Poor Performance on High End PC!

[zild1221 10]

Well, I am at a loss. I was all excited that with my new PC I would be able to run ArmA II: OA at high settings. To my dismay, this is not so. First off, I will list my PC specs.

2600K @ 4.8Ghz

2x 6870's OC'ed

8GB DDR3-1866

2x Crucial SSD's RAID 0 (ArmA installed here)

I am running Combined Arms with ACE. Last night playing Warfare BE, I was getting between 40-60FPS at best. These are the settings I was running at.

I don't know what I can do at this point. Any lower settings and the game will look like ARMA 1. I know the cards only have 1GB of video memory, but still. The other thing that sucks is I have two additional monitors on their way to run in eyefinity. The way it is now, I won't be able to run the game at all.

Hopefully someone can shed some light on what is going on.

[jedra 11]

Just out of interest, what FPS were you expecting to get? To me, 40-60 fps in the middle of Warfare seems pretty good indeed.

With that set up there's not much you can do to improve anything other than to make sure your drivers are installed correctly.

If your 6870s are set up in crossfireX mode, try disabling crossfire (remove the bridge) and run it on just one card - at least you might be able to narrow it down to a crossfire/not a crossfire issue.

Try turning off AA - in my own personal experience, AA and AMD cards don't get on very well (I have and AMD card by the way, so not being all nVidia fan-boyish). I have also noticed that aTOC kills my 5970OC card - try turning that off (setting it to zero) in the your Arma2OA config.

Is your view distance set to something sensible - even with a powerful machine your not going to get 100fps with it set all the way to the right.

Turn of Vsync if it's on - maybe your being limited by it?

Other than that, not sure!

[zild1221 10]

The thing is though, this is at the beginning of the mission. My 4870 and Q9550 used to run about the same as this. My friend running along side of me has a Phenom II x4 945 at stock with a 4890 running higher settings and just destroying my FPS. And he is running 1920x1200.

Drivers: Just yesterday I uninstalled the AMD drivers, ran Driver Sweeper, and reinstalled 11.11's.

Crossfire: Monitoring my cards with MSI Afterburner, both are peaked in the high 90's during gameplay so I would assume Crossfire is working.

AA is off already. Both is CCC and in ArmA. I replaced it with slightly higher 3Dres to mimic AA with less loss in frames. Also, no clue what aTOC is. Google gave me nothing there.

Thanks for the help so far. Still hoping there is someone that has been in this situation and found a solution.

[BasileyOne 10]

there is NO "High-End PC" in [wonderful]world of Arma2 ! :P

and btw, you are welcome -)

p.s.

most capping is CPU freq/performance, so try insane[4.5 GHz]overclock with good cooler -)

[zild1221 10]

I have my 2600k at 4.8Ghz already. =[

[BasileyOne 10]

oh. without using profiler and then debugger i can't say FOR SURE, what bottleneck in You particular case. but lack of memory for Arma2 is next possible problem after CPU scalability. in vehicles warfare with mediocre[!!]viewdistance you harddrive nearly dying swapping data[textures, island, etc], let alone FLYING :(

so basically Arma2 patches and Arma3 NEED solid multi-threaded optimization as well 64-bit binaries.

p.s.

lucky you, "60 fps as best", i get about 19fps in Warfare, sometimes :[

ACE also notable resource-eater, sadly.

[[frl]myke 14]

Also, no clue what aTOC is.

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/arma2.cfg

Scroll down a bit.

And in ArmA 2, calling 40-60FPS "low performance" is the well known PEBKAC bug. Google might have info about it.

Seriously, it is a game, not a "mine is bigger than yours" competition.

[NoQuarter 0]

Out of curiosity OP, what is your WEI?

What model are your SSDs...or more to the point, are they SATA II or SATA III?

256-bit GPUs -of whatever flavor- are going to limit performance, particularly if you are or are considering using multiple displays.

Myke;2066911']...in ArmA 2' date=' calling 40-60FPS "low performance" is the well known PEBKAC bug...[/quote']Truth.

[Leon86 13]

40 fps is not low.

[special_air_service 10]

40-60 FPS in ArmA II is considered really good , I can assume with that amount of FPS you can still plays with ease without stuttering , lagging or another performance troubles. :)

[KrIxXuS 10]

The PEBKAC bug as mike stated is a real problem, having had it myself im fully sympathetic... but after reading these forums and using the search function i managed to sort 99% of my issues with arma 2 which sees me running a respectable fps and runs fine with no major issues... if you are looking for a quick and easy fix then good luck but i really cant see you have any problem here at all...maybe a little more info about what patches you are using and drivers for catalyst etc...also i would say that using certain mods will in some cases decrease your frame rate's but probably not too dramatically...maybe try editing the arma2oa config and customising to your own preference as prompted in the link above??

Edited December 6, 2011 by KrIxXuS

[maddogx 11]

zild1221, can you please post your advanced video settings, ideally as a screenshot?

Most of the time, performance problems are caused by people not familiar with the graphics options setting something to a value higher than any current generation computer could handle. In other words, "maxing out" the video settings in not a good idea in Arma2, no matter what hardware you have.

Looking at your hardware, I'm sure you could get an extra 10-20 average fps with a few minor tweaks and negligable loss of visual quality.

[valnwt 10]

My tip would be to reduce your 3D res, ive always put it as highest 100 % of interface res. Also ive found that reducing both interface and 3D res to the same res (interface: 1280-720 3d res: 1280:720) may give you uglier edges but not the same blurie pic you get when (interface res > 3d res), How ever at this point try adding some AA to it, this should save you some fps with minimal quality los.

[On_Sabbatical 11]

i'm sure with your hardware ,ther's room for some improvements...

Also,being a dedicated warfare BE player,i can assure you that with this mission your FPS will depend on parameters and server quality and how long the game has been running.

Very powerful AI and a lot of players on server will give clients very bad FPS regardless their hardware.

My advice is that when it starts lagging on Warfare BE reduce your viewdistance through WFBE menu ==> team menu to half,this should normally help.

[special_air_service 10]

I turn my Anti Aliasing from normal to high even very high without significant performance impact , as well in shadow from normal to high or very high. This is kinda weird, since I knew in every game those 2 options are FPS killer :confused: I don't know I should be glad or not :D

[[frl]myke 14]

...as well in shadow from normal to high or very high. This is kinda weird,...

Nope, it isn't weird. Depending on the Shadow settings, different methods are used which determine if shadows are calculated by CPU or GPU. Shadows on Normal or lower will be calculated by CPU, on High and Very High on the GPU.

Now knowing that ArmA 2 is CPU hungry anyway, taking the load off the CPU and put it on the GPU (which often enough has enough free resources for this additional task) may indeed result in better performance with higher setting.

[special_air_service 10]

Myke;2067666']Nope' date=' it isn't weird. Depending on the Shadow settings, different methods are used which determine if shadows are calculated by CPU or GPU. Shadows on Normal or lower will be calculated by CPU, on High and Very High on the GPU.

Now knowing that ArmA 2 is CPU hungry anyway, taking the load off the CPU and put it on the GPU (which often enough has enough free resources for this additional task) may indeed result in better performance with higher setting.[/quote']

oh that's a good answer, I get it now :) , plus the fact that with increasing shadow detail also make the in-game graphic quality better , but is it the same for GPU to process on high or very high ? I mean will the performance will not affected badly if I choose very high compare with high ? :confused:

[[frl]myke 14]

I mean will the performance will not affected badly if I choose very high compare with high ?

Well, there is one way to find out. ;)

Honestly, it really depends on how powerful your GPU is and if it is already running at full load. If it is already at 100% all the time with shadows on high, setting it one notch up might reduce FPS a bit. But i think we speak about 2-3FPS difference between those 2 settings.

Personally i don't see a big difference anyway while in combat but this is my very own opinion really.

[special_air_service 10]

Myke;2067706']Well' date=' there is one way to find out. ;)

Honestly, it really depends on how powerful your GPU is and if it is already running at full load. If it is already at 100% all the time with shadows on high, setting it one notch up might reduce FPS a bit. But i think we speak about 2-3FPS difference between those 2 settings.

Personally i don't see a big difference anyway while in combat but this is my very own opinion really.[/quote']

I see, gonna give it a try though :)