Low CPU utilization & Low FPS

[iLLcAtTiViSsiMo 10]

I don't have the time to read all 225 pages of this thread, but has anyone tried messing with virtual memory allocations in windows? Disable, change values etc?

I've been getting a "your computer is running slow" message lately after exiting arma 3. I switched to windows basic from aero and the messages stopped and I even gained a substantial increase in all around game performance. I've noticed, as I've seen posted in this thread, that my RAM usage is always less than 45% while running arma 3. Given these two observations I would assume that arma is using virtual memory moreso than my 8 available gigs of ram? Strange. Gonna run some tests later.

I'm late as hell to this thread, so don't be mad at me if I'm stating what's already been posted.

[jumpinghubert 49]

Lol, I know the feeling :) That's why I never recommend people to buy new GPUs for Arma3. I had dream that I had a super processor with 10GHZ and that my frames reached 1000 FPS . The "damage" caused by BIS is huge :)

ok I have to add something. In dense forest now I´ve significant better performance. Helos bench is very cpu-heavy. But thats useless since arma3 isn´t made to run in empty editor scenarios. With ai or in mp this performance boost is gone.

[MavericK96 0]

I don't have the time to read all 225 pages of this thread, but has anyone tried messing with virtual memory allocations in windows? Disable, change values etc?

I've been getting a "your computer is running slow" message lately after exiting arma 3. I switched to windows basic from aero and the messages stopped and I even gained a substantial increase in all around game performance. I've noticed, as I've seen posted in this thread, that my RAM usage is always less than 45% while running arma 3. Given these two observations I would assume that arma is using virtual memory moreso than my 8 available gigs of ram? Strange. Gonna run some tests later.

I'm late as hell to this thread, so don't be mad at me if I'm stating what's already been posted.

I've messed with it a bit...doesn't make any discernible difference in CPU utilization as far as I can tell.

[oldbear 390]

Aero is a big resources user, must be disabled if you are playing.

I am doing a lot of tests/experiments with virtual memory ATM on my main rig : "i7 37770/GTX670OC/8Go Ram/25Go System SSD/ 128 Go Arma3 SSD" and on my crappy "Athlon II" based one.

I am no expert at all, so what I will say is mainly based on observation ... but it seems that Windows even if it's not using it is taking hold of 2 Go. As soon as an application is opened it tends to use virtual memory. I believe it's in Windows genes and is coming from an era with PC with 512 Kb expensive Ram.

So as Windows is looking for virtual memory, the best thing to do is to give some. Disabling virtual memory if you are having more than 4 Go Ram can work if you are only playing, but some applications such as PS are huge memory user and they are asking for more memory if you are processing many large images. Having the "out of memory" error while editing an image can be no fun at all.

So, you can use some of your System disk for virtual memory. If it's a HDD and you are processing images, no real problem, but if you are playing an Arma* game, you can get some issues. Arma* games are known to have numerous disk access while playing, so using in the same time your HDD for virtual memory and to load game parts will slow the game, having a bad effect on playability.

That's why I suggest using a SSD, in fact 2 SSDs, one for the System and one for Arma3 ... you can put all the not so interesting softwares where you want ;)

I had used this for a while with various amount of "virtual memory" allocated on C:

Magician Soft from Samsung SSD suggests to downsize virtual memory to a minimum on C:, but then you will get Windows alerts telling you the size is insufficient. In the same time Windows is asking for a large chunk of your disk to be used as virtual memory and the more you get "real RAM" the more the thing is asking for ... more! Well, next move will be to test a "virtual memory dedicated" SSD re-using a too small 64Go SSD for the purpose.

[MavericK96 0]

Haven't tried disabling Aero...I think you can just set the arma3.exe to disable it when run, correct?

I've been noticing a lot more lag as the dev build progresses...hitting low 20s FPS-wise in missions lately, kinda makes me sad. All while my CPU cores chug away at 50% utilization or less...

[iLLcAtTiViSsiMo 10]

Upped my virtual memory. Didn't improve the game but at least I'm now able to use aero AND play arma 3 without my OS yelling at me =)

[stk2008 14]

ohhh what a surprise another update and nothing of use.

stop adding and fixing issues that are pointless come on bis sort the performance out first 99% of us cant even enjoy the cool stuff being added or fixed unless we want to play in slide show mode.

and whats up with the optimization bog we was told was coming?

:(

this is arma 2 all over again the performance will not be fixed i bet you may s well uninstall and forget about this game

[nikiforos 450]

stk2008 I feel your pain. Every day I take a look at the changelog and no mention of any optimization at all.

I haven't played the game for almost a month now and I feel that this period will get prolonged. I know a lot of people that already left the game because of that.

It's like they fix the colour of the car but don't give a damn about the car engine.

[MavericK96 0]

I still play the game regularly, but I am a bit disappointed that there has been really no developer input on this issue since before release. Performance for me seems to be declining, if anything, on the dev branch. It was better than Alpha/Beta but it's starting to get worse now, it seems.

[windies 11]

I still play the game regularly, but I am a bit disappointed that there has been really no developer input on this issue since before release. Performance for me seems to be declining, if anything, on the dev branch. It was better than Alpha/Beta but it's starting to get worse now, it seems.

I had better performance in early alpha than I do now. It's been steadily declining since beta tbh.

[MavericK96 0]

Well, in early Alpha we didn't have Altis. Still, yeah, it's definitely been feeling worse lately.

[windies 11]

Well, in early Alpha we didn't have Altis. Still, yeah, it's definitely been feeling worse lately.

I'm comparing Stratis to Stratis. I noticed performance declining over the course of the Beta and into release.

[aussiebobby 1]

from GTX570 to R9 290 in helo´s Altis-Benchmark: from 48fps to.......................................48fps LOL. I think I have to push my 3570k from 4,9GHZ to 15GHZ.

Mine was 42fpsFX8350,HD7950 both at stock clocks and I also only had 4gig ram when I did the benchmark.

I also have a GT630 2gig,GT9800?,HD6850x2,HD6790,HD5700? GPUs and Fx8150 and Phenom II x4,955 cpus as well as mine(FX8350) that I could do benchmarks with.

But I don't think Ill be surprised by the results of any combo of the above

[aussiebobby 1]

helo´s Altis-Benchmark

Gigabyte GeForce GT 630 PCI-E 2.0 2GB DDR3 331.65 Game Ready WHQL driver..$65 card

FX8350,no OC

4 gig ram

39fps.

I did OC the card to get 39fps,but stock was 31fps.

The extra $244 I payed for the 7950 got me 3 fps more than the GT630.

Edited November 17, 2013 by AussieBobby

[oldbear 390]

@ AussieBobby : the "weak link" is the FX8350, dump your extra $ on an i5 and you will get more than 3 FPS [have a look]

You must remember that even if Arma games with Arma 3 are "GPU demanding" all the family is "CPU dependent".

Edited November 17, 2013 by Old Bear

[aussiebobby 1]

@ AussieBobby : the "weak link" is the FX8350, dump your extra $ on an i5 and you will get more than 3 FPS [have a look]

You must remember that even if Arma games with Arma 3 are "GPU demanding" all the family is "CPU dependent".

Your excuse is the weak link.

Ill upgrade cpu and gpu to the specs like the poster(JumpingHubert) I was replying to and get an extra 6fps.

How about Tentpegs specs a few pages back

6 Core i7 3970x OC'd to 4.8 Ghz

16GB Corsair Dominator ram OC'd to 2133Mhz

HD7990 GPU ( 6GB GDDR5 )

another $2000 and Ill get 5fps more.

[oldbear 390]

@ AussieBobby : who is looking for excuse ? I am playing Arma3 every days, for hours ... what else? And I am truly enjoying it on my main rig "i7 3770/GTX670OC/8Go/Arma3 Dedicated SSD", I am playing it in Single Player and Multi Players as well.

Of course, I have tweaked my settings to get Arma3 playable @ 35/45 FPS and visually enjoyable on "Ultra", so I have a limited "Visibility" = 2000m and on the AA&PP section Blooms and Blurs are disabled and I use the "HardOcp Combo" : "FXAA Ultra+FSAA 2x".

If you are neither a "60FPS or Death" syndrome nor "All 100% Full On" syndrom victim, I will suggest you to adapt to Arma3 reality. This game is offering unplayable settings such as "Ultra"/"Visibility" = 12000m/Sampling 200%, Bis is giving you freedom to do what is the best for you.

It doesn't mean there are no problems, but you can enjoy Arma3 without looking for "excuses".

My main concern is a about low end PCs built around the "minimum" specs. On such a rig like my "Athlon II x2 250" based Xperimental one, Single player and Campaign can be played at a decent 20/30 FPS but MP seems not playable, you can have a look at my small review : Arma3 'Minimum' specifications or ... is Arma 3 going to be playable on my Athlon II x2 250 / GTS 450 DDR3 ?

To go back to the origin of this thread, on these tests, you can see that the CPU and GPU load is quite high in SP and Campaign, nearly always between 80% and 100% but in MP, the GPU load is falling to 30-50% in the most strange way, that can be a real issue!

In fact Multi-Player, is the real problem.

Playing a well built missions using foolproof scripts and player friendly parameters will help you getting a nice MP game experience even if you can expect a limited FPS loss [max 5/10].

Playing a crappy mission on a crappy home-made server will probably end in "slideshow" state.

This has nothing to do with the game itself but mainly with the ways the game is used, once again it's all about freedom and nothing Dev can repair with a patch.

[TSAndrey 1]

What's up with all the sudden BI defenders. Bad scripting isn't the only problem for bad MP performance. INFACT, why can a server even impact a clients performance?

[MavericK96 0]

This issue has been acknowledged by the developers themselves (not recently, but earlier in this very thread). It's not as if it's some nonsense made up by BIS haters.

[ratszo 17]

This issue has been acknowledged by the developers themselves (not recently, but earlier in this very thread). It's not as if it's some nonsense made up by BIS haters.

And this thread is a sticky in the 'troubleshooting' forum --where players help other players optimize their gameplay.

What's your problem? Post your specs, maybe we can help.

Sorry, i don't see any "Bis, fix your game." stick anywhere, so you might be out of luck here.

[oldbear 390]

@ TSAndrey "INFACT, why can a server even impact a clients performance? " Because if what I infer is right, BIS MP is NOT working along the classical Client /Server scheme.

[MavericK96 0]

And this thread is a sticky in the 'troubleshooting' forum --where players help other players optimize their gameplay.

What's your problem? Post your specs, maybe we can help.

Sorry, i don't see any "Bis, fix your game." stick anywhere, so you might be out of luck here.

What are you talking about? I know the history of the thread...hell, I posted the sixth post. It's been mostly trying to get developers to take a look at the low utilization = low FPS issue, and for awhile there was some developer interaction. Lately, though, it's all but gone quiet, but the problem remains. It's not something you can just fix with tweaks...it's a long-term, ongoing issue that has plagued the engine/game since OFP, really.

I'm not trying to incite flames against BIS here or anything, but it's undeniable, it's been at least acknowledged by devs, but recently we haven't heard much about progress on this issue. Keeping this thread active shows that people still know and care about this issue and shows that it needs to be addressed.

[aussiebobby 1]

To go back to the origin of this thread, on these tests, you can see that the CPU and GPU load is quite high in SP and Campaign, nearly always between 80% and 100% but in MP, the GPU load is falling to 30-50% in the most strange way, that can be a real issue!

In fact Multi-Player, is the real problem.

Playing a well built missions using foolproof scripts and player friendly parameters will help you getting a nice MP game experience even if you can expect a limited FPS loss [max 5/10].

Playing a crappy mission on a crappy home-made server will probably end in "slideshow" state.

This has nothing to do with the game itself but mainly with the ways the game is used, once again it's all about freedom and nothing Dev can repair with a patch.

I did some playing around with settings for a good part of the day and did get some better results with out sacrificing the graphics(mine craft low) to much.

I did however install the GT630 along side of the HD7950 using the Hybrid Physx hack.Did buy the Nvidia with that in mind and use it in a home server or steamBox(not holding breath here).

profs

Kombustor score

Submitted by AussieBobby (anonymous mode) on November 18 2013, 2:40 pm

http://www.ozone3d.net/msi_kombustor/score_200.php?id=173084

Screen shot of both cards working in game, Altis-Benchmark

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/9978/o26.bmp

I did the benchmark using the games autodetect and it puts everything to ultra, however I did put the visibility down to 2000m

Score was 32fps

I did note that the 7950 never went over 50% and the GT630 30% usage.

[iLLcAtTiViSsiMo 10]

Downloaded BF4 cause I got sick of performance issues with Arma 3. Boy was I disappointed. BF4 isn't half the game Arma 3 is. In BF4 I feel like an idiot running around with a gun with aircrafts crashing all over the place.

Nothing compares to the Arma experience. I will, however, state that I am able to run BF4 on max settings without a hiccup. Have you seen the recommended specs for that game?

What's my point? Arma 3 has the ulitimate military shooter experience over any other military shooter out there. BIS, PLEASE say something about the performance issues and your plans if any. We just want the games we enjoy to run well on our rigs and I truly believe you would have a MUCH larger fan base if your game would simply utilize hardware as flawlessly as your competitors, no matter how big their names are.

You guys have one hell of a franchise here, let the difficult learning curve scare newcomers such as myself away, not the framerate.

In all honesty, even if you told us that there is absolutely no way to fix the performance issues, I would respect that even more than being left in the dark and participating in all of these apparently useless threads (even created a few =/) I would gladly contiue to play Arma 3 even if that was the closure to the the performance issue I've been waiting for.

Edited November 18, 2013 by iLLcAtTiViSsiMo

[nikiforos 450]

Lol, I had the exactly same thoughts. Got an offer to buy BF4 for a low price and I thought what the hell do it. First thought ? Arma is superior to all these games and sometimes even graphically.

However as you stated my frames never drop below 50 with high/medium settings on BF4.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Nikiforos