I love this game, but please help me!

[Conure 10]

Hey all,

First of all I just bought the game + OA + the BAF DLC. Played it in a 30 or so man platoon online last night, and it was the most atmospheric game I've ever played. I didn't think DCS A-10 could be beaten for pure atmosphere, but this has done it...

The problem is, we played a big grassy map and whenever I zoomed down my scope the FPS dropped to at most 6...It was unplayable. With grass on the game runs significantly worse. I can turn all graphics up to max and play it at about 45fps, turn on grass and the fps doesn't just drop, the game feels more jittery. So I disabled grass and suddenly (with the rest on medium) I'm getting flawless fps.

Is this normal? If so I don't understand how people play on maps with so much grass! My PC isn't too bad...specs are

Core i5 760 @ 3ghz

6gb DDR3 ram @ 1300mhz

GTX 460 SE 1gb

Playing at 1900-1200.

I will post up a video of nobody has any ideas, to see what you all think.

thanks very much for reading :)

[Nicholas 5]

I can turn all graphics up to max

Well, there's your problem. I don't believe anyone can run ArmA at "Max" with steady frames.

[nettrucker 143]

Hi and welcome.

I favour gameplay over fancy graphics anytime, but to disable the grass to gain frames is a no go for me.

[Conure 10]

Hey there, sorry I think you misunderstood me! I can play the game at max with grass off (disabled through a mod) yet with lowest graphics and grass on, when I zoom in the game is unplayable. basically, the grass is having a huge huge effect on my FPS - is this normal??

[Nicholas 5]

It's because you have you settings too high. Plain and simple. You said you turned things down to medium (Normal) and everything worked fine? Try High, instead of "Very High" settings.

[nettrucker 143]

Try and play around with your video settings maybe you can find a compromise. ArmA is a very different beast in terms of game. Don't expect with everything turned on to run it max. In any case I'm running a dualcore low end computer and I'm not experiencing similar huge frame drops with grass turned on and zooming in or out.

Since you were talking of your online experience. Lot has to do also with optimal server settings, multiplayer mission design . . . could be quite a varity of different reasons. You got experiment and find out what works best for you.

[Conure 10]

I took your advice of experimenting, opened up a big outdoor forets mission full of grass and played around. I found that I can have everything high and object detail to low, and get very smooth fps and it looks great. It doesnt drop below 35fps which I believe for Arma is completely acceptable. (What's what I've heard, at least)

[jordo2323 10]

Agreed. I had to play around with my settings a ton. Just because you have a machine that is capable of 1900x1200 resolutions doesn't mean that's the best resolution for this particular game as well.

[nettrucker 143]

If you can find your balance than you're good to go. And yes 35 FPS can be acceptable as long as it runs smooth. Keep also you HD on which you have installed ARMA defragmented. Do it after every new patch you install because after patching files are very much fragmented all over the place.

C'ya

[gossamersolid 155]

but to disable the grass to gain frames is a no go for me.

You and I are very different people then. Grass just makes it impossible to shoot things when proned and reduces performance too much.

[nettrucker 143]

You and I are very different people then. Grass just makes it impossible to shoot things when proned and reduces performance too much.

I play nearly everything on normal settings but grass got to be enabled for me. It's just a preference of mine it changed a bit my game approach considering that in OFP there was no grass. Yeah I know when you're prone you see no shit. Well for the rest i'm used to run on low frames, which will definitely change in a not so far future.:D

[SPC.Spets 21]

That 460...

dont use 10000 distance view, set it at least for 3000-4000 you dont need more. Also postprocess to normal and HDR normal.

I have a GTX460 1GB my CPU is Phenom II 920 2.8Ghz. I play in 1600x900 all settings High/very high, 4000 distance view, hdr normal, postprocess low (I dont like postporcess) and I dont use antialiasing becasue I hate it too. And I have an average of 40-60 fps sometimes more

[KeyCat 131]

When it comes to grass don't forgett to test different AToC settings. Open your ArmA2OA.cfg and change the line saying:

AToC=0;

I use 0 since that gives me best performance on a old nVidia GTX260. Search forum for different values...

...I dont use antialiasing becasue I hate it too.

No offence but how can you "hate" less jaggied lines?

/KC

[Nicholas 5]

Because AA eats up frames. I can deal with jaggies rather than very bad frames.

[KeyCat 131]

Sure, it may take some frames but experimenting gave me a happy compromise between FPS/less jaggies.

Anyway, to each his own, I was just curious ;)

/KC

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Agreed. I actually love less jaggied lines, but not at the fps penalty associated with it.

"Just bought the game"? Are you updated to the latest version? How about the betas? I do remember there were some versions a while back that had a way too heavy penalty on fps while zooming in scopes.

[SPC.Spets 21]

When it comes to grass don't forgett to test different AToC settings. Open your ArmA2OA.cfg and change the line saying:

AToC=0;

I use 0 since that gives me best performance on a old nVidia GTX260. Search forum for different values...

No offence but how can you "hate" less jaggied lines?

/KC

because I dont care, Im not walking around in the game watching lines and shadows, insignificant details. When Im worried about enemies trying to flank us who cares about those little dots. And, yes, I record with FRAPS all the time and it consumes a lot of performance.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Too long a View Distance is the most common cause of low FPS.

Generaly speaking unless you are playing as a sniper or Pilot of a fast jet view distances of 1200 to 2000 are more than sufficient.

The Horizon how far can we see?

Curvature of the earth means that a human view distance on flat surface such as a still lake or salt pan is 6 km or 3.3 miles but the human eye can see stars and galaxies millions of miles into space.

As a very rough approximation, distance to the horizon for different eye height use this formulae that works for imperial measures:

Distance to the horizon in nautical miles is equal to the 1.17 x square route of your height of eye. To get normal statute miles multiply by 1.15.

The formulae breaks down as you get higher. There is a more complex formulae but I will not bother you with it here.

If you are on higher ground you see further, and high objects like say the top of a lighthouse or ships mast appear over the horizon long before the base of the object does. So if you are 60ft above see level on say a cliff you can see about 12 nautical or 13.8 statute miles.

Those stars are millions of times the size of a human.

All this is wonderful but it not really very relevant.

Relevance

What we deal with in human experience is what is relevant though.

What can the Naked Eye resolve?

Angular resolution of a human eye is about 0.02°–0.03°, which is about 30–60 cm at a 1 km distance. What does that mean?

It depends on what your wanting to look at! So let us consider what we want to look at in ArmA. Go outside somewhere where you can see a long way on a sunny day.

1) How far can you see a person?

For me it is just under 2 kilometres, degree of camouflage and movement and light all alter this but it corresponds to that angular resolution formulae we see above. Ether way they are just a spec.

2) How far can you see a group of say 10 people moving together?

For me it is just under 2.5 kilometres

3) How far can you see a standard saloon car?

About 3 km

4) How far can you see a truck?

Perhaps 4 km

5) How far can you discern individual houses.

Perhaps 5 km

Big jets fly at between 10,000 and 12,000 Meters except for a glint of their wings or their contrail you will not be able to see them but correspondingly they cannot see you, though their cameras can!

Beyond the naked Eye

Standard Military issue Optical Binoculars magnify by about 6 to 8 times 6X30, 7X50, 8X25 etc. You do get 10X50 but few troops use them as their field of view is too small and they are hard to hold steady, they are also harder to make and so expensive and heavy, the image is not as bright an issue at dusk and dawn when military activity often takes place. Anything that big or bigger is better on a tripod and really come under the classification of observation or Naval binoculars.

Electronic binoculars with digital zoom and stabilization are whole different kettle of fish.

So you can resolve a person as a speck with the standard military binoculars at about 4 km. More importantly at one or two kilometers you will be able to tell which way they are facing and that they are carrying something and maybe even what they are carrying etc.

I like looking at pretty views and how far my horizon is becomes very important then.

All this then leads us back to the real questions of view distance, what is its relevance? What are you looking at? How are you looking at it? What is it you want to see?

Kind regards walker

Edited July 26, 2011 by walker

[hellfire257 3]

I have my AA off, but increase my fillrate to 125% to compensate.

[Lanzfeld 10]

Fillrate?

I cant find that.

[rangerpl 13]

That's your resolution. Just turn that up above native, and the game will look like it's anti-aliased.

Also try setting AToC to 6. That'll turn it off for grass but not trees.

[no use for a name 0]

I found AToC on grass is a HUGE performance killer...I have mine set to AToC=6 which disables it only on grass and saw a nice boost when looking at/thru grass (especially with a scope)

[wipman 1]

Hi, for have decent FPS while having the grass On, on the ArmA2 i use this mod:

- GDT Mod Grass.

Let's C ya

[Nicholas 5]

Fillrate = Texture Resolution