HDR and Armed Assault

[John CANavar]

Well, after the huge disappointment in the visual department of GRAW, I am getting really annoyed with this HDR stuff.

Lets see:

- There is a hardware limitation so you cannot use HDR and AA together.
- Armed Assault will have HDR.
- So, will there be jaggies all over the place for our "most anticipated game"?

I know what a huge difference FSAA does for OFP and I dont want to play OFP games without it. What do you guys know about AA, HDR and Armed Assault?

[Mateo]

Originally Posted by John CANavar

Well, after the huge disappointment in the visual department of GRAW, I am getting really annoyed with this HDR stuff.

Lets see:

- There is a hardware limitation so you cannot use HDR and AA together.
- Armed Assault will have HDR.
- So, will there be jaggies all over the place for our "most anticipated game"?

I know what a huge difference FSAA does for OFP and I dont want to play OFP games without it. What do you guys know about AA, HDR and Armed Assault?

There is very little info on what the game code is like. It's all vague marketing speak, and forum speculation. We don't know how HDR is implemented, so I wouldn't get too worked up over speculation.

[John CANavar]

Originally Posted by TG_Mateo

There is very little info on what the game code is like. It's all vague marketing speak, and forum speculation. We don't know how HDR is implemented, so I wouldn't get too worked up over speculation.

What speculation Mateo?

AA has HDR and I just wonder if there was anything I missed about its implementation. Forums are here to discuss these kind of things, arent they? As consumers we have expectations and must express them openly. I am doing it in a mature way and timing of a second announcement about expectations with my post is hard to understand.

With whom I am going to discuss these things if not with my fellow TGs?

[RGM-79N_GM_CUstom]

Originally Posted by John CANavar

Well, after the huge disappointment in the visual department of GRAW, I am getting really annoyed with this HDR stuff.

Lets see:

- There is a hardware limitation so you cannot use HDR and AA together.

Not on ATI X1k cards.

If you need AA/HDR get an X1800/X1900 series card. Truth be told you might need Crossfire thoguh well atleast in Oblivion. (But that game needs it even at 1280by1024)

[UnDeaD77]

I don't understand this hdr stuff that much, I understand it a bit, but not in full

but doens't half-life engine support both HDR+AA?

[RGM-79N_GM_CUstom]

^^^It does HDR using SM2. That is why HDR for HL2 works on Xxxx cards. ATI's X series didn't support SM3 but the 6xxx did.

Basically the whole SM3 HDR+AA is this generations ATI staying SM2 and Nvidia going SM3.

[Mateo]

Originally Posted by John CANavar

What speculation Mateo?

AA has HDR and I just wonder if there was anything I missed about its implementation. Forums are here to discuss these kind of things, arent they? As consumers we have expectations and must express them openly. I am doing it in a mature way and timing of a second announcement about expectations with my post is hard to understand.

With whom I am going to discuss these things if not with my fellow TGs?

My post wasn't directed at you directly, but more to the general tenor of the discussion around the game. I was struck by how our normal discussion has veered into the same fanboi-ism and knee-jerk reactions that the Official Forums are rife with.

It's even less understandable than GRAW, because the game does not have a publisher yet, no official listing of specs have been released, and very little is known about how technologies such as HDR are implemented.

So your first post, essentially says: "I know very little about the game, but if it doesn't look good, it's a deal breaker."

How mature is that? How reasoned is that? I'm all for discussion, but when things go that far, they are getting a bit out of hand.

I have to look at the situation from a GO perspective. Do I want players to go frothing at the mouth, then pull away from the game, like Red Orchestra, or would I rather urge caution, so that we don't inflate peoples expectations?

To my mind, if the game is simply an update of OFP, with new server code, that would be perfectly fine with me. Anything above and beyond that, either in terms of features or graphics, is gravvy.

[John CANavar]

Originally Posted by TG_Mateo

It's even less understandable than GRAW, because the game does not have a publisher yet, no official listing of specs have been released, and very little is known about how technologies such as HDR are implemented.

And that makes it a sin to talk about the game? We cannot talk about a game if very little known about it? Talking about something you like is itself enjoyable, are you planning to stop us from doing it?

Maybe you should not try to control what we talk about and instead try to check how we talk about. There was nothing wrong in my original post which required a warning from the game officer.

So your first post, essentially says: "I know very little about the game, but if it doesn't look good, it's a deal breaker."

How mature is that? How reasoned is that? I'm all for discussion, but when things go that far, they are getting a bit out of hand.

Maybe it is a deal breaker for me and I want to express it openly. How come does it make my post immature?

Let say I said "I will not play Armed Assault if HDR implementation prevents me from using AA".

Where in this statement you cannot find reasoning? It is my choice and perfectly reasonable !

I am not happy with the way you are handling this discussion Mateo. There was nothing wrong with my discussion style. Do you really want to know what would be an immature post like? Here it is:

"Oh s**t ! AA has HDR and we will not be able to use AA ! Damn you BI, I will not buy this piece of crap"

Now go and read my post again. There was no assertions in that. It was simply a good discussion topic until you put the roadblocks.

[John CANavar]

I dont want to derail this into something else and would really appreciate if someone who knows about HDR and AA implementation can tell us more about these techniques.

Are there different types of HDR methods some of which are incompatible with AA?

Why it is not possible to use HDR and AA together?

Why HDR cannot be disabled with an option? Or can it be?

Or opinions like:

Which one do you think is more important for visual quality?

[bribird]

Yeah, I would love to disable HDR!!! I don't really care for it at all. It is just eye candy. I think it is way too much "glare" looking. It takes a lot of resources to produce visual effects, resources that I believe could be used elswhere in games. Just my opinion!

[John CANavar]

Originally Posted by bribird

Yeah, I would love to disable HDR!!! I don't really care for it at all. It is just eye candy. I think it is way too much "glare" looking. It takes a lot of resources to produce visual effects, resources that I believe could be used elswhere in games. Just my opinion!

Totally agree. I played games with HDR and I dont like the effect. It is/was a very exaggerated effect (in the games I played) and annoyed me. Plus the performance hit. No HDR for me, thank you. Unless it is changed/improved somewhat.

[John CANavar]

A related part from Armed Assault Interview @ Firingsquad.

FiringSquad:What can you tell us about the graphical features in Armed Assault?

Paul R. Statham:Obviously graphics are important in any game, for us we look at graphics as a way to build a sense of style into the game, a contributing part of the immersion and experience of the game as a whole. ArmA will support a number of the more useful DX9 features such as pixel shaders, normal mapping and HDR range simulation. When we look at using a graphical feature we don't look at is as a way to check off a box in the list of "geek speak" we look at it as a way to implement something that has a practical purpose, for example one of the really cool things about the HDR lighting we have in the game is that bright lights such as sunlight or explosions affect how well you can see the world around you, what that means in practical terms is that if you have the sun in your eyes, and you're about to ambush the enemy you put yourself at a disadvantage due to your decreased ability to see.

[jaymind]

Originally Posted by John CANavar

Are there different types of HDR methods some of which are incompatible with AA?

Yes. There are many ways to get HDR, from non-true HDR (ala Bloom), to true FP16 HDR. Many ways in between those to do. ATI can do AA on an FP16 render target (I thnk that's the right terminology), but Nvidia can't. It has a lot to do with how the game is coded though for HDR to work correctly with AA.

Originally Posted by John CANavar

Why it is not possible to use HDR and AA together?

It can be possible, just depends on how they are implementing HDR. Frame rates would probably be abysmal with both though.

Originally Posted by John CANavar

Why HDR cannot be disabled with an option? Or can it be?

If the game is coded for it so that it can be turned off, you can. It can just fall back to a bloom shader or nothing at all.

Originally Posted by John CANavar

Which one do you think is more important for visual quality?

In my opinion, AA is more important right now. If you could run AA and HDR at good framrates, well that would be a different story altogether. I think AA cleans up the screen so much it's hard to pass on, especially in a tactical shooter where spotting and reacting quickly is paramount. I won't be buying GRAW because it's a jagged mess and picking and shooting is damn tough to do in that mess.

[John CANavar]

And the link for the very same issue at the official forums. Topic is "No Anti-Alias?"

[John CANavar]

Jaymind,

Thanks a lot for technical explanations. Also nice to know that I am not the only one who thinks anti-alias is an indispensable visual improvement affecting gameplay directly, especially for a tactical shooter.