also note the second pictures shadows. Where the shadow is its green and out in the tips its cut off clean and show yellow.

Shadows: Normal

Textures: Normal

EDIT: This is the colour issue. Next it would be nice if BIS took a look at the 2D trees as well. What BushLurker called "watercolour, 2D or Smudge". We didnt have it in ArmA1. At least not to the same extent. Would also be nice if it could be corrected before Operation Arrowhead. Will post some screens later.

Edited September 21, 2009 by Alex72

[zOMGREI 10]

I expect that problem is overdraw, it mean CG is not able to draw so many pixel so fast. In that case LODs cant help (overal surface will be similar), what can help is simplified shaders or smaller resolution 3D ressolution.

It's not overdraw, it's your guys's theory that you need to create these gigantic wads of "leaves" under the assumption that more raw pixels=better. The leaves on the foliage looks awful, cut down the number of leaves shown and improve the quality of the texture to actually resemble leaves instead of a shit-ton of very, very low detail splotches pasted to really nicely textured trees/shrubs. It looks like abstract art most of the time, since leaves and branches will often be hovering freely without any actual connection to the skeleton of the tree trunk.

Please change the LOD system as well, it's ridiculous that the foliage grows a huge amount when zooming, blocking views that were clear from no magnification. Alex's post above mine proves this point perfectly. At 25-150m away from an object, that object should be at maximum LOD. With the foliage in this game, you can be standing right inside the bush or tree, bring up your scope, and the LOD continues to expand to show even more leaves. The hell? Do these textures have an infinite LOD setting or something that just continues to draw more "detail" with no cap?

Make the bushes and trees actually look like bushes and trees, and I think you guys will be pleasantly surprised at the performance increase versus this abomination that's currently implemented. It seriously just looks like OFP quality bushes at range, then as you get closer, hundreds of identical bushes (slightly offset) grow inside the bush/tree. It's been this way since ArmA 1 and it just boggles my mind. The fact that the fundamental shape and size of the tree or bush changes depending on LOD also exposes a fatal flaw in the current system. I don't know about you, but the LOD system on everything else in the game appears to have consistent size to me, why is the foliage exempt from this rule?

PS:The pine trees, while they have a acceptably low performance hit during zoom, look horrid no matter what the settings are. They're a mass of dancing white pixels (I thought my graphics card was artifacting at first), everyone I've talked to notices this. Honestly, you need to get a better texture artist to handle the alpha textures in this game because whoever's doing it now has been failing hardcore (and they seem to be getting worse with each release) since ArmA 1.

Edited September 22, 2009 by zOMGREI