Constant frame drops.

[xer21 10]

Hey, not sure if this is the right section, though i think it is. But, i've been trying to play coop with some friends (i will try this in SP to confirm its everywhere, but i havent done that yet), but the game is unplayable. every half second, i drop from 60 frames down to 0 FPS,then back up, constantly, back and forth.

the game looks like slideshow because of it.

I'm running with all AA disabled, and everything on the lowest possible setting. it was defaulted to high, and i had the same issues.

here's my hardware.

GTX 560 TI 1 GB.

i7 2600K, no overclock

8 GB RAM

Vista 64bit.

not having issues in any other games.

If this has already been posted, feel free to delete this or whatever, just wondering if anyone has this going on or knows of fixes. I'm just worried that its a hardware issue on my end, because i have a friend who's running the exact same card and a stock i5 2500k, and isnt having issues.

Thanks for the help in advance!

EDIT: ran some single player stuff. no issues. could it be my connection to the server?

Edited June 28, 2013 by xer21

[ZoneTrooper 10]

Right now it doesnt matter what kind of PC you have,you can have a 700€ PC or you can have a 5000€ PC with 2 GTX Titans and a Intel Core i7 3960X with 6 Cores and overclocked to 4,2 GHz and 16 GB ram,you will have the same FPS like the 700€ pc in Multiplayer.Arma 3 uses just 40-60 Percent of the CPU also just 1 core,and the graphics card also isn´t under power all the time.Right now it doesn´t matter if you choose low,standar,high,very-high,or Ultra the FPS in Singleplayer remains the same,in Multiplayer it also doesnt matter wich setting you choose,the only thing that is letting the performance drop so hard ist the VISIBILITY Overall and Object.In singleplayer you can put them on my CPU Core I7-860 on nearly 3400 overall and object 2900-3200 there i get round about 30-70 FPS with a GTX 680 4GB ram and 8GB ram.In Multiplayer you only can adjust view distance with the scrole of the mouse wheele,there you have a option that is called player menu,choose it and then you will see a option like near,medium,far,insane these are the options with that you can reduce or increase the visibility of your character,if you choose them in Options it will have no effect.You can try it near and medium are the best option so far but Far and especially insane kills everyones FPS doesnt matter how strong his CPU is.It is just not optimized,and if they are going to release it with using just 1 core of potential 4 or 6 cores well then you can paint it out how it will run if you play multiplayer on a 270 square kilometers map,for a example stratis is just 20 square kilometers.

[xer21 10]

Right now it doesnt matter what kind of PC you have,you can have a 700€ PC or you can have a 5000€ PC with 2 GTX Titans and a Intel Core i7 3960X with 6 Cores and overclocked to 4,2 GHz and 16 GB ram,you will have the same FPS like the 700€ pc in Multiplayer.Arma 3 uses just 40-60 Percent of the CPU also just 1 core,and the graphics card also isn´t under power all the time.Right now it doesn´t matter if you choose low,standar,high,very-high,or Ultra the FPS in Singleplayer remains the same,in Multiplayer it also doesnt matter wich setting you choose,the only thing that is letting the performance drop so hard ist the VISIBILITY Overall and Object.In singleplayer you can put them on my CPU Core I7-860 on nearly 3400 overall and object 2900-3200 there i get round about 30-70 FPS with a GTX 680 4GB ram and 8GB ram.In Multiplayer you only can adjust view distance with the scrole of the mouse wheele,there you have a option that is called player menu,choose it and then you will see a option like near,medium,far,insane these are the options with that you can reduce or increase the visibility of your character,if you choose them in Options it will have no effect.You can try it near and medium are the best option so far but Far and especially insane kills everyones FPS doesnt matter how strong his CPU is.It is just not optimized,and if they are going to release it with using just 1 core of potential 4 or 6 cores well then you can paint it out how it will run if you play multiplayer on a 270 square kilometers map,for a example stratis is just 20 square kilometers.

ok, i didnt know i had to change it not in the options. i'll try that.

just thought it was funny since my friend has the exact same setup except with an i5, and he has zero issues.

[RuecanOnRails 10]

The server you play on does have a direct correlation to your FPS and overall performance.

More important than high frames alone, are stable frames. You can play Arma with very low frames and not experience any issues as long as the frame rate is stable (not jumping in frame rate every second from 20fps - 65fps) You can try using a frame limiter to reduce the amount large jumps in fps. A constant 32 FPS will feel smoother and faster than a FPS that is jumping between 45 and 60.

The large stutter can also be caused by your HDD not being able to keep up with the constant I/O as the game dynamically streams from the HDD. Upgrading to an SSD or installing Arma 3 onto your non primary/faster drive will help reduce sudden large fps drops.

Also.. you should overclock. Not overclocking is throwing your CPU's max potential out the window. You don't need to overclock to the point where it's on the brink of instability. Also Overclock your GPU similar as the CPU but usually has a lot more overclocking headroom 15% - 30% increase isn't unheard of.

[xer21 10]

The server you play on does have a direct correlation to your FPS and overall performance.

More important than high frames alone, are stable frames. You can play Arma with very low frames and not experience any issues as long as the frame rate is stable (not jumping in frame rate every second from 20fps - 65fps) You can try using a frame limiter to reduce the amount large jumps in fps. A constant 32 FPS will feel smoother and faster than a FPS that is jumping between 45 and 60.

The large stutter can also be caused by your HDD not being able to keep up with the constant I/O as the game dynamically streams from the HDD. Upgrading to an SSD or installing Arma 3 onto your non primary/faster drive will help reduce sudden large fps drops.

Also.. you should overclock. Not overclocking is throwing your CPU's max potential out the window. You don't need to overclock to the point where it's on the brink of instability. Also Overclock your GPU similar as the CPU but usually has a lot more overclocking headroom 15% - 30% increase isn't unheard of.

a frame limiter isnt going to help here. im dropping to 0 frames.

i dont really have a lot of options HDD wise. Im already running a WD Caviar Black, and i dont have it in my budget to get an SSD.

Jeez, i've never played a game that's so picky about hardware. Im guessing its the server though, it was being hosted by a friend.