Low CPU utilization & Low FPS

[aop 1]

This game is incredible CPU dependant. I just switched from GTX570 to GTX680 and on the same settings I get the same fps in this little test scenario:

http://koti.mbnet.fi/aop13/bench1.zip

I don't move during the test, just press benchmark key in FRAPS and it logs the fps for 1 minute.

Here's the results:

GTX570

Min: 28

Avg: 31.050

Max: 34

GTX680

Min: 28

Avg: 31.450

Max: 36

edit:

Other components used:

Core i5 2500K@4.3GHz

8GB 1600MHz DDR3

AsRock Z68 Extreme 4

Kingston V200+ 120GB SSD

Edited March 22, 2013 by aop

[nikiforos 450]

Ohh and I had some thoughts to change my GTX 570 for GTX 670. I guess there is no need for that now.

[aop 1]

Ohh and I had some thoughts to change my GTX 570 for GTX 670. I guess there is no need for that now.

Only if you use AA/ATOC. Those two features are GPU intensive but going to more powerful video card is not going to fix the low fps dips caused by CPU bottleneck.

[fabio_chavez 103]

on Arma 3 FPS issues and optimization (scroll down for tl;dr you lazy sloth):

My System Specs:

Intel Xeon X3220 2,4ghz OC @3,6ghz

4gb DDR2 1033mhz

AMD 6970 OC (power color PCS+)

SSD 256mb Corsair Neutron

(the bottleneck here as far as concerning Arma 3 specific demands seems to be the old CPU, as far as i can tell!)

my goal: as fluid and as good looking multiplayer performance as possible.

prioritys: 1) fluidity 2) functionality 3) eyecandy

my subjective perception of FPS: >25 = playable, >30 = ok, >40 = good...

my experiences with fps issues in the Arma 3 Alpha so far:

- for me there seem to be 2 main causes to major FPS issues

A) one is graphics related (singleplayer and multiplayer) and is influenceable by the ingame video setup

B) one is server related and does affect some gamemodes and servers but not all and seems not to be influenceable by video settings in a noteworthy way.

- on A) FPS performance dependant on Video Settings:

as a reference scenario i joined some empty server with low latency from wich i knew had a good overall performance as well. There i located at Agia Marina on a certain spot with view on the detailed coastline and the airfield.

This spot, to me and others, seems to be the most hardware demanding possible spot on stratis (not taking players, vehicles, explosions and stuff into account here):

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/576732510401820749/6B34C71CA3341DBD666BD490A95322584F50F57A/

after a more or less methodically testing throu most combinations of possible gfx setups,

i came to the conclusion that the single most effective setting that affects fps count (may not apply in the same amount to other systems) here, was the "object details", all the other stuff, with possible exception of Post Processing, AA higher than 4x and 3D resolution does not increase fps a lot when comparing the lowest possible setting to the highest possible setting.

conclusions:

-setting "object details" to "standard" will effectively avoid major frame drops, on the expense of a less "calm" environment. the negative effect is basicly that while moving, you will see the objects changing their detail level more obviously up to a degree where you find that ugly and irritatiing "flickering" (oscillating objects due to switching detail levels back and forth very fast) effects on trees and buildings. Setting "object detail" on standard keeps my fps from droping below 30 (NEVER below 25) in agios efstratios and a solid 60-80 fps on open terrain.

exception: on missions that take place mostly on open terrain, i can as well set object details to ultra and still have a

good fps rate (30-40 fps stable)

My Settings according to these results:

Basic

-Resolution: 1920x1080x32

-Visibility: Overall: 1490 Vis: 1000 Shadow:70

Rendering:

-3D Resolution: 120% (use this instead of AA and blow it up as far as 200% if your hardware allows it, it will make the picture look deliciously crisp but does indeed cost you fps, try it and find the best ratio for you system)

-AA: Disabled (thats what we got >=120% 3D res for)

-PPAA: FXAA on standard (optional: will add a little extra crispyness unless you run 200% 3D res, then it will distort more than it will clear things up)

-ATOC: Disabled

Postprocesses:

-Quality: Disabled

-HDR: Standard

-Anisotropic Filtering: Very High (doesnt affect fps too much so i choose looks over fps)

-PIP: Standard

-Dynamic Lights: Very High (might need further testing on this one in complex scenes with lots of stuff going on)

Quality:

-Texture Detail: Ultra

-Object Quality: Low or Standard and ocasionally Ultra (like i said, try to adjust thisone to you very needs, its effective)

-Terrain Quality: Ultra

-Cloud Quality: Ultra

-Shadow Quality: High

-Particles Quality: High (affects smoke and stuff, set lower if smoke kills your fps)

This Setup, so far, seems to have a good general tradeoff in eyecandy vs performance while does avoid major framedrops all around. The focus on 3D res before AA is also functional because it

improves your abbility to spot distant things (people shooting at you for example).

-on B) Server related FPS issues (wich seem to be heavily related to CPU performance and overall gamecode architecture):

It is so heavily depending on the gamemode, especially wasteland is horrible. i never get more than 20 fps, no matter what gfx settings, what ping or how many players, and i think i am not the only one with that problem, fuck this popular gamemmode in particular!

Higher playercount does affect fps BUT on some servers, even 40 vs 40 blitzkrieg or something with infantry warfare i have perfectly playable framerates wich never drop below 30, while on wasteland with 20 players i got a slideshow!

conclusion:

the reason for my system beeing so sensitive to server and gamemode specs might be a combination of bad overall netcode optimization and my old CPU wich is, as mentioned, the bottleneck of my system.

TL;DR:

-my GPU = strong, my CPU = weak

-some setting are more sensitive to you CPU, some to your GPU

-try adjusting "object quality" in particular, it has a major effect on fps

-do finetuning according you personal hardware and preferences

-if you have acceptable fps on that spot from the sceenshot, you will have good to very good fps elsewere.

-I choose higher 3D Res over AA because it looks so crispy and delicious

-if you seem to have much less fps on muliplayer then in the singleplayer showcases, dont uninstall, just try something other than wasteland, even infantry only team vs team with low or medium playercount is much fun.

-avoid crapy servers and meanwhile pray for them to optimize the code.

[MavericK96 0]

The game is barely utilizing 30-50% of my GPU (GTX 680) right now so I don't think there's a huge need to upgrade unless they improve utilization.

[Llano 11]

Uhm, today when iwas playing in the editor, i noticed that my fps was higher than it normaly used to be. Sometimes i came over 100 fps, which i had never had before. Low settings.

[guusert 1]

who is saying it is all fine? Also the devs said, they found some of the engine problems, causing bad performance, and they are working on it. Whats the prob then?

Some of the engine problems blablabla... The only big problem here is the CPU utilization. These devs... they won't fix it. This is not going to be ok. If you update the graphics of the engine you also have to update the utilization so the hardware keeps up with the graphics otherwise it's simply not working. Who says A must also say B.

I had a discussion about this on another forum too. This guy Psychopomp explains things really well.

Psychopomp:

"There is no excuse to be releasing a game without the support for multiple cores. Even in early alpha it cannot be accepted.

When developing a game, you have an idea in mind. You want that idea to become a reality, you know what you need, you know what resources and manpower you would need to acquire and achieve that idea. The guys at Crytek use multiple cores for a reason, they didn't start thinking that one core would've been enough for their massive game, nor should Bohemia Interactive. If the problem persists, then the guys at Bohemia should be ashamed for a reason. Poor planning and execution if it isn't fixed one way or another in the future.

Anyway, I wanted to make a clear point. You have a certain process that you need to do when developing a game, anything really. That process is important, because it will make your project something great, or nothing. You may not forget anything of great importance, and the most basics in the engine should be there from the beginning. There is no reason to go back to the roots and change things if they had planned it perfectly. The only reason would be if the engine can be improved even more, and that the previous one wasn't lacking. Because if it was lacking, why the hell would you make an alpha version and put it for sale.

The nerve to release an alpha game on steam whilst it is not ready is an even more disgusting idea. The game isn't finished in the slightest and can undergo massive changes in the progress. The company is just hogging up money to show results to their business partners to increase profit. The game can change whenever they want, because it is an alpha afterall. Consumers might get screwed over and the company will receive no financial damage due to preorders."

(guusert: )I like to add myself: In this case, the alpha is like a preorder which you can't cancel. You can't play the game (horrible FPS), but it's not a preorder.

Another post from him:

"It's not really the issue about them fixing it or not, well, it is though. But from a realistic point of view, why would they create an alpha version of the game which only allows the usage of one CPU? It does not make sense to begin with. And the fact that Arma 2 also had this issue, assuming that what Guusert said is true, is a disturbing yet realistic problem. The game might face some hardships if it isn't solved properly.

Now, as already mentioned, it is a problem. But I am not going to tell you how bad it is.

Most games that were released in the alpha state were able to run multiple cores, assuming that the game needed the usage of multiple. Arma 3 is the type of game which requires the cores, it is a normality to allow the usage of multiple ones in your game. A company cannot decide to release an alpha version of their game, allowing only the usage of one core when the game needs more than one. It is only acceptable if the game has such low requirements that it should not have any problems, thus not affecting the game.

It's a given though that Arma 3 can be played on one core, but the more cores you have, the slower one core (probably) will get. From my understanding, you cannot just allow the usage of multiple cores just at the snap of your fingers when you already have large parts of the game developed. Most certainly not with massive games. Even for alpha games it is unacceptable that do not 'allow' more than one core for increased performance / FPS. It will only cause them more trouble adding these features later, after the alpha. It is only natural to do the basics before you decide to really show the game. But I guess consumers friendly games are not in our world anymore. Just marketing plans, numbers, financial wealth and a whole lot of disappointment.

But the problem can be fixed. There is no doubt about it. We just need to wait and see if the company behind Arma 3 is balls enough to not do it."

Edited March 22, 2013 by guusert

[MaverickFerran 1]

Well what i wanted to say is, the performance is not as bad as people say at the moment. If they would really try and use some of the tips mentioned here they would get an gaming-experience, which is ok. And ok for me is 30+ fps. 40+ fps is a fluent experience. Unlike Battlefield 3 or CS you dont need 60 or more fps in Arma. Because the whole gameplay is a lot slower and reconnaissance, as well as cooperation is more important than reactions. But good reactions are never bad.

But of course they need to optimize it a bit further and sadly the MT-Ability of the Engine is not good. The last point maybe cant be fixed in Arma3, we can hope for it in Arma4, if there will be one.

Especially the Network- and AI-Code can be further optimized and lets hope that Bohemia will do a good job there, so that its finally well playable.

Just be patient and judge the final Product.

The nerve to release an alpha game on steam whilst it is not ready is an even more disgusting idea. The game isn't finished in the slightest and can undergo massive changes in the progress.

Do you even know what Alpha means?

If you dont want to support the Games Development than dont buy the Alpha. You only had to wait till the final Version is released, than you can read some reviews and buy it or not.

Guys like you are really annoying. You totally misunderstood the sense of such an Alpha-Release.

Edited March 22, 2013 by MaverickFerran

[Pyrophosphate 1]

Some of the engine problems blablabla... The only big problem here is the CPU utilization. These devs... they won't fix it. This is not going to be ok. If you update the graphics of the engine you also have to update the utilization so the hardware keeps up with the graphics otherwise it's simply not working. Who says A must also say B.

The nerve to release an alpha game on steam whilst it is not ready is an even more disgusting idea. The game isn't finished in the slightest and can undergo massive changes in the progress. The company is just hogging up money to show results to their business partners to increase profit. The game can change whenever they want, because it is an alpha afterall. Consumers might get screwed over and the company will receive no financial damage due to preorders (This alpha is a preorder which you can't cancel. You can't play the game (horrible FPS), but it's not a preorder.). Even if the game is 25,-,

The devs won't fix it? It's not some switch they need to flip and suddenly framerates double. Clearly it's a very complicated issue, and clearly they're aware of it. It was implied, if not stated outright, by Dwarden that they know what the actual problem is and intend to fix it. But, it takes time. The game engine is much bigger and more complex than any other popular game engine on the market.

Also, you don't "update the utilization". That doesn't even mean anything. There's a threading issue going on here, not a utilization issue. You don't want it to be using more CPU time.

[simjedi 10]

-snip-

Your testing on a server should not have been done as the settings you played around with are fixed server side and cannot be changed in the client.

[NeuroFunker 11]

Some of the engine problems blablabla... The only big problem here is the CPU utilization. These devs... they won't fix it. This is not going to be ok. If you update the graphics of the engine you also have to update the utilization so the hardware keeps up with the graphics otherwise it's simply not working. Who says A must also say B.

I had a discussion about this on another forum too. This guy Psychopomp explains things really well.

Psychopomp (from Industrialgaming.co.uk site):

"There is no excuse to be releasing a game without the support for multiple cores. Even in early alpha it cannot be accepted.

When developing a game, you have an idea in mind. You want that idea to become a reality, you know what you need, you know what resources and manpower you would need to acquire and achieve that idea. The guys at Crytek use multiple cores for a reason, they didn't start thinking that one core would've been enough for their massive game, nor should Bohemia Interactive. If the problem persists, then the guys at Bohemia should be ashamed for a reason. Poor planning and execution if it isn't fixed one way or another in the future.

Anyway, I wanted to make a clear point. You have a certain process that you need to do when developing a game, anything really. That process is important, because it will make your project something great, or nothing. You may not forget anything of great importance, and the most basics in the engine should be there from the beginning. There is no reason to go back to the roots and change things if they had planned it perfectly. The only reason would be if the engine can be improved even more, and that the previous one wasn't lacking. Because if it was lacking, why the hell would you make an alpha version and put it for sale.

The nerve to release an alpha game on steam whilst it is not ready is an even more disgusting idea. The game isn't finished in the slightest and can undergo massive changes in the progress. The company is just hogging up money to show results to their business partners to increase profit. The game can change whenever they want, because it is an alpha afterall. Consumers might get screwed over and the company will receive no financial damage due to preorders. Even if the game is 25,-," In this case, the alpha is a preorder which you can't cancel. You can't play the game (horrible FPS), but it's not a preorder."

Another post from him:

"It's not really the issue about them fixing it or not, well, it is though. But from a realistic point of view, why would they create an alpha version of the game which only allows the usage of one CPU? It does not make sense to begin with. And the fact that Arma 2 also had this issue, assuming that what Guusert said is true, is a disturbing yet realistic problem. The game might face some hardships if it isn't solved properly.

Now, as already mentioned, it is a problem. But I am not going to tell you how bad it is.

Most games that were released in the alpha state were able to run multiple cores, assuming that the game needed the usage of multiple. Arma 3 is the type of game which requires the cores, it is a normality to allow the usage of multiple ones in your game. A company cannot decide to release an alpha version of their game, allowing only the usage of one core when the game needs more than one. It is only acceptable if the game has such low requirements that it should not have any problems, thus not affecting the game.

It's a given though that Arma 3 can be played on one core, but the more cores you have, the slower one core (probably) will get. From my understanding, you cannot just allow the usage of multiple cores just at the snap of your fingers when you already have large parts of the game developed. Most certainly not with massive games. Even for alpha games it is unacceptable that do not 'allow' more than one core for increased performance / FPS. It will only cause them more trouble adding these features later, after the alpha. It is only natural to do the basics before you decide to really show the game. But I guess consumers friendly games are not in our world anymore. Just marketing plans, numbers, financial wealth and a whole lot of disappointment.

But the problem can be fixed. There is no doubt about it. We just need to wait and see if the company behind Arma 3 is balls enough to not do it."

yeah sure, just another game engine "expert". They won't fix it, this devs you say? Well thats sad, if u think so. Then you have to deal with it, and play it as it is, or maybe just, leave?

[ProfTournesol 956]

The nerve to release an alpha game on steam whilst it is not ready is an even more disgusting idea. The game isn't finished in the slightest and can undergo massive changes in the progress. The company is just hogging up money to show results to their business partners to increase profit. The game can change whenever they want, because it is an alpha afterall. Consumers might get screwed over and the company will receive no financial damage due to preorders. Even if the game is 25,-," In this case, the alpha is a preorder which you can't cancel. You can't play the game (horrible FPS), but it's not a preorder."

This paragraph is enough to understand how uninformed this guy is. THAT is "disgusting".

[MaverickFerran 1]

When developing a game, you have an idea in mind. You want that idea to become a reality, you know what you need, you know what resources and manpower you would need to acquire and achieve that idea. The guys at Crytek use multiple cores for a reason, they didn't start thinking that one core would've been enough for their massive game, nor should Bohemia Interactive. If the problem persists, then the guys at Bohemia should be ashamed for a reason. Poor planning and execution if it isn't fixed one way or another in the future.

You know that the Development of Crysis 3 did cost about 60 million Dollar?

Its a Mainstream Game, which a lot of people will buy, so its worth it.

But the time Arma 3 was planned, Arma wasnt so popular, the great Popularity came with DayZ.

Can you maybe just use your brain??

I dont know anything about Bohemias financial resources, but i guess its not worth investing more than 20 million dollars into a Game, which maybe just 1 million people buy. I guess the sales of Arma 2, before DayZ, were even lower. Would be nice if somebody got an official Number.

I have seldom seen somebody as bigoted as you, you should start thinking.

Edit:

btw:

Now your whole post is a quotation of this Psychopomp guy. Some paragraphs, were not before.

Well if those thoughts were not your own ideas, than I have to excuse myself, but that does not not mean, that you should not use your brain and wonder if its true, what this guy says.

Cause he seems to have not the slightest idea what he is talking about.

Edited March 22, 2013 by MaverickFerran

[simjedi 10]

This paragraph is enough to understand how uninformed this guy is. THAT is "disgusting".

This^^

Bohemia Interactive forced NOBODY to buy this game. Everyone who plopped down some of their hard earned cash for this game should have known what to expect.

"The company is just hogging up money to show results to their business partners" LMAO you do know that their business partners are "World Governments" don't you???? I don't think they care much about profits and BiS will do just fine with the loss of the recent DayZ influx as they have been going strong without you types for many years now.

[daze23 1]

ho hum. no update from Dwarden on the analysis. I don't think he's posted since sunday. hopefully there will be some news soon...

[[evo] dan 79]

ho hum. no update from Dwarden on the analysis. I don't think he's posted since sunday. hopefully there will be some news soon...

Hopefully he has been with the team getting things fixed.

[fabio_chavez 103]

people should stop play on crappy wasteland servers, then they will realize they can have more than 20 fps...

[Premises187 0]

Has anyone looked into RAM speeds?

With ArmA2:OA I recall getting a whole 10fps from a RAM speed upgrade.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?111764

Is anyone running 2400mhz or 2133mhz?

[joe1989 10]

No you wouldnt have unless you overlcocked your CPU at the same time. As thats the only time RAM speeds go up. Unless you overclock your stuck at 1333 ;)

[antoineflemming 14]

No you wouldnt have unless you overlcocked your CPU at the same time. As thats the only time RAM speeds go up. Unless you overclock your stuck at 1333 ;)

Only way I've been able to up my FPS is to overclock my GPU using MSI Afterburner. However, that's when there's not a whole lot of trees near by. Once I go under a bunch of trees, seems like the CPU handles that, and my FPS drops back down. After overclocking my GPU's core clock, and when in an open, non-forested environment, I saw my FPS increase from around 45 -50 FPS to 70-75 FPS. I've been testing on Takistan, as it's a little easier on my PC than the heavily vegetated Stratis.

So, currently, as far as I know, that's the only solution. Of course I know the risks of overclocking but don't have another solution. Then again, my GPU is already 99% used, so overclocking has helped. I still experience the usage drops though. The fps/usage drops are worse than the constant low FPS because the game always stutters when it drops.

I assume CPU overclocking would work as well, but seems like my XPS 17 i7-2670QM can't overclock. Then again, it is only 2.20GHz so that might be part of the problem.

---------- Post added at 19:06 ---------- Previous post was at 19:05 ----------

people should stop play on crappy wasteland servers, then they will realize they can have more than 20 fps...

Why don't you actually try to contribute to a solution instead of spamming to increase your post count.

[tet5uo 4]

No you wouldnt have unless you overlcocked your CPU at the same time. As thats the only time RAM speeds go up. Unless you overclock your stuck at 1333 ;)

heh, how old is your CPU that you're still thinking in terms of front-side-bus speeds? :D

[h.IV+-I.esus- 10]

That post over me, is one of the posts i meant.

He switched his old CPU vs a new One. The new one got 5% more clock and something like a 10%-higher Per Core Performance, because of the better architecture.

So overall its 15% faster. That means if he got 30 fps before, hes getting 34,5 now. He will not recognize it, but he could have seen it, if he had at least measured it.

In reality the improvement may be even lower, so that its maybe just 1-2 fps.

And now hes complaining that his new System brought no Performance increase, and thats not totally ridiculous?

I recognized the difference, but it's so minimal that it's irrelevant... and it doesn't mean there's no underlying issue in the game code.

Regardless, now that I've had more time to sit down and fiddle with things... I've turned the view distance down to the ARMA 2 default at 1600m as going higher on Stratis doesn't really matter unless you're in the air and even then it's barely worth the trouble.

Turns out I can leave everything completely maxed out, full AA and everything at 1600m view distance and still get mostly 60fps.

On top of that I noticed the game received two updates via Steam for me last night.

I'm not sure what those updates did, or if that's contributed to my performance increase, but I'm content for now.

I realize it's alpha and all, and I wasn't complaining as you seem to have interpreted it... just pointing out that a fairly drastic upgrade yielded negligible performance results in comparison until I fiddled with things.

Waiting on some HDMI cables to come in the mail so I can get multi-monitors back up and running. Not for Eyefinity, but to take a look at core usage on CPU and GPUs while playing.

Is there any word on what the latest updates changed? I can't seem to find anything.

[Gera_CCT 12]

This guide helped me A LOT:

http://www.day0.com.au/forum/arma/70-arma-3-alpha-performance-tweaks-and-settings-guide

[funkotron 4]

I assume CPU overclocking would work as well, but seems like my XPS 17 i7-2670QM can't overclock. Then again, it is only 2.20GHz so that might be part of the problem.

---------- Post added at 19:06 ---------- Previous post was at 19:05 ----------

Have you ever tried ThrottleStop? There is a way to stop the mobile CPU throttling. i don´t know if it works with your notebook. i had to flash an unlocked bios for my alienware.

[dnk 13]

Some of the engine problems blablabla... The only big problem here is the CPU utilization. These devs... they won't fix it.

Can you look into your crystal ball and tell me what I'm going to do in 6 months, too?

Now, regarding the psycho:

"There is no excuse to be releasing a game without the support for multiple cores.

Except it does have multicore support, and my own quad-core i5 is seeing at least 50% of each core used, I think. That's not "support for multiple cores"? Interesting usage of language. He goes on to again literally claim there's only 1 core being used. This is just factually inaccurate, and guess what? Quoting people with huge factual inaccuracies as though they're the truth makes you look like an ignorant ranting fool too.

Because if it was lacking, why the hell would you make an alpha version and put it for sale.

To let the community give feedback and help with development and bug testing? And to get some money and ensure sales while they have a high media profile, yes, but anyone considering purchasing at this point should be doing so solely for that first reason.

The game isn't finished in the slightest and can undergo massive changes in the progress.

That's what an "alpha" is? Someone (including guusert) needs a dictionary. The game literally says this almost word-for-word during the loading screen.

(guusert: )I like to add myself: In this case, the alpha is like a preorder which you can't cancel. You can't play the game (horrible FPS), but it's not a preorder.

It's a sale, like a half-off preorder where you get to start playing the new content as it comes out. It's half price. Let's remember that: half price, on a huge sale, and you get immediate access to the game instead of waiting another 6-12 months for the final release. Where else in the world do you get to buy things 50% off and use them immediately and then get to return them? Try returning sale items that you've used for a week+ at any clothing store or electronics store and see what the results are, especially with software, which basically all stores have a non-return policy on.

These are the sorts of comments only children make because anyone who has actually lived on their own for an extended period knows that you don't just get to return anything you buy under any conditions. They also know to look for whether something is returnable or not before buying if they think they might need/want to return it. They also do research to see if what they're buying is something they really want before purchasing. Sane adults do not just go out and buy, say, a TV on sale that's non-returnable, take it home and install it for 1 week just to see if it works well. Why does this work differently with the Internet?