Low CPU utilization & Low FPS

[ast65 10]

Why didn't you change the engine before you made ArmA 3?

do you think BIS can change engines just like that?

maybe with DayZ now they would have the resources for that but it came a bit too late, ArmA3 was already worked on.

apart from that BIS are used to work with this engine for nearly 15 years now, they built it up from the core.

their whole business incl. VBS is built up on it, that´s something you don´t throw away lightly...

[tet5uo 4]

do you think BIS can change engines just like that?

maybe with DayZ now they would have the resources for that but it came a bit too late, ArmA3 was already worked on.

apart from that BIS are used to work with this engine for nearly 15 years now, they built it up from the core.

their whole business incl. VBS is built up on it, that´s something you don´t throw away lightly...

You don't throw it away no. But something is clearly needed soon to keep this game current or eventually even it's appeal of uniqueness will fade for most.

I know that personally I wouldn't ever consider buying the next game if it's still using this aging tech. For arma3 it's a bit amazing that super-high end PC's can't actually give any benefit in a game that should be able to have access too all the resources it needs for such a robust simulation.

If it's still the case in their next game there's no way I'd consider buying it. I'd even start actively discouraging others from doing so.

[Leon86 13]

You don't throw it away no. But something is clearly needed soon to keep this game current or eventually even it's appeal of uniqueness will fade for most.

I know that personally I wouldn't ever consider buying the next game if it's still using this aging tech. For arma3 it's a bit amazing that super-high end PC's can't actually give any benefit in a game that should be able to have access too all the resources it needs for such a robust simulation.

If it's still the case in their next game there's no way I'd consider buying it. I'd even start actively discouraging others from doing so.

problem is there's nothing even remotely like arma. so if you want this kind of gameplay, you're gonna have to deal with the low framerates for now.

Edited March 20, 2013 by Leon86

[guusert 1]

1. You PRE-ordered the game. And by doing so, you got access to Alpha, you will get access to beta, and the final game. SO that 25$ were for the full game. You HAVEN'T bought the alpha. mkey?

2. What do you think the alpha is for but solving the issues?

3. You haven't said what GFX card you have.

4. Tomb Raider has no relevance here

5. There is no such thing as i5-2600

1. Look at what the user white said. You totally miss the point. The problem is that they use a nasty marketing trick. I fell for because I have a better system than required. First they make sure they have your money and then you'll figure out that the hardware utilization sucks and you're fucked. They don't want you to figure it out before you buy the game. If this was a free alpha like every other game I wouldn't have wasted my money.

2. THIS IS NOT AN ALPHA ISSUE, LIKE SAID OVER A FUCKING HUNDRED TIMES!!! And they still haven't said they are going to fix the CPU utilization.

3. Because it doesn't matter. Read my post again.

4. If you can run Tomb Raider on Ultra settings at 40 FPS that means your GFX is not the problem here. My GFX should be able to run this game at Ultra at at least 30 FPS when used 100%. Is it that hard to understand?

5. Whatever, just a typo. I meant 2500.

The required and recommended system specs are always the same on every site. They copy what the devs say it is. It's the same on this official ArmA 3 site.

its EXACTLY the same behavior in arma2 since release:

1. the more AI the lower the cpu-utilization (lol)

2. the lower the cpu-utilization the lower the gpu-usage.

counteraction Nr1: lower the cpu-related graphic settings (amount of object details, grass radius, visibility)

counteraction Nr2: raise the gpu-related graphic settings (AA, shadows @high are rendered by gpu, AF, etc) to the point the utilization is @99%

counteraction Nr3: buy the fastest cpu and overclock it like hell.

counteraction Nr4: do not play missions with a lot AI in it.

the highest utilization I get in empty editor with 99% gpu-utilization and 58% cpu-utilization on my rig (EXACTLY the same in arma2)

But i repeat the simplest thing in the world: we need a benchmark for reference....lol

We don't have to change our settings. We certainly don't have to buy an expensive CPU. BIS has to change this. We don't have to do anything.

Edited March 20, 2013 by guusert

[ast65 10]

they´ll fix it when this thread has reached 100,000 views ;)

[nikiforos 450]

Don't give up hope, people !!

Be more optimistic, it helps a lot :)

[Leon86 13]

1. Look at what the user white said. You totally miss the point. The problem is that they use a nasty marketing trick. I fell for because I have a better system than required. First they make sure they have your money and then you'll figure out that the hardware utilization sucks and you're fucked. They don't want you to figure it out before you buy the game. If this was a free alpha like every other game I wouldn't have wasted my money.

2. THIS IS NOT AN ALPHA ISSUE, LIKE SAID OVER A FUCKING HUNDRED TIMES!!! And they still haven't said they are going to fix the CPU utilization.

3. Because it doesn't matter. Read my post again.

4. If you can run Tomb Raider on Ultra settings at 40 FPS that means your GFX is not the problem here. My GFX can properly run this game at 30 FPS when used 100%. Is it that hard to understand?

5. Whatever, just a typo. I meant 2500.

The required and recommended system specs are always the same on every site. They copy what the devs say it is. It's the same on this official ArmA 3 site.

Marketing trick? The game runs at those specs, so what's the trick? You can get alpha lite invites for free, so plenty of opportunity to test before buying the full game at a big discount.

The framerate will probably improve over time just like with arma2. Cpu utilisation != performance.

they´ll fix it when this thread has reached 100,000 views ;)

F5 FTW!

[guusert 1]

Leon86, I'd like to see a PC with an AMD Dual-Core Athlon 2.5 GHz run the multiplayer at 30 FPS.

they´ll fix it when this thread has reached 100,000 views ;)

Link please... I don't believe you. Almost 100,000 views isn't enough?

Anyway, if this is true, that's awesome. I would totally forgive BIS and buy their games in the future IF they'll keep the engine up-to-date.

Edited March 20, 2013 by guusert

[BurnerNL 1]

Just wanted to provide some info on Alpha 0.5.102571:

Overall impressed by the Arma 3 Alpha, Keep up the great work BI ! (OFp player)

The more it has to render the lower the util Cpu/Gpu/Vram gets.

Same behaviour in Arma 2 OA with AI.

Example editor:

36-42%Cpu ~80-100Gpu@350-550Mb

Heavy missions:

~25%Cpu, ~20-35Gpu@128-260Mb

The only thing that improves the engine util is -cpuCount=8 -exThreads=7

Will be doing more tests on the Dev branche and roadmap with more accurate data !

PC Specs:

Intel Ivy i7 3770K. (unparked high profile)

Asrock Z77 Extreme 4. (2.0)

32GB Vengeance LP @1600 CL10 (Superfetch)

Asus GTX570 DCU2 1280Mb.

OCZ SSD 120GB Agility 3 Sata3.

3TB Seageate 64Mb Sata3. (7200)

750W Thermaltake TT.

HAF 912/Hyper412S.

Ziggo NL 120/10Mbs 8-18ms

Latest mobo drivers, Nvidia 314.07

PS: please resend/activate Bugtracker BurnerNL

Edited March 20, 2013 by BurnerNL

[Leon86 13]

Leon86, I'd like to see a PC with an AMD Dual-Core Athlon 2.5 GHz run the multiplayer at 30 FPS.

Once the issues that are bogging down the multiplayer are fixed the multiplayer will run like the singleplayer on those machines. Just have to have a server that allows for really low settings, some of em are set serverside otherwise everybody would turn off grass.

[Minoza 11]

What do you get by turning grass off? Are we back in 2005 or something? I actually managed to run into a server with grass forced off, took me about 5 seconds to disconnect.

[jumpinghubert 49]

The only thing that improves the engine util is -cpuCount=8 -exThreads=7

have these startup parameters an reproducable effect on cpu gpu utilization?

P.S. thanks for the detailed report!

[Leon86 13]

What do you get by turning grass off? Are we back in 2005 or something? I actually managed to run into a server with grass forced off, took me about 5 seconds to disconnect.

you can go prone and aim without the grass obscuring your view.

[BurnerNL 1]

@JumpingHubert

Overall Cpu util distribution cores (less 1 core high usage), streaming data seems to be improve with these parameters, no effect on Gpu/Fps though !

Hope this clears its a bit up.

[dnk 13]

so technically, its not a preorder, although the process is exatcly the same as one, it has different phrasing so you cant get your money back, thats pretty much it. but, by following that logic, the guy is right, because if you cant get your money back, because it isnt a preorder

Fact is, there are a ton of stores that don't let you return merchandise that was on sale when you bought it. That's what this is: merchandise (a $60-70 game) that's on sale (for $35, possibly half off, or at least close) in advance. It's a preorder-on-sale. Eventually the preorder-not-on-sale will come out for maybe a bit less than the final retail price, which I would assume could be cancelled like any other merchandise you never actually got to use. But not only do you get this merchandise on sale, you also get to partially use it as well.

It's like going into a store, buying a suit for half price, then being allowed to take it home before tailoring and wear the pants only while they fit and tailor the suitcoat, doing so, then saying they don't fit well and claiming you've been ripped off because they won't let you return the on-sale merchandise.

And you're some sort of idiot for expecting them to fit properly when they haven't yet been fitted and tailored.

Oh, and don't run around buying things without seeing what the deal is first. Try that in the future, you will feel less buyer's remorse, but then given that you're unwilling to wait more than two weeks for an ALPHA to become 100% optimized as much as other gold release AAA titles, well, I guess the patience required to hold off on hitting "buy" is lacking here...

2. THIS IS NOT AN ALPHA ISSUE, LIKE SAID OVER A FUCKING HUNDRED TIMES!!! And they still haven't said they are going to fix the CPU utilization.

Dwarden said they'd found the likely culprit and will fix it (not a 100% guarantee, but that's exactly what you're asking for here, the devs' acknowledgement, and there it is). I guess it's hard to find these needles of hope in this giant haystack of wild ranting angst, for which you have helped water down the useful posts with more of that wild ranting angst stuff.

We don't have to do anything.

Still, maybe try chilling tf out while it's in alpha. Could work to your benefit.

[Blento 10]

On which point im wrong ?

I said don't expect 100% cpu usage in a game with a quadcore,i didn't talk about gpu usage.

Also i don't understand why you think its a gpu bottleneck when the indicators clearly show a cpu bottleneck like most of us.

Here is link from world of tanks, where only one core can stress GPU to 100 % during whole game, even at start, when nothing is happening. And FPS is 65...

This is clearly that Q6600 is not a bottleneck to 4890 ...Specially in this game, when CPU is around 50 %....

It's clear that 50 % I7 will be much better than 50% Q6600, but whyy both CPU-s are around 50 %, and why there is no siginificant improvemnt from Q6600 to I7 with new GPU?

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/1957/shot028u.jpg (250 kB)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Pyrophosphate 1]

There's a lot of the same stuff kinda just being repeated in this thread. CPU utilization is low on pretty much any modern processor, and GPU usage isn't much better, most of the time. We get that.

It appears (to me) that this game spends too much time waiting around for data from memory, probably because there are so many things that have to be updated each frame.

If memory bottlenecking is the problem, then I don't think there will be much improvement in performance over the next couple years as computers get more powerful, for the same reason Arma 2 performance didn't grow in line with hardware performance.

If anybody has the resources, test the game with the same hardware, but switch the memory out for stuff with different clock speeds and/or CAS latencies. See what happens.

[daze23 1]

I understand that the level of simulation requires more herp derp calculations than other games. but if this game doesn't run well on any modern hardware, what's the point?

I mean, you could make a bicycle simulator that would cripple any modern hardware. it's something almost every game, and especially every simulator, has to deal with. trying to 'simulate reality' takes an almost infinite number of variables, so it's always gonna be about finding a balance that actually works on people's hardware

[guusert 1]

There's a lot of the same stuff kinda just being repeated in this thread. CPU utilization is low on pretty much any modern processor, and GPU usage isn't much better, most of the time. We get that.

It appears (to me) that this game spends too much time waiting around for data from memory, probably because there are so many things that have to be updated each frame.

If memory bottlenecking is the problem, then I don't think there will be much improvement in performance over the next couple years as computers get more powerful, for the same reason Arma 2 performance didn't grow in line with hardware performance.

If anybody has the resources, test the game with the same hardware, but switch the memory out for stuff with different clock speeds and/or CAS latencies. See what happens.

There's no discussion about what the main problem is. It's the CPU utilization. Because the CPU isn't properly utilized it will bottleneck the GPU. If you have a good videocard it will use about 30% of what it has to offer. It's not like we're making things up. These things are not an issue in modern shooters, not even F2P shooters. No, normally your CPU is being utilized 90%-100%. Maybe there is more hardware not being utilized well, but this is way more important than all other utilization.

[aop 1]

There's a lot of the same stuff kinda just being repeated in this thread. CPU utilization is low on pretty much any modern processor, and GPU usage isn't much better, most of the time. We get that.

It appears (to me) that this game spends too much time waiting around for data from memory, probably because there are so many things that have to be updated each frame.

If memory bottlenecking is the problem, then I don't think there will be much improvement in performance over the next couple years as computers get more powerful, for the same reason Arma 2 performance didn't grow in line with hardware performance.

If anybody has the resources, test the game with the same hardware, but switch the memory out for stuff with different clock speeds and/or CAS latencies. See what happens.

Not true, 1600MHz and 2500MHz DDR3 have exactly the same performance in ArmA 3:

Note the completely linear scaling with CPU clock. 26% CPU clock increase gives 26% framerate increase. This combined low CPU utilization points to the game having one extremely CPU intensive thread that is stalling the entire engine and GPU and other threads are waiting for that one thread to complete it's tasks before a frame can be rendered resulting in low framerate and low GPU/CPU utilization %.

[Leon86 13]

It's not like we're making things up. These things are not an issue in modern shooters, not even F2P shooters. No, normally your CPU is being utilized 90%-100%.

Only battlefield and crysis 3 do this.

[guusert 1]

Only battlefield and crysis 3 do this.

I'm talking about quad-core CPU's, not 6 or 8 cores. And even if I'm wrong the CPU is still being utilized way too bad. Way worse than any shooter I've played since years ago. It's ridiculous how bad. To the point where even people with GTX Titans can run it just at 30 FPS. I think I'm going to leave this thread and hope they're going to do something about this poor performance.

Edited March 20, 2013 by guusert

[vuckotadic 10]

Did anyone tried this application?

Its for CPU limited games.

[Leon86 13]

Did anyone tried this application?

Its for CPU limited games.

Might help to awaken those lazy parked cores a bit quicker. Anyway, I've set windows to "high performance" in power management, my timer resolution stays at 1ms (according to the free version of that prog), that guy on youtube had 10ms. If you have to wait 10ms for a core to awaken before doing something that can have a big impact on a high-fps game.

[Insanatrix 0]

There's a lot of the same stuff kinda just being repeated in this thread. CPU utilization is low on pretty much any modern processor, and GPU usage isn't much better, most of the time. We get that.

It appears (to me) that this game spends too much time waiting around for data from memory, probably because there are so many things that have to be updated each frame.

If memory bottlenecking is the problem, then I don't think there will be much improvement in performance over the next couple years as computers get more powerful, for the same reason Arma 2 performance didn't grow in line with hardware performance.

If anybody has the resources, test the game with the same hardware, but switch the memory out for stuff with different clock speeds and/or CAS latencies. See what happens.

There's no discussion about what the main problem is. It's the CPU utilization. Because the CPU isn't properly utilized it will bottleneck the GPU. If you have a good videocard it will use about 30% of what it has to offer. It's not like we're making things up. These things are not an issue in modern shooters, not even F2P shooters. No, normally your CPU is being utilized 90%-100%. Maybe there is more hardware not being utilized well, but this is way more important than all other utilization.

Faster memory won't help.

You're limited by your pagefile in this case. You're CPU is waiting for things to be paged from disk to RAM then to on die cache. if your queue is so backed up because of the slow speed of your disk, it doesn't matter how fast you're memory is, it will still be waiting on the disk.

All the threads of a program can only run as fast as the slowest thread, hence why multi threading and multi processing is such a PITA. It usually boils down to one thread catching up to all the other threads. In this case, if thread A is waiting on thread B and thread B is waiting for data to be paged from disk, that is creating a bottleneck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_time

CPU time (or CPU usage, process time) is the amount of time for which a central processing unit (CPU) was used for processing instructions of a computer program, as opposed to, for example, waiting for input/output (I/O) operations.

I don't know how it could possibly get any more clearer than that. Threads stall due to congested I/O operations which leads to low CPU and GPU utilization. The issue is that you are getting to a point where the program is outgrowing the 32 bit addressing limitations, so BI basically used a crutch by streaming from the pagefile. It's not a new concept by any means, but for a real time rendering engine with the I/O requirements of the RV engine it is far from the most optimal choice.

It's never going to matter how fast your CPU is or how fast your GPU is, the engine is completely limited by the amount of data that can pass through the SATA interface, which is limited by your Hard Drive's random read/write speed. As the I/O requirements increase due to more data needing to be streamed, it will only get worse.

Edited March 20, 2013 by Insanatrix