ArmA 3 - Testing FPS while a 60 soldiers firefight

[VII.Racetrack -ITA- 4]

After at least two hour testing different video settings to let the game to work fine this is the result.

I've made a 60 Soldiers firefight (30 Vs 30). As you can see the AI in combat drop drammaticaly down perfomance.

This is my hardware, and actually I honestly don't think that an the problem is the "Graphics Settings" or my hardware, i think that is something concerning the "AI management" or maybe the explosion-smoke effects. Am i correct?

- Intel COre I 5 3.20 GHz 3.20 GHz

- 10 GB Ram

- NVIDIA GeForce ZOTAC GTX 580

Please don't start saying i've made this to get view, i'm only trying to understand if the problem is the Alpha or my Hardware. Sorry for my english -.-

[AussieStig 10]

My personal opinion is that AI is only 1 part of the optimization issue. If you join a multiplayer game hosted on a dedicated server that has no ai, such as TDM, Wasteland or any of the capture area missions, I guarantee that you'll still get terrible performance.

[mr. bravo 17]

60? Try 500-1000 AI, that's the real test :D

But well, obviously. AI in Arma is quite complex, as they don't use traditional pathfinding and action-markers as most other games. Therefore they require more performance, especially when they have to calculate many things at the same time as in combat. One of the big reasons to why Arma is so demanding on CPU, and yours isn't very fast. Arma2 even had a CPU Benchmark mission where you flew over a massive battlefield and which ended with an average FPS count.

So I don't really see that as a problem related to the Alpha, if comparing to previous titles. Although I'm sure it can always be more optimized, which is of course much appreciated.

[VII.Racetrack -ITA- 4]

I.m glad to see that i'm not the only guy with this problem.

[Leon86 13]

if I make a 30v30 firefight on the airstrip fps stays very high. but I run on an i5 750 at 4.2, a bit faster.

did you try running with -cpucount=2 and only 1.5k viewdistance 1k objects or something like that?

[VII.Racetrack -ITA- 4]

if I make a 30v30 firefight on the airstrip fps stays very high. but I run on an i5 750 at 4.2, a bit faster.

did you try running with -cpucount=2 and only 1.5k viewdistance 1k objects or something like that?

I don't have problem with 30 Vs 30 in forest or open field as u can see in the video.

How to do this "with -cpucount=2"?

I've tried a 90 Vs 90 firefight :p.. If i don't watch the fight FPS stays up to 15-20. If i watch it..... Can't say... At least 5 FPS

I'll try u're settings in the evening.

I'm sure about this: Buldings and any other structure kill performance too. Firefights in Urban contest result UNPLAYABLE to me.

(Maybe for pathfind problem?)

However i think that Bohemia already know this issue and will make the game more "approachable".

Cause right now only a few can run the game fine and fast. This is what i think.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Racetrack

[Wolf85 1]

I join last night a 2500 AI Coop server. 1 FPS and had to close the game via Alt F4 due extreme LAG. Next time put yourself as independent so you can wath the war from a safe place.

[tortuosit 486]

Is the -cpucount flag really necessary? AFAIK Arma3 automatically takes all cores. Least I can say is on my i7/2600k without HT it takes all 4 cores without the need of command line switch.

How to do this "with -cpucount=2"?

Add the command line option "-cpucount=2" in the command line field which you find in the properties of Arma 3 Steam inside application.

[metralla 19]

My opinion regarding any hardware test on the Alpha and very basic version is wasting time. Until no button to do test whether it works better or worse in fps I repeat is wasting time.

[chrisb 196]

The ai would be engaging at different times, i.e. 5v5, 10v8 etc. To really ensure 30v30 happens, you would have to put them pretty close and on flat open area facing each other.

I have run smaller skirmishes, 70 ai max, provided your not in the middle of all 70 engaging at once, it runs reasonably nicely, but as above it will be different numbers engaging at slightly different times, not all at once.

Having 500 or 2000 ai defeats any object, the ai will turn into useless bots, with no intelligence, cpu would run too slowly for any sensible fight/engagement to take place, just a shoot fest.

There again few, if any, wars nowadays have that, it would mostly be skirmishes with low numbers of units, I would imagine the future will be much the same..

Try the 30v30 opposite each other in an open area and pretty close, see how it results. But again the open area will boost fps to start with, so still not reliable for testing really.:)

[aop 1]

Here is some testing I did with both ArmA 2 and 3 using Chernarus map:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?148194-AI-kills-the-performance-completely-(instructions-how-to-test-inside)

AI seems to be the main culprit behind piss poor performance.