Low Fps new card (5870) plz help

[Marc15yo 0]

Hi about 1 week or 1 week and half ago i received my new ATI HD 5870 1gb graphics card. I bought this card in the hopes to mainly improve my fps in Arma 2 and other games. I previously had a 4870 512mb. It's not the first upgrade that this game has persuaded me in getting. I bought this card because it was supposed to be be twice and half times faster than my 4870. When i installed it the first thing i did was boot up fraps and arma 2.

I was hoping to see some huge fps change if not reasonable especially in places where my fps was terrible.

I gained little to no FPS gain at all playing this game. The only thing that has changed is the texture clarity of course now that i can set them higher thanks to my 1gb of vid ram.

For all fellow 5870 users how much fps are you getting in the main menu of OA usually on avg. You know the scene in the empty desert and the huey flies overhead. well What fps are you getting?

I max out everything except for pp on normal, and HDR to normal view distance 1600-2000m and resolution 1920x1080P and during that cutscene i get very low (relatively) fps i mean im getting 39's-45's

but something i noticed happens. It seems at always always the exact certain time my fps will suddenly drop to about 25 fps although its the same scene and nothing has changed other than slow camera movements. This has frustrated me for some time. It would go from 70's 80's and then suddenly drop to 50's 40's for no apparent reason. Same scene same graphics setting and exactly the same point the camera reaches.it happens in a few camera angles in the cutscene and i can point it out using fraps below:

Normal/reasonable FPS -

http://www.picdrop.net/uploads/arma2OA%202011-01-20%2003-19-09-60.jpg

Crap/wtf FPS -

http://www.picdrop.net/uploads/arma2OA%202011-01-20%2003-19-12-03.jpg

another example:

Normal/reasonable FPS -

http://www.picdrop.net/uploads/arma2OA%202011-01-20%2003-18-24-67.jpg

Crap/wtf FPS -

http://www.picdrop.net/uploads/arma2OA%202011-01-20%2003-18-30-18.jpg

As you can see it's the same exact scene. But that exact turn of the camera somehow at that time the fps will drop spontaneously its almost instant and then it will get stuck there until the camera changes shots. (blacks out etc). Sometimes the fps is even in the high 30's.

Another thing that really really bugs me is the following scene. It has bugged me since my 4870 days. The scene is when you are nearing Elektrozvodsk no matter what it is it's always that spot that i've used for reference. You can try it when you play the "counter-attack" mission in single player. (Arma 2 or combined ops). To make sure that there was no AI/CPU influencing the test i loaded myself alone standing there in the editor.

Here is the spot i'm taling about-

http://www.picdrop.net/uploads/arma2OA%202011-01-20%2003-21-24-54.jpg

Now here is the FPS i get on the outskirts of town-

http://www.picdrop.net/uploads/arma2OA%202011-01-20%2003-21-50-54.jpg

As you can see this is absolutely miserable fps. Turning off AA does not help, turning off PP either. Lowering the vegetation to normal gains 1fps, to very low 3-4 fps. The only thing that has dramatically gained fps was to set objects to low and it wasn't even dramatic it was more like "playable". It went from 20 to 29-31 at best. It drives me insane. Why am i dealing with such low fps?

lowering everything to the lowest possible graphic settings and view distance to 500 made it run @ 50fps during that scene -

http://www.picdrop.net/uploads/arma2OA%202011-01-20%2003-23-38-33.jpg

This is what i get playing COD blackops maxed out at 1080P 4x AA not even in fact i get around 80's 90's 100's in blackops usually.

I feel as though i am not getting the performance i should be getting from my card. could it be defective? Or is this game just truly hating me? I can't afford any more upgrades ive spent too much money on these high end parts when really the only game i play or enjoy is arma 2. I've been playing BI games since the old OFP days :eek:

Also here is a detailed look at my PC spec:

ATI HD 5870 sapphire vaporx 1gb (upgraded from an old 4870 512mb)

latest 10.12 drivers (tried earlier drivers no difference)

clean install windows 7 64 bit

8 gigs G-Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1333mhz (originally had 2 gigs g-skill upgrade did nothing)

Samsung spinpoint f3 500gb hard drive (7200rpm)

Asrock mobo (too lazy to go back and check the box lol)

AMD Phenom II x4 945 deneb 3.0ghz,6mb etc

700watt cougar psu (originally had 650 watt ocz thought it could be the culprit so i upgraded to higher brand)

As you can see this has caused me a lot of frustration and ive almost lost my cool. If you need any more info i'll be glad to give it to you. Also this can be used as a comparison test in performance for other 5870 users just to see if im getting the framerates i should be or not.

Thanks for your help

[bhaz 0]

i get very low (relatively) fps i mean im getting 39's-45's

I really wouldn't call the mid 40's low for OA, infact that's quite good. You could try the latest beta, there's been a few LOD changes to dense forest areas and towns.

Just ordered a PowerColor 6850 myself, and TBH I'd be thrilled to see those numbers considering I'm used to a smooth 20FPS with my 9600GT.

[Marc15yo 0]

your right the 39's - 45's is great fps but it's just in an empty desert ;) that's my main problem. When on chernarus however it's a differnet story of course im talking high low 20's -30's sometimes 40's which i guess is good. i come from the days when my pc couldn't handle ofp ;p so my acceptable framerate threshold is very high.

I just want to make sure im getting what i payed for you know? I mean the part where i was getting 20's near elektrovodsk i mean was the exact same low fps i had with my 4870 except it was in the 18's and changing the gfx settings to medium just didn't help my case ;0 i bougght all these upgrades for a reason. i wouldn't have bought them if the game would run the same

If the game would run at all times 30fps i would be the happiest man but it doesn't. nearing towns especially on the outskirts of towns the fps will drop to 20's .Ik this is the game nearly maxed out but c'mon :0 i mean 20's? 18's sometimes? I just want to make sure it's not defective

btw i don't play the game at those settings, i play usually very high textures, high objects, normal terrain, low aa, pp disabled, shadows high, anisoptric high, vd 2600. And still my fps will be somewhat low not gonna lie :j: i really was expecting more out of a 5870 otherwise i wouldn't have bought it.

[avengerzx 10]

I get between 35 (Max CPU Load) - 175 (No CPU load) with 3.8Ghz OC, View Dist 3800

Gain FPS by CPU not GPU, especially View Distance is set related to your CPU.

Even GTX 580 with 2.66 i7-920 (stock) only has 30 FPS.

In fact don't compare this game to other FPS Game types.

Firstly, Black Ops doesn't require much CPU Calculation to render objects, in fact ARMA world have millions of different objects to render that includes huge battles with many AIs (Singleplayer has tons of AI)

Secondly, setting your VD to 500 means lesser things will be rendered by the draw which also means lesser CPU load and more CPU load is used on graphics rendering (so more FPS)

High view distance make the CPU to render objects 2400m away from you (Surroundings)

Also you look at BFBC2 (they don't have map sizes like in ARMA 2/OA)

I hope you get the meaning, no graphics card can solve your FPS issue. Definitely some people in ARMA 2 Community has CPU over 4Ghz which gives them 60FPS even on semi-huge online battles/games.

Edited January 20, 2011 by avengerzx

[Nutlink 10]

I have a very similar setup to yours. I run the same settings (except Shadows/Terrain/Objects at High instead of Very High) at the same resolution, but at 3k view distance. This runs the smoothest with a decent view distance and high quality for me. If I max everything out, I get the occasional hiccup that drops my FPS to levels like that, even at 1600m view distance. My FPS at the main menu isn't a good indication of what I get in-game though. Typically I stay in the mid 40s with dips into the lower 30s at times (and very very very rarely into the mid 20s), but that scene for me always seems to be in the mid 30s for some reason. Granted I never stayed watching it for too long because I usually click into a game right away, but I'd base it on your in-game performance and not what you see at the menu.

About the best thing I can say is drop some of those settings a bit, defrag your hard drive, and if you're willing to and know how, overclock your CPU.

Edited January 20, 2011 by BOTA:49

[ziiip 1]

I dont know why your FPS drops suddenly (maybe driver), but dude, you want to play the most demanding game ever in 1920x1080P? :D Find one monitor that has a native res of 1280*1024.

For measuring the VGA performance, I suggest 3DMark (to make sure your VGA is not faulty).

[Leon86 13]

Meh, the gpu is not the problem, it'll easily cope with that res. A faster cpu might help, but just playing at less demanding settings is the best solution. Arma 2 still looks good with terrain and object detail on low imo.

And another thing, video memory should be left on default. Also you should NOT adapt your settings to run smoothly in the middle of the desert, use a heavy firefight in a city. Then try each setting and look if you can actually see it making a difference.

And comparing to call of duty, wtf?

[Massoud 10]

hello

i buyed a nvidia 480gtx (amp! edition). no fps boost. (befor 275gtx)

this was a sleepless night. 400euro for 2 fps?

now iam happy with the flow of the game. i DONT have +60fps in a city with a lot if AI action but it runs smooth.

my suggestion:

i have a option in the nvidia control center

(i try to translate cause i have the german version of the driver)

texturefilter quality set to: performance (standard was quality)

(imho: the fps drops coming from the big textures)

(i know you have a ATI card but i think they should have a similar option)

and please set the videomemory to default.

(i read here in the forums - default = autodetection of v-memory)

english is not my first language.

regards

[Leon86 13]

what's your cpu? If you want to stress the gpu: model detail: low, terrain detail:low. Shadows: very high, anisotropic filtering: very high, texture quality: very high, anti-aliasing: very high (or even higher, dunno what the max is). If you still have the same fps you can up your 3d res for even more sharpness.

[avengerzx 10]

I'm playing in 1280x1024 and that doesn't matter. This game is very CPU Demanding so PLEASE don't expect how good a gfx card could perform here.

[Marc15yo 0]

Firstly, Black Ops doesn't require much CPU Calculation to render objects, in fact ARMA world have millions of different objects to render that includes huge battles with many AIs (Singleplayer has tons of AI)

Secondly, setting your VD to 500 means lesser things will be rendered by the draw which also means lesser CPU load and more CPU load is used on graphics rendering (so more FPS)

High view distance make the CPU to render objects 2400m away from you (Surroundings)

Also you look at BFBC2 (they don't have map sizes like in ARMA 2/OA)

I think you guys misread me on the COD part :rolleyes: I was in no way comparing call of duty to Arma 2. That's just impossible considering arma 2's intense cpu claculations that are running 24/7. i've known this since the game came out. I've know this since Arma 1 and OFP.

I was pointing out that the fps on lowest possible settting and 500m VD was 50fps while standing near that spot with no AI nothing going on in the map:

http://www.picdrop.net/uploads/arma2...3-23-38-33.jpg

And i used COD as a reference because the fps i get not doing anything in arma 2 in that scene at lowest setting is lower or the equivalent of what i would get on blackops under full load. That' all i was saying. I was simply trying to figure out if it was a GPU issue.

When i set the graphics to all normal AA off PP disabled in that spot i still get 22 fps it gets a little better when i actually walk into town (around 28-29fps)

but this is jut me, with nothing else. minimal cpu influence because im the only one on the map and im not moving. I just want to know if this is normal.

This game is very CPU Demanding so PLEASE don't expect how good a gfx card could perform here.

True on that, but that still does not explain the empty desert 70's fps going to 40's/50's if it was always at 40's 50's i would be perfectly fine i wouldnt question it, but why does it drop from 70's to 40's for no apparent reason?

Also a good way to see how the cpu calculations are affecting your fps in game is to pause and look at the fps. Usually when you pause in most missions you should gain 10-20 or sometimes 30fps depending on the mission scale. This lets you know that the cpu was setting you back and not the gpu. But in that specific spot:

http://www.picdrop.net/uploads/arma2OA%202011-01-20%2003-21-24-54.jpg

why am i just getting 22 fps?

http://www.picdrop.net/uploads/arma2OA%202011-01-20%2003-21-50-54.jpg

My phenom II x4 945 3.0ghz can be a hiccup but i mean oc it to 3.3 ghz made no difference. And that's the max overclock i can get without tweaking the voltages which btw i don't touch because in the past i've had bad experiences in doing so. Why would my cpu be a bottleneck with no AI on the map :j:

[ojejku 10]

@Marc15yo

Totaly agree with you. I'm fed up with opinions like "Don't compare it to other games, Arma2 has billions of billions of billions objects to render whereas AI is not scripted (real time calculations), 100km^2 of terrain etc etc.". Why do people try to change the reality ? lying to yourself ? How the hell they know how the engine works ? I just can't believe that people are so afraid of the truth ? The truth is that the engine is not well designed&coded, well let's say it definitely could be better. BTW I love Arma2 as we all do here, in this community but BiS definitely needs a good competitor on the market and then we could see a whole different story...

Try to disable (at all) postprocess effects, it kills my 5870 too.

Edited January 20, 2011 by ojejku

[nikiforos 450]

Im going to upgrade from GTX 275 to ATI 5870 but I dont know if its worth it. After some reading I notice no big changes in FPS.

[Marc15yo 0]

going from normal PP to disabled has no impact on fps what so ever. I usually have it disabled anyways i can't stand the blur :/

usually the settings i play at are as follows:

textures: very high (very high to high has almost no impact on performance)

video memeory: default

AA: low (disabling it barely helps 1-2fps)

AF: high - literally, this is the only option in that game that has absolutely no impact on performance no matter what i do ;0

terrain: low

objects: normal - i prefer high usually but normal gains me 3fps and i need all i can get

shadows: high

pp: normal or disabled - has no impact on performance but looks better disabled imo

VD: 1600 on ground 3000 in heli 4000 in aircraft

even with these medium low settings that i normally play on i still get low 20's in that same scene it's very frustrating. I would be perfectly okay if the game was always stuck at 30fps but i mean it's not. It goes from 20's to 50's to 70's back to 20's. I get really low fps just looking at towns on those settings. It's very frustrating. How can it be my cpu?

@ojejku

yeah it's true i've been hearing the same excuse, i mean try explaining that with no ai, paused 500m vd etc medium low graphics settings. with one player on the map. Looking away at the town i get 40-50fps looking at the town i get 20's. looking at the ground i get 120fps How can my cpu be bottlenecking it? :j: tbh it's sort of naive and ignorant to say that this game relies only on the cpu especially when simply rendering a town with nothing else going on.

It's a 5870 people not trying to be arrogant but it's sort of ridiculous. i should be able to play this game on normal at least with minimum of 30fps or 25fps but im not :/ not even on low. I'm getting 20's 21's sometimes even 18's and those are not just drops those are sustained fps looking at a town

tbh the campaign is still impossible to play especially the mission when we attack that big town i believe it's chernagorsk. And in OA the airfield mission im getting medium 20's. Arrowhead was playable at least i managed to beat it. I also beat arma 2 although i had to use a few cheat codes and tricks to skip some missions :rolleyes:

Anyways i really do appreciate people helping me on this and im glad to see im not alone either. I just want this game to run reasonably smooth, im tired of playing at the 20's. I want to enjoy this game its the only game i can play. Any tweaks i can do to the game or my pc. ;0 and btw RAmdisks do work, i had 4gigs of the game on a 4gb ram disk once :p it was all my OA and Arma 2 buildings, rocks vegetation, roads and misc inside the ramdisk and this greatly improved lod switching and smoother movement when loading lods. But of course performance was still miserable :eek:

@Nikiforos

The 5870 is a very good card i'll admit it handles pretty well in all other games. :p of course not arma 2 lol which is the only game i rly play. Although im not sure how the GTX 275 compares to the 5870 so im not sure if it's worth the upgrade. probably nor for arma 2 at least

[ProfTournesol 956]

@Marc15yo

Totaly agree with you. I'm fed up with opinions like "Don't compare it to other games, Arma2 has billions of billions of billions objects to render whereas AI is not scripted (real time calculations), 100km^2 of terrain etc etc.". Why do people try to change the reality ? lying to yourself ? How the hell they know how the engine works ?

We don't try to change the reality, we're all facing the same limitations of the engine, which is very CPU demanding. And yes, having a persistent world with semi independant AI living its own life throughout big and detailed maps such as it is in ArmA2 makes it not comparable to any other game. That's the reality.

It's a 5870 people not trying to be arrogant but it's sort of ridiculous. i should be able to play this game on normal at least with minimum of 30fps or 25fps but im not :/ not even on low. I'm getting 20's 21's sometimes even 18's and those are not just drops those are sustained fps looking at a town

(...)

The 5870 is a very good card i'll admit it handles pretty well in all other games. :p of course not arma 2 lol which is the only game i rly play. Although im not sure how the GTX 275 compares to the 5870 so im not sure if it's worth the upgrade. probably nor for arma 2 at least

5870 is a very good card indeed, mine is handling ArmA2/OA without any problems, i just don't give a damn to look at the FPS every time i see a slow down somewhere. My guess is that your bottleneck isn't your GPU, or that your GPU isn't as good as you think because Sapphire politics has changed and they don't produce as good cards as they used to. That's why i chose an Asus one, and i'm very pleased.

[Marc15yo 0]

5870 is a very good card indeed, mine is handling ArmA2/OA without any problems, i just don't give a damn to look at the FPS every time i see a slow down somewhere. My guess is that your bottleneck isn't your GPU, or that your GPU isn't as good as you think because Sapphire politics has changed and they don't produce as good cards as they used to. That's why i chose an Asus one, and i'm very pleased.

Are you playing this game at 20-30 fps ? Of course not, if you were you'd want to find out what the culprit was. So this is your conclusion? that i'm too compulsive to stop looking at my fps or that Sapphire just sucks? (which btw is a fairly biased statement)

Okay then, i guess according to you it's wrong to not accept to play this game at low 20's after considerable upgrades. And of course since you are "handling arma 2/OA without any problems" you must understand (sarcasm) the struggle and frustration for other people that are trying to get better frame rates? The reason you don't look at your FPS is because your fps is probably not something that would need investigating into.

Your not the one getting mediocre gameplay is all i'm saying my friend. All i'm asking is for help on increasing enjoyment for the game giving me 5-10fps will make me very happy is all. I still can't play the campaign. It's not a crime is it to ask for help? If there is absolutely nothing that can be done i understand perfectly and i'll desist any additions to this thread so it may die and be done with.

However it's really hard for me to accept 22 frames per second is the best i can push out of my system when looking at a town. I just want some people to help me look further into this.

[tacticalnuggets 24]

I have the same problem. When I upgraded from a 4890 I noticed no FPS gain in most places. Cities have shown the biggest improvement, but not enough to warrant getting a new card imo. It seems that the CPU is a huge choke in this game (even with my e8400 3.6ghz). The game is flawed in this department, sadly. Z-fighting and overly detailed buildings and CPU activity basically cripple fps on any card, and the CPU has been the only sure fire way to get more "stable" frames in this game. Stable meaning sustained.

[Marc15yo 0]

I have the same problem. When I upgraded from a 4890 I noticed no FPS gain in most places. Cities have shown the biggest improvement, but not enough to warrant getting a new card imo. It seems that the CPU is a huge choke in this game (even with my e8400 3.6ghz). The game is flawed in this department, sadly. Z-fighting and overly detailed buildings and CPU activity basically cripple fps on any card, and the CPU has been the only sure fire way to get more "stable" frames in this game. Stable meaning sustained.

Thankyou for the input friend. I guess my best bet is to start saving for another CPU although this may take a very long time :/ but is the cpu rly causing the low fps drop on the empty map near that town?

http://www.picdrop.net/uploads/arma2...3-21-50-54.jpg

How much does the cpu effect performance when simply rendering the towns because even when paused the fps is still the same. And how would a phenom II x6 do in arma 2? I haven't seen any phenom II x6 users on the forum share their experience. As you can see i have an AM3 motherboard so my options are limited to an amd cpu. If i was rich however i would invest in some super cpu like an I7 :p but of course im not lol

[Rdkill 10]

I have to agree that the code is not as optimized as it needs to be...coming from my 250-300 AI DAC battles anyways...I do doubt this game would effectively utilize 6 cores when it barely utilizes the 4 (HT off) of my I7 (%60 usage?).

I actually got worse performance with HT (read 8 threads) then with it off, which would lead me to believe that it may run worse on 6 cores...of course you can set affinity.

Your issues are slightly different being in a desert with nothing going on...games not perfect, so I presume its some dirty chunk of code executing.

Can you graph your CPU util. during this hiccup? I would suspect that it probably does not change...indicating you can do nothing about this :j:

Note a newer CPU may not only be faster (Ghz) but can execute code more EFFICIENTLY, which is something these companies are now focusing on since we cant just keep adding cores for ever.

[ojejku 10]

@Marc15yo

ArmA2 engine relays on and utilizes much more CPU than GPU, so upgrading your Phenom to for instance Core i5 could give you a nice boost. I have i5 also, but don't expect miracles, you will still get fps drops to 20-25fps, especially in campaign, even in OA.

If we could have a hypothetical view on Crysis 2 engine (Crysis 1 also) then we can see how the engine should be designed&coded. Yeah, it's probably the greatest engine in the game industry the world has ever seen. It's capable of rendering huge terrain with a lot of not scripted AI, really great physic, covering land/water/air units/environment and in the same time providing such unbelievable visuals and motions, scalable and undeniably well optimized. It just uses the all resources you got at the maximum level.

Just have a look on this video (let's say it's in the ArmA universe) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7ME7rkAkQ&feature=player_embedded and think about how great it could be to see ArmA in such engine...

[-)rStrangelove 0]

I think ATI is to blame here. (my opinion based on ATI posts here - i dont have an ATI - and my own system with an Nvidia)

All i'm saying here is that my fps increased a lot going from a GTX260 to a GTX460 and finally the GTX570. I dont remember what i got with the 260, but going from the 460 to the 570 gave my more than +10fps. Which proofs to me that CPU is not the only thing ArmA2 is dependant on.

If your ATI card doesnt do this, _IMHO_ ATI drivers / card design might not work with ArmA2.

I'm not an Nvidia fan boy, i just use whatever works for me. So plz spare me the flaming.

[dmarkwick 261]

OP: to cure your FPS problem, simply disable your FPS disply :)

Seriously, if you're stressing about FPS on settings you don't use, then forget about it. Play the game, and only worry if the FPS becomes a problem in gameplay. The thing with ArmA2 is, good enough FPS is good enough. My FPS goes up & down all the time, but I'm usually so engrossed with what's going on that I hardly ever notice.

[Alex72 1]

Going from Nvidia GTX275 to ATI HD6970 was a massive change. However like DMarkwick the FPS do go up and down like a rollercoster. It all depends on what map and where on that map. Vegetation and buildings at the same time is even heavy for the mightiest cards especially with most settings to high and a high resolution.

So far im doing real good with the latest beta and i can see now that my i7930 badly needs a new cooler so i can start OC'ing it. :)

[avengerzx 10]

I'm still using Catalyst 10.10e hotfix driver

In the video options, have you turned vsync off?

Or in the settings config in My Documents set vsync = 0

[ojejku 10]

Disabling vsync is pointless unless it's coded wrong. I have vsync on and forced triple buffer for direct3d in radeonpro app. Triple buffer works and it's really nice to have vsync on.

@Marc15yo

I suggest installing 11.1a hotfix driver, it is a really stable on my 5870 whereas on 10.12 I had BSODs (not only I, just have a look on amd official forum) etc. Moreover the gameplay seems to be smoother.

@DMarkwick

There is sth in what you are saying, but on the other hand the fps drop from 60 to 20-25 is very noticeable so even without the FPS counter you can get angry & frustrated.