Graphics | Performance | Mods

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

UPDATE: After extensive testing I have concluded the only graphics option to have any affect on performance is Video Memory. On Default it boosts fps by roughly 10, whereas any other setting (even low) comes with lower fps. Not even AA or either resolution setting affects fps in the slightest. This is the strangest thing. I wish I could find a way to increase my fps.

Hello fellow forum members. I've been away from the community for a while since I moved and haven't had the time to even install ArmA until just today.

Upon configuring my graphics options I was immediately reminded how resource intensive ArmA 2 really is. Suddenly I came down from 60fps to 21 in the menu just by adjusting a few settings.

I'd like to increase my average fps by about 10 so I get 31. Which settings can I sacrifice without having much of a negative impact on visual fidelity?

Since I have been away from the community for so long, I've been completely out of the mod scene as well. I'd really appreciate some pointers on what is recommended. I previously used:

JSRS Soundmod 0.8

WarFX Blastcore 1.1

Some old version of Mando Missiles

Note: Not a fan of ACE mod. Too clunky and cumbersome for my taste.

Thank you for giving this a read! I hope to hear from all of you, especially with the performance tips. :)

System specs:

4GB DDR3 (forgot timings)

Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition @~3.21GHz

GTX260 Core 216 Black Edition (overclocked)

Edited August 20, 2011 by JuggernautOfWar

[sgt gul 0]

Only thing that helped me was overclocking, i have the same CPU as you. My CPU is not at 3.6 ghz overclocked, it gave me an average of 40 instead of 20.

[PuFu 4591]

turn PP off (i get motion sickness from the blur, and i hate the "you are bind dude" effect)

lower the AA.

if you have OA, might wanna check the ATOC settings in your arma2OA.cfg

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Only thing that helped me was overclocking, i have the same CPU as you. My CPU is not at 3.6 ghz overclocked, it gave me an average of 40 instead of 20.

I'd love to but I've never overclocked a CPU before. I've only got my stock cooler and I don't have the money right now to purchase a new one. Could I still do it?

turn PP off (i get motion sickness from the blur, and i hate the "you are bind dude" effect)

lower the AA.

if you have OA, might wanna check the ATOC settings in your arma2OA.cfg

Thank you for the reply. I'm already running with AA off. In ArmA 2 it seems running AA on medium grants about 20fps for me, but when it's off I only get +3 bringing it up to 23. That's a pretty tiny increase in fps for such a huge visual drawback. What about the "3D Resolution" percentage I see? That makes a massive impact on performance it seems. Could I do some sort of AA/3D Resolution mix of settings to achieve higher frames with minimal loss in quality?

One more question that's bugged me since 1.08 of ArmA1. Texture Quality has Very High and "Default" even though "Default" isn't the actual default setting. That makes no sense to me whatsoever. What setting should I use?

[tom3kb 15]

About 3d resolution use it on 100%.

And about mods:

jsrs is now v1.33,

war fx blastcore i think 1.2rc or maybe 1.1rc.

From big mods i recomend: fdf mod, csla mod, cwr 2 demo, invasion 1944 v2.51 for CO, unsung mod.

And on armaholic check download section with campaigns for arma 2 and for OA.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

My view distance is at 5KM. Any less and flying/aiming is quite difficult. What can I change to improve performance without feeling like I'm playing with year 2000 graphics? AA doesn't change the average fps much at all.

About 3d resolution use it on 100%.

3D resolution at 100% looks great but I get ~20fps average. At 80% I get ~30-35 fps average but appears as I'm looking at a blurry picture of mud. Texture quality at Very High or "Default"? The default setting for me is Very High... if that makes any sense at all.

UPDATE: After extensive testing I've found Anti Aliasing being off or medium literally does not change the fps whatsoever.

Edited August 19, 2011 by JuggernautOfWar

[domokun 515]

Good to have you back!

Try these tweaks:

a) Make sure you're running the latest patch (1.10 for A2, 1.59 for OA). The betas offer some nice improvements too!

b) Edit A2's config file (something like My Documents\ArmA2\Arma2OA.cfg), find AToC=7 and change it to AToC=0

c) Tweak OA's in-game Video Settings

Visibility: 5000m <= has the biggest impact so try lowering as much as possible

Interface: 100%

3D res: 100%

Tex: Default

Vid mem: Default

Anisotropic: Normal

Antialiasing: disabled <= if your eyes don't bleed, otherwise "Low" ?

Terrain: Normal

Objects: Normal

Shadows: High

HDR: Medium

Post-proc: Low or even Off

d) Try installing these mods to scrape a few fps without sacrificing too much eye-candy:

- Oktane's noBlur

- SAP Clutter

- GDT grass

- PROPER Vegetation Tweak Visuals

- PROPER Buildings Tweak Visuals

e) Clean out the crap - I recommend CCleaner as it's free, light and efficient

f) Defrag what's left - I recommend Defraggler as it's free, light and efficient

g) Minimise your services - Gamebooster is your friend

h) overclock your CPU - your Phenom II X4 955 should easily be able to reach 3.6 GHz, probably 3.8 and maybe 4 with just air cooling

Edited August 19, 2011 by domokun

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

f) overclock your CPU - your Phenom II X4 955 should easily be able to reach 3.6 GHz, probably 3.8 and maybe 4 with just air cooling.

Thank you so much for your very extensive reply, very helpful. Could you please point me in the right direction to overclocking my CPU? I really don't want to be so cheap I overclock rather than buy a new CPU, then break my CPU and have to buy a new one anyway. I defiitely don't have the money for that. :(

I think this is my best bet because no matter what I change in the video options I get roughly the same fps. That leads me to believe it's my RAM or CPU bottle necking my GPU.

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

Thank you so much for your very extensive reply, very helpful. Could you please point me in the right direction to overclocking my CPU? I really don't want to be so cheap I overclock rather than buy a new CPU, then break my CPU and have to buy a new one anyway. I defiitely don't have the money for that. :(

I think this is my best bet because no matter what I change in the video options I get roughly the same fps. That leads me to believe it's my RAM or CPU bottle necking my GPU.

Overclocking is pretty simple, and relatively safe as long as you don't overdo it.

Here's the first guide that came up in google.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=267708

And here is a tool for monitoring your temps, which also shows a quick and easy 'max temp'.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

With stock cooling, you're probably not going to hit 4Ghz, so don't expect miricles. But the thing to keep in mind is that as long as you keep your stock voltage where it's at (vCore), then you're not going to damage your processor. The higher the vCore, the more power you have running through your CPU. So obviously, the hotter it will be. But even on stock voltage, you should be able to hit 3.6Ghz or so, and in all honesty, even with stock cooling, you can afford to bump up your vCore a tiny bit anyways to attain something higher.

OCing, specially for your first time, will take a bit of research, and then a ton of scientific method to find your max clockrate.

[[frl]myke 14]

@JoW

as you have a BE CPU which has unlocked multiplier, overclocking isn't that hard. What you need are tools to test the overclocking and control system health. Also you should know how to manipulate a BIOS.

Tools:

Speedfan to monitor CPU temperature

Prime95 for stress testing the CPU

Be aware that you'll lose any warranty on the CPU if you overclock it.

Usually there is very little risk to damage your hardware as it has built-in protection measurements. Well, "usually" and "very little" doesn't mean "never ever" and "absolutely no risk", keep that in mind.

Ok, after installing the above tools (you may use other tools if you want, you just need a temperature monitoring tool and a CPU stressing tool), reboot your PC and enter BIOS.

Locate the CPU settings page and there the Multiplier setting. By default it should be set either to "Auto" or 16x.

Usually the multiplier can be set in steps of 0.5 so raise it by one step, save and exit and boot into windows. If it boots without problem, this is already the first success. :D

Now open your monitoring tool and the stress tool. Prime95 let's you select which cores should be stressed, make sure all four are set. I'm sorry, i don't have all possible settings in mind but i guess you will find your way through yourself as everything is well explained there.

Now let your stress test run for at least one hour and keep an eye on CPU temp levels. If it raises above 60 degrees Celsius, abort the test. This would mean your cooling is insufficient.

Prime 95 will also abort if the CPU does miscalculations.

If all went well, you might reboot, go to BIOS and raise the pultiplier again 1 notch (0.5) up.

If Prime95 shows you that a core had miscalculations, you might raise the voltage of the CPU (Vcore) also for one notch and re-test it. Be aware, 1.5V is already a very high setting, with 1.4 you're still comfortable.

So, recap:

raise multiplier in BIOS by one notch

if you have BSOD, go back to the latest working setting

stress test your CPU and look out that temps stay below 60 degrees

if the stress test fails, raise Vcore by one notch aswell and try again, 1.4V should be fine, 1.45V is already pretty much, 1.5V requires probably much better cooling.

Keep in mind that it is a time consuming process if you want to have it safe. Change only one setting at a time and then test these settings.

I guess (attention, pretty wild guess) already with stock cooler you can add 200-300 MHz to your clock without even raising core voltage. Probably depending of your complete cooling system in your PC even more with slightly raised Vcore.

[=wfl= sgt bilko 10]

Some general advice for posters on performance:

You really should state (alongside your HW specs):

- If you running A2 or A2OA

- What screen resolution you're running

- Whether you are running with the default NVidia 3D Application Control settings or if you messed around (not to be confused with NVidia stereoscopic 3D settings).

- Your current ingame graphic settings.

Before venturing into OC-land (which if something goes wrong might end up with a fried chip and no warranty), you should try the advice already given and post back your figures.

I'd also recommend using one of the available benchmark missions (or create one yourself) so the conditions for the fps measurement is the same for each testrun. And run the benchmark at least twice, first run is bogged down by loading stuff to memory.

While playing do a mid-paced 360' now and then to "pre-load" whatever is around you. It will not improve your max FPS but it will make it more stable (as in no sudden drops). This is btw good advice for any game with many objects and/or long distance visibility.

There's also already at least one other thread about performance and hardware. You should search that thread for posters with same hardware to get a feeling if your system performance is expected or not

Edited August 19, 2011 by =WFL= Sgt Bilko

[tom3kb 15]

If you dont wont blurry textures you must use 3d resolution at 100%. And you must tray different setings somethimes on high or vhigh you will have more fps then on medium i know this is strange. And view distance maybe 3000-4000 m.

[sgt gul 0]

I have overclocked to 3.6 without having to change the voltage. And it worked well with stock cooler, i now have a better cooler. I plan to overclock again to 3.8, the last time it did not go well because of low voltage. Here is how i did it, guys on the forum helped me.

scroll down to the long post of domokun. excellent step by step how to overclock.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Wow guys thank you all so much for the useful information! I'll get right on that.

I can't help but wonder how much of an improvement I'll get from +200~300 MHz.

[sgt gul 0]

Believe me, it will get you average of 10fps+ like i got.

[dmarkwick 261]

I didn't see where you mention what resolution you're running, but one other thing you can do to claw back some performance is to run ArmA windowed, and drop the screen resolution. Because you're running windowed, you won't get muddy graphics, you'll just get the game in a smaller window. I guess it depends on how physically big your monitor is, and whether you're already running at the lowest resolution you will accept.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

I am running 1680x1050.

I've tried running everything maxed out, then immediately doing a few benchmarks with everything on low in 800x600 and I get the same exact average fps of ~21. The only setting which makes any sort of a difference is Video Memory Low-VHigh and Default. When set to Default I get a much higher fps, but other than that everything's crap. What the hell? This is the strangest thing I've ever seen.:eek:

Seeing these results I can't help but lose some hope. I feel the engine is just optimized like crap and maybe cannot take advantage of some of my hardware. I really don't know what the specific problem is, but this is very frustrating for me. :( Ideas?

Edited August 19, 2011 by JuggernautOfWar

[PuFu 4591]

you should really try deleting the your arma2.cfg/arma2OA.cfg and/or profile.arma2.cfg/arma2OA.cfg and let the game recreate it from 0

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Well Steam just started downloading the entire OA game from scratch. I have NO IDEA why, but you've got no clue how much I'm raging right now. My internet is so damn slow the eta is 16 hours until the game I've already got installed completes installing... again. It's randomly missing the .exe and essential game files, but the directory is still there.

I'll continue trying ways to improve my fps once Steam finishes my download and finishes pissing me the hell off.

you should really try deleting the your arma2.cfg/arma2OA.cfg and/or profile.arma2.cfg/arma2OA.cfg and let the game recreate it from 0

What will that change? I just installed the game.

Edited August 20, 2011 by JuggernautOfWar

[PuFu 4591]

it is good practice to delete the .cfg after massive game updated (in your case, from 1.01 to whatever version it is for A2. The memory detection changed a few times (or so i remember for OA at least).

[johanna 11]

This movie is how i see myself trying to get arma run on my computers over the years, and now with new hardware im there.

'i wanted to make somesing, uhh, like a dream'

SeUMDY01uUA

[mrcash2009 0]

I agree with Pufu about the config refresh per update & patch, it did make a difference for me, and in situation of memory changes and Gcard swaps etc.

In my sig I have a few links to some juicy threads about mods & addons, so give them a look.