ArmA needs competition

[shephart]

Im not writing this to complain about something that has been going on since 2013, but to warn people NOT TO BLAME the CDLC devs for something its not their fault.

ArmA is a great game, and the only game we have current on the market as realistic military sandbox. That is good but also bad. Without competition, BI likely wont upgrade their ArmA game and fix the mess that is present since OFP, and without competition we stuck with the same Series from the same developers. It may or may not be that other developers COULD develop something better.

The new CDLC S.O.G PF is proof that the ArmA engine is garbage. FPS Drops on the new map, especially in the urban area. It gets worse with AI fighting each other.

GTX 1080
I7-8086K 4GHz
32GB RAM
SSD

A friend of mine with better specs than mine confirms the performance problems. Im sorry for the CDLC devs that eventually they gain bad reviews for the map stutters and FPS drops, while its BI and their engine to blame. ArmA is fun, but without competition, we have to stick with this half-baked test project:

- Half-baked graphics (clouds changing its shape when moving the character, lights go through walls, the sun shines through clouds, some effects are still using arma 1 textures, there doesnt really exist bulletholes, just the same circle)

- Half-baked physics (flying tanks, flying corpses, cars sometimes stop full speed tanks)

- Half-baked AI system (AI is designed for outside combat. So you must use mods to make them use houses and even then they dont use them properly, but do not even try huge interior complex. No mod will fix the AI for using huge interiors or underground structures such as vietcong tunnels, also, the AI is not designed for jungle warfare, they can see you pretty easy. Atleast BI should have done some changes to make the AI fitting jungle warfare)

- Half-baked interior system for tanks (when your tank got so hard hit that it looks like king kong and godzilla together tramped on it, your vehicle interior looks fine. Also, some tank interiors do not match with the tank itself. The hatches for example have outside a different position than inside)

- Half-baked sounds (no sound when a car hits a person, if you are in a car, it sounds like you are in a tank that silences even the heaviest bomb exploding near you)

The worst of the worst: The FPS. Nearly every terrain released by BI and its CDLC partners proved that the engine is not able to run dense areas. Some FPS drops occurs when AI is in action, other occurs when just simply entering the areas)

- Livonia has FPS problems in general, no matter where you go
- On altis, people complain about kavala
- On tanoa, people complain about georgetown FPS
- On the new Vietnam DLC, people complain about urban areas FPS, some even the whole map

Now lets get back to the point why im writing this:
We got GM CDLC, and people blamed the CDLC devs for the bad AI (havent read about FPS problems in GM terrains, but still, they get blamed for something thats not their fault)

We got S.O.G CDLC, and people blames the CDLC devs for the FPS problems on their terrain, aswell for the "cheating" AI seeing through jungle.

Now we will get CSLA CDLC soon (or late) and looking at the screenshots of their terrain, it is almost sure that the terrain will cause FPS problems for players. Their terrain is detailed and looking good and i already know that this terrain will conflict with the typical ArmA issues: half-baked AI (avoid moving, avoid bridges) and FPS problems.

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME THE CDLC DEVS AND DONT GIVE THEIR CDLCS BAD REVIEWS FOR PROBLEMS THAT EXIST SINCE OPERATION FLASHPOINT. CDLC devs have no control about AI developing and optimizing the engine.

[Paradox1126]

I feel you but if bohemia releases Arma 4 and it has stable performance then we're fine. If bohemia releases Arma 4 and it runs anything like Arma 3 then we're in trouble and we need competition

[shephart]

Originally posted by Paradox1126:

I feel you but if bohemia releases Arma 4 and it has stable performance then we're fine. If bohemia releases Arma 4 and it runs anything like Arma 3 then we're in trouble and we need competition

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_4

[Sgt Smash]

Originally posted by shephart:

Originally posted by Paradox1126:

I feel you but if bohemia releases Arma 4 and it has stable performance then we're fine. If bohemia releases Arma 4 and it runs anything like Arma 3 then we're in trouble and we need competition

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_4

They posted on twitter over 2 years ago saying they was making the enfusion engine ready for the next Arma!

[Gopniky]

Maybe we'll get an Arma 4 on the 10 year anniversary but I wound't get my hopes up. Just like GTA V, if the devs are still making money from their game they don't care about making a new one.

[Thorn]

Arma 3 is very badly optimized for today's hardware. Nobody has a system that can run this game with good frame rates, especially on the new vietnam map. The best I can get on that map is lower 30s on average with dips down to lower 20s and spikes as high as 60 fps before dipping back down to the lower 30s. Using an RTX 2070 with 8GB of video RAM and the game is installed on an internal SSD drive, and I've got 16GB of system RAM.

The developers really need to optimize this game and get it to make better usage of today's hardware. Neither my CPU or GPU is being utilized properly. I've tried dozens of "parameter" tweaks and none of them really help, many make things worse. And even if I set my resolution down to 1280x720 or even lower than that, with all settings set at low or disabled, it makes no difference at all. At least for the Vietnam map. On maps with less terrain density/objects it plays a lot better but it really sucks they sold us a DLC that isn't even playable and badly optimized for today's hardware. I've seen people saying that their older hardware plays it better than their newer hardware.

I don't want an Arma 4. I want Arma 3 to get optimized.

[shephart]

Originally posted by Sgt Smash:

Originally posted by shephart:

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_4

They posted on twitter over 2 years ago saying they was making the enfusion engine ready for the next Arma!

They said they are making the Enfusion engine for all their next titles. This does not say or confirm anything about arma 4. They said that IF a next arma will be released, it will likely use the Enfusion engine.

Quote from the Website i linked to you:
"As of May 2021: Bohemia Interactive is currently working on the Enfusion engine as a technology that will power their future games.
There has not been any announcement or released plans for Arma 4 at this time."

[CW2 P. Larkins]

@OP You're absolutely right. And to be a devil's advocate a bit: The CLDC guys did in fact screw up a lot too, mostly with just failing to do what at the end of the day is incredibly basic testing and difficulty tweaking. When you have popular Arma 3 Hypebeast Youtube money-generators being unable to not mention certain very bad aspects of the CLDC, you know you've done something wrong.

However.

Until a company realizes that there is a massive market for military simulations with sandbox capabilities (I mean, christ, just look at Arma 3 players ) - we will never get competition. Some argue Squad is competition - I tell those people that whatever they are smoking I'd like to try - they aren't even comparable.

We're sort of just screwed at this point. And BI knows this, hence why, unless you're the incredibly rare exception of like 2-3 BI devs (Think people like Dwarden and Dedmen) who actually still care about this game - you've been moved to other projects, because at the end of the day - what can they do? They already dug their graves by using such a horrendous engine - there is very little they could even do. Can they do a lot? Yeah, will they though? No, of course not. They can instead pocket the money and then not even announce a succession title so that people are forced to play their garbage product even as it continues to slowly deteriorate. Arma 3 is an eternal money generation machine right now and will continue to be so, especially if they religiously refuse to announce a successor.

Arma 3 will never get properly fixed because it was never meant to be properly fixed. BI got REALLY lucky that the game even got popular with how horrendously optimized it is - they were smart about this, they knew damn well there is no alternative, even to this day.

[Paradox1126]

Originally posted by Thorn:

Arma 3 is very badly optimized for today's hardware. Nobody has a system that can run this game with good frame rates, especially on the new vietnam map. The best I can get on that map is lower 30s on average with dips down to lower 20s and spikes as high as 60 fps before dipping back down to the lower 30s. Using an RTX 2070 with 8GB of video RAM and the game is installed on an internal SSD drive, and I've got 16GB of system RAM.

The developers really need to optimize this game and get it to make better usage of today's hardware. Neither my CPU or GPU is being utilized properly. I've tried dozens of "parameter" tweaks and none of them really help, many make things worse. And even if I set my resolution down to 1280x720 or even lower than that, with all settings set at low or disabled, it makes no difference at all. At least for the Vietnam map. On maps with less terrain density/objects it plays a lot better but it really sucks they sold us a DLC that isn't even playable and badly optimized for today's hardware. I've seen people saying that their older hardware plays it better than their newer hardware.

I don't want an Arma 4. I want Arma 3 to get optimized.

Sgt Smash thinks you have garbage specs

[CalicoJack]

Originally posted by Paradox1126:

Sgt Smash thinks you have garbage specs

tbf, looking at Thorns comment it seems like he is playing Arma3 without a CPU, hahaha

[Storm Rider]

https://vbs4.com/

[Snek Overlord]

Originally posted by Storm Rider:

https://vbs4.com/

that's for the military and security forces only and it's garbage.

[CalicoJack]

Originally posted by Storm Rider:

https://vbs4.com/

hey, can you show me some actual gameplay.
not adverts from the devs, but maybe a singleplayer campaign mission.
looking at SOGPFs release people seem to really want such things.

and how big is the playerbase?

[Thorn]

Originally posted by CalicoJack:

Originally posted by Paradox1126:

Sgt Smash thinks you have garbage specs

tbf, looking at Thorns comment it seems like he is playing Arma3 without a CPU, hahaha

CPU is Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H (Six cores, 12 threads up to 5Ghz)
GPU is RTX 2070 8GB GDDR6 video RAM
16GB of system RAM
SSD hard drive

[Snek Overlord]

Originally posted by CalicoJack:

Originally posted by Storm Rider:

https://vbs4.com/

hey, can you show me some actual gameplay.
not adverts from the devs, but maybe a singleplayer campaign mission.
looking at SOGPFs release people seem to really want such things.

and how big is the playerbase?

big dumb

[shephart]

Originally posted by Storm Rider:

https://vbs4.com/

VBS is only for military training and the simulator is not that good, its really for training only. There are people on the bohemia interactive forum that actually tried VBS and they said that for entertainment ArmA is better. VBS is not for entertainment,