Low CPU utilization & Low FPS

[Leon86 13]

I believe that is Nvidia's fault. There are ways to force "performance mode" and say screw it to power saving to get around this shortcoming. I am sure a soon to be released Nvidia driver will resolve the GPU not recognizing the 3D application to crank up the frequency automatically.

It's not a fault, it's a feature, if the cpu doesn't give the gpu something to do it just clocks back to a frequency that can still handle the load.

You can force it to "prefer maximum performance" in nvidia control panel, but it wont help performance.

[sparayno1 1]

It's weird how gpu usage is at 99% during the initial menu screen, but during gameplay it hovers at around 40-50% usage. One core out of four is working at 60-70%, the rest are at low 20% range. 15 FPS during gameplay is not playable. I would be happy with a constant 30 FPS, but not lower. I spent over a grand on my PC to play games at 60 FPS, so I feel that this game is a huge let down.

[redse7en 1]

Another i7 user chiming in with my specs and less than satisfactory FPS in the alpha.

i7 2600k 3.4ghz

16 gigs ddr3 ram

Nvidia GTX 670 (factory oc)

In Arma 3, with all graphics on "standard" and 1080p resolution, I'm pulling about 60 fps in single player, 28 fps in multiplayer wasteland 40+ players (when I'm in the middle of nowhere), and 18 fps when I'm in a town in wasteland with 40+ players or using my recording software. These results were almost similar with how my rig handled Arma 2 and Day Z.

I've spent a lot of time tweaking my video settings, turning off hyperthreading (turning it back on), trying different launch commands, etc., to boost my frames but so far haven't seen any significant improvements.

As a reference, I can get 120 fps on Battlefield 3 using high/ultra settings and 120 on high/ultra settings for Guild Wars 2 (before someone asks, yes, I have a 120hz monitor and no, I'm not interested in your input about how the human eye works even if you are a PHD).

For now, I'm going to chill out trying to fix the issue since I know alpha and beta tests aren't fully optimized versions of the real game. I just hope the FPS issue I had in Arma 2 doesn't cross over to Arma 3 and I hope the devs take notice of all the issues that i7 users are having. Good luck Bohemia!

[Neus 11]

I don't know why, but after closing Afterburner my FPS was noticeably higher, I had no lag during the infantry showcase unlike before.. However there's still lag in the helo mission. Going to try out a few of the steps above.

[EmirSc 10]

Hello

I tried going in to the nvidia panel > "adjust image settings with preview" and set it to "let 3d program deside" (or similar, first option). This removed all my fps lag and improved my fps alot in general.

will try it, thank you.

edit: nope same thing

Edited March 10, 2013 by EmirSc

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

i would guess its something about what you are playing and changing the view range. the place where the fps is always the same for me to try thigns ou is on the heli, ive had terrible and acceptable fps in single and multiplayer on different scenarios.

As I said I tested both times under the same exact circumstances. Same graphics settings, same mission, same everything. I used the FRAPS benchmark tool to average out the fps during the whole helicopter mission and that is where I got these numbers. Before OC I got 18 fps average, with OC (turned it down to 3.6 GHz from 3.8 due to overheating) I now get 35 fps average. Night and day difference here.

Hello

I tried going in to the nvidia panel > "adjust image settings with preview" and set it to "let 3d program deside" (or similar, first option). This removed all my fps lag and improved my fps alot in general.

Does anybody else have any experience with this? I have not ever heard that solves the issue. How much more fps did it grant you?

Edited March 10, 2013 by JuggernautOfWar

[wasabi 1]

I just clocked my cpu to 3.8 ghz again and tweaked this game for almost 10 hours .. i got it to run perfectly fluid on the infrantry showcase on mostly high, fxaa high with 57 fps at the beginning and to the approach of the first enemys .. BUT as soon as shots go off the fps fall down to ~31 .. i dont know ... what is it about these shots or these few ai movements that bring the fps down that tremendously ? maybe it is the new bullet physics they included, i just cant figure it out

but the same problem was there with arma 2...

EDIT:

Distance: 1200/1000/100

Edited March 11, 2013 by wasabi

[tremanarch 6]

i noticed when there is smoke or destruction of buildings the fps goes way DOWN.

try it out lay down some satchels in a perfectly fine 60 fps town -> pull the trigger and watch your fps go boom :)

---

I am in the middle of a single player mission where destruction took place!

i used the low Setting and the Very High Setting

Low had: 21 - 27 fps

and Very high had 17 - 23 fps

so there is nearly no difference.... :( (it looks great yeah, but it doesnt run smooth though)

(there is no fight going on, some buildings in town have been destroyed. lots of dead bodies. should be no smoke - no enemy AI attacking)

--

anyone messed with flushing memory?

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?87213-How-to-Memory-flush

---

this is just me in the editor: now the LOW <-> Very High does play adifference!

Low actually goes very high now.

Edited March 10, 2013 by tremanarch

[jumpinghubert 49]

@wasabi

the first time of the inf showcase the ai is in idle and has nothing to do, so nothing to do for the cpu.

[wasabi 1]

@wasabi

the first time of the inf showcase the ai is in idle and has nothing to do, so nothing to do for the cpu.

but i cant really believe these ~12 cpu´s put any cpu to sleep that much ... for example im playing skyrim with civil war unrest, 2k textures, ~30 retextures, enhanced distance, etc.. when im hitting a battle between the stormcloaks and the impirials(~35 cpu´s, have the spawn count on max) both with bows(arrow physics) and swords, while near a small village, my fps never drop below 40... and skyrim does looks better then this game, sorry to say.. it is also open worlded with a quite big map.. a word for future excpectations from the devs would be great...

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

It seems logical to me for BIS to dedicate one entire CPU core to just AI processing. Is this impossible?

[ast65 10]

As I said I tested both times under the same exact circumstances. Same graphics settings, same mission, same everything. I used the FRAPS benchmark tool to average out the fps during the whole helicopter mission and that is where I got these numbers. Before OC I got 18 fps average, with OC (turned it down to 3.6 GHz from 3.8 due to overheating) I now get 35 fps average. Night and day difference here.

Does anybody else have any experience with this? I have not ever heard that solves the issue. How much more fps did it grant you?

maybe you just hit a sweet spot :P

[MavericK96 0]

Really happy to see this is a sticky now. Hopefully it is being looked at as a top priority issue. :)

[na2tt300zx 1]

I have a more than acceptable pc(seen in pic) and I also am having this issue

I have tried adding launch parameters to utilize all cores but it doesn't seem to work with arma 3 ("-nosplash -skipintro -noPause -cpuCount=8 -high -maxMem=8192 -exThreads=7"). As you can see only 4 of my cores are being used and about 50% of my gpu and I'm getting 10 fps on ultra on the chopper showcase.....pc specs, FPS, core usages, and gpu usage in this pic

http://oi49.tinypic.com/s4am1g.jpg (1234 kB)

If anyone has a solution please share!

[metalcraze 290]

It seems logical to me for BIS to dedicate one entire CPU core to just AI processing. Is this impossible?

That's what ArmA3 seems to be doing already and that's a huge problem. Ideally every other AI soldier should be calculated by every other core to distribute the load.

People complained a lot about AI being calculated on a single core in ArmA2 and it doesn't seem to have been changed.

[valnwt 11]

As I said I tested both times under the same exact circumstances. Same graphics settings, same mission, same everything. I used the FRAPS benchmark tool to average out the fps during the whole helicopter mission and that is where I got these numbers. Before OC I got 18 fps average, with OC (turned it down to 3.6 GHz from 3.8 due to overheating) I now get 35 fps average. Night and day difference here.

Does anybody else have any experience with this? I have not ever heard that solves the issue. How much more fps did it grant you?

Not sure as i dont have fraps, or similar fps counter (is there one in steam?). But if i would guess, around 5-8 fps also i had some wierd fps lag/hickups and after the change it disapeared completly.

[v8_laudi 1]

I have a more than acceptable pc(seen in pic) and I also am having this issue

I have tried adding launch parameters to utilize all cores but it doesn't seem to work with arma 3 ("-nosplash -skipintro -noPause -cpuCount=8 -high -maxMem=8192 -exThreads=7"). As you can see only 4 of my cores are being used and about 50% of my gpu and I'm getting 10 fps on ultra on the chopper showcase.....pc specs, FPS, core usages, and gpu usage in this pic

http://oi49.tinypic.com/s4am1g.jpg (1234 kB)

If anyone has a solution please share!

Arma 3 only supports 2gb of ram and 4 cores, you can try change it all you want but it won't use them.

[Razorman 10]

Infantry show case opening scene @ 71fps on the following:

1920x1200 all details on very high or ultra

W7

i5 3570k @ 4.2GHZ

GTX670 at stock speeds

8gb 2400mhz ram

Game runs very well indeed.

[SlappyPankake 1]

I realize the game is in alpha and that it's buggy/laggy still. I also am aware that it IS on a physx engine and will dump all the physics on the processor if you have an AMD PC. Nonetheless, I'm running the game at all standard, 1920x1080x32. Most of the extra "make things look pretty" stuff is disabled. Are there any ways to better improve my performance? The first day I played I was getting around 20fps, but today when I was playing a night game I was only getting around 7.

Phenom II 965 ~ 3.4ghz

16gb 1600mhz RAM

MSI HD6970 2gb ddr5

ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990fx

[Leopardi 0]

That's what ArmA3 seems to be doing already and that's a huge problem. Ideally every other AI soldier should be calculated by every other core to distribute the load.

People complained a lot about AI being calculated on a single core in ArmA2 and it doesn't seem to have been changed.

No, it's not utilizing it:

[Alienfreak 0]

These pictures were taken at Wastelands 1.05 and highlight the problem:

In none of the situations encountered my GPU or CPU was nearly 100% but the FPS were always in an unplayable area!

Especially look at the car pic (3rd). All CPU cores are below 50% load, my GPU is at 32% and yet I have <20fps.

Something is wrong here.

[k3lt 3]

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=716&nbn=138#bugnotes

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?147533-Low-CPU-utilization-amp-Low-FPS

[RiGLEY 10]

Wow, this looks like a really shitty game engine. What a shame, the concept of the game is great. Also the community. I really hope the devs can improve things, but I'm highly skeptical.

[Minoza 11]

@Wasteland players

Your problem is Wasteland itself. Try playing a mission with no more than 20 players, if you still experience performance issues, then come back and report.

Wow, this looks like a really shitty game engine. What a shame, the concept of the game is great. Also the community. I really hope the devs can improve things, but I'm highly skeptical.

Looks like you talk about something you have no idea about. Most of the time users themselves are the cause of issues. Just take a look at all these Wasteland players crying because of bad performance, yet somehow they missed that it is not recommended (at this stage) to play missions with more than 20 people.

[k3lt 3]

I for example have this issue with any mission with more than 10 people on the server, once there are 3-4 i got stable 30-50 fps depending on visual settings, homever when there is about 10 people or more it goes to 15-20 fps.

So it's not only Wasteland issue.