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Low CPU utilization & Low FPS

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Here is an excellent article on the difficulty of getting multicore systems to use their potential:

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=55346

Obv, it is abstracted because it is for a different simulator, but explains why the devs at X-Plane can't get their sim to use every available core. I see parallels between their sim and Arma (open world, large distances, AI etc). There's a lot of potential for the user to set up (and possibly balls-up) the sim rendering to their taste.

Quote on "concurrency" for those who don't want to read the whole thing:

OK... say on your rig X-Plane really is cpu limited, and it's not using all your cores. Why not? Most programming languages (including C++ - what X-Plane is written in) are sequential. A program is a sequence of computations and decisions, done one after another. That's called a thread. A thread runs on one core (at a time). To use multiple cores, the programmer must break up the program into multiple threads that can run concurrently. This only works up to a point. Just like you can only put so many carpenters to work building a house before they start hitting each other with their hammers, you can only run so many threads on an app before they start getting in each others' way. Just like you put multiple carpenters to work on different sections of a house, multiple threads work best when they operate on different sections of the program.

I'm no expert on these sort of things but it does highlight similar issues to Arma.

Note that they did feel the need to recode X-Plane 10 for 64 bit though..

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Here is an excellent article on the difficulty of getting multicore systems to use their potential:

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=55346

Obv, it is abstracted because it is for a different simulator, but explains why the devs at X-Plane can't get their sim to use every available core. I see parallels between their sim and Arma (open world, large distances, AI etc). There's a lot of potential for the user to set up (and possibly balls-up) the sim rendering to their taste.

Quote on "concurrency" for those who don't want to read the whole thing:

I'm no expert on these sort of things but it does highlight similar issues to Arma.

Note that they did feel the need to recode X-Plane 10 for 64 bit though..

It explains why you will never get a 100% performance increase per core but not why a program can't be multi-threaded. For instance in ArmA, all of your file operations are on separate threads, which is what the -exthreads command is for. Just being able to offload the AI across multiple core's for instance would unload a huge bottleneck from the main processing thread. Sure it would be hard to do and time consuming, but it's not impossible and the gains would be worth it. Why do you run a headless client for instance? Because it takes the stress of AI calculations off of the main server and puts them in a dummy server right? Why not do that same thing but across multiple core's? It's obviously possible if it can be sync'd through a network right?

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It explains why you will never get a 100% performance increase per core but not why a program can't be multi-threaded. For instance in ArmA, all of your file operations are on separate threads, which is what the -exthreads command is for. Just being able to offload the AI across multiple core's for instance would unload a huge bottleneck from the main processing thread. Sure it would be hard to do and time consuming, but it's not impossible and the gains would be worth it. Why do you run a headless client for instance? Because it takes the stress of AI calculations off of the main server and puts them in a dummy server right? Why not do that same thing but across multiple core's? It's obviously possible if it can be sync'd through a network right?

Don't get me wrong mate, - I totally agree and would love to see my CPU being taxed more let's say, appropriately than it seems to be at the moment.

I've only done some cursory research and most of my observations are anecdotal (no "evidence" as such) but it seems to me that as many other posters have mentioned there is a glass ceiling where over a certain number of AI seem to absolutely kill performance. (Especially once shots are fired and they go into "combat" mode).

As you mention, HC's are the way to go at the moment in terms of increasing AI numbers without hitting performance, but they are extra $$$ to get involved so it's a bitter pill to swallow for some.

I applaud mods like ALiVE using creative ways to manage the AI load, but even then, once the active AI go over a certain threshold, you're stuck with crappy performance and some desync.

I tried an ALiVE mission the other day with some guys - half went to attack the AO and the other half went to another random AO to activate it and see what happens. Once the second lot of AI units were spawned into the game it was all creak creak shudder shudder.

I hope they (BIS) find some way to manage the AI load better, but it must be hard to balance the expectation for the AI to be smarter (more CPU cycles doing calcs) versus the playerbase wanting better performance.

Anyway, these are just my personal observations - your mileage may vary! ;)

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@flyingspatula

this is not a problem, every single game works like this

gpu usage drops when cpu is the bottleneck, and cpu usage drops when gpu is the bottleneck...(view distance use cpu power)

I can have easily 100% gpu usage in SP with same settings i will put in any other game.

but anyway, i dont even understand how this thread got stickied...

Edited by Faultron

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We are a group of player's playing under the name Baracudakillers, Sins the patch that came 3-4 weeks ago we hawent ben abel to play arma 3

We are hawig al kinde of trubel, first and formost we hawe trubel whit the Drawing of objekts and a real and huge drop in frame rate, Micro stutterig. the overal fealing of the game hawe gone from good to really bad.

We fall fro the flor when pronig in bildings, get stuk in objekts when talkig cover neer objekts, even faling in to huge stones and geting stuk.

We hawe for the past weeks been trying all kinde of settings to try geting the game good for playing again.. But the consensus for us is the game is broken and need som reel mending. Sy developers but u hawe broken the game

Greatig from the Baracudakillers of sweden

fro Grimel

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Yes, patch 1.10 was a mess ! Unfortunately with steam there is no option to revert to 1.08.

Edited by Nikiforos

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Has anyone else experienced Altis reducing FPS? I play any other maps just fine altis on the other hand basically is choppy @25 fps. Will there be a fix for this , what's funny is I played fine during alpha and ounce it went into final stages of bravo .....it capped out reduced frame rates glitches my player as if I'm on Meth.

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Was altis on beta? I just remember Stratis. At least no MP servers ran Altis. Then came release and I couldn't find a single server running stratis (Domi/I&A-style missions).

Stratis is lighter on the PC, doesn't require as much as Altis. Which is why I'd rather see Stratis used more.

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Decided to come back and give the "Adapt" campaign a try...

no surprise... as soon as I got off the beach on the first mission and started moving towards a town... 19fps of some choppy mess... woohoo...

I'd ask when something meaningful was finally going to be done about this, but I know the answer...

If we aren't talking about this issue, they aren't talking about it. They only acknowledge it in the vaguest/most generalized way possible, won't speak clearly about it, it never shows up in any specific way in their roadmap, etc, etc... instead, they seem quite happy to rely on the cover of misinformation that thrives in the void of no information, input, etc, from the devs.

Same as it was 2 months ago, 12 months ago, 24 months ago, with Arma 2, etc.

If you have problems:

Step 1: It's your fault, or your computer sucks.

Step 2: It's your fault, your computer sucks, or you are a liar.

Step 3: Enter a bunch of bullshit in your parameters that you've already tried for 4 years. The placebo effect should be enough to make you shut up.

Step 3: Did you make sure your computer doesn't suck? It must. Maybe you do? If not, turn off your a/v, derrrrrrrr...

Step 4: Go back to xyz game. You suck.

Step 5: Dwarden make sarcastic and/or condescending post

Step 6: Rinse and Repeat.

</sarcasm>

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Everytime very interesing to read this post´s

My Computer´s must be very unique, and my server too. FPS are all the time ok for playing. hmm and thr Rig´s of my friends must be unique too... hmmm

Performance could be better? YES... ARMA3 is unplayable? NO...

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Just b/c it is playable for you, doesn't mean it is for others, friend. It's not a one or the other situation, clearly...

You basically just proved my point though. If you can find a place where I have ever said that this game is unplayable for everyone, I'll give you a cookie. You seemed to indicate that I was committing that logical fallacy, but I've never said any such thing.

On the other hand, you proceeded to not only commit said fallacy, but also helped prove my point.

Because it is playing fine for you and your friend, that means it *should* be playable for everyone else? And, for the many of us who have reported (since before arma 3 was even a fart in the wind) the game being highly unplayable under a number of circumstances? We're just wrong/lying?

Like you, I have friends, too :) we've played together. And, we've tracked the same exact performance issues, on three different rigs. We've all reported the same fps killing usage-crapping in the same places in the game.

Does that mean one of us is lying/wrong? Hardly. While a certain amount of subjectivity must be taken into account, it seems far more likely (and logical) that this game is playable for some, and not for others.

Game has major problems in this arena. They seem to be foundational, considering the number of years it has gone reported and unfixed (across multiple releases). It seems clear that it effects some users worse than others. And, to just say b/c it runs fine for you.... ignores years worth of evidence reported by others.

If the game could stay at ~30fps, I'd be fine. But, the only way to ensure that (for me) is to be relegated to rural, small-scale, infrantry-only combat. Otherwise, I am more likely to see teens, than I am 30. So, yeah... (FOR ME) 70+% of this game is unplayable. And, that which is playable has an extremely limited shelf-life given how restrictive it is.

I'm glad the game runs great for you. But, what does that have to do with the people it doesn't run fine for? If I had a dollar for every time I read that...

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its basicly unplayable, BI failed on the community to establish a performance friendly gamemode, altis life is the worst...

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I was playing on the #CZ MP StressTest server, which is running the Performance binaries, tonight and was getting 9-13fps a lot of the time with it running DYN/CO-72, even though there was only about 10 players on at the end but there were friendly and enemy AI as well so that obviously affects the framerate. I still played for several hours as it was quite fun running round with a small group but I doubt I killed anything and that's partly due to the poor framerate making it harder than it should be.

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@Mobile_Medic

My Post was not specially against you. More then a report from the "other side" that not everything must be so bad like described. A3 could be run better yes absolutly. But it rans not as bad as much times described here.

I am pretty sure that there are problems, (FPS drops etc.) but unplayable?

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It should be pretty obvious at this point that there will be no performance fix.

Agreed BIS had same problem with arma2 and they finally admitted they could not fix it due to engine limitations arma3 is arma2 with lots of stuff strapped on which in turn kills FPS even more.

:(

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It should be pretty obvious at this point that there will be no performance fix.

Are you serious!?!?!? Where did you get that info!? From what i read from the Devs they are working on improving performance,... i don't know about you, but i started in Stratis, in the APLHA stage with 20-30 FPS,... now i have arround 50-60,... the computer is the same, no OC's, and back then there was already players complayning about the low performance and etc,....!!! The progress has been steady, SLOW, but steady... you guys have to recognise that.

Yes it drops to 20-25fps when there are explosions and lot's of smoke, but it's normal, and it's not unplayable as some say here...

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Improving FPS? Did you compare patch 1.08 with patch 1.10 ?

Oh God , discussing Arma 3( Arma2) performance is never ending story.

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Improving FPS? Did you compare patch 1.08 with patch 1.10 ?

To tell you the truth, for me nothing changed! But thats maybe because in my Squad we use the "performance binary server".

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Even BIS acknowledged the problem with FPS drops and released a fix. Unfortunately the fix didn't restore the frames to the same level as with 1.08.

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He is right.

Serverside performance was with 1.08 better then with 1.10. Performance binaries can improve Server performance, but it was never the same performance as with version 1.08.

they are working at the issues and yes it is a steady way. I repeat, i have no idea what hardware you all use, or what problems you specially have. I never can agree with you that it will be so ugly as described. the min FPS is lower than in other Games yes. but now with 280 hours of playing A3 the performance was never the fun killer or make the game unplayable for me.

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Are you serious!?!?!? Where did you get that info!? From what i read from the Devs they are working on improving performance,... i don't know about you, but i started in Stratis, in the APLHA stage with 20-30 FPS,... now i have arround 50-60,... the computer is the same, no OC's, and back then there was already players complayning about the low performance and etc,....!!! The progress has been steady, SLOW, but steady... you guys have to recognise that.

Yes it drops to 20-25fps when there are explosions and lot's of smoke, but it's normal, and it's not unplayable as some say here...

Yes, for me it's unplayable.

Still, you give 0 information on what server you play on, map, teamsize etc. Yes, i can also get 60 fps if i enter a server with 3 guys on, 10 AI, and no action. But how much fun is that?

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Yes, for me it's unplayable.

Still, you give 0 information on what server you play on, map, teamsize etc. Yes, i can also get 60 fps if i enter a server with 3 guys on, 10 AI, and no action. But how much fun is that?

i averaged 50ish fps on sa-matra wasteland 60 man servers, haven't played in a few weeks now but guessing performance is still about the same, while 60+ fps is way smooth 45-50 is fine in arma imo

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Yes, for me it's unplayable.

Still, you give 0 information on what server you play on, map, teamsize etc. Yes, i can also get 60 fps if i enter a server with 3 guys on, 10 AI, and no action. But how much fun is that?

i averaged 50ish fps on sa-matra wasteland 60 man servers, haven't played in a few weeks now but guessing performance is still about the same, while 60+ fps is way smooth 45-50 is fine in arma imo

See,... Llano!!! I have +/- the same,...

I Have an i5 2300 STOCK, 8GB@1600Mhz and a GTX560,...

I had to re-install my SO about a month ago,... and i installed everything, and went to play Breaking Point, in a server with 32 players,... without changing any of the settings from my SO, nVidia Control Panel, and A3 video configurations. I HAD 25FPS! So i started to optimize everything,... at the 2º try with 45 players, guess what 50-55 FPS and better image quality!

I'll Put a video in a few days with all the optimizations you can make to you PC to get more FPS! I have seen videos on Youtube about optimization for Arma 3 that are an aberration!

Just wait a few days! ;)

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Hello, so I also have an issue with ArmA 3 and its only in multiplayer...

When I'm playing singleplayer ArmA 3 I'm getting 60 fps mainly but every time I want to join a multiplayer server I'm getting less than 15 FPS all the time and I don't know why it is like that. On Altis Life I'm getting 10 FPS I even asked others what kind of FPS they were getting almost everyone said they were getting 20+FPS. My CPU is working on 40% when playing Altis Life and my GPU is below 20% usage so I don't know what could it be. Is it possible that its a RAM issue?? Or maybe something else? Something software related? Please help I want to get rid of this low FPS its really annoying...

My PC specs:

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T @ 3.3ghz

Corsair Vengeance® — 8GB RAM

AMD ATi Radeon HD6950 1GB

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