[Vehicle] Flying Kitties! (Lynx Helicopter Series Update)

[AnimalMother.]

Originally Posted by Rhino

do the Army operate from there now too? Guess there is plenty of room for them to do so for the last 10 years

Yeah 1 Regt AAC moved to Yeovilton in 2014 from Gutersloh. Around the same time 9AAC disbanded I believe.

Originally Posted by Rhino

Ye, would be a nice feature indeed. A shame the Army refuses to use the LMM on their Wildcat but I bet as soon as a war brakes out they will be strapping them on in next to no time.

I asked the same question (albeit hellfire or it’s replacement) of the Colonel commanding the ARF. Quite simply had they done that the Apache E model purchase could have been lowered. We discussed the Kiowa/Apache teaming concept as that’s what we’ve started doing with WC (nothing new to Gz/Lynx teaming back in ‘91).

Originally Posted by Rhino

Ye, most likely a cost-cutting exercise but one that did make a little sense (unlike most of them) since they could then take the engines from them and put them straight into the new WCs.

It was cost saving for the Army/AAC. Lost the liability of the SF Sp Sqn (657). The RAF with Puma force taking up that mantle. Manpower could then be reallocated to other units that held significant gaps.

There’s a lot of commonality between them. The AFCS computer is the same as the Mk1!!


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[WeeGeez]

Hi Rhino

Originally Posted by Rhino

One of the most notable changes are the main texture resolution which have been increased from 1024x1024 to 2048x2048 (four times the texture size/detail) while only slightly increasing the overall memory usage.

I worry, this change may affect those with video cards where supersampling is be enabled, there sheets are multiplied by a factore of x2 or more... requiring more vRAM.

Also, have you considered the possibility of pixelation / texture shimmering, if mip LOD isn't adjusted accordingly in BF2 editor? IF not this adjustment will need visual testing so to arrive at a mip LOD level that coinicides with existing 1024 sheets that make up majority of PR.

The lynx can be a one-off becuase the work has already been done but everything else, in development, present and future, I urge for the entire PR modding/dev community to agree upon and eventually set a standard (re: mip size) for future devs to abide, to prevent futrther 'deviation' and in turn maximising consistency across PR. Consider that potentially, time may be wasted in future with descendant devs updating older additions, from 2014, to align with the standard as set by this Lynx, 2048.

I just think the community would be shooting itself in the foot, adding more work where its unessesary... It's an old game and some texture improvments aren't going to stack up to modern AAA titles anyway. PR has a certain character. Attempting to 'improve textures is futile in a way.

Either way, if you really want to encourage 2048, which is what you are doing (or if 2048 already exists in PR 1.5 already, which I suspect, judging from all recent vRAM related crashes on maps like kashan v2), I urge changes be made to the quality tiers in video settings in main menu to reflect such additions, heres a jist of this proposal:

Ultra High setting - High level textures but with added 2048 textures (i.e. Ultra as an entirely new tier)
High - existing high standard i.e. no 2048 textures per 0.85 / BF2,
Medium - existing medium standard
Low - existing low standard (could dispose of all together so that there remains only 3 tiers to choose from, see below)

High v2 - high but with added 2048 textures
Medium v2 - existing High standard i.e. no 2048 textures per 0.85 / BF2,
Low v2 - reflect medium standard / settings

I've actually had this re-arrangment proposal in mind for a while now but never had / saw the opportunity to act, until I seen you mentioned 2048 mips on your here blog. Hopefully my concern makes sense.... I'd like your input.

What prompted me to think of re-arrangement initially, was the observation that High texture setting had been greyed out on 32-bit systems in an update (1.4?). Like I say, I suspect what led to this change was a combination of things: devs being too liberal with textures, the limitations of 32bit systems and the recent advent of supersampling, on by default on newer video cards (people were having excessive CTD due to lack of vRAM, that I am certain of). Either way, I'd like to see the setting option return. Perhaps include a notice next to the High option, instead of disabling the option outright. I would like to test High on 32 but can't currently (at least not under normal conditions, i.e. without force of /3gb switch).

Thanks and good work as always.

Also, 0.85, I still remember it

[Rhino]

Hey WeeGeez.

2048 use to be the standard of all our vehicles in PR, the Lynx was in fact originally released with 2048 textures but around v0.9, maybe a bit later, we had gotten to the point where players were simply running out of memory to load all the textures and they would crash on map load as a result of it.

Many of our vehicles now do have this optimized; 2048 DXT1 diffuse texture with 1024 spec/normals in DXT5 setup, as per the new Lynx setup that we have been implementing into PR for a few years now so the Lynx isn't exactly a one off so to speak but the main thing required to make it happen for the Lynx was simply moving the opacity map off the main sheet and onto its own unique sheet, so the diffuse could be saved to DXT1 and upped without having double the memory usage from being saved in DXT5 with an alpha channel for the opacity map, which was most unused. This was the old opacity map / _c.dds texture:



Compared to the new one (most of it is the glass)



As for memory, as long as we are not going over the memory limit of the 32bit BF2 engine then we don't really have to worry about anything, especially with the modern GFX cards most players have and for those who don't, they can always run on lower settings. To put the memory increase into context the 3rd person (1p textures are only loaded when you enter the vehicle), Lynx AH7 textures (not including _woodland variations loaded at the same time, since either or would be loaded), including all the extras attachments (air filters, MGs stands etc) as of ~v1.3 where 3.50mb and with the increased 2048 rez for the diffuse, higher rez rotor blur textures they now come to 4.79mb, an increase of 1.29mb, 37% for textures that look four times the detail as the old ones, even if some of the lesser obvious textures (normal and spec) are still of the same rez they where before.
Since I don't have the v0.85 textures to hand I can only estimate based off the original uncompressed textures I have that the original compressed .dds textures as of v0.85 would have come to around 12.32mb for the same selection as above, with all diffuse, normal, spec and opacity being saved in 2048 and in DXT5, with the extra bits on top being saved at full rez in DXT5 too. Might have been a little less since the rotor blur texture might have been 256 rather than the estimated 512.

As for the MipMaps, they are automatically calculated by the BF2 engine, not set manually in the editor, only the LODs themselves are set in the editor, which btw I forgot to mention in the OP the Lynx has a brand new set of LODs and cols than it did before, as well as a new wreck model with new LODs/cols for that too

As for players having issues with pixelation/texture shimmering, I've only ever seen that on the BF2 engine when a texture is saved in high rez, and with NO-MipMaps and then the gfx card is forced to try and render multiple pixels into one pixel and it just doesn't work :P
Also worth noting that as per the OP, the Lynx has been like this since v1.4 and many other vehicles have had this texture setup for longer than that and not seen any reports of issues of the textures for players.

Unless by Mips you mean pixel detail per meter on the highest mip? We don't actually have a standard in PR for that tbh, although tbh in hindsight we really should have set one a long time ago but it is really too late to be worth it now. The general rule of thumb now is just every new vehicle made or any old ones being optimized, to make them in this general, optimized format but no exact pixel per meter detail, just as much as is sensible without going all "4k texture crazy" just because you can as then we will end up with players running out of memory on loading again.

As for having gfx settings for different texture rez sizes, I'm not sure if we can do that with the BF2 engine, not my department but my guess is that sort of thing is hardcoded into the engine.

[Outlawz7]

Originally Posted by WeeGeez

What prompted me to think of re-arrangement initially, was the observation that High texture setting had been greyed out on 32-bit systems in an update (1.4?).

Effects, not textures, were forced to High, because like a couple of other settings that are locked down, having Effects on Medium/Low gave gameplay advantages. In turn the actual effects themselves were optimized.

[WeeGeez]

Thanks Rhino for the explanation I'l get onto some points pointed out but first,

Originally Posted by Outlawz7

Effects, not textures, were forced to High, because like a couple of other settings that are locked down, having Effects on Medium/Low gave gameplay advantages. In turn the actual effects themselves were optimized.

Nah. I can assure you on x86 systems, texture quality setting HIGH cannot be selected, and this has been like this since 1.4 I believe. I do not know who implimented this change or why but I was hopeing for it to be changed back for testing purposes.... I repeat, it has nothing to do with "forced effects " setting. It's the texture quality setting.

I suspect it was done due to avalanche of complaints regarding CTD on forum shortly after newer maps with bloated somethings were added. (though maybe they've now since optimised, the setting stayed unchanged).