Low CPU utilization & Low FPS

[nikiforos 450]

Well they claim that the next update at the beginning of december will problably improve performance drastically, so as always, we have to wait and see ;)

Who claimed that? Source?

[R3vo 2654]

Who claimed that? Source?

http://dev.arma3.com/post/sitrep-00083

There you go!

[Greenfist 1863]

The SITREP says: "Tests of recent server-side multiplayer optimizations are looking promising." And links to Dwarden's Reddit post about server performance which notes: "client-side low fps (sp/mp) is different problem and will need another fixes !"

So no indication about performance boost for clients.

[TSAndrey 1]

The SITREP says: "Tests of recent server-side multiplayer optimizations are looking promising." And links to Dwarden's Reddit post about server performance which notes: "client-side low fps (sp/mp) is different problem and will need another fixes !"

So no indication about performance boost for clients.

Well a boost to server FPS should increase client FPS

[R3vo 2654]

Well a boost to server FPS should increase client FPS

Exactly. It will reduce the cases where server FPS limit the client FPS, therefore we will probably see a performance increase.

[Greenfist 1863]

Well a boost to server FPS should increase client FPS

Well, I'm a bit confused about that. Dwarden clearly states the client performance will unlikely be better on those perf servers.

So I guess the client fps drops when server fps is really really low but that's not the only or even the most common reason for low client performance?

And my fps on Chimera servers has been as low as in any other normal server.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Well they claim that the next update at the beginning of december will problably improve performance drastically...

You failed to specify "multiplayer only server improvements". Nothing about the applications CPU utilization, which is exactly what this thread is about. Improved dedicated server optimization is a welcome addition, but it is ignoring the elephant in the room. Dedicated servers usually do not significantly affect the clients performance anyway, unless of course they are in desperate need of an upgrade.

For the record, I get the exact same FPS range in MP and SP environments. Specifically comparing the DUWS Modified mission.

I get the same performance on ultra settings with 133% render resolution as I do at the lowest graphics settings. My total CPU utilization never goes above 50% even with core parking disabled completely.

Edited November 22, 2014 by JuggernautOfWar

[R3vo 2654]

You failed to specify "multiplayer only server improvements". Nothing about the applications CPU utilization, which is exactly what this thread is about.

For the record, I get the exact same FPS range in MP and SP environments. Improved dedicated server optimization is a welcome addition, but it is ignoring the elephant in the room.

Many server administrators report better CPU utilisation on their server, so I believe this fits perfectly in this thread.

And btw, if those dedicated server optimisations would not increase client fps somewhat at the end, why would dwarden then even bother to improve it.

[Llano 11]

Many server administrators report better CPU utilisation on their server, so I believe this fits perfectly in this thread.

And btw, if those dedicated server optimisations would not increase client fps somewhat at the end, why would dwarden then even bother to improve it.

To make it look like they are actually trying to fix it.

Bam nailed it.

[bigsyke 10]

For the record, I get the exact same FPS range in MP and SP environments. Specifically comparing the DUWS Modified mission.

Not me, or anyone that plays KOTH. SP I can get 70+. MP I can get 21fps on low or ultra.

I get in the 60's if there are only 10 players on, when there is about 80+, I'm down to 10fps. That's all KOTH servers. If the patches increase server performance, it would only seem logical it will provide huge client-side FPS boosts in this specific scenario. For once I have hope.

[MavericK96 0]

Not sure if this is related to the -enableHT command or not, but I am seeing activity only on every other core...i.e. Core 0, Core 2, Core 4, etc. Kind of odd.

Will have to test without that command enabled and see if that makes any difference.

[samuraisa 10]

Somehow I can't create a new thread, so...

I have only ONE BIG QUESTION to BI Studio:

it's not a secret - ArmA series is the one of most NOT optimised PC-series. Every next game need top PC and even there you almost never get 60+ FPS on max. Also we all know what BI Studio is still small enough studio with very limited human resources.

The question is:

Are you planning to rewrite your game engine from scratch in more multy-core-and-modern-GPU-optimised-modular way for ArmA 4 for example? Or we will get just another next iteration of OFP engine?

Last "...-modular" is about the suspicion (maybe I'm not right) now you have everything build-in so much in the core engine, what eny new feature implementation can get down the whole game on the knees. Many very useful/handful features added to the game by community, as it in russian "через жопу" (through ass), coz vanilla game don't have this. Even more - many basic things still works "через жопу" (like walking throug the wall with "V" button for example and many other collision glitches). Yes, you have a great contest MAnW, but why you don't use the developments of your community? I think it is not the human factor at first, it's coz it will be the big work with your current engine state and in the end it can cause even more glithes to the core. Fix me, if I'm wrong.

So, can we expect sometheing mind-blowing in the feature or...?

[Llano 11]

Somehow I can't create a new thread, so...

I have only ONE BIG QUESTION to BI Studio:

it's not a secret - ArmA series is the one of most NOT optimised PC-series. Every next game need top PC and even there you almost never get 60+ FPS on max. Also we all know what BI Studio is still small enough studio with very limited human resources.

The question is:

Are you planning to rewrite your game engine from scratch in more multy-core-and-modern-GPU-optimised-modular way for ArmA 4 for example? Or we will get just another next iteration of OFP engine?

Last "...-modular" is about the suspicion (maybe I'm not right) now you have everything build-in so much in the core engine, what eny new feature implementation can get down the whole game on the knees. Many very useful/handful features added to the game by community, as it in russian "через жопу" (through ass), coz vanilla game don't have this. Even more - many basic things still works "через жопу" (like walking throug the wall with "V" button for example and many other collision glitches). Yes, you have a great contest MAnW, but why you don't use the developments of your community? I think it is not the human factor at first, it's coz it will be the big work with your current engine state and in the end it can cause even more glithes to the core. Fix me, if I'm wrong.

So, can we expect sometheing mind-blowing in the feature or...?

Considering the past 10 years: I'd say no.

[samuraisa 10]

Considering the past 10 years: I'd say no.

1) I think you are not BIS employee ) I want to make somehow my words reach directly BIS and get the answer directly from them. I understand what I'm not some kind of VIP, but I think everybody who love ArmA share this question.

2) Is it possible at all in this reality? :)

[jshock 513]

1) I think you are not BIS employee ) I want to make somehow my words reach directly BIS and get the answer directly from them. I understand what I'm not some kind of VIP, but I think everybody who love ArmA share this question.

2) Is it possible at all in this reality? :)

You said it yourself, BI is,

still small enough studio with very limited human resources

So, as with anything, rewriting the engine is entirely possible, but BI needs both man power and the support of us, the community, to help get BI in a position where making and paying for the needed resources to make a new engine is feasible.

And, no I'm not a developer or am I even remotely close to working for BI, but I understand that making a game, much less an engine, is not the easiest of tasks, especially when your still a growing company, in an extremely unique niche in the gaming world, because honestly there are no other games out there like most of BI's games, at least in their ability for the users to essentially re-write the game, if they wanted to. I just respect what they have for us, and hope for a brighter future.

As far as you wanting a response to your question from a dev or otherwise, I don't know about you, but I still like surprises from time to time, and a new engine would be an awesome surprise for the future :D.

[CockSalad 10]

While I agree, I have just tried the 1.36.133RC and I'm not really sure if it is improved, because the servers are empty or have 5 player not doing very much at one time (at max). I was getting great FPS of ~40-60 in that build on the multiplayer servers, but as I said, it is hard to tell because it's not like a full loaded co-op server or PvP server. The 'fps' problem only seems to happen to clients after there's about 10 players and some actions happening in the server.

And when it becomes a full release, we can see if the problem has actually been fixed. Personally I would not care if you still had Direct3d9 or Direct3d8 with some post-process effects to make it look shinier for the modern-day whiners. However, the problem is with the actual engine code and not the renderer, and having 20fps regardless of any graphics settings under certain conditions in multiplayer. Obviously if you overclock to 4.0ghz on your GPU or buy an IntelI7, it might increase your FPS or accelerate you past the bottleneck a bit by just processing the code faster. However, it only goes to like 30-40 max under those conditions even if those users have those top-end CPUs, thus clearly a bottleneck caused by coding. I just hope the next release fixes this or at least actually improves it, because the last ones didn't do anything for me.

Edited November 30, 2014 by CockSalad

[MavericK96 0]

Not sure if this is related to the -enableHT command or not, but I am seeing activity only on every other core...i.e. Core 0, Core 2, Core 4, etc. Kind of odd.

Will have to test without that command enabled and see if that makes any difference.

Tested without -enableHT and the behavior is the same. As far as I can tell -enableHT does absolutely nothing on my HT processor.

[Dwarden 1125]

the only thing -enableHT does is assign micro-jobs and low priority task to these logical cores

[bigsyke 10]

While I agree, I have just tried the 1.36.133RC and I'm not really sure if it is improved, because the servers are empty or have 5 player not doing very much at one time (at max). I was getting great FPS of ~40-60 in that build on the multiplayer servers, but as I said, it is hard to tell because it's not like a full loaded co-op server or PvP server. The 'fps' problem only seems to happen to clients after there's about 10 players and some actions happening in the server.

And when it becomes a full release, we can see if the problem has actually been fixed. Personally I would not care if you still had Direct3d9 or Direct3d8 with some post-process effects to make it look shinier for the modern-day whiners. However, the problem is with the actual engine code and not the renderer, and having 20fps regardless of any graphics settings under certain conditions in multiplayer. Obviously if you overclock to 4.0ghz on your GPU or buy an IntelI7, it might increase your FPS or accelerate you past the bottleneck a bit by just processing the code faster. However, it only goes to like 30-40 max under those conditions even if those users have those top-end CPUs, thus clearly a bottleneck caused by coding. I just hope the next release fixes this or at least actually improves it, because the last ones didn't do anything for me.

I'm still confident it's not entirely the engine. I have been playing KOTH servers nearly every day since the release of Arma3, and there was one update almost a year back that completely destroyed the game. I'm sure it was just a gig of bloat and new textures and useless sounds. Game tracker had me at #1 on each KOTH server for months, until that unspecified release. Not sure if it was a ton of new textures and features, but I went from getting 75:10 KD on-foot consistently to barely getting above 15:12 on average. I mean I'm probably the worst player on each server now. I completely suck and haven't made it to the top 10 in quite some time. My FPS were more than cut in half. I even went out and spent a stack upgrading. I got a 3fps increase, tops. It wasn't just the frame rate. Something else was totally off. I wouldn't call it lag, but I would say enemies don't die quite as fast when you fill them with lead, therefor I have chocked it up to a server->clients communication issue.

It's now getting bad enough that I can unload a clip into someones back and they still can kill me by shooting my foot, simply because the server isn't processing information fast enough, or something along those lines. Ping is 30-40ms. The game has become so un-playable on the ground in a large PvP server, that I just focus my time in the air.

When there is 10 people playing, thats another story, but it still seems to be doing something stupid, like processing all these new textures and DLC content whenever you pull the trigger, therefor -- my FPS goes from like 60fps down to 5fps when an enemy appears in front of me, or I pull the trigger. It's a joke.

[nikiforos 450]

When there is 10 people playing, thats another story, but it still seems to be doing something stupid, like processing all these new textures and DLC content whenever you pull the trigger, therefor -- my FPS goes from like 60fps down to 5fps when an enemy appears in front of me, or I pull the trigger. It's a joke.

Can you please tell us about your specs?

I'm one of the guys complaining the most about low FPS but I have to admit that only the previous month there have been very promising improvement in performance. Going from 60 fps tp 5 fps must depend on something else , like hardware etc.

So please tell us what your specs before we can give you some valuable info.

Edited December 3, 2014 by Nikiforos

[bigsyke 10]

Can you please tell us about your specs?

I'm one of the guys complaining the most about low FPS but I have to admit that only the previous month there have been very promising improvement in performance. Going from 60 fps tp 5 fps most depend on something else , like hardware etc.

So please tell us what your specs before we can give you some valuable info.

That's strange as I have experienced the direct opposite, up to a point. The FPS was still bad, but it seemed as if the "netcode" was better, which also seemed to keep things in check, and kept the game playable. I only started complaining when they released a patch a while back that had a "ton" of new textures, sounds and ect -- probably sometime last year. Then we started snowballing until we got to the two month period where the desync took over. Now we have low FPS, and what seems like terrible netcode. The only description I can provide is that it seems like the servers are running on their own frame rate. Hypothetically I could be running 40fps, but the movement updates of an enemy hiding in some debris could be running at 2fps. Therefor it's hard to target the enemy when they are all over the place. This is why I am optimistic about the new development servers offsetting some low FPS client issues. However playing them, I have not experienced anything different, in fact, those have been the ones I have since kept away from because of walking up to an AFK enemy, unloading 2 clips in the back of the head --killing them, only to be killed by their stock gun (in death) -- single shot in the foot.

Therefor, I am less hopeful on the future of this game.

I have two PC's, both exhibit the same behavior, along with many of the people I play with.

fx8350 @ 4.5

R9 270x oc

16gb 1866 cl9

4x 256GB SSD samsung pros

Win7 64.

i7 4770k

R9 270x

8gb 1866

1tb 7200rpm spinner, with just arma3 and windows 8.1.

Low/Ultra, doesn't matter much. 0 background tasks (no real-time AV). My ping is consistently 40ms on the servers I play on. Again, I have put more hours into Arma2 and Arma3 than any other game, which is why I am so critical. The game never gets old for me. Recently it's hard to put in more than an hour.

[pluke the 2 10]

everyone complains about fps like its the end of the world. move onto another game if you cant play it or enjoy it. i know what youre saying. ive put 700 hours in arma3 in the last 6 months. and i also play koh. my rig is prolly twice the costs of yours and my frames are 16-26 depending on the location or vehicle. i do play with all my settings maxed. but its not just you and your computers. its the engine and its terrible. but if i were to make any suggestions or additions to the engine, i'd fail even harder.

options for everyone in troubleshooting with frame rate issues:

1. MOVE ONTO ANOTHER GAME

2. QUIT YOUR BITCHING

3. OR SUCK IT UP AND PLAY THIS CRAP ENGINE

OH AND BI,

IF YOU WERE TO HAVE A FLAWLESS ENGINE LIKE WE ALL WISH YOU COULD HAVE, YOU'D PROLLY HAVE ONE VERY SUCCESSFUL GAME.

[Dwarden 1125]

anyway preparing 1.36 PERF v1 servers (some optimizations aren't in STABLE due to possible instability)

yes, you read correct, there is more PERFormance lurking around ;)

[nikiforos 450]

anyway preparing 1.36 PERF v1 servers (some optimizations aren't in STABLE due to possible instability)

yes, you read correct, there is more PERFormance lurking around ;)

Good job BI , finally we can be happy about performance getting better :)

[spanishsurfer 58]

anyway preparing 1.36 PERF v1 servers (some optimizations aren't in STABLE due to possible instability)

yes, you read correct, there is more PERFormance lurking around ;)

But wait there's more!? You a friend of Billy Mays David? I won't buy your oxy clean. Good to hear your still trying to squeeze every drop of performance. :-)