ARMA 3 FPS fix!

[Richatu 1]

I used to run ArmA 3 at very crap framerates, but now I can play Wasteland with great fps and far rendering distances. This might not work for everyone but it's definitely worth a shot:

1. Go to C:/Users/''yourusername''/My Documents/Arma 3 Alpha and then open the Arma3Alpha.cfg file as a text document.

2. Find GPU_MaxFramesAhead and change it's values to 1; instead of 1000; or whatever it's at.

3. Now change the value of GPU_DetectedFramesAhead to 1; instead of 0;.

4. Launch ArmA 3 and drool at the framerates.

Hope this helped you!

(My specs: GTX 660 Ti 2GB, AMD FX 8350 8core 4.0 GHz, 16 GB RAM)

[k3lt 3]

Using it for quite while, no fps improvement here. (found in another thread and forgot to change it back)

[metalcraze 290]

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead is a value detected by the engine. Changing it doesn't affect anything.

[Richatu 1]

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead is a value detected by the engine. Changing it doesn't affect anything.

Oh, That explains why it had turned back to zero when i opened the cfg again.

[white 1]

placebo effect on mid-high end gpus

i guess might change something on lower specs gpu´s.

[Richatu 1]

placebo effect on mid-high end gpus

i guess might change something on lower specs gpu´s.

Would you consider a 660 Ti a low spec GPU? Im telling you the difference is incredible for me. You know the helicopter showcase? At the beginning where all the soldiers are running around near the choppers i had around 10 to 15 fps, and now i'm playing at 30+ at that scene. Also when playing wasteland i used to have an fps at around 25 with low rendering distance and no action. Now it's around 40 fps or more and i can have rendering distance at far. (Sorry if i sound hostile, not my intention)

[St. Jimmy 272]

Oh those were already there. Will do this instantly because in Arma 2 it fixed my mouse lag.

[Guest]

Didn't we have to make the cfg read only in ArmA2 in order for the settings to not be overridden when the game starts? Try that.

[white 1]

Would you consider a 660 Ti a low spec GPU? Im telling you the difference is incredible for me. You know the helicopter showcase? At the beginning where all the soldiers are running around near the choppers i had around 10 to 15 fps, and now i'm playing at 30+ at that scene. Also when playing wasteland i used to have an fps at around 25 with low rendering distance and no action. Now it's around 40 fps or more and i can have rendering distance at far. (Sorry if i sound hostile, not my intention)

im curious because the nvidia driver has a maximum pre rendered frames, its 4, the default in the driver is 2. this change afaik only affects the gpu behaviour and when on completely low settings fps doesnt change, it isnt the gpu bottlenecking the performance. my card is also a 660ti oc. even though i keep trying diff settings, the minimum fps remains exactly the same because its not limited by the gpu.

but i digress, something did change, my fps was halved, used to be 18-22 on the heli on the ground and on top of the base everysingle time i tested and played, and now it became 9-13. limiting what the gpu renders had a negative impact. i locked the cfg file with read only so the game wouldnt override it when started.

most settings are medium-high with some stuff turned off:

http://i.imgur.com/BlD8XWs.jpg

changing those settings never had an impact for me on arma 2 aswell, even on a different pc setup. and believe me, i tried everysingle thing there is.

but who knows, maybe it worked for you, whats you processor and clock? can you post a screenshot with fps overlay on the same place i did?

Edited March 9, 2013 by white

[Vooyek 1]

I have some increase in fps (~10) after i set GPU_MaxFramesAhead to 1. It bumped 1st cpu core usage (as this setting should) and in result it bumped gpu usage too. I have i5-3550 and HD7870.

[chrisb 196]

I don't use it, but I have heard it can help. Don't forget though, as said above, mark the config to 'read only' or it will just reset everytime..:)

[valnwt 11]

This worked really well for me, check my post here: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?147533-Low-CPU-utilization-amp-Low-FPS/page33&highlight=arma+fps :)

[Richatu 1]

im curious because the nvidia driver has a maximum pre rendered frames, its 4, the default in the driver is 2. this change afaik only affects the gpu behaviour and when on completely low settings fps doesnt change, it isnt the gpu bottlenecking the performance. my card is also a 660ti oc. even though i keep trying diff settings, the minimum fps remains exactly the same because its not limited by the gpu.

but i digress, something did change, my fps was halved, used to be 18-22 on the heli on the ground and on top of the base everysingle time i tested and played, and now it became 9-13. limiting what the gpu renders had a negative impact. i locked the cfg file with read only so the game wouldnt override it when started.

most settings are medium-high with some stuff turned off:

http://i.imgur.com/BlD8XWs.jpg

changing those settings never had an impact for me on arma 2 aswell, even on a different pc setup. and believe me, i tried everysingle thing there is.

but who knows, maybe it worked for you, whats you processor and clock? can you post a screenshot with fps overlay on the same place i did?

Okay so I tried out the heli mission again, this time with an fps counter. Turns out I'd gotten a bit too used to the mission being unplayable, and in fact I'm not getting these 30+ fps that I stated. At the location you took your picture i get about 25 - 30 fps at the same settings you have. At high/ultra settings i get around 20- 28 fps there. ( I also made sure to have around the same view distance as you have). Have you tried out multiplayer (wasteland, etc.) with these commands on?

[ubascouser 0]

This worked really well for me, check my post here: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?147533-Low-CPU-utilization-amp-Low-FPS/page33&highlight=arma+fps :)

Hi m8 could you run through how exactly you did it im not familiar with the nvidia control panel.

[call_911 10]

Hi m8 could you run through how exactly you did it im not familiar with the nvidia control panel.

Start/control panel/scroll to nVidi control panel/adjust 3d images with preview/click adjust image settings with preview below 3d window click on 1st option(let 3d application decide, than click apply

[Leon86 13]

The maxframesahead=1 thingy can help people that have a reasonably slow gpu.

1000 means driver default which is usually 3 (you can set it in the control panel). If you're gpu limited this means the cpu starts preparing the next frame, and when it's done the frame after, this means there's could be 2 extra frames between the mouse and the monitor, if you're only at 30 fps this will get you terrible mouselag (lots of time between user input and screen output)

People with fast gpu's will be cpu limited anyway, so they'll never have the 3 frames buffer, or only have it when the fps is high. that's why they dont notice a difference.

I've set my driver default to 1, I'd rather have good response than ~5% higher framerates.