When closing them map there is a slight delay where a loading screen is seen before the game window comes back.
The GPS can be closed instantly without a loading screen, why can't a full screen map be closed without a loading screen? I don't need all of the extra things like notes, tasks, or placing markers. I just want an instantly closing full screen map that I can move (not always centered on my current location like GPS) and zoom in/out on.
Open map.
Close map.
It's shown because the view in the game is being loaded. It's not possible to see the in-game view straight away after closing the map. If the loading screen was disabled, you'd see just a black screen when the view is being loaded. You can decrease the delay by getting better hardware, lowering the video settings and tweaking the config files.
Ezcoo, if it's possible for many games to switch to desktop and back instantly (a somewhat harder problem), I'm pretty sure it's possible to make the transition between game and a 2D map instant.
In fact, I know it is. Not only do plenty of games do transitions between 3D view and map instantly, I've written code that does it myself (a basic way is to create a polygon that covers the viewport, use the 2D image as the polygon's texture, and maybe change the projection matrix). ARMA 3's current transition delay is a shortcoming of the current implementation, not something intrinsic to how 3D cards work; I'm willing to bet it's an artifact of BI's internal developer organization. It also happens to be a rather annoying shortcoming, because it makes using the map a chore. Fortunately, this is alpha.
Coincidentally, that loading screen is 2D as well, yet there is no blank delay from it to the gameworld.
Thanks for your reply mate, I was referring to the previous Arma titles. Didn't know that the delay can be actually fixed though. :)
It's the same as in ARMA 2, but instead there was a black screen that says loading or something.. Not an issue.. :P
Well, I don't remember seeing that on Arma 2. Anyway if it's really loading the game, shouldn't the bar be filled while it's loading?
I also guess it's an artifact as mentioned. I hope it's gone on the full release, because it's really annoying to see that every time you close the map...
The problem is that even with a better spec machine the loading screen will still be there with somewhat shorter loading time.
Given what I see right after exiting map view, where objects seems to required a complete reload (visually supported by objects reappearing and the sky truning from green back to blue), my guess is that the 3D rendering is completely disabled when in map, which is what causing the game to enter loading screen, and why the loading time is varying between different machine.
Correction: 3d model seems to be still rendered after more testing, texture however seems to reload everytime.
@SmallBlackSheep
OFP did not suffer the same problem, the map seems to be an direct overlay above normal 3d rendering as evident by a single pixel line at the edge of the screen where the texture match the 3d rendering outside map view.
Edit: One thing I want to see is if disabling map ground texture would help speeding up loading and unloading of map view.
DevCon contains the quickmap - instant display and hiding of a fullscreen map.
It is doing using a simple dialog. So it is very doable.