SLI Utilization Issues

[sephis 10]

I bought the game on day one and have been patiently waiting for the it to be optimised but it is still completely unplayable for the most part when I try to play online.

My rig is an i7 860 @3.6ghz, 8GB DDR3 1600, 2x GTX680's SLI and the game is installed on my SSD drive. SP runs reasonably well but whenever I try to play online I seem to be lucky to get 30fps when I'm in the more built up areas of the game or if there is any action on screen (explosions, lot of vehicles). When I'm at the airfield or the local towns I get 15-18fps. On 2 680's? Seriously? I'm only playing the game on high-ish settings too. I've tried lowering a load of settings but it barely makes a difference.

If I disable my 2nd 680 there is literally no difference whatsoever. Is this ever going to be fixed? or just optimisation in general?

This is especially a concern considering you are now talking about releasing the BETA which is a near finished version of the game.

Edited June 8, 2013 by PurePassion
Title edited to make clear it's not about your personal case but about SLI in general

[bangtail 0]

I bought the Alpha on day one and have been patiently waiting for the game to be optimised but it is still completely unplayable for the most part when I try to play online.

My rig is an i7 860 @3.6ghz, 8GB DDR3 1600, 2x GTX680's SLI and the game is installed on my SSD drive. SP runs reasonably well but whenever I try to play online I seem to be lucky to get 30fps when I'm in the more built up areas of the game or if there is any action on screen (explosions, lot of vehicles). When I'm at the airfield or the local towns I get 15-18fps. On 2 680's? Seriously? I'm only playing the game on high-ish settings too. I've tried lowering a load of settings but it barely makes a difference.

If I disable my 2nd 680 there is literally no difference whatsoever. Is this ever going to be fixed? or just optimisation in general?

This is especially a concern considering you are now talking about releasing the BETA which is a near finished version of the game.

You did not buy the Alpha, you preordered A3 and got access to the Alpha as a preorder bonus.

A beta is not necessarily a 'near finished' version of the game by any means.

[byku 13]

What is your view distance?

[metalcraze 290]

Videocards have nothing to do with this, it's your CPU.

[sephis 10]

I've taken part in a lot of Beta's and, the vast majority of the time, they are near as dammit the final product as far as performance is concerned.

These are examples of how crap my perfomance is at the moment...

http://imageshack.us/a/img32/2475/arma32013060610390106.jpg (500 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img849/7012/arma32013060610385123.jpg (419 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img199/4204/arma32013060610440544.jpg (383 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img812/3406/arma32013060610441384.jpg (392 kB)

[sephis 10]

Videocards have nothing to do with this, it's your CPU.

Care to elaborate?

@Byku my view distance is under 2000

EDIT@ BangTail - I did reply but it's awaiting moderation

Edited June 6, 2013 by sephis

[Leon86 13]

If your cpu is the bottleneck sli will not help you get higher framerates.

And in arma the cpu is the bottleneck more often than not. Dont expect to get the game to run at higher framerates, you'll be able to improve image quality though, antialiasing, higher-than-native resolution, good way to burn off some gpu power.

[maddogx 13]

Is SLI even properly utilized yet? (I.e. is there a working SLI profile for Arma3 in the NVidia drivers?)

[purepassion 22]

You are playing Wasteland :rolleyes: Which is probably the most ressource intensive and un-optimized mission out there at the moment. Your multiplayer performance is dictated by the server you are playing on.

However it does seem like there is a problem with SLI utilization.

[Leon86 13]

Sli seems to work, but if the bottleneck is elsewhere it's useless.

[bangtail 0]

Sli seems to work, but if the bottleneck is elsewhere it's useless.

^^This

SLI works and there is a profile but in built up areas (towns etc), the CPU bottleneck kicks in.

Nvidia's ManuelG hinted at driver specific optimizations for A3 but said that they would have to be discussed with the BIS devs first.

Since I have not seen any mention of these optimizations in any of the subsequent driver notes, I can only assume that they have not been introduced as of yet.

As Purepassion said, when it comes to multiplayer, the server dictates your experience.

Having done extensive testing on a 3930K (64GB RAM, RAID SSDs) dedicated, I can tell you that people are really pushing their luck running 30+ slot servers (Non PvP - AI intensive)

I have done most of my testing on a 20 slot and the server FPS will drop into the 20s using AHWorlds or Xeno's Domination (the worst drops typically happen right after a capture when the server respawns a new objective but the strain on the server persists until a significant number of the AI have been exterminated).

[sephis 10]

Sli seems to work, but if the bottleneck is elsewhere it's useless.

It doesn't at all for me. It runs exactly the same, if a bit better, with SLI turned off. Have you actually tried turning it off to compare the difference? Not quite sure what people mean by CPU bottleneck. Is that something my end or a problem with the game?

Also does this forum not allow you to post pics? Was going to show my settings but the last post I made with pics is nowhere to be seen.

[Leon86 13]

The "problem" is you have 2 ridiculously fast graphics cards with only a mediocre cpu.

I run an i5-750 on 4.2Ghz and a gtx470, and in a town I'm still cpu limited, you have less cpu power and over 4 times the gpu power, so basically you're always cpu limited, with or without 2 graphics cards. Running sli gets you a bit of extra cpu overhead, and often deeper dips and slightly more input lag, so that's probably why it runs better with 1.

I'd star thinking about a cpu upgrade, even a notoriously gpu heavy title like battlefield 3 will be cpu limited in multiplayer on your system on the default "ultra" settings.

[purepassion 22]

Also does this forum not allow you to post pics? Was going to show my settings but the last post I made with pics is nowhere to be seen.

Sure it does :) But to prevent spambots spreading stuff, you'll need a limited amount of posts before you are able to post pictures.

[metalcraze 290]

Care to elaborate?

You've said you got FPS drops during action. Explosions with all that flying stuff and particles, combat with all the ballistics = CPU.

Your CPU is quite old by now, just check here how much difference newer intel CPUs do at a system that runs 690:

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

And this comparison doesn't take into account the great overclock you can do with modern i5/i7s which will push FPS even further

That and BIS have said that all optimization will be done by the end of beta after the game is finalized since it's pointless now.

Edited June 6, 2013 by metalcraze

[gossamersolid 155]

Wasteland

There's your answer (as somebody already said)

[kklownboy 43]

Well, its all good to just blame the CPU, as allot of posters do. And most threads that start by saying my Vidcards arent being used, Bis should bla bla bla. BUT his CPU is fine. His platform/MB is fine, his GPUs are good. BUT, what VD what ObjD, what Display resolution, How much VRAM on his SLI(if 2GB cards? he only has 2GB for the game)? BUT more than anything else, is; Is he playing Wasteland? If yes to Wasteland, this Thread is a waste.

Played some pretty clever COOP missions, and I can have more than playable FPS. My CPU is older than the OP. Old CPUs aren't a issue. Start playing the game under 2000m VD. Lower the Terrain to "High". Find a less crowded Wasteland server...

[liquidpinky 11]

Can confirm SLi seems to be working, both cards with nigh on identical loads.

Wasteland, three 1080P monitors, two 580s, 40FPS+ out of big towns and 25 to 30FPS in towns. All sliders to 11, except the killer draw distance and object draw as those are the real killers in A3.

CPU "old" i7, although it is a 4.4GHz 980X.

Arma needs a fast processor to get the most out of it and tweaking draw distances reaps the biggest rewards.

Once you know you are stuck on an FPS rate you can live with, start piling on the AA and post processing to make them cards work some.

[metalcraze 290]

Well, its all good to just blame the CPU, as allot of posters do. And most threads that start by saying my Vidcards arent being used, Bis should bla bla bla. BUT his CPU is fine.

Not fine enough when OC'd Ivy Bridge (and overclocking Ivy Bridge is like a normal state for that CPU) gives ~40-50% FPS boost compared to his i7... After all his CPU is what? 6 years old by now?

His videocards are crunching ArmA3 with ease most likely unless view distance is huge of course.

[sephis 10]

Can confirm SLi seems to be working, both cards with nigh on identical loads.

Wasteland, three 1080P monitors, two 580s, 40FPS+ out of big towns and 25 to 30FPS in towns. All sliders to 11, except the killer draw distance and object draw as those are the real killers in A3.

CPU "old" i7, although it is a 4.4GHz 980X.

Arma needs a fast processor to get the most out of it and tweaking draw distances reaps the biggest rewards.

Once you know you are stuck on an FPS rate you can live with, start piling on the AA and post processing to make them cards work some.

As I said earlier, I have turned the view distance down to under 2000 and have aa on 2x (auto detect put it at 8).

Every single game I own (including Battlefield 3, Metro LL, Crysis 3) I can play at 2560x1440 @ max settings with ease. ARMA 3 on high-ish settings in 1080p is unplayable online. Not just in Wasteland but in CTI too which are the only two modes I like to play. However much I love the ARMA series, I shouldn't have to fork out hundreds of pounds for a new processor just for one game just because the devs don't know how to optimise properly. Which quite frankly, is embarrassing for a PC exclusive developer who've been making these games for so long.

Edited June 6, 2013 by sephis

[purepassion 22]

For your interest, I have the exact same CPU with a 7870XT OC and I am running it fine at stable ~40fps with these settings in singleplayer.

As I said earlier, multiplayer is a whole different world as the server you are playing on makes most of the difference.

Additionally, this stage of the game is not the time to make easy conclusions and assumptions ;)

[bangtail 0]

As I said earlier, I have turned the view distance down to under 2000 and have aa on 2x (auto detect put it at 8).

Every single game I own (including Battlefield 3, Metro LL, Crysis 3) I can play at 2560x1440 @ max settings with ease. ARMA 3 on high-ish settings in 1080p is unplayable online. Not just in Wasteland but in CTI too which are the only two modes I like to play. However much I love the ARMA series, I shouldn't have to fork out hundreds of pounds for a new processor just for one game just because the devs don't know how to optimise properly. Which quite frankly, is embarrassing for a PC exclusive developer who've been making these games for so long.

I'm going to call shenanigans on those claims - Enable SSAA at 2x or more in Metro LL and enjoy your slideshow at 1440P, I can't even get playable FPS with SSAA @ 4x and as far as C3 goes, pretty much the same thing - I just loaded it up with TXAA at 4X (not even a particularly demanding smoothing technique) and I was in the low 30s, so I seriously doubt that you are playing at max settings 'with ease' @ 1440P.

Let's not even get started about linear vs non linear, map size etc etc etc shall we :rolleyes:

As much as A3 may not run well for you, please refrain from this fantasy that your rig can max out C3 or Metro:LL at that resolution, because it is just that, fantasy.

Edited June 6, 2013 by BangTail

[DaRkL3AD3R 1]

Sli seems to work, but if the bottleneck is elsewhere it's useless.

This is precisely why I stopped using multi-GPU after 3 different bouts with it over the past 10 years. I've determined that I will only ever buy a single high end GPU and probably do so once every 3-4 years the earliest. This way I don't have to worry about microstuttering, SLI profiles, games underutilizing cards, etc. Just smooth operation.

Tips to get better performance would be reduce Object and Terrain quality down to Standard on both. You already have draw distance down so there's not much to gain there. Outside of that, buy a faster CPU :( AMD have horrible per-core performance compared to Intel. I upgraded a couple months ago from a Phenom II x6 1100T which I would overclock to 4Ghz and with this i7 3770k even at 3.2Ghz, I noticed a huge performance boost over the AMD chip in Arma 3. Now imagine what happens when I overclock... taking it to 4.6Ghz means I can play at 3500/1500 view distances and High Object/Terrain quality and still maintain 60 fps most of the time.

Unfortunately online performance is still largely dictated by the server. I'm really not a fan of the way that server controls view distance/object quality, this is really not fair to people with poorer systems. Just changing from Low Object Quality to Standard takes a noticeable toll on slower processors.

[bangtail 0]

This is precisely why I stopped using multi-GPU after 3 different bouts with it over the past 10 years. I've determined that I will only ever buy a single high end GPU and probably do so once every 3-4 years the earliest. This way I don't have to worry about microstuttering, SLI profiles, games underutilizing cards, etc. Just smooth operation.

I try to tell people this all the time - SLI is for people with a moderate level of PC experience (at a minimum) and a penchant for endless tinkering.

The gains are usually very good (in my experience anyway), but often come at the cost of significant portions of your sanity ;)

If you don't like to tinker or are a PC novice, SLI/CF is just going to contribute to your overall frustration level (no matter how awesome the advertising makes it sound).

** This post was not directed at anyone in particular, just a general observation.

Edited June 6, 2013 by BangTail

[sephis 10]

I'm going to call shenanigans on those claims - Enable SSAA at 2x or more in Metro LL and enjoy your slideshow at 1440P, I can't even get playable FPS with SSAA @ 4x and as far as C3 goes, pretty much the same thing - I just loaded it up with TXAA at 4X (not even a particularly demanding smoothing technique) and I was in the low 30s, so I seriously doubt that you are playing at max settings 'with ease' @ 1440P.

Let's not even get started about linear vs non linear, map size etc etc etc shall we :rolleyes:

As much as A3 may not run well for you, please refrain from this fantasy that your rig can max out C3 or Metro:LL at that resolution, because it is just that, fantasy.

Admittedly I don't have SSAA enabled as I don't really need to at such a high resolution. With everything else on max (including hardware physx, I average about 55-60fps @ 2560x1440

You can see my fps in these screens

http://imageshack.us/a/img18/7180/metroll2013060700323364.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img89/4402/metroll2013060700340811.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img38/8912/metroll2013060700345071.jpg

EDIT:

I also ran the benchmark which is incredibly intensive and takes place during the big finale of the game. It rarely dipped below 30fps with SSAA on @1080p which is hardly a slideshow and I imagine it would be quite playable at these settings for the most part of the game

Proof: http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/1107/metroll.jpg

Edited June 6, 2013 by sephis