Low CPU utilization & Low FPS

[stk2008 14]

This is my first post in many months why because BIS don't give a shit.

I was the biggest OFP fan then arma fan out there and BIS to me was the best game dev ever.

We had this same issue with arma2 and was told IT CAN'T BE FIXED

Due to engine limitations.

I gave BIS the benefit of the doubt and thought OK well arma 3 is bound to have a better engine with out such limitations oh how wrong I was.

Arma 3 is arma 2 but with more shit strapped on to it that bogs the all ready struggling and ageing engine down even more.

I have totally gave up on BIS and ARMA now there is no point they wont fix it and I bet you they can't due to same limitations as arma 2.

BIS I really am gutted that you just chucked arma 3 out the door to make money that's what it seems like to me and now your charging for things like snipers weapons when these things where free in arma 2 thanks to the great ACE team.

You have took the wrong path BIS I thought you where different to other game devs but money and the fame of dayZ has got to your head.

ARMA£ ;) is nothing more than a cash cow for dayz funding I feel and BIS have forgot there roots and the hundreds of fans that made them famous.

I have every arma,arma2,OFP addon ever made to show my respect to BIS but arma 3 is sat there in my steam library doing nothing because it runs LIKE SHIT.

yes I possibly will get banned for this :( but its the truth I am gutted I am passionate for the arma series and I have been let down they have zero intention of being honest and fixing this game.

You build a house on unusable foundations it will sooner or later collapse.

So keep fixing things like

Fix texture error

Correct fonts

Remove this add that

Charge for DLC and rape more money off people but you will end up like other game devs sooner or later people will not continue to support your shit for ever I for one have lost respect for you BIS this is terrible and disgusting.

Ohhh look I can now shoot from vehicles....oh Wait no I can't im running at 20fps and can't aim for shit its like a slide show.

[mobile_medic 43]

I gave BIS the benefit of the doubt and thought OK well arma 3 is bound to have a better engine with out such limitations oh how wrong I was.

Which, when they claim it is a "brand new engine" on their wiki page, your expectation seems completely reasonable... that was my expectation as well, based on their claims of a "brand new engine". Brand new engine, with the same old problems.

Fool me twice...

[windies 11]

Which, when they claim it is a "brand new engine" on their wiki page, your expectation seems completely reasonable... that was my expectation as well, based on their claims of a "brand new engine". Brand new engine, with the same old problems.

Fool me twice...

Aye, probably one of the bigger reasons I was initially upset was that ArmA seemed to be hyped up as really revamping the engine. Once you loaded it up though you clearly could see it was nothing but more of the same. Bloat on top of an already bloated engine.

I don't see anything changing unless we as a community force BI's hand more or less. That will never happen though because majority of the community anymore are modders who care more about getting new scripting tools to play with rather than how the game runs.

[opendome 91]

Im getting worst performance after the latest patch too. This is ridiculous

[stk2008 14]

I suggest we just give up TBH.

They wont fix it its all bullshit ive lost respect for BIS I would truly love for them to prove me wrong but I know it wont happen trust me this is ARMA 2 all over again.

There even charging for stuff we had free in ARMA 2 thanks to ACE 2 I mean this shows there just following all the other crap game devs.

I have deleted ARMA 3 install from my pc as there is no point I just keep being dissapointed every time I check the dev build,.

[jumpinghubert 49]

@Opendome

Since last stable patch I have to start the arma3.exe 3-4x to get full clockspeed on all cpu cores. Maybe that helps. 1 of 3 cores switches to 1600mhz and then back to full. Before this patch all was fine.

[windies 11]

I suggest we just give up TBH.

They wont fix it its all bullshit ive lost respect for BIS I would truly love for them to prove me wrong but I know it wont happen trust me this is ARMA 2 all over again.

There even charging for stuff we had free in ARMA 2 thanks to ACE 2 I mean this shows there just following all the other crap game devs.

I have deleted ARMA 3 install from my pc as there is no point I just keep being dissapointed every time I check the dev build,.

Honestly I don't want to give up because there's no alternative to ArmA and what ArmA can be if it runs properly. I have lost respect for BI, but they could easily earn it back by fixing the core issue's.

---------- Post added at 01:11 ---------- Previous post was at 01:10 ----------

@Opendome

Since last stable patch I have to start the arma3.exe 3-4x to get full clockspeed on all cpu cores. Maybe that helps. 1 of 3 cores switches to 1600mhz and then back to full. Before this patch all was fine.

What do you mean run it 3-4x? 3-4 simultaneous process's or just open and close it 3-4 times?

[jumpinghubert 49]

@Windies

Just start and end arma3.exe 3-4 times.

I am using Afterburner onscreendisplay for cpu/gpu utilization, cpu clock for all cores and some other stuff.

[nikiforos 450]

Is BI aware of this problem JumpingHubert?

I will test tonight and see if my cores react the same.

[St. Jimmy 272]

Is BI aware of this problem JumpingHubert?

I will test tonight and see if my cores react the same.

No problems here.

[jumpinghubert 49]

@St.Jimmy

How do you log the clockspeed of the cores?

To make the info complete, I use

-HWinfo64

-rivatunerstatistics server

-Afterburner

I tested it with the parameter "emptyworld". One or two cores are switching from 4.9Ghz back to 1.6 for a very short time.

@Nikoforos

No, because I tested it not very accurate. Waiting for feedback from others.

[Greenfist 1863]

I tested it with the parameter "emptyworld". One or two cores are switching from 4.9Ghz back to 1.6 for a very short time.

You must mean "-world=empty"? As in the game starts without loading a map and you look at the clock speed in the main menu? In that case, I think it's perfectly normal that CPU drops speed because there's nothing to simulate and your fps is probably limited by the GPU.

Or does the speed drop while playing a mission also?

[St. Jimmy 272]

@St.Jimmy

How do you log the clockspeed of the cores?

To make the info complete, I use

-HWinfo64

-rivatunerstatistics server

-Afterburner

I tested it with the parameter "emptyworld". One or two cores are switching from 4.9Ghz back to 1.6 for a very short time.

@Nikoforos

No, because I tested it not very accurate. Waiting for feedback from others.

I'm logging with exactly the same programs. Only place where the clocks are jumping is naturally desktop and not doing anything heavy. In-game it remains stable except maybe in some loading screens but yeah. I tried with empty world, 100ms scan interval in HWiNFO and it was still stable and I've apadtive vsync on so fps is limited to 60. I'll make some couple tests more and restart my computer. /No problemos

-world=empty could be the thing for you that's still causing it partially. Maybe your motherboard sees that there isn't much for CPU to work so it drops clocks.

Edited May 15, 2015 by St. Jimmy

[jumpinghubert 49]

Happy End! :p I deleted the mod parameters from the shortcut (cba and so on). They are still activated ingame under configuration. Now all clocks are @max still with -world=empty. I deactivated all idling mechanics in mainboard bios for a long time to make shure I get full of the 55% cpu utilization in arma3 :p

[windies 11]

FYI you can turn off downclocking by setting minimum processor state in power options to 100%. If you use constant voltage versus turbo multipliers and turbo voltages for overclocking then the speedstep or powersaving is pointless anyways.

[capoeira 10]

I know it's not exactly the thread I should be posting however I cannot create a new topic because of my limitations. I'm running Arma 3 server on a Linux machine, Im running Altis Life mod, when I turn on the server CPU usage is normal, but the moment someone joins the server cpu usage reaches over 125% why is that happening?

http://screenshooter.net/100395274/iuimjkf

[chrisb 196]

Overclocking isn't as straight forward an increase as some may think. I can clock down from 4.4ghz to 3.8ghz and still get very good performance. Its more about what you have going on in the background and on your pc to begin with i.e. updating whilst your trying to play etc.

These things can and will make a difference, I believe that anyway. 'Lean & Clean' is the best you can do for gaming in general.

I do think trying to maintain a good gpu usage 80-100%. Below that and I would be looking to see why.

I don't like cutter in-game (terrain setting), but here I've put terrain on 'standard', I would usually have it set to low when playing, just personal preference. Everything else, I like, is set to the highest or ultra apart from VD which is 3000 in these. Details are in the pics using msi-afterburner. Clocking down using ETU from intel, easy tool to use. Core voltage 1.250**

3.8ghz 1

3.8ghz 2

3.8ghz 3

Putting up the VD to 5000 would not take much away. After that it will start to hit a lot larger with each '1000'. But there again you don't need huge VD in this series, 2500 is a good setting for ground forces. In the air perhaps 6-7000 and reduce the terrain detail if you are having performance issues whilst flying, because you don't need it really.

I'll clock down again to 3.5 see what happens. I think it will be much the same performance wise. Haven't done that before so I'd be interested to see anyway. :confused:

__

Edit:

I clocked down to 3.5ghz plus core voltage to 1.10***. Same location and settings as above.

3.5ghz

__

Edit again:

Clocked up towards its usual level of 4.4ghz. All the same settings as those used above and same location. Core voltage 1.250***

4.0ghz

4.2ghz

4.4ghz

Results on this very un-technical test is, 14fps difference between 3.5ghz & 4.4ghz. So there is a small'ish increase in performance/fps, but really you would need to make scenarios in the editor and test for actual in-game performance.

For me when in-game, I don't get issues with the scenarios I make. In-fact A3 runs better than A2 ran. But I can have a little over 100 ai in town (Takistan) in A2 with all engaged in combat and still maintain reasonably good fps, that would mean +50/60fps-110fps depending on how heavy fighting/firing etc. I have a video up on YT of that and some other tests. I don't really play A3 much, so don't bother with videos for it, other than quick testing of AI mod behaviour.

Edited May 16, 2015 by ChrisB

[bigsyke 10]

Results on this very un-technical test is, 14fps difference between 3.5ghz & 4.4ghz. So there is a small'ish increase in performance/fps, but really you would need to make scenarios in the editor and test for actual in-game performance.

For me when in-game, I don't get issues with the scenarios I make. In-fact A3 runs better than A2 ran. But I can have a little over 100 ai in town (Takistan) in A2 with all engaged in combat and still maintain reasonably good fps, that would mean +50/60fps-110fps depending on how heavy fighting/firing etc. I have a video up on YT of that and some other tests. I don't really play A3 much, so don't bother with videos for it, other than quick testing of AI mod behaviour.

That's all cool and everything, but the fact is you can run 70fps all day. If the server you're playing on is running at 20fps, you will be playing at 20fps. The screen might draw at a higher FPS, but the objects aren't updating their data at the same speed. Server FPS is different from client FPS.

[chrisb 196]

That's all cool and everything, but the fact is you can run 70fps all day. If the server you're playing on is running at 20fps, you will be playing at 20fps. The screen might draw at a higher FPS, but the objects aren't updating their data at the same speed. Server FPS is different from client FPS.

I understand what you are saying, that's why I think private servers are better (just imo).

But really its just about those that can't get off the doorstep of the game, if you understand what I mean. Those that put 1 unit on empty map and get 20fps, but they want to play the game. Not going to happen for them, is it. :(

[Bernardi6 10]

Never had this problem going on but now and then and could be going on for a whole day i got this strange issue.

Everytime im going in to a chopper or try to drive its lagging like crazy. Even when im parachuting it takes like 2 min to get down one meter. But when im on the ground its like nothing happened.

But sometimes its running like clockworth even for a whole day.

So is it a glitch because everyone is talking about lowering the visual range, but tried that to and didnt got problem with that before!!

Hope for some good awnsers because its pissing me off, big time :S

Edited May 30, 2015 by Bernardi6

[icehollowpoint 10]

I understand what you are saying, that's why I think private servers are better (just imo).

But really its just about those that can't get off the doorstep of the game, if you understand what I mean. Those that put 1 unit on empty map and get 20fps, but they want to play the game. Not going to happen for them, is it. :(

How bout those of us who up until a few patches ago could run the game fine, and now it runs like a hunk of shit despite no appreciable change in graphics

[jumpinghubert 49]

@Icehollowpoint

Since a few patches ago I have to return to desktop and back into game to get rid of lower cpu-utilization (30% instead of 55%). I think only a few people noticed it because scarcely anybody logs overall cpu-usage.

[chrisb 196]

How bout those of us who up until a few patches ago could run the game fine, and now it runs like a hunk of shit despite no appreciable change in graphics

The pendulum will probably swing back the other way, whereas it becomes playable for you again. Its just this series, performance goes up and down during development and unfortunately, or indeed fortunately (depends which way you see it), the game is always in development.

I've never had a patch that has stopped me playing, far from it, performance has always been o.k. for what I play. If you are very near the line where Arma runs 'just about runs', or doesn't, then you may be hit harder than others. If your specs are well above that, then look inward into your system, because it shouldn't, after a single patch, stop you playing.

[doveman 7]

I've been monitoring with RTSS whilst playing on a server and noticed when my fps is low the frametimes are high, in the 40ms range. CPU is about 50% and GPU 80% (although it was around 95% at some points) so those aren't bottlenecks. I know from tweaking other games that high frametimes are bad and correlate with low fps. I'm wondering if the server could be causing this but other people reported much higher FPS, whilst I was getting 26-20. Any ideas? I tried dropping PIP down, even disabled it and likewise with shadows but only gained a couple of FPS, whilst GPU usage went down.

[ratszo 17]

I've been monitoring with RTSS whilst playing on a server and noticed when my fps is low the frametimes are high, in the 40ms range. CPU is about 50% and GPU 80% (although it was around 95% at some points) so those aren't bottlenecks. I know from tweaking other games that high frametimes are bad and correlate with low fps. I'm wondering if the server could be causing this but other people reported much higher FPS, whilst I was getting 26-20. Any ideas? I tried dropping PIP down, even disabled it and likewise with shadows but only gained a couple of FPS, whilst GPU usage went down.

If you're in the 20s, 2-3 frame increase is 10-15%. Not bad for stuff you don't need.

Now reduce object detail, view/object distance and you may see frames in the 30s.

Low frame missions are the perfect place to ajust settings --because this is where it's needed the most.

I use an old user-made armory mission. First time in, got 17fps..., now i get 32. It's where the rubber hits the road.