Low CPU utilization & Low FPS

[nikiforos 450]

You know I got a new GPU and I get the same frames running altis benchmark. Same settings as before. Of course when I'm alone on the map I get much better FPS than before but I guess that's not the question.

[mamasan8 11]

New drivers reminds me of this

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/180088-nvidias-questionable-geforce-337-50-driver-or-why-you-shouldnt-trust-manufacturer-provided-numbers

A lot of hyperbole. I wish it was true since I now own an Nvidia-card. Been using ATI for 10 years prior. Never seen as ridiculous claims.

Btw, still getting 14-20 fps on my MP mission, run locally. Went from 337 to 340 drivers.

[tonschuh 3]

You know I got a new GPU and I get the same frames running altis benchmark. Same settings as before. Of course when I'm alone on the map I get much better FPS than before but I guess that's not the question.

That's really sad and I wonder if I get any improvements ...

:confused:

New drivers reminds me of this

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/180088-nvidias-questionable-geforce-337-50-driver-or-why-you-shouldnt-trust-manufacturer-provided-numbers

A lot of hyperbole. I wish it was true since I now own an Nvidia-card. Been using ATI for 10 years prior. Never seen as ridiculous claims.

Btw, still getting 14-20 fps on my MP mission, run locally. Went from 337 to 340 drivers.

Thanks for checking it out and sharing your outcome.

I don't really believe any ads without doing some research about it.

:)

[MavericK96 0]

Honestly, I think the days of driver updates massively improving performance are long gone. Barring, of course, some horrible bug in the driver that causes abnormally low performance on release of a certain title.

[tonschuh 3]

Honestly, I think the days of driver updates massively improving performance are long gone. Barring, of course, some horrible bug in the driver that causes abnormally low performance on release of a certain title.

Yeah, it's usually only after we got some new GPU's on the market and they optimized the drivers for it or added new SLI-Profiles.

:)

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

Thats not true maverick, ~2 month ago Nvidia released a driver which pushes the frames at several games. Arma 3 was one of the Games which gains 0% from it. No suprise for me when i take a look at "Performance Patches and fixes" which were implemented in 1 year since release, same amount as the driver -> 0%

The driver didnt just profit from SLI, Single GFX Systems had a great boost too... The driver is there, but making the devs start to work for this to improve some frames... Hahahahahaha, makes me laugh, this will not happen.

SLI

Single-GPU

[tonschuh 3]

Thats not true maverick, ~2 month ago Nvidia released a driver which pushes the frames at several games. Arma 3 was one of the Games which gains 0% from it. No suprise for me when i take a look at "Performance Patches and fixes" which were implemented in 1 year since release, same amount as the driver -> 0%

The driver didnt just profit from SLI, Single GFX Systems had a great boost too... The driver is there, but making the devs start to work for this to improve some frames... Hahahahahaha, makes me laugh, this will not happen.

SLI

http://abload.de/thumb2/780tisli-4770k-per_1s3kn8.png http://abload.de/thumb2/780tisli-3960x-per_1pcjc5.png

Single-GPU

http://abload.de/thumb2/780ti-3960x-perm4dq1.png http://abload.de/thumb2/750ti-3960x-perdzdw3.png

Yeah true, but that's not happening all the time and not ALL games are effected.

:)

[mamasan8 11]

I just wonder...since those tests were with an i7, how much of the performance was gained because the previous drivers were buggy/insufficient and was there some kind of optimizations turned on by default in new driver? Like 'Brilinear', Aniso optimization etc.

I mean, an i7 is hardly bottlenecking any system. So kinda irrevelevant to test a system with i7 installed. Mid range GPU and CPU would have told us something.

I know both companies "optimize". Brilinear is an old trick both AMD and Nvidia has used for years. A mix between bilinear and trilinear, depending on situation.

Optimize = better performance, lower quality picture.

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

Doesnt matter, if the devs wont start (i bet they will never start to optimize Engine) to optimize the prehistoric engine it´s senseless to discuss about anything which goes in direction to performance, nothing will increase FPS effectivly and instantly until Engine optimizations were done (never)

You can compare it to this: buy a FIAT Panda and put the wheels of a Lamborghini on your FIAT, even with this by yourself optimized parts you FIAT wont reach 140kmh. With Arma is the same, you can optimize the hell up on earth, Arma wont run faster. Cause its not anticipated by that Fred Feuerstein Engine

[nikiforos 450]

I have to agree with LSD_Timewarp82 people need to understand that BI is the only one who can optimize the game properly without outside interference.

[mamasan8 11]

Doesnt matter, if the devs wont start (i bet they will never start to optimize Engine) to optimize the prehistoric engine it´s senseless to discuss about anything which goes in direction to performance, nothing will increase FPS effectivly and instantly until Engine optimizations were done (never)

You can compare it to this: buy a FIAT Panda and put the wheels of a Lamborghini on your FIAT, even with this by yourself optimized parts you FIAT wont reach 140kmh. With Arma is the same, you can optimize the hell up on earth, Arma wont run faster. Cause its not anticipated by that Fred Feuerstein Engine

I can only agree with this if OFP is any guideline.

I fired it up a month ago, thinking I should have good fps. I locked the FPS to 100 Hz but it still dropped to 60 fps in places. Sitting in the back of the truck, basically just drawing the road and a couple trees. What suprised me was that the dip came when OFP was drawing LESS.

In any other game from that time period I would probably get 300-500 FPS.

Then I think about Mafia, Hidden and Dangerous. Also had abysmal performance that never got fixed.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/07/26/czech-veterans-form-new-studio-warhorse/

Think that game is a buy? =)

Edited August 4, 2014 by mamasan8

[windies 11]

Got a second R9 280X real cheap for a crossfireX config. Loaded up ArmA 3 and was surprised to get about 1 1/2 the usual FPS, around 90-110 FPS, wasn't really expecting the scaling to be all that great even though it is in most everything else bar some niche games and flight simulators. Hop in a multiplayer server, go back down to 24 fps. SMH.

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

Got a second R9 280X real cheap for a crossfireX config. Loaded up ArmA 3 and was surprised to get about 1 1/2 the usual FPS, around 90-110 FPS, wasn't really expecting the scaling to be all that great even though it is in most everything else bar some niche games and flight simulators. Hop in a multiplayer server, go back down to 24 fps. SMH.

Yep, thats Arma^^ No need to be upset, i build a PC for a customer 3 weeks ago, with Hexacore and 3x290X (TriCrossfire) with the same result ^^

And it will stay my conclusion: no Engine optimization by devs results in no gain in frames^^

[St. Jimmy 272]

Got a second R9 280X real cheap for a crossfireX config. Loaded up ArmA 3 and was surprised to get about 1 1/2 the usual FPS, around 90-110 FPS, wasn't really expecting the scaling to be all that great even though it is in most everything else bar some niche games and flight simulators. Hop in a multiplayer server, go back down to 24 fps. SMH.

You can't get higher fps when the CPU is bottlenecked. You can just higher your graphics that load GPU without fps drop, so you could now do something like high SSAO and highest AA settings without a drop under that 24fps when earlier you could only go for 4xAA (just examples).

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

He would not get more fps even when he would own a Hexa or whatevercore @ 5Ghz.

Result is easy: Arma3 didnt scale (correctly) with more power, mostly you gain 2-3fps thru new hardware, but this 2-3fps are gone in few minutes (even when the pc is perfactly optimized)

What is really sad in my opinion: so much complains due low fps and no statement by the devs at all.

[nocturna 10]

Yep, no point spending money on new hardware unless you really need to upgrade. I get 25 FPS in towns during multiplayer with i7 3770k and GTX 770, low or ultra settings doesnt matter, the performance is the same and low CPU/GPU usage. Keep selling karts, BIS!

[hannsl 10]

In my opinion, it's fairly obvious where the performance bottleneck lies in the singleplayer campaign. The discussion around memory bandwidth and custom memory allocators is a waste of time, because the gains to be had in this area are probably marginal. Everybody knows the visibility settings (in particular of objects) have a greater impact on performance than anything else. Obviously the engine is processing a whole lot more information when we increase the visibility. Maybe the high memory bandwidth requirement is a clue that this processing is data intensive, but the fact remains that Bohemia needs to find a more efficient way of doing this processing or to do it in a different way. I'm not a game developer, so I can't offer much insight into what the exact problem might be.

[ruhtraeel 1]

In my opinion, it's fairly obvious where the performance bottleneck lies in the singleplayer campaign. The discussion around memory bandwidth and custom memory allocators is a waste of time, because the gains to be had in this area are probably marginal. Everybody knows the visibility settings (in particular of objects) have a greater impact on performance than anything else. Obviously the engine is processing a whole lot more information when we increase the visibility. Maybe the high memory bandwidth requirement is a clue that this processing is data intensive, but the fact remains that Bohemia needs to find a more efficient way of doing this processing or to do it in a different way. I'm not a game developer, so I can't offer much insight into what the exact problem might be.

You're wrong. The visibility setting affects the amount of calls to memory, which in turn affects FPS. Notice that while the framerate improves when you turn down visibility, CPU/GPU usage is still minimal at times.

I am a game developer, and a computer science major. It's in my degree's nature to look into these things, and try to find the exact problem given the information that we know, and the background knowledge that I have.

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

You're wrong. The visibility setting affects the amount of calls to memory, which in turn affects FPS. Notice that while the framerate improves when you turn down visibility, CPU/GPU usage is still minimal at times.

I am a game developer, and a computer science major. It's in my degree's nature to look into these things, and try to find the exact problem given the information that we know, and the background knowledge that I have.

The "affect fps" function seems to be disabled in Arma3. All "fps gain" are propably "Hardcoded" to NO

We talk about gain frames and not about poop like 2 or 3 frames which you gain through changing whole Options to get this 2 frames.This is ridicolous in Arma, and everyone who plays the game knows the problem. Expect of the devs propably, no word were lost due hard sucking performance on better PC´s... It´s extreme ridicolous but Frames are not acceptable for Players with better PC´s, about the Multiplayer Netcode i´ll better be quiet (please no special expert discussion which starts with "depends on server and ping and so on...") this bores me and is just a tickle disussionable...

[hannsl 10]

You're wrong. The visibility setting affects the amount of calls to memory, which in turn affects FPS. Notice that while the framerate improves when you turn down visibility, CPU/GPU usage is still minimal at times.

I am a game developer, and a computer science major. It's in my degree's nature to look into these things, and try to find the exact problem given the information that we know, and the background knowledge that I have.

Firstly, I think you should make less assumptions about other people's backgrounds. I'm a software developer with 8 years of experience in writing commercial software. I think you also posted a reply to another developer, which also assumed that he had no knowledge of software development.

Secondly, of course the visibility setting will affect the number of calls to memory, that was not my point. My point was that focusing on memory allocators and those types of low-level optimizations will not lead to the massive gains we need. I can get roughly 75 FPS when I lower the visibility setting to it lowest value, whereas I get 40 FPS when it is set to Ultra. Obviously that proves that the visibility setting itself has a large impact on performance, without taking ai and other processing into account. How much of an improvement do you expect by making low level optimizations?

Do you honestly think that you would be able to learn something about the engine that the BIS developers don't already know about? Clearly they have profiled it to death and done most of the optimizations that don't require rewriting of large portions of the engine. Otherwise they would be completely incompetent. Clearly the only way for us to get the performance improvements we desire is for them to rewrite the engine.

Edited August 8, 2014 by hannsl

[ruhtraeel 1]

Firstly, I think you should make less assumptions about other people's backgrounds. I'm a software developer with 8 years of experience in writing commercial software. I think you also posted a reply to another developer, which also assumed that he had no knowledge of software development.

Secondly, of course the visibility setting will affect the number of calls to memory, that was not my point. My point was that focusing on memory allocators and those types of low-level optimizations will not lead to the massive gains we need. I can get roughly 75 FPS when I lower the visibility setting to it lowest value, whereas I get 40 FPS when it is set to Ultra. Obviously that proves that the visibility setting itself has a large impact on performance, without taking ai and other processing into account. How much of an improvement do you expect by making low level optimizations?

Do you honestly think that you would be able to learn something about the engine that the BIS developers don't already know about? Clearly they have profiled it to death and done most of the optimizations that don't require rewriting of large portions of the engine. Otherwise they would be completely incompetent. Clearly the only way for us to get the performance improvements we desire is for them to rewrite the engine.

I'll start off by saying that I didn't state any explicit assumptions; only deriving from my own background. Also, without going into too much detail, Software Development and Computer Science are two very different fields. Software Development is mainly taken from a high-level perspective, with high level languages. Computer Scientists aren't "codemonkeys"; their purpose is not coding; rather, they understand the mechanics behind the code, the computer, and the logic and math behind it. The biggest factor is that instead of writing code given the tools and environment to do so, many of the connections between the hardware and the software must be explicitly stated. This is where I believe that my knowledge will help. No, I don't ever extensively learn how to write "nice" or "organized" code. I learn about why things work the way they do, hence the science part, rather than the direct application, such as software engineering.

In terms of solid proof, there are numerous documented cases (a couple pages back) of people overclocking their RAM and getting major benefits. While we obviously can't change the operation of Windows or the hardware, we can at least conclude that the allocation of memory is inefficient in this game. The major disconnect comes from the high vs low level debate. In Visual Studio, if you write a program in C#, for example, you will encounter hardware bottlenecks much more rarely, especially because higher level software development has an API and framework built for it. This means that memory management and such is automated. However, without reaching the level of assembly, C and C++ both require manual memory management and such, which provides a much closer look to why things take longer/are slower.

By looking past the "trial and error" way of optimizing framerates, we can sometimes find certain high-level methods of increasing performance. For example, if people only stuck with changing view distance, graphical settings, and overclocking processors, it would take much longer to realize things like RAM being a major factor in the overall performance.

Overall, I disagree that looking at the memory allocation of the game is useless, because there are many things to be learned.

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

Clearly the only way for us to get the performance improvements we desire is for them to rewrite the engine.

Thread should be closed with this posting, thats what i try to tell so much people... But Humans are humans, many of them didnt even know what they are talking about when thy giving suggestions to increase fps. I am not a game dev, but i work with computers, soft&hardware and all around this sector since over 20 years, couple of years ago i won 1st Place in a Crysis Screenshot Editing with Cryengine in Germany, means that i often know about i am speaking. Enough Biography ^^

Devs, fix that engine or give at least a statement why it takes so long to rework this Godzilla Old Engine.. As the customers which playing&supporting this product we should have the right for that.

[hannsl 10]

By the way, here's a interesting read on reddit where dayz's creator discussed the new engine they're working on. Clearly the 32bit memory limitation is an issue because according to him a move to 64bits has helped them with performance. This points to the fact that the file mapping api they're using is inefficient. Obviously rewriting the engine for 64bits is not possible at this point.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/27uf74/rgames_rdayz_ama_with_rocket_dayz_is_moving_to_a/

---------- Post added at 01:21 ---------- Previous post was at 01:12 ----------

I'll start off by saying that I didn't state any explicit assumptions; only deriving from my own background. Also, without going into too much detail, Software Development and Computer Science are two very different fields. Software Development is mainly taken from a high-level perspective, with high level languages. Computer Scientists aren't "codemonkeys"; their purpose is not coding; rather, they understand the mechanics behind the code, the computer, and the logic and math behind it. The biggest factor is that instead of writing code given the tools and environment to do so, many of the connections between the hardware and the software must be explicitly stated. This is where I believe that my knowledge will help. No, I don't ever extensively learn how to write "nice" or "organized" code. I learn about why things work the way they do, hence the science part, rather than the direct application, such as software engineering.

In terms of solid proof, there are numerous documented cases (a couple pages back) of people overclocking their RAM and getting major benefits. While we obviously can't change the operation of Windows or the hardware, we can at least conclude that the allocation of memory is inefficient in this game. The major disconnect comes from the high vs low level debate. In Visual Studio, if you write a program in C#, for example, you will encounter hardware bottlenecks much more rarely, especially because higher level software development has an API and framework built for it. This means that memory management and such is automated. However, without reaching the level of assembly, C and C++ both require manual memory management and such, which provides a much closer look to why things take longer/are slower.

By looking past the "trial and error" way of optimizing framerates, we can sometimes find certain high-level methods of increasing performance. For example, if people only stuck with changing view distance, graphical settings, and overclocking processors, it would take much longer to realize things like RAM being a major factor in the overall performance.

Overall, I disagree that looking at the memory allocation of the game is useless, because there are many things to be learned.

Again, you're making assumptions. I have a degree in computer science from one of the best universities in the world. I was trying to explain to you, that a lot the information you provide in your posts is common knowledge to software developers and doesn't need to be stated.

We already know that memory allocation in this game is inefficient, because it uses a file mapping api to get around the limitations of 32bit memory. However, a custom memory allocator won't get around these issues because it will only apply to memory that is allocated within the 32bit region. Bohemia is already aware of these issues as you can see from that discussion. I stand by my claim that the only way to get good performance is for them to rewrite the engine.

Edited August 8, 2014 by hannsl

[ruhtraeel 1]

By the way, here's a interesting read on reddit where dayz's creator discussed the new engine they're working on. Clearly the 32bit memory limitation is an issue because according to him a move to 64bits has helped them with performance. This points to the fact that the file mapping api they're using is inefficient. Obviously rewriting the engine for 64bits is not possible at this point.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/27uf74/rgames_rdayz_ama_with_rocket_dayz_is_moving_to_a/

---------- Post added at 01:21 ---------- Previous post was at 01:12 ----------

Again, you're making assumptions. I have a degree in computer science from one of the best universities in the world. I was trying to explain to you, that a lot the information you provide in your posts is common knowledge to software developers and doesn't need to be stated.

We already know that memory allocation in this game is inefficient, because it uses a file mapping api to get around the limitations of 32bit memory. However, a custom memory allocator won't get around these issues because it will only apply to memory that is allocated within the 32bit region. Bohemia is already aware of these issues as you can see from my other post. I stand by my claim that the only way to get good performance is for them to rewrite the engine.

Thank you for the clarification. Although asking for actual proof of graduation, etc is completely unnecessary, it is much easier and much less unsettling to know (or hope) that the person should know how having software development experience does not necessarily mean that it is applicable to optimization scenarios.

Background and e-peens aside, the reason for my posts are to hopefully educate people that otherwise wouldn't have known the reasons behind the game's performance. This can have multiple benefits:

1. Less posts saying "OMG THIS GAME IS CPU BOUND, SUPER INEFFICIENT etc etc"

2. Community involvement. By sharing and laying down knowledge, people with backgrounds from other areas can begin to at least attempt to fix/discover workarounds to (and sometimes succeed, such as overclocking RAM) performance issues. I believe it's at least more productive to an individual's knowledge, not even necessarily fixing the game, as opposed to sitting there and waiting for an engine rewrite.

[hannsl 10]

Thank you for the clarification. Although asking for actual proof of graduation, etc is completely unnecessary, it is much easier and much less unsettling to know (or hope) that the person should know how having software development experience does not necessarily mean that it is applicable to optimization scenarios.

Background and e-peens aside, the reason for my posts are to hopefully educate people that otherwise wouldn't have known the reasons behind the game's performance. This can have multiple benefits:

1. Less posts saying "OMG THIS GAME IS CPU BOUND, SUPER INEFFICIENT etc etc"

2. Community involvement. By sharing and laying down knowledge, people with backgrounds from other areas can begin to at least attempt to fix/discover workarounds to (and sometimes succeed, such as overclocking RAM) performance issues. I believe it's at least more productive to an individual's knowledge, not even necessarily fixing the game, as opposed to sitting there and waiting for an engine rewrite.

Fair enough, but I think people may have been getting the impression from your posts that memory bandwidth is the underlying problem, which I don't think is the case.