(GTX 670) Low performance near certain trees and objects

[Archosaurusrev 12]

First off, I've been playing Arma for a good 3 or so years now, and I know how the engine works, at least basic understanding.

My FPS in the forests near Misty Peak, at mostly High settings with 3km VD is in the 65 to 70 area, over 70 on the peak.

If I look at a tree that's not a Pine, or look at a building, my FPS plummets to a very stuttering 40 FPS.

Is this some kind of memory leak problem or something?

I mean, its not natural to get high FPS in some areas, and low in some.

This was tested with only one AI in a Humvee, to check if even a single AI will plummet my FPS.

I can have a few battles going on with no drop, so its probably not a CPU problem, seeing as it happens even with no AI.

System:

Operating System

MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1

CPU

Intel Core i5 650 @ 3.20GHz 38 °C

Clarkdale 32nm Technology

RAM

8,00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz (9-9-9-24)

Motherboard

Acer Aspire M5910 (CPU 1) 30 °C

Graphics

E2350 (1920x1080@60Hz)

MSi GTX 670 Power Edition (Factory overclocked)

Hard Drives

977GB Seagate ST31000528AS (RAID) 49 °C

Optical Drives

DTSOFT Virtual CdRom Device

LAD H6NWLAF0LMFO SCSI CdRom Device

HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH60N

LAD H6NWLAF0LMFO SCSI CdRom Device

Audio

Realtek High Definition Audio

Edited September 23, 2012 by Archosaurusrev
CPU problem, not GPU problem

[Nicholas 5]

I believe all AI computing is on the CPU. Can I have your exact ingame settings for each option? A screenshot will work.

[Archosaurusrev 12]

I believe all AI computing is on the CPU. Can I have your exact ingame settings for each option? A screenshot will work.

3km viewdistance

Very High Textures

Default memory

Anisotropic filtering and AA at high (I see no performance increase from no AA to high AA.)

ATOC 7, my Nvidia panel's AA feature is broken so I have to use ATOC to get AA. I don't mind, because it looks a lot nicer and isn't broken like on my old card.

Terrain detail Low, always been always will be.

Objects and shadows High

HDR normal

PPAA is FXAA low with a sharp filter, it doesn't work for me because some features are broken right now, but I get the sharp filter for no FPS drop.

PP normal because I gain maybe 1 frame if I turn it off, and I like the look on this card.

No Vsync, ever.

Max frames ahead is 1, in panel and in .cfg.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Any kind of AA in ArmA results in some form of FPS loss near foliage in my experience, on top of that, as was mentioned in the previous thread, your CPU is the bottleneck.

Do some testing in MP without AI under your command.

[Archosaurusrev 12]

Any kind of AA in ArmA results in some form of FPS loss near foliage in my experience, on top of that, as was mentioned in the previous thread, your CPU is the bottleneck.

Do some testing in MP without AI under your command.

I set up a sizeable battle near Misty Peak and my FPS plummeted to the 30 region.

Never happened before, always kept at least 50.

I'll try that.

Also, Pine trees do not give me a loss with AA on, only the "summer" trees.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

I set up a sizeable battle near Misty Peak and my FPS plummeted to the 30 region.

Never happened before, always kept at least 50.

Upgrade to i5-750, if you don't want to get a new mobo and RAM. Edit: Just checked the price - new SKUs at the same price as Ivy Bridge i5-3570K. Meh.

Also, Pine trees do not give me a loss with AA on, only the "summer" trees.

Has always been the case with fall (orange) trees for me. :(

[dwringer 45]

I'm not really getting this. I have a slightly faster processor and a slightly faster video card, and if my average framerate on mostly-Very High settings gets above the 30-50 range I'd consider it a miracle. Of course, I have my viewdist. at ~6400. "Mostly High" settings at "3km" should be a lot faster, but if you have less of a system you'll start bottlenecking sooner.

Arma is one game that makes it very difficult to blame solely a GPU or CPU. No matter what your system is, you will find the limits of AT LEAST one of those two components, and in doing so you will MOST LIKELY bottleneck the other as well.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

I'm not really getting this. I have a slightly faster processor and a slightly faster video card, and if my average framerate on mostly-Very High settings gets above the 30-50 range I'd consider it a miracle. Of course, I have my viewdist. at ~6400. "Mostly High" settings at "3km" should be a lot faster, but if you have less of a system you'll start bottlenecking sooner.

Arma is one game that makes it very difficult to blame solely a GPU or CPU. No matter what your system is, you will find the limits of AT LEAST one of those two components, and in doing so you will MOST LIKELY bottleneck the other as well.

View distance of 6,400 m is a lot, considering the High/Very High settings. List your full specs and in-game settings and we'll decide what's bottleneckin'. :)

[Nicholas 5]

Archosaurusrev, you don't have to buy new hardware. I don't know why Iroquois Pliskin is even recommending that. Just try turning down some of your settings. I have mine mostly at normal and the game still looks amazing. You don't need the settings on high/very high for the game to look good.

The simplest thing I might do for graphics settings in Arma 3 is rename “very high†to “stupid.†And then just bump everything down. So then somebody says, “Why would I put it on stupid? Just put it on high.â€

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Having it on normal renders things like shadows on the CPU, which he wouldn't want with that weak processor of his.

[Nicholas 5]

Having it on normal renders things like shadows on the CPU, which he wouldn't want with that weak processor of his.

Still wouldn't hurt anything to test various settings before just going out and buying a new CPU as you recommended.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Still wouldn't hurt anything to test various settings before just going out and buying a new CPU as you recommended.

ArmA II in SP is obviously bottlenecked by the processor, and I don't think he bought a $400 GPU to play at normal either. :)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2901/2

[Nicholas 5]

ArmA II in SP is obviously bottlenecked by the processor, and I don't think he bought a $400 GPU to play at normal either. :)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2901/2

Like I said, still wouldn't hurt anything to test various settings before just going out and buying a new CPU as you recommended.

[kklownboy 43]

Archosaurusrev, you don't have to buy new hardware. I don't know why Iroquois Pliskin is even recommending that. Just try turning down some of your settings. I have mine mostly at normal and the game still looks amazing. You don't need the settings on high/very high for the game to look good.

http://i48.tinypic.com/smegcy.jpg

ATOC ONLY works with AA on ingame. To each there own for Quality settings, mine as your sig suggests is on full stop"Stupid"...

As for a new CPU suggestion from Iroquois Pliskin, well thats kinda daff, his CPU is OC at 3.2, a 750 (if he could even find one)is 2.6 but 4 cores. Extra cores help but unless he gets up into the 3.8 4.2 OC its all them samish.

The real issues is his vid card issues? that are broken not working? Sounds like a driver install is needed. He may have installed the 660ti driver(yes there is a 660ti only drv) by mistake. The FPS drop is to be expected with SP and alot of AI. But all of his vid issues need to be fixed first.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

As for a new CPU suggestion from Iroquois Pliskin, well thats kinda daff, his CPU is OC at 3.2, a 750 (if he could even find one)is 2.6 but 4 cores. Extra cores help but unless he gets up into the 3.8 4.2 OC its all them samish.

In both cases you'd have to OC to at least 3.8 GHz. I suggested it to him in the first thread he started, and yet there he is - with a second thread on the same problem.

A i5-650 has the same clock-for-clock performance as a Sandy Bridge i3-2100. Both are multimedia processors, not gaming CPUs.

[gunso 10]

Object like trees and houses are loaded directly from the HDD, that's why most of us decided to use SSD to take advantage of the faster loading speed. So 3 main factors you need to know when tweaking arma 2 is 1. CPU, 2.GPU, 3. HDD.

It's easy to monitor cpu and gpu but people usually dont realize that HDD do also impact the game, some as bad as stuttering when using scopes and driving through towns. When you choose higher texture settings your PC are required to load bigger files from the HDD, you will encounter lag/fps drop if the drive speed is not fast enough. Using a SSD will improves it a lot but still not at everything max out. You need a rig from the future for that XD