Low CPU utilization & Low FPS

[[frl]myke 15]

It seems like me that was have become desensitised and are now looking for justifications for bohemias inability to optimise a game sufficiently that it can actually run at acceptable frame-rates. I mean there are games that do more work than bohemias game does and they are optimised sufficiently to run on quite a wide range of systems. CryEngine, Unreal-Engine, Unity etc.

So you have the source code of all thos engines so you can compare? Else this would be just a speculation which is based on...what?

Games that do more work than the RV engine? Source?

The listed engines (and games based on them) are player centric, ArmA 3 is not player centric. Try to understand what this means. A lot of other shooter games are corridor shooter for a reason. AI doesn't need to navigate a lot. They are there where the player is and wait at a given position until the players arrive at their location. The AI doesn't need to compute tactics and movement as their script exactly tells them where to go and what to do. Sure, they have a little freedom to make it look like real AI but this freedom is extremely narrow. Actually there is no other game even closely to try what ArmA 3 actually does. It is actually pretty simple to "optimize" such rail shooters since rarely anything depends on each other regarding gameplay. The shiny bling-bling effects with close to no gameplay impact can be multithreaded pretty simple giving a nearly 100% usage of CPU. But as soon concurrent multithreading comes into play, CPU usage will go down due to it's nature. It isn't "not optimized", it is a side effect of concurrent multithreading and no code wizard in this world can "solve" this.

[nikiforos 450]

I admire you [FRL]Myke and all your energy you put into this discussion. You can't convince me but at least you try your best :)

[[frl]myke 15]

I admire you [FRL]Myke and all your energy you put into this discussion. You can't convince me but at least you try your best :)

Thank you, appreciate that.

[Azza FHI 50]

Lol polymath didnt u start a whole thread on this knd of thing only to be shut down by proven facts? Forgive me if im mistaken.

And for the record im not suggesting SP is the only way to get good frames. Ppl that buy the game for massive battles etc and get dissapointed with the outcome should take a step back and think about what the game is actually trying to achieve. Its a military simulator, to get the most enjoyment u need to join a coop clan and play realistic missions. Any good clan will have decent servers that run smooth (and cache scripts so the ai are only present when within a certain range).

Not everyone wants to play this style but this is what a3 was meant for and you will not have performance issues.

[Polymath820 11]

If you are referring to the finite-state machine scripts. The AI are programmed using pre-calculated decisions. Although, maybe I don't know I've done extensive performance profiling of ArmA 3 using Windows Performance monitor, and configured counters, An interesting thing to note, I am wondering if my system is under-performing due to the GPU usage it is hitting 100% - 80% and my CPU around 40% definitely means my video-card is the bottleneck leveraging Anti-aliasing is also a problem for it it doesn't have enough shader engines or enough overall bandwidth.

Something tells me people on here have mixed lower end video-cards with high end CPU's and expect a good result. The memory on the GPU isn't all that important, it's important for texture files etc. but Anything over 1 - 2GB for 1080P is a waste of time. Unless you also have up sampling which still leverages real-time aspects. My video-card is a GTX 650 2GB the memory-bit width is a indicative example of it being a low end video-card the 128bit memory interface. As compared to higher end cards which have 192bit,256bit,384bit. Now if my videocard is taxed to 80 - 100% a video-card upgrade would likely improve the performance of the CPU as the CPU's performance affects the GPU's due to CPU throttling, not bottlenecking where it's trying to pull more data and push more data but the video-cards physical limitations prevent it from doing so and there is no sense in using 100% of the CPU being pushed to it's maximum and over-heating so it throttles to equalise with the GPU.

I already understand what FSM's require and how they are done, but couldn't bohemia have used neural-network learning and neural-network AI to teach them the tactics over time?

I've done a fair bit of reading on the AI side.

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/designing-artificial-intelligence-for-games-part-1

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/designing-artificial-intelligence-for-games-part-3/

Okay I am starting to think this is bad or arma 3 scripting are doing bad things, scripts are run in "threaded environments" so: why does intel explicitly state that if that is so you shouldn't have 600 - 700 lines of script running... as the task complexity has a negative effect on the threads performance. Because a large amount of sub-systems are relying on other sub-systems.

Correct me if I am wrong? But have we all been suckered into believing multi-threading and types of parallisation are the golden bullet to performance problems? And forget that if threading is over-used as with anything it becomes a hindrance than a improvement?

Edited May 5, 2014 by Polymath820

[[frl]myke 15]

If you are referring to the finite-state machine scripts. The AI are programmed using pre-calculated decisions. Although, maybe I don't know I've done extensive performance profiling of ArmA 3 using Windows Performance monitor, and configured counters, An interesting thing to note, I am wondering if my system is under-performing due to the GPU usage it is hitting 100% - 80% and my CPU around 40% definitely means my video-card is the bottleneck leveraging Anti-aliasing is also a problem for it it doesn't have enough shader engines or enough overall bandwidth.

Something tells me people on here have mixed lower end video-cards with high end CPU's and expect a good result. The memory on the GPU isn't all that important, it's important for texture files etc. but Anything over 1 - 2GB for 1080P is a waste of time. Unless you also have up sampling which still leverages real-time aspects. My video-card is a GTX 650 2GB the memory-bit width is a indicative example of it being a low end video-card the 128bit memory interface. As compared to higher end cards which have 192bit,256bit,384bit. Now if my videocard is taxed to 80 - 100% a video-card upgrade would likely improve the performance of the CPU as the CPU's performance affects the GPU's due to CPU throttling, not bottlenecking where it's trying to pull more data and push more data but the video-cards physical limitations prevent it from doing so and there is no sense in using 100% of the CPU being pushed to it's maximum and over-heating so it throttles to equalise with the GPU.

I already understand what FSM's require and how they are done, but couldn't bohemia have used neural-network learning and neural-network AI to teach them the tactics over time?

I've done a fair bit of reading on the AI side.

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/designing-artificial-intelligence-for-games-part-1

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/designing-artificial-intelligence-for-games-part-3/

Okay I am starting to think this is bad or arma 3 scripting are doing bad things, scripts are run in "threaded environments" so: why does intel explicitly state that if that is so you shouldn't have 600 - 700 lines of script running... as the task complexity has a negative effect on the threads performance. Because a large amount of sub-systems are relying on other sub-systems.

Correct me if I am wrong? But have we all been suckered into believing multi-threading and types of parallisation are the golden bullet to performance problems?

Interesting read, thanks for the links. Will take a while until i have my head wrapped around it. ;)

:EDITH:

(saw your last edit just now)

No, you're not wrong at all. But multi-threading and parallelization isn't the holy grail either. On the other hand, without it, ArmA 3 wouldn't even be possible in it's current scale.

[Polymath820 11]

I mean I am not trying to pretend I know this subject, but I am always willing to know the right information. Always willing to be extremely informed and up to date. But I still do wonder if people are mixing lower end video-cards with high end CPU's.

P.S: Maybe Bohemia should eliminate threading where it's not needed. Or look into such a possibility.

[zwa233 10]

I've followed the optimization guide posted but still can't get good performance. I'm just looking for 25+ FPS in most situations. I have got it to where I get around 30 FPS in most areas, but once combat actually starts or I come to a city with a lot of OPFOR it tanks.

Specs are:

FX-6300 @ 3.5ghz

HD7850 2GB @ 875mhz/1200mhz

8GB DDR3 160

I'm not trying to run on all Ultra settings. A few are very high - the more GPU intense ones. Most are High/Standard and I put the sliders around the 'Standard' outlined in the guide. The game still doesn't utilize much of my GPU, usually <75% so I'm guessing it's a CPU bottleneck although I need to monitor it's usage more closely.

Any tips for this type of pc setup? Thanks

[Battlefieldbully 10]

No more excuses. BI, sign up!

http://developer.amd.com/mantle/

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-gpu-mantle-mullins-beema,26689.html

[[frl]myke 15]

No more excuses. BI, sign up!

http://developer.amd.com/mantle/

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-gpu-mantle-mullins-beema,26689.html

Erm...yeah...whatever.

It's the CPU parts that limit the game, not the GPU parts. So Mantle will help nothing...or at least not as much as people might hope.

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

No more excuses. BI, sign up!

http://developer.amd.com/mantle/

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-gpu-mantle-mullins-beema,26689.html

LoL. FAIL posting

[Battlefieldbully 10]

Well i'm glad I made you laugh but on a serious note why not to use something that can possibly squeeze more performance out of your game?

[zwa233 10]

I've followed the optimization guide posted but still can't get good performance. I'm just looking for 25+ FPS in most situations. I have got it to where I get around 30 FPS in most areas, but once combat actually starts or I come to a city with a lot of OPFOR it tanks.

Specs are:

FX-6300 @ 3.5ghz

HD7850 2GB @ 875mhz/1200mhz

8GB DDR3 160

I'm not trying to run on all Ultra settings. A few are very high - the more GPU intense ones. Most are High/Standard and I put the sliders around the 'Standard' outlined in the guide. The game still doesn't utilize much of my GPU, usually <75% so I'm guessing it's a CPU bottleneck although I need to monitor it's usage more closely.

Any tips for this type of pc setup? Thanks

Here are some screens of CPU/GPU usage.

These screens show the settings I'm using and an in-game screenshot showing 19 FPS and about 30% GPU usage.

http://i.imgur.com/8mz9kdW.jpg (421 kB)

http://i.imgur.com/B5vClCi.jpg (408 kB)

http://i.imgur.com/8cNabmU.jpg (410 kB)

http://i.imgur.com/6Agsg25.jpg (637 kB)

[fred41 42]

Myke;2683410']

It's the CPU parts that limit the game' date=' not the GPU parts. So Mantle will help nothing...or at least not as much as people might hope.[/quote']

... the primary intention of implementing a low overhead api, like mantle,

is to reduce the CPU load and to use the GPU resources better this way ...

BTW: rendering and simulation is basically done in the same thread currently.

[[frl]myke 15]

... the primary intention of implementing a low overhead api, like mantle,

is to reduce the CPU load and to use the GPU resources better this way ...

BTW: rendering and simulation is basically done in the same thread currently.

I see your point but since the CPU already has more than enough free resources i stand by my point: the impact to expect is way too low to justify the additional effort.

[fred41 42]

Myke;2683472']It's the CPU parts that limit the game' date=' not the GPU parts.[/quote']

Myke;2683472']... but since the CPU already has more than enough free resources i stand by my point ...

... i see, you aren't joking :)

[[frl]myke 15]

... i see, you aren't joking :)

No, i'm not and if you followed this thread you would know this isn't contradictory

[fred41 42]

... and which of the 320 post's you mean exactly?

[croc5 10]

I've read through most of this thread and it seems there is very little hope of a fix, in my case I get good frames for 5-10mins, then all of a sudden I get 1fps. While my system is not high end, I do get good frames for a period of time then wham. The last time I played, I was able to fly a chopper across a large portion of altis and over the ocean, I then turned around and attempted to fly back where I can from, right after I had turned around, my frames dropped to 1fps

croc5

[jiltedjock 10]

Myke;2683472']I see your point but since the CPU already has more than enough free resources i stand by my point: the impact to expect is way too low to justify the additional effort.

you have no idea what the effort is as you demonstrably know nothing about programming. why do you refuse to address any of the posts about moving the AI processing to spare client cores?

[MavericK96 0]

no, it isn't.

my point is - just because there are some people having fun with the game and not complaining, it doesn't mean that there isn't a problem.

Oh, yeah...totally agree with you there.

---------- Post added at 11:47 ---------- Previous post was at 11:37 ----------

Complettly agree with you, but if you read carefully the players who complain the lack of performance, in the majority of the cases don't agree that 25-40 FPS it's an playable framerate, only above 60 FPS, and add the fact they see the CPU running under 60% of it's capacity, they complain,...

I think that's a gross misrepresentation of what the situation actually is. If you go back and read through many of the comments in this thread, people are getting sub-20 FPS framerates and THAT is a problem, because for an FPS, even one like ArmA 3 that is not a twitch shooter, that is basically unplayable.

If I got 25-30 FPS MINIMUM I would be perfectly happy. Obviously it could be better, but when I get dips into the 15-20 FPS range, the game becomes unplayable simply because I cannot react quickly enough to a situation with that low of a framerate. Let alone flying or anything that requires split-second movement.

Sure, you get complainers who think anything less than 60 FPS is unplayable, but that is not the majority here.

---------- Post added at 11:54 ---------- Previous post was at 11:47 ----------

Another thing that Alwarren and many others have hit on is that AI is likely a major cause of the slowdown. Not the only cause, as around towns I will still get a fair amount of slowdown even with little or no AI, but when you start adding AI, in towns especially, the performance tanks, and there is no video setting that can fix it. Frankly, the only settings that have a "significant" (and I say that in quotes because by that I mean, +/- 5 FPS or so as opposed to +/- 1-2 FPS) impact on framerate for me are View Distance and to some extent Object/Terrain Detail. However, even with these turned far down I can still experience sub-20 FPS framerates. Basically every other option makes no significant difference on performance whether at Very Low or Ultra, which tells me that the problem is probably not my hardware.

[mobile_medic 43]

Myke... Clearly, we do have completely different views of what a FACT actually is.

Your post speaks for itself.

There is no point in engaging you further as it certainly won't help fix the problem (since you'd sooner pass off that the problem is a bunch of laptop users), and only serves to add more distraction, cover, and noise to this thread. You seem to be more concerned with being *correct* than engaging in meaningful dialogue. It's like trying to have a debate with someone who thinks the world is 6k years old... Pointless... emotions rule over any desire to use logic or reason.

It's the misleading posts from moderators like Myke and sarcastic and condescending posts from Devs like Dwarden peppered throughout this thread (in the absence of any meaningful contribution, or proper acknowledgement of the issue, imo) that pretty much sum up the reasons why I will never buy another product from this company, and why (in my opinion) no one should anticipate a resolution. The way they have handled this issue (or, rather failed to handle, or even attempt meaningful dialogue with the customer base on this topic) over the years... Not really any different than the behavior from mega-publishers that people love to rail against on here.

And, yes, I am a multiple purchaser of Arma 2, and a 3x purchaser of Arma 3 (bought for friends, but... shame on me for buying this fucking game that many times). I'll let myke and dwarden do some cartwheels now, b/c I'm officially out. Only thing there really was to do was to try to keep visibility on the issue, but there seems to be a strong campaign of misinformation, and since moderators like to pretend like the problem is *really* just a bunch of laptop users, it seems bohemia is all too happy for that to continue in their absence.

I don't even care if they fix the issue at this point. It would take a lot more than that for me to ever consider purchasing another product from this company. So, with that... You folks have fun.

"With all due respect Lieutenant... Fuck You." ~ Kerry - Arma 3

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

Well i'm glad I made you laugh but on a serious note why not to use something that can possibly squeeze more performance out of your game?

Cause i already tried all possible things,variants and whatever to bring some frames to the game. Significant increasement was not measureable (i talk only in my opinion, bunch of mods, Dynamic campaign WLA)

Other gamemodes doesnt bother me.

[k0rd 3]

Devs like Dwarden

check fire dude, you're shooting at a friendly!

don't shit on one of the only devs who is actually concerned about MP performance!

[windies 11]

you have no idea what the effort is as you demonstrably know nothing about programming. why do you refuse to address any of the posts about moving the AI processing to spare client cores?

Because he can't and most of his arguments revolve around theatrics and hyperbole support by his own opinions that he mislabels as facts which he then passes the blame of their inaccuracy on to the reader absolving himself of all guilt or responsibility in his own mind. He doesn't even argue because he has no legitimate points, he just tries to "yell" louder.