Tweak the graphics presets!

[no use for a name 0]

I just wanted to suggest either tweaking or even scrapping the automated presets in the game. There's 1000's of posts (mainly on other forums) of users complaining about poor performance because they think they have a kick-ass system and they instinctively choose the Ultra setting. I don't know how many times I've seen "I can run every other game maxed out except Arma bla bla"

But they don't realize this isn't like 99% of other games that have VERY limited graphics options and VERY limited scaling. I think 50%+ of "This game needs more optimization"-type threads could be eliminated by just either having the presets set lower, or making people actually use the advanced options to find a balance. It just sickens me to see all this "Arma sucks because it's unoptimized" BS spread throughout the www because the people are too lazy/uneducated to click the "Advanced" button and change it themselves.

I think it would shut a lot of people up who always complain about how they can't run this game on Ultra with an i5/gtx680/SSD because they have everything set to Ultra and a 3800m view distance

I'd make a ticket in the feedback tracker but for some reason I can't log in anymore (I always get a "name already in use" error)

[Sneakson 1]

Yeah the presets and auto-detect aren't awesome maybe.

[marcai 1]

...

You could be quite right on a number of things, but arguably the game should also be able to run with settings on ultra when played on on '"kick ass systems", and if it cannot it is pretty unoptimised, no? If the vast majority of gaming computers can't handle the game at higher graphics, then the game is unoptimised for the consumer base. I know you'll disagree and claim that gamers shouldn't expect they can run everything maxed on every game ever (I even kinda agree), but having something 'too good' for your planned target is pretty much the definition of 'unoptimised'.

Additionally, I find a lot of the graphics settings have little or no impact on my performance anyway. Switching three sliders from ultra to standard gained me 3fps, but reduced the quality of the game for me personally. If we were talking 10-25 fps I'd take that hit quite gladly. I'd miss the prettier side of things ofc, but it doesn't seem to work like that. Bizzarely I find changing some settings to the lower quality often has no change or even lowers my FPS. At the same time, whilst flying at a town on Altis earlier I had a 10 second pause as it the game spazzed out on me trying to collect its thoughts.

As has been stated a million times before, it's not the graphics settings which slow the game down, but a heavy reliance on CPU power. I agree that toning some graphics down would help quite a few people, but it's hardly the foundation of optimisation issues in my humble opinion.

[avigrace 1]

...

I think it's just future proofing their game, doubt there are any PC's that could run it fully maxxed out at 12k view distance etc but in a year or 2..

[jumpinghubert 49]

I just wanted to suggest either tweaking or even scrapping the automated presets in the game. There's 1000's of posts (mainly on other forums) of users complaining about poor performance because they think they have a kick-ass system and they instinctively choose the Ultra setting. I don't know how many times I've seen "I can run every other game maxed out except Arma bla bla"

But they don't realize this isn't like 99% of other games that have VERY limited graphics options and VERY limited scaling. I think 50%+ of "This game needs more optimization"-type threads could be eliminated by just either having the presets set lower, or making people actually use the advanced options to find a balance. It just sickens me to see all this "Arma sucks because it's unoptimized" BS spread throughout the www because the people are too lazy/uneducated to click the "Advanced" button and change it themselves.

I think it would shut a lot of people up who always complain about how they can't run this game on Ultra with an i5/gtx680/SSD because they have everything set to Ultra and a 3800m view distance

I'd make a ticket in the feedback tracker but for some reason I can't log in anymore (I always get a "name already in use" error)

1+ so true...

[bad benson 1733]

and that is why the thread author asks for better information policy. even arma 2 had 10 km viewdistance. but barely anyone could play it like that. people underestimate the impact of viewdistance in general. yes the map is big but scale the viewdistance to something you are used to from other games...et voila, same performance as those other games.

i totally agree that altis isn't really running well yet but it's clearly bugged. it seems to be memory related mostly. i mean i have no uber PC but it's "recommended" so if altis will be like this on release, i suggest making 6-8gb ram a minimum requirement. otherwise it gets frustrating for people having the "recommended" trying to run the game on over 3k viewdistance. we need some realistic spec recommendations and some tool tips in the graphics settings to explain that the viewdistance slider is kinda open end and shoudl be used with caution. the game runs with 23 FPS when i use autodetect btw ;) (and with some tweaks i can have over 40 with it still looking very good)

Edited August 30, 2013 by Bad Benson

[NeuroFunker 11]

like i said once, i was expecting much worse performance on altis, and i was suprised, i don't even in need to change my very high/ultra hybrid settings from stratis, runs quite smooth. If your experiencing bad performance in multiplayer - like i said a ton of times, it depens on server specs. I've been playing on some server with intel xeon processors, and hight bandwitch, the game felt very smooth even with 50-60 players on CTI! There are really a lot of non dedicated or purwely optimized servers, wich are maybe good for playing arma, but not for server hosting!

[no use for a name 0]

On Ultra the VD is set to 3800, and the object distance is set to 3200m...that's insane! Those are the two biggest FPS killers besides FSAA and SSAO (which it sets both to max even on my old 560 Ti 2GB). Everyone is basing game performance off of games (mostly console ports) that don't have NEAR the scale, and then expect it to run smooth with everything jacked up?

Even if the game is unoptimized like people have been crying for years, BIS isn't just going to build a new engine from scratch for Arma 3; so if people aren't willing to compromise instead of saying "My pc can run every single game maxxxxed out!!!! plz fixxxx!!!" then they just wasted $45 or whatever they paid, and they start spamming forums about how crap the game is

You could be quite right on a number of things, but arguably the game should also be able to run with settings on ultra when played on on '"kick ass systems", and if it cannot it is pretty unoptimised, no? If the vast majority of gaming computers can't handle the game at higher graphics, then the game is unoptimised for the consumer base. I know you'll disagree and claim that gamers shouldn't expect they can run everything maxed on every game ever (I even kinda agree), but having something 'too good' for your planned target is pretty much the definition of 'unoptimised'.

Additionally, I find a lot of the graphics settings have little or no impact on my performance anyway. Switching three sliders from ultra to standard gained me 3fps, but reduced the quality of the game for me personally. If we were talking 10-25 fps I'd take that hit quite gladly. I'd miss the prettier side of things ofc, but it doesn't seem to work like that. Bizzarely I find changing some settings to the lower quality often has no change or even lowers my FPS. At the same time, whilst flying at a town on Altis earlier I had a 10 second pause as it the game spazzed out on me trying to collect its thoughts.

As has been stated a million times before, it's not the graphics settings which slow the game down, but a heavy reliance on CPU power. I agree that toning some graphics down would help quite a few people, but it's hardly the foundation of optimisation issues in my humble opinion.

Well until there's another game that lets you set terrain/objects past 2-3km with all the bells and whistles, how can you compare optimization? Flight sims come to mind; but then most don't have the up-close detail and objects that Arma does, and in DCS when I max out my draw distance and object detail it also chugs

Skyrim also comes to mind; but it's handled totally different (it pre-loads blocks of terrain instead of full streaming like Arma), not to mention the max view distance for the terrain is maybe 1km. Try increasing view distance and object distance to Arma standards and see how well that runs (if it runs at all)

See what I'm getting at?? People whine about optimization when there's nothing to compare it to! I guarantee that if everyone had say Skyrim settings (view/object distances) then there would be a fraction of the "game isn't optimized" threads.

Edited August 30, 2013 by No Use For A Name

[Masterflaw 10]

I can no longer play any large scale MP games...was able to in in early beta/alpha on ultra with server view distance... but recently tried a few on Stratis and Altis and find my frames unplayable 15-30fps and stutters like crazy...I know the 8350 doesn't have the best single core performance but it should be able to handle this as I have it clocked at 4.6... there isn't a single other game that even comes close to bottle necking the main core like ARMA....

Thankfully small optimized missions and SP scenerio's such as Whole Lot of Altis run great on ultra view distance 2 3,000.... but I'm Trying to figure out why they would make a map thats unplayable to 99% of consumers when fully utilized.

It has much more to do than the view distance as well, It has to do with the overly retentive physics and the ridiculously over-scripted A.I....I can run this game on ultra in the editor @40+ frames.

Oh and some CTI missions work well....Still stutters like crazy though...

-----------------------

Just overly ambitious for the engine/current hardware is all.(mostly engine though)

And one has to admit having this game not be fully threaded isn't future proofing in it's own right.

Bi says it's the servers/optimized game modes but they really should be putting out servers and making large scale game modes to at least show people how it's done.

but it is Arma and all arma games have started out like crap and seem to have picked themselves up....It's just a game that's always being worked on....

Saying this game is even remotely optimized or holds it's self to current standards as far as core programming goes is just unreasonable.....

[antoineflemming 14]

There's basically already a thread for performance issues, which is what this thread just might turn into. But just a point to make to the OP. I'd honestly accept your argument if that were the ONLY scenario in which people are complaining about graphics. And, yeah, I get this is focused only on those who are having problems running the game on ULTRA settings. But you have to consider that this is still in the larger context of broad performance issues, and not just those who can't run it on Ultra. Because you've got people having performance issues with the game who have killer systems and who do know how to change their graphics settings and who aren't running the game on ULTRA everything. And ultimately it's not BIS that's making these people believe that they can run the game on full everything. Nor is that the main issue.

I'm sorry, but view distance is not the only factor in how well the game runs. Bloom, PP, etc aren't the only factors. Like said somewhere else, when you are engaging AI, and the FPS drops, and then you kill said AI, when that FPS doesn't go back up, then there's something wrong, because for some reason the game is still doing some calculations on dead AI. And that's just one example. The game is not optimized. That's not a magic term, or magic concept. The game uses too many unnecessary resources. I can't tell you what resources are allocated where, but the game is not up to current standards. As much as I like everything being simulated perfectly and correctly, if blowing grass and trees negatively impact performance, then I'd want them changed to static vegetation. If moving clouds cause significant negative impact, then I'd want them to be stationary. Those are just examples, but pretty much anything that isn't necessary for sufficient (not 100% perfect) land, sea, and air simulation (infantry, ground vehicles, water- and aircraft) should be able to be disabled by the player (so like moving trees/grass/clouds and the calculation done on them and how the wind affects them, or the quality of particle effects - should have the option of having the game use 2d sprites, so COD method).

I can't tell BIS how to "optimize" their game, but something needs to be done to the engine. Because staring at a tree in Arma shouldn't drop my FPS. I don't know or care how other games do their trees, but if I can look at a tree in one game and not have low FPS, I should be able to do the same in Arma. Don't respond with crap about how Arma is a different game/engine and how it does x number of calculations and has x view distance and such. A tree is a tree. And yes, zooming in on trees does cause my game to drop FPS.

Edited August 30, 2013 by antoineflemming

[TSAndrey 1]

People don't complain about the peformance because they can't find "the balance" in the graphic settings. Take a look at the Low FPS thread and see.

[thr0tt 12]

Auto detect cranks all my settings to ultra and CD to 3800, along with as at 8x then although makes the game look great its just not playable. 2gb gfx card 8gb system ram, quad cores, game really should.d be using these.

[maddogx 13]

People don't complain about the peformance because they can't find "the balance" in the graphic settings. Take a look at the Low FPS thread and see.

I think generalizations either way are false.

A lot of people are definitely experiencing legitimate performance issues, especially in multiplayer, but on the other hand I've seen a lot of posts like "oh, I reduced the object draw distance from 12km to 4km and suddenly it was playable".

EDIT:

And I just remembered, one of my "favorite" feedback tracker requests: #9668

Essentially asking for "high" and "ultra" HDR settings, just because "standard" doesn't sound high enough. There is certainly a psychological factor involved, where people (especially those who have spent lots of money on high-end systems) expect to be able to check all the boxes and set everything to "high", if not max everything out.

Edited August 30, 2013 by MadDogX

[marcai 1]

Well until there's another game that lets you set terrain/objects past 2-3km with all the bells and whistles, how can you compare optimization? Flight sims come to mind; but then most don't have the up-close detail and objects that Arma does, and in DCS when I max out my draw distance and object detail it also chugs

It's a key argument of many-a-defender of BIS's engine that Arma has no compare in video gaming. Even if this were the case (and we overlooked every other open world game out there) it doesn't change the fact that it can have performance issues unrelated to the graphics because of how it is. Just because it's special does not mean we can just pretend that the performance issues aren't there! Every time I die in PvP to a sudden 3 second stutter, I can't just smile and say "Well at least it happened in Arma 3!" I am mightily impressed with the optimisations so far, and A3 runs far better than A2 ever did for me before. I just hope they keep on coming until these complaints are resolved, or at least mopped up.

[samyg 3]

I'm able to run the game with 40-50fps on the Ultra preset settings and I have an i5 and a gtx 680 :D

[old_painless 182]

I really wonder if the AutoDetect takes into account how much RAM people have? It seems to look at the video card properties, and most likely CPU as well but perhaps not RAM ?

Agree that recommended settings for RAM need to be higher than 4 Gb - I monitored while playing a simple mission and I was constantly above 5 Gb of RAM usage

[Minoza 11]

Agree with OP. Ability to "ultra" out the game can stay for future, but current presets aren't good, and autodetect isn't doing good job either.

I'm able to run the game with 40-50fps on the Ultra preset settings and I have an i5 and a gtx 680 :D

No you are not, maybe in editor on an empty map. I have similar setup, i7 3770 OCed at 4.4GHz, and factory OC GTX670, with Ultra preset (autodetect) game gets uplayable in a typical scenario and don't even get me started on MP performance...

[no use for a name 0]

There's basically already a thread for performance issues, which is what this thread just might turn into. But just a point to make to the OP. I'd honestly accept your argument if that were the ONLY scenario in which people are complaining about graphics. And, yeah, I get this is focused only on those who are having problems running the game on ULTRA settings. But you have to consider that this is still in the larger context of broad performance issues, and not just those who can't run it on Ultra. Because you've got people having performance issues with the game who have killer systems and who do know how to change their graphics settings and who aren't running the game on ULTRA everything. And ultimately it's not BIS that's making these people believe that they can run the game on full everything. Nor is that the main issue.

I'm sorry, but view distance is not the only factor in how well the game runs. Bloom, PP, etc aren't the only factors. Like said somewhere else, when you are engaging AI, and the FPS drops, and then you kill said AI, when that FPS doesn't go back up, then there's something wrong, because for some reason the game is still doing some calculations on dead AI. And that's just one example. The game is not optimized. That's not a magic term, or magic concept. The game uses too many unnecessary resources. I can't tell you what resources are allocated where, but the game is not up to current standards. As much as I like everything being simulated perfectly and correctly, if blowing grass and trees negatively impact performance, then I'd want them changed to static vegetation. If moving clouds cause significant negative impact, then I'd want them to be stationary. Those are just examples, but pretty much anything that isn't necessary for sufficient (not 100% perfect) land, sea, and air simulation (infantry, ground vehicles, water- and aircraft) should be able to be disabled by the player (so like moving trees/grass/clouds and the calculation done on them and how the wind affects them, or the quality of particle effects - should have the option of having the game use 2d sprites, so COD method).

I can't tell BIS how to "optimize" their game, but something needs to be done to the engine. Because staring at a tree in Arma shouldn't drop my FPS. I don't know or care how other games do their trees, but if I can look at a tree in one game and not have low FPS, I should be able to do the same in Arma. Don't respond with crap about how Arma is a different game/engine and how it does x number of calculations and has x view distance and such. A tree is a tree. And yes, zooming in on trees does cause my game to drop FPS.

I guess I should be clear - I don't think that my suggestion will magically 'fix' everyones complaints about performance; but it will at least calm down the ones who complain that they can't run the game on settings too high for their PC. And I never said VD was the only factor in performance...I also said Object Distance, FSAA, and SSAO all had drastic effects on performance as well (which Ultra setting max automatically).

Also, I know the game has performance issues; that's why I've spent more time in Arma3 tweaking/optimizing instead of actually playing lol. I even started a thread about the AI and how even after they're dead FPS still doesn't go up. This looked very strange (and inefficient) so I posted a thread but got ONE response as it seems no one cares ( http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?160374-GPU-CPU-useage-decreases-as-AI-increase ). The only way I could fix it was to make a simple clear body script that would clean the dead bodies, then FPS went back up.

As for using more threads/better 'optimization', I think this pretty much sums it up: http://steamcommunity.com/app/107410/discussions/0/864972620657742456/#c864972620869327834

We're not going to get milk from a turnip as they say, so while there may be future improvements I wouldn't expect anything super-drastic. People that are hoping for some magical fix to make the game run so good that everyone can run max settings are going to be VERY disappointed (hope I'm wrong tho)

My thread was just a simple solution to a common problem with this game...new players expecting Arma to perform like 99% of other games (which it won't, ever)

[mistyronin 1181]

I'm able to run the game with 40-50fps on the Ultra preset settings and I have an i5 and a gtx 680 :D

You'll tell us how you do... cuz I also have a i5, 2GB graphic card, 8gb ram and with mid settings I get from 15-35 fps.

[antoineflemming 14]

I guess I should be clear - I don't think that my suggestion will magically 'fix' everyones complaints about performance; but it will at least calm down the ones who complain that they can't run the game on settings too high for their PC. And I never said VD was the only factor in performance...I also said Object Distance, FSAA, and SSAO all had drastic effects on performance as well (which Ultra setting max automatically).

Also, I know the game has performance issues; that's why I've spent more time in Arma3 tweaking/optimizing instead of actually playing lol. I even started a thread about the AI and how even after they're dead FPS still doesn't go up. This looked very strange (and inefficient) so I posted a thread but got ONE response as it seems no one cares ( http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?160374-GPU-CPU-useage-decreases-as-AI-increase ). The only way I could fix it was to make a simple clear body script that would clean the dead bodies, then FPS went back up.

As for using more threads/better 'optimization', I think this pretty much sums it up: http://steamcommunity.com/app/107410/discussions/0/864972620657742456/#c864972620869327834

We're not going to get milk from a turnip as they say, so while there may be future improvements I wouldn't expect anything super-drastic. People that are hoping for some magical fix to make the game run so good that everyone can run max settings are going to be VERY disappointed (hope I'm wrong tho)

My thread was just a simple solution to a common problem with this game...new players expecting Arma to perform like 99% of other games (which it won't, ever)

Gotcha. Yeah, I missed that thread.

[suprememodder 11]

"My thread was just a simple solution to a common problem with this game...new players expecting Arma to perform like 99% of other games (which it won't, ever)"

the flip side to that is bis not taking full advantage of modern technologies. multicore support is currently pathetic.

[clydefrog 3]

"My thread was just a simple solution to a common problem with this game...new players expecting Arma to perform like 99% of other games (which it won't, ever)"

the flip side to that is bis not taking full advantage of modern technologies. multicore support is currently pathetic.

From looking at my CPU usage whilst playing yesterday, it looks like the core usage is pretty even over 4 cores (it wasn't when I looked a while ago) but it's still only using at most about 60% of the CPU and on average about 60% or 70% GPU usage which is bad. I only get higher GPU usage in the editor, on servers it drops a lot, I'm pretty sure I've seen it go below 40 and obviously you end up with about 20fps.

Edited September 2, 2013 by clydefrog

[Ekko 1]

From looking at my CPU usage whilst playing yesterday, it looks like the core usage is pretty even over 4 cores (it wasn't when I looked a while ago) but it's still only using at most about 60% of the CPU and on average about 60% or 70% GPU usage which is bad. I only get higher GPU usage in the editor, on servers it drops a lot, I'm pretty sure I've seen it go below 40 and obviously you end up with about 20fps.

I have always wondered if the engine's limitations is something that could be fixed or improved in the current engine? or would that require a completely new one? and have Bis talked about this and the engine's limitation lately?

If no improvement can be done, then I guess I have to wait 2-4 years to play it without the damn stuttering cause I don't think buying new components for just A3 is rather wise.

I suppose an i7-960 Processor, 6gb ram and two gtx 570 in sli is just not enough to enter any village big or small without lag and stuttering...

[calin_banc 19]

On what settings, what kind of gtx570? You'll probably run out vRAM on higher settings, in which case, extra GPU muscle is useless.

[clydefrog 3]

I use an MSI Twin Frozr 3 GTX570 with 1280MB VRAM and I've not even seen the memory usage reach 1GB on the settings I've been trying out (mostly ultra - not all, AA x4, FXAA very high, anisotropic ultra and around 1600 to 2000 view distance with 1000 object draw distance). Also after switching the settings to the standard preset last night just to see what kind of difference it would make I saw hardly any difference in frame rate.

Edited September 2, 2013 by clydefrog