Low CPU utilization & Low FPS

[Furret 0]

Why the hell they used the same engine

I don't think BI wants to spend 3+ years developing a new engine from scratch, that means 3 years of no income. AND then a further x years to develop a game on top of the engine.

---------- Post added at 21:28 ---------- Previous post was at 21:26 ----------

Essentially, this is an unplayable game?

Client FPS is currently tied to Server FPS.

Try playing on the new performance servers that Dwarden is testing out.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?169944-Arma-3-STABLE-server-1-08-quot-performance-binary-quot-feedback

[Instynct 1]

It's playable on high end systems... just not enjoyable or acceptable to most people.

[ruhtraeel 1]

For me, the ONLY thing that affects my FPS is view distance. The pattern was that if I was looking into the distance without many objects on screen, I would get 95% GPU usage and around 45-55 FPS with everything maxed out. However, when I look into a town on Altis, my GPU usage steadily drops to around 50%, and my FPS tanks to around 28-30 FPS.

I originally thought that this was because of my CPU bottlenecking, but after checking its usage, it is steadily at 60%-70%.

This is frustrating because I know my GPU is more than capable of handling the game (seeing as how I can get like 45 FPS when it's at 95% usage), but it isn't even my CPU that's making things worse, as it's not even being used that much either.

I have a feeling if the CPU usage can catch up, then the GPU usage will catch up as well, giving higher frames.

As of now, the first mission in the new campaign is almost unplayable and certainly unenjoyable, as sometimes it feels like a slideshow with the low FPS combined with the occasional stutter when the game has to load objects.

[Furret 0]

I originally thought that this was because of my CPU bottlenecking, but after checking its usage, it is steadily at 60%-70%.

Right now the game doesn't use multi-core processors to their full potential, bring up task manager and see how much core 0 is being used, I would imagine its very close to 100%. This means you are being CPU bottlenecked but the overall usage still shows < 70%. This is why processors with more efficient instruction processing are so much better and why overclocking gives such a significant performance boost, they both improve that core 0 performance.

[stk2008 14]

I don't think BI wants to spend 3+ years developing a new engine from scratch, that means 3 years of no income. AND then a further x years to develop a game on top of the engine.

---------- Post added at 21:28 ---------- Previous post was at 21:26 ----------

Client FPS is currently tied to Server FPS.

Try playing on the new performance servers that Dwarden is testing out.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?169944-Arma-3-STABLE-server-1-08-quot-performance-binary-quot-feedback

Yeah I understand it would take time but why release such an unoptimized pile of pooh :(

[mariodu62 5]

Right now the game doesn't use multi-core processors to their full potential, bring up task manager and see how much core 0 is being used, I would imagine its very close to 100%. This means you are being CPU bottlenecked but the overall usage still shows < 70%. This is why processors with more efficient instruction processing are so much better and why overclocking gives such a significant performance boost, they both improve that core 0 performance.

Don't forget that windows use core 0, so use affinity setting for your game and NEVER use CORE 0 for a server or a game.

[LowFlyZone 10]

How do make the game use another core as the primary one?

[TheBigOne_014 16]

Wow....I bet you (not saying you are but just betting) are one of the people that think "ARMA IS BE BEST GAME IS THE WHOLE WORLD, DONT NEED ANY OTHER GAME" and "YOU DONT NEED GRAPHIC TO PLAY THIS GAME BECAUSE ITS NOT ABOUT GRAPHIC BUT ABOUT THE REALISTIC COMBAT SIMULATION"....hey, thats okey because you can have whatever opinion you want :)

Anyway, for those who needs a refresh... http://boallen.com/fps-compare.html

---------- Post added at 13:49 ---------- Previous post was at 13:44 ----------

Or even better...

http://frames-per-second.appspot.com/

I wonder if ARMA4 is also gonna be poorly optimized due to engine limitation?

---------- Post added at 15:20 ---------- Previous post was at 13:49 ----------

Thanks, tried these settings now on a custom mission on Altis and my avarage FPS running around on the ground on hill is 40-45 FPS with these settings. Not impressed..

No i'm not one of those. But why the obsession of the 60FPS to be a playable game!?!? What is going to happen to you when the engine is optimized and you reach 60FPS!?

- The simulator will be finally playable!?

- Will you kill more enemies!?

- It's going to improve gameplay by 50%-100%!?

- A3 it's going to be finally the best war simulator!?

- It's going to massively improve imersion to be able to see farder than 1500m in Very High Quality with 60FPS!?

My awser to all of the above. NO. Other's may have another opinion,...

This topic has 2607 Post, and it's all the same thing, over and over again,...

- Why ARMA 3 whit a new engine has so low FPS especialy in MP mode!?!?

- Why is not using all cores!?

- Why is not reaching 100% load on the cores!?

- Why it has so mutch better performance on Intels and AMD suck!?

- Why with and a top end rig i'm not getting 60 FPS!?

A3 engine is like the Cry Engine when it came out,... heavy and not optimized,... let the devs work on it! At least on the server end Dwarden is doing and excelent job! And it has inproved the MP Performance alot, there are reports of players with more FPS in the servers (MP mode) than in SP mode with some of the Performance Binary Server he is providing to Server Admins.

This is my opinion! You may or may not agree with it,... it's cool. ;)

P.S. - The sites you published,... specially this one (http://frames-per-second.appspot.com/) they add motion blur to make their point. It's what the app tells when you are changing settings.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Nuno Basto

[LowFlyZone 10]

Dwarden why u no work on SP binary

... I tried playing with the affinity settings, I notice in my windows that core 4 (3) is actually being used the most (when out of game). Start game, alt-tab out and set core 1 (0) or 4 (3) off but my FPS slightly decreases. Arma 3 by default uses core 1 (0) the most for me.

[daze23 1]

so does 'affinity mode' help anyone?

[nikiforos 450]

so does 'affinity mode' help anyone?

Nope!

[LowFlyZone 10]

Ok I would really like to understand some things based on some further tests I did. To help me understand the engine and the way this engine works with CPUs.

In my own tests I can see the engine struggles to use resources the more you throw at it. Give me an empty map and my GPU usage is near max and my CPU usage is around 60-90% (it jumps around). I now took a large unit count mission I was making that has ~220 units and consistently tested my FPS around the same spot on a hill I deemed one of the worst locations to be / direction to face in this mission. I would drop to 20-23 FPS and it sticks between those figures. Tested about 4 times loading the mission again each time.

Ok I can say my CPU was around 50-60% and GPU about 50% average. (You can see these figures are lower than an empty map already). I then added even more units, by just dropping them in (groups) with no waypoints or anything, unlike what the rest of the units (part of the actual mission) have where many are using UPSMON.

Now I had about 360 units (according to count allUnits) which was approx 140 more than the previous test.

This dropped my average FPS even more (obviously, like it should) and at the same notorious spot I was getting 18-19 FPS, not much lower than before but I could tell the game was struggling and choppy.

Here's the main thing, my CPU usage was in the 30's and the same goes for my GPU usage. So that's another huge drop in resource utilization...

Now I get the problems with the engine, poor threading and use of 2 or more cores among other things because it's from the late nineties. I just want to understand from a computer science(y) point of view why this is happening...

Is it because of the game engine's multiple AI (and other) sub-routines working in a single, or very few threads, that now cause locking when each of the threads become longer and longer with more work? Is this then causing the load to not reach other threads and hence bringing the load down, and making it look like my PC is giving up but it's just the game that can't give it more work, causing a drop in FPS? Am I on the right track, right or wrong? :confused:

If someone could explain this to me I'd be very gratefull. It would go a long way in helping me understand computers and programming them.:cool:

[Llano 11]

A3 engine is like the Cry Engine when it came out,... heavy and not optimized,... let the devs work on it! At least on the server end Dwarden is doing and excelent job! And it has inproved the MP Performance alot, there are reports of players with more FPS in the servers (MP mode) than in SP mode with some of the Performance Binary Server he is providing to Server Admins.

VR engine came out like 10 years ago? Still the same engine as core in A3. I actually find it hard to believe that the devs will come up with some super optimazation and we all get extra 20 fps. It's not like the devs havn't had time to work on optimizing the game.

[arotished 10]

VR engine came out like 10 years ago? Still the same engine as core in A3. I actually find it hard to believe that the devs will come up with some super optimazation and we all get extra 20 fps. It's not like the devs havn't had time to work on optimizing the game.

Exactly! They simply dont know how to fix (or optimize) its very own engine and ofcourse, BIS is the last people on earth who is gonna admit just that. Its so sad because ARMA series is very good but I haven't even bothered trying the new ADAPT campaign yet because I know how laggy everything will be on Altis and sorry, Im not gonna turn down all my graphic options just to be able to get passed 60FPS (which is minimum FPS in any game for me)

But, just to be clear...ARMA 3 looks amazing but you know what? so does Battlefield 4 and I can run that game on ultra with 150+ FPS 99% of the time. Not telling that you can compare these two games when it comes to gameplay BUT, when it comes to grapich you can...both games was released at the same time.

One thing that I dont understand, is how people with much worse computer (on paper) than me can play this game.

---------- Post added at 09:21 ---------- Previous post was at 09:07 ----------

No i'm not one of those. But why the obsession of the 60FPS to be a playable game!?!? What is going to happen to you when the engine is optimized and you reach 60FPS!?

- The simulator will be finally playable!?

- Will you kill more enemies!?

- It's going to improve gameplay by 50%-100%!?

- A3 it's going to be finally the best war simulator!?

- It's going to massively improve imersion to be able to see farder than 1500m in Very High Quality with 60FPS!?

My awser to all of the above. NO. Other's may have another opinion,...

This topic has 2607 Post, and it's all the same thing, over and over again,...

- Why ARMA 3 whit a new engine has so low FPS especialy in MP mode!?!?

- Why is not using all cores!?

- Why is not reaching 100% load on the cores!?

- Why it has so mutch better performance on Intels and AMD suck!?

- Why with and a top end rig i'm not getting 60 FPS!?

A3 engine is like the Cry Engine when it came out,... heavy and not optimized,... let the devs work on it! At least on the server end Dwarden is doing and excelent job! And it has inproved the MP Performance alot, there are reports of players with more FPS in the servers (MP mode) than in SP mode with some of the Performance Binary Server he is providing to Server Admins.

This is my opinion! You may or may not agree with it,... it's cool. ;)

P.S. - The sites you published,... specially this one (http://frames-per-second.appspot.com/) they add motion blur to make their point. It's what the app tells when you are changing settings.

Yes, we have all different opinion and we should all respect that :) The thing you dont include in your reply is the general feeling in the game. With my settings I get around 30FPS in any SP missions on Altis and sorry, to not be able to even turn my character smooth and also, some FSP drops below 30FPS is destroying the gamefeeling for me. So, the low FPS dont have anything to do with gameplay as you mention, I agree with that.

I also agree that CryEngine was the same when it came out, same with Cry Engine 2 and the last Cry Engine 3. When Crysis 3 first came out I got barely 15-20 FPS with everything on max on my previous primary rig, now I get a solid 50-60 with the same computer. This is called improvements because the developer have control and knowledge about their own engine and know how to fix the problem based on what feedback they get. ARMA 3 have seen been out for 1 year now Including the BETA time and to be honest, I haven't felt any improvements in the game...have you?

Being on this forum for only a short time, I see that there are many clever minds here and many are trying to get to the bottom on WHY the game is performing so bad.....but sadly, their effort and threads seems to just be a discussion with them self and others who share their opinion.

Anyway, I wanna finish this post with telling that I love ARMA and dont know how many hours I had with Operation Flashpoint when it came out. I hope BIS will be able to fix the game so that you actually can injoy both good graphics and have a good feeling in this game which already have a very good gameplay.

[Furret 0]

Please don't state "arma uses only 30% of my cpu", you need to say how much each core is being used, its not accurate otherwise.

[stk2008 14]

amra 3 will never be fixed

arma 2 had the same issue we could kind of forgive them for that because multicore cpu`s where not mega main stream untill towards the end of arma2`s life.

we all complained and took a few months but a dev said

we cant fix this due to engine limitations.

now arma3 comes out practically on same bloody engine and guess what same issue but 10x worse.

how can they fix it when they could not for arma2 its the same engine

bis i am really disappointed we aint getting no feedback from you just ignoring us.

uninstall arma3 and move on.

prove me wrong bis please for the love of god prove me wrong

[Instynct 1]

The point is that they don't have to fix it so they won't. People are still buying the game because there's nothing that competes with this game in what most people buy it for... realism. Then we have the clueless moderators and bohemia fanboys on the forums spamming 'it must be a problem with your system'.

[arotished 10]

The point is that they don't have to fix it so they won't. People are still buying the game because there's nothing that competes with this game in what most people buy it for... realism. Then we have the clueless moderators and bohemia fanboys on the forums spamming 'it must be a problem with your system'.

People that wants REAL realistic games should take a look at Project Reality....its a 8GB mod for battlefield 2. Currently the are working on a stand alone version based on the cry engine 3 and best of all, its free.

http://www.realitymod.com/

[Zordon 1]

Hello guys, i want to upgrade my CPU but i have no idea which one's the best to go for.

http://pcel.com/hardware/procesadores-cpu-intel-amd-core-pentium-celeron?sort=p.price&order=DESC

This is my current setup.

GPU: Nvidia GTX660

CPU: i5-2400

RAM: 8 GB

It's entirely for gaming and im going to need to upgrade my mobo as well because the socket is 1155.

Help is appreciated. Thanks

[MavericK96 0]

For ArmA you are going to want to go with raw speed over number of cores. So a quad core that can overclock to 4.0+ GHz is probably your best bet.

[pr0ph3tswe 1]

Hello guys, i want to upgrade my CPU but i have no idea which one's the best to go for.

http://pcel.com/hardware/procesadores-cpu-intel-amd-core-pentium-celeron?sort=p.price&order=DESC

This is my current setup.

GPU: Nvidia GTX660

CPU: i5-2400

RAM: 8 GB

It's entirely for gaming and im going to need to upgrade my mobo as well because the socket is 1155.

Help is appreciated. Thanks

i5 4670k + a mobo for it should be good :)

look into overclocking it, specially for arma/dayz, it will help a lot

[Furret 0]

the latest intel processor, the i5 4670k would suit your needs. Go with a nice after-market cooler.

Do not buy an i7 as it will not provide enough additional performance to justify the additional cost.

[kendoka15 10]

the latest intel processor, the i5 4670k would suit your needs. Go with a nice after-market cooler.

Do not buy an i7 as it will not provide enough additional performance to justify the additional cost.

That obviously depends on what it's used for

But an overclocked i5 is quite a beast

[Zordon 1]

Thanks for your responses guys, i5 4670k it is.

[Genux888 10]

Hello,

So if I understand correctly, with my new pc:

AMD CPU FX8350

8Go

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Twin Frozr

there's nothing to hope for a patch, the game still will row because it was designed to run with Intel processors ?