Low CPU utilization & Low FPS

[AussieStig 10]

i think now is the point we can yes.

how is arma 3 a new engine if this same issue is there?

the issue BI said was too hard to fix or would cost too much time to fix on the bugtracker, it was reported years ago for arma 2.

i was really looking forward to buying arma 3 and dayz standalone but this issue is gamebreaking, people like arma so much they play it online with terrible FPS but it really holds everything back, and if one is going to charge the full price for a game one can expect full performance from it.

BI said that the CPU/GPU utilization issue is too hard to fix? Can you at least provide some proof with that ambitious claim?

[EXpMiNi 1]

Same problem here, very annoying, everything in low or ultra doesn't change anything :

[Masterfragg 10]

So, my question is how can a game be called CPU dependent, when it never really utilizes even the full potential of my CPU?

Actually, a game that doesn't use the full power of a CPU which in turn then causes a bottle neck on the GPU like a choke hold makes the software/game very CPU dependent.

Hence why overclocking CPU's generally provides the best performance increase with the ARMA series.

So in summary; If it doesn't use the full power of the CPU which in turn chokes the rest of the hardware you have to ramp up the CPU power in which to alleviate the bottle neck creating a dependence on that piece of hardware. The CPU.

[kklownboy 43]

This is normal. one core gets alot the rest get less. Its how ALL multicore stuff works on the consumer platform. You will never see 100% across all cores or threads.

Low FPS... Its a new game. Its a new Game of ARMA..., and oh yeah that word... what was it? Alpha.... Now say that over and over and over again, really fast until it blends into a cadence that sounds like a Bradley cannon. :p

But it does run much better than A1 v0.99

Edited March 6, 2013 by kklownboy

[k3lt 3]

http://alpha.arma3.com/sitrep-001

INTELLIGENCE

There were unfortunate issues with Store.bistudio.com during the release, and getting access codes to people took far too long. Our apologies! We are very happy on the other side to read the many positive reports regarding performance and the fluidity of movement, and the Alpha in general.

[antoineflemming 14]

Guys, make sure you turn GPUMaxFramesDetected and GPUFrames Detected to 1 in your ArmA3.CFG file in your Documents\ArmA 3 Alpha folder. It helps a lot. I went from like 19 FPS to 29FPS.

[Leopardi 0]

Guys, make sure you turn GPUMaxFramesDetected and GPUFrames Detected to 1 in your ArmA3.CFG file in your Documents\ArmA 3 Alpha folder. It helps a lot. I went from like 19 FPS to 32FPS.

No you didn't, lowering it lowers performance... that feature was invented to improve performance.

http://alpha.arma3.com/sitrep-001

http://i.imgur.com/4qYLYt1.png

There goes the hope of playing ArmA III anytime soon. Maybe in 2 years when I'll finally have the chance to ditch my AMD CPU.

Edited March 6, 2013 by Leopardi

[antoineflemming 14]

No you didn't, lowering it lowers performance... that feature was invented to improve performance.

Uh, yes, I did. Sure, it'd work if ArmA3 would actually use the GPU more, but it doesn't, at least not for my system. I also am running this in my Steam shortcut parameters: -cpucount=4 -exthreads=7 -malloc=system -maxmem=2047 -maxvmem=2047

I am running the terrain and object detail on standard and low, respectively, because it's the grass that kills my FPS. All effects are disabled (PP, AA, etc). HDR is on standard, texture detail is high, dynamic lights low, pip low, shadows disabled also.

So, maybe it was invented to improve performance and maybe it does so for your system, but not for mine.

I run a DELL L702x (XPS17) with Nvidia Geforce 555M. Intel Core i7 @ 2.20GHz. So it helps for my laptop.

Edited March 6, 2013 by antoineflemming

[Neus 11]

I'm also having the same problems... Surprisingly

AMD FX 6100 at stock (stock cooler, can't OC)

MSI N560GTX-Ti Hawk (supposed to be 'super overclocked' lol)

8gb ripjaws

I've got a question, if I have 6 cores can I dedicate all 6 to arma in the steam launch options, or only 4 allowing the other 2 for other things?

EDIT: also how do I check my CPU core usage using Afterburner? I can only see the GPU usage settings...

[Llano 11]

Guys, make sure you turn GPUMaxFramesDetected and GPUFrames Detected to 1 in your ArmA3.CFG file in your Documents\ArmA 3 Alpha folder. It helps a lot. I went from like 19 FPS to 29FPS.

Do you mean

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;
GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=0;

?

[Sephisto 1]

Do you mean

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;
GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=0;

?

Yes, although DetectedFramesAhead will reset to 0 even if you try to make it 1.

[Neus 11]

What does maxframesahead do?

[antoineflemming 14]

Do you mean

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;
GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=0;

?

Yeah, that's what I meant. I don't know for other people, but changing the GPU_MaxFramesAhead to 1 really improved my FPS, along with the other stuff I mentioned.

[shadylurker 0]

fyi: I got tired of dealing with it and went and got a new GPU I went from a 6850 to a 7870 and now the game runs great. So much for a CPU limited game....

[Aru 10]

What value should be set to "-cpucount=#"? I have i7 3770K, so is it 4 or 8?

[Sephisto 1]

What value should be set to "-cpucount=#"? I have i7 3770K, so is it 4 or 8?

4.

characterlimit

[Aru 10]

4.

characterlimit

Thank you.

[burdy 11]

Same issues as Arma 2 :/

[Monkie 1]

BI said that the CPU/GPU utilization issue is too hard to fix? Can you at least provide some proof with that ambitious claim?

i guess for a first post it may seem ambitious but i never make claims without evidence, i should of included it but the devs know so..

https://dev-heaven.net/issues/6963

Updated by Suma over 2 years ago

One would expect that the server should offload most/all the AI calculation

and that the AI numbers have little effect on the client FPS.

One would expect wrong. This is not how MP works in our engine. While path-planning and some decisions are done owner-side only (which is server side for most AI), the simulation itself needs to be performed everywhere (the only optimization done is that simulation of far away units is done much less frequently).

I am sorry to disappoint you, but some things are really too hard and we are not willing to spend the time on them.

https://dev-heaven.net/issues/59932

updated by Fireball 4 months ago

Status changed from Feedback to Rejected

doveman wrote:

Why? If the CPU/GPU has plenty of spare capacity and yet it's not being used to keep the framerate at a reasonable minimum, surely that's a bug?

I also tested E08 with the same settings which gave an average of 31fps (...).

Well, this is not a bug but a limitation of the engine and its implementation. Often the AI, which ties directly into graphics performance and can't be singled out from the overall engine - in turn also brakes down the graphics - is guilty for that. Also, particle systems such as smoke and complex vegetation are other sources for bad FPS. It's been discussed in quite some "Performance breakdown" tickets before (you can filter here in CIT on those). The combination of those three main factors are the reason why you have a such bad overall performance.

Yes it is bad, but no it won't (can't) be fixed in OA according to repeated statements of Suma, BI's lead programmer.

so i think its fair to say that it is a really old issue that they know about but chose not to fix, even though multiplayer is what has been driving sales in the last couple of years, if im not mistaken.

[Horus 83]

What does maxframesahead do?

Setting for Triple Buffering. Dwarden says that

I noticed some discussion about Triple Buffering for ARMA 2 , ARMA 2: OA, Take On Helicopters

I would like to mention what our lead coder told me long time ago :

"we use different form of buffering (not typical double buffering) and enforcing TB might result into unforeseen consequences ..."

hence that's why we allow in config file ability to alter max-frames-ahead

(driver default is 3, minimum value is 1, 0 uses driver value, see GPU_MaxFramesAhead )

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

[call_911 10]

Silly question but I've nvr used Steam to run ArmA, so where do I edit the icon target line at for ArmA3 Alpha as my icons don't show a path line to add -mod=@ etc etc want to add -cpucount as my AMD Phenom IIx4955(4cpu's) Quad Core 3.20ghz, NVidia GTS450,4 gig is appaerntly not up to par the way it's currently set.

Right, -cpuCount=4 didn't crash my game. Infact, it may be a placebo effect but I seem to be running better....

this is the exact problem I had with AMD CPU back on Arma2, I'd put it down to the fact that it's an alpha but I'm still testing.

Stupid suggestion incoming apologies in advance.

Restart your computer. I know it sounds stupid but many, MANY people have said it helped them.

Also get the DirectX runtimes from MS website if you can and manually update. Windows 7 is a bitch for DX on format. (sorry if these are bad suggestions just going by what have helped people)

At the moment I'd say our hardware is pretty much equal in everything but CPU and I just ramped my game up to 2720x1530 and got 60fps in editor with settings ramped to high after "-cpuCount=4" however I'm about to test in mission.

...The editor lies to us...

Edited March 6, 2013 by Call_911

[tremanarch 6]

the thing that a CPU is not One thing that does something.

Saying the CPU is 30% overloaded or 90% overloaded or X % Overloaded states everything wrong. It creates in people minds that a CPU is one doing thing which is wrong. There are several units.

What if function A by the CPU is used 100% and function B is not used. WIndows would say: CPU Usage 50%. But in reality ArmA only uses function A, so it really should be 100% Usage for ArmA:

In reality its a bit more complicated but thats kind of how you can see it.

Overclock your CPU - it gives more performance.

I have a 2500K @ 4.5 GHZ, but when I let run my machine a MP Server after 1-2 hours it takes 35% CPU Usage for ARMA alone with me sitting on Desktop and typing stuff in forums :)

[Neus 11]

So I've just set up all my sensors and loaded into the editor to get some results

AMD FX 6100

MSI N560-GTXti Hawk

8gb ram

The game recommends a mix of very high/high but I did this test on high settings. Here's the results

GPU usage: %56

Core 1: 72%

Core 2: 42%

Core 3: 69%

Core 4: 58%

FPS: 15-35 (goes down badly when I move around, introduce AI)

Is this low optimization or just my settings?

I did view distance around 1.5k

[teejayd 1]

Pretty much the same thing is happening with me.

I get solid 40fps, 30 in towns during SP

However, once i join MP, my fps drops to 20, 10 in towns, and sometimes even less.

Picture related: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3821564/arma3_2013_03_06_21_34_31_774.png

PC Specs:

AMD Athlon II X3 425 @ 3.0 ( Upgrading soon, but even though it's not the greatest CPU ever, 9fps in mp is ridiculous )

ATI/AMD Radeon HD 6850 (BARTS PRO)

4x1GB DDR2 667

Edited March 7, 2013 by TeeJayD

[k3lt 3]

People which are reporting fps issues, please also post your system specs. (or put them in signature)