ARMA Free's MP performance compared to the full version's?

[Orpheus 1]

Hi

I'm thinking about buying ArmA II: CO, mostly to play the DayZ mod but I'm worried that I'm going to have quite a bad performance in the game with my Intel E5200 CPU. I thought I should test the multiplayer performance with the free version, but how much does the free version's performance represent the full game's performance? Does it use the same updated engine?

Thanks

[special_air_service 10]

The Free version doesn't have HD and High Resolution Texture, so Iam not sure if that will represent the same performance with Paid Full Version , although I think the engine are same :)

May I acknowledge your specification ?

[Orpheus 1]

The Free version doesn't have HD and High Resolution Texture, so Iam not sure if that will represent the same performance with Paid Full Version , although I think the engine are same :)

May I acknowledge your specification ?

Hah, that won't be a problem because I won't be able to use the HD features anyway :) my PC specs are quite bad:

CPU- Intel [email protected]

GPU- nVidia 9800GT

RAM- 4GB

OS- Win7 x64

I played the free version yesterday and on the lowest preset graphics settings and at 800x600 resolution my fps was about 28; on the same low graphics settings and at 1920x1080 resolution my fps was about 23. It's such a small gain so my CPU is being a huge bottleneck for me right now. The GPU usage was at about 50%

I tested this in a MP game with about 70 people in the server

Edited May 12, 2012 by Orpheus

[special_air_service 10]

Hah, that won't be a problem because I won't be able to use the HD features anyway :) my PC specs are quite bad:

CPU- Intel [email protected]

GPU- nVidia 9800GT

RAM- 4GB

OS- Win7 x64

I played the free version yesterday and on the lowest preset graphics settings and at 800x600 resolution my fps was about 28; on the same low graphics settings and at 1920x1080 resolution my fps was about 23. It's such a small gain so my CPU is being a huge bottleneck for me right now. The GPU usage was at about 50%

I tested this in a MP game with about 70 people in the server

no, not quite bad :)

Mine are even worse , My GPU are only 9600 GT , my RAM only 3 Gb , and only my processor that actually better than yours, Core2Duo E7200 @ 2.53 Ghz

But with that spec I can have playable performance on paid version ArmA II with HD and high resolution texture of course, so yes specification PC are affecting most on gaming performance but doesn't mean absolute factor. Iam even using vista SP2 which even worse in gaming especially on ArmA II than your Windows7 :D

Your spec should be enough and your CPU are enough because it's already Dual Core with high speed, my solution will be defragging your drive where ArmA belongs to.

Have you using gamebooster ? try it too, as for me it's worked :)

How long your View Distance ? that's really FPS killer.

[b00tsy 28]

Giving ArmA.exe a higher priority in your taskmanager can help too, at least for me it is a lot smoother and more stable fps.

[special_air_service 10]

Giving ArmA.exe a higher priority in your taskmanager can help too, at least for me it is a lot smoother and more stable fps.

How to do that ? I heard this method is working , but I don't know how to do it.

[Orpheus 1]

How to do that ? I heard this method is working , but I don't know how to do it.

Alt-TAB out of the game, start Task Manager and under the Processes tab right click on armaII.exe(or something similar, I don't know the exact name) and choose "Set Priority"

Anyway, I tried this and it didn't change anything, I'm still getting under 24 fps. Looks like I won't be able to play Arma with this CPU...Damn shame really, the DayZ mod looks insanely fun :(

Well, thanks for the help anyways guys

[special_air_service 10]

Alt-TAB out of the game, start Task Manager and under the Processes tab right click on armaII.exe(or something similar, I don't know the exact name) and choose "Set Priority"

Anyway, I tried this and it didn't change anything, I'm still getting under 24 fps. Looks like I won't be able to play Arma with this CPU...Damn shame really, the DayZ mod looks insanely fun :(

Well, thanks for the help anyways guys

But your CPU is even above recommended requirement for ArmA II which is 2.8 Ghz . Don't give up so fast, should be something wrong outside the spec thing. Eh thank you for the explanation, so everytime I plays ArmA II I need to Alt-Tab and do that ? Is it can be set automatically only once in the first time so I don't need to set it over and over everytime gonna play ?

[Orpheus 1]

There are a number of ways to do it, I think this is the easiest- http://www.askvg.com/how-to-permanently-set-process-priority-in-windows-task-manager/

There are other ways to do it too if you're not comfortable with installing additional programs, you should find plenty of tutorials with Google.

[special_air_service 10]

Thank you :)

So back to this main topic thread, how is it going on your game so far ? any progress ?

[Orpheus 1]

Well, I've been looking through some Arma2 tweak guides but they all address the graphical part of the game e.g. how to change certain texture settings etc. That's not what I need because as I said before- my graphics card usage is only 50% on the lowest settings, so there's some room to even turn the graphics quality higher. What I need is something that decreases the CPU usage but I haven't come across something like that and I doubt I'll ever will.

I don't have that much time to mess around with the game either, I have an exam session coming up, just wanted to have a good game or a mod to take breaks from studying and just relax a bit

[domokun 515]

Orpheus: try these tips to get the game running smoothly, as it addresses the CPU load and it's quite quick:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?85124-ArmA2-OA-%28low%29-performance-issues&p=2081466#post2081466

[Orpheus 1]

Orpheus: try these tips to get the game running smoothly, as it addresses the CPU load and it's quite quick:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?85124-ArmA2-OA-%28low%29-performance-issues&p=2081466#post2081466

Thanks, but which one of those tweaks addresses the CPU usage? If it's the dynamic view distance then that won't help because I get horrible fps even at the lowest view distance settings (500m I think)

[ck-claw 1]

Also try defrag program (i forget the name-ultimate defrag??)

Allows you to move the arma directory to the outer edge of your HDD enabling it to be read faster!

Worked well for me when i was still on a single core, which btw i only got a dual core 6 months ago lol

[special_air_service 10]

I recommend Smart Defrag from IOBit :) worked for me , also IOBit has Gamebooster also, use it :D

Gamebooster has "Defrag your game" option as well , use it :)

And always launch ArmA II.exe from Gamebox when you are using Gamebooster :cool:

[Orpheus 1]

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll try them out when I get the chance :)

[domokun 515]

Oprheus: there is no magic bullet. Rather you should try combining several of the tips listed. Gamebooster has been listed there for over a year now.