FPS Drops After ~45 minutes of Gameplay

[Whispy 10]

So this time I manually set my pagefile size to be "Minimum: 16mb" and "Maximum: 16384mb"!

Here is the resulting data:

After restarting my computer but not playing ARMA 3, here is what the Virtual Memory window looks like, and what the properties of pagefile.sys itself shows:

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

After starting ARMA 3 and joining a server:

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

After playing ARMA 3 long enough that FPS problems begin:

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

And here is a performance log from this session:

In this performance log, I also added in monitoring relating directly to the pagefile — % Usage Peak and % Usage.

[napalm02 0]

Me too at the begining perfect, but after 30 minutes my FPS are 10/15...

I7 950

6G DDR3 Dominator

HD 4870X2

Win 7 64

[Bizibiz 10]

Same here ^^

Playing nicely in MP (30-50) for some time, and finally drops to 5fps after playing few ten minutes, soldier model and the 3D scene becomes really ugly. I don't really measure time, but I think that 30-45min after start is good approximation.

I don't test if drop appears in SP.

From monitoring, I saw that gpu stops working when this happens. CPU & GPU are not in fault (temp OK, mem not full, clocking @ stock speed). I don't monitor the IO streams.

It's pretty like the display driver restart, from my experience, I notice it's generally appears when we change town after a capture so when a lot of new thing needs to be loaded into memory.

The problem doesn't appears when we fight for a long time in the same place.

I5 760

4GB DDR3

GTX760 2GB

Win7 32

no pagefile

SSD (os + game)

A game restart is enough to reset fps, but really annoying to restart and lose slot on server, and seeing that you are the only one with this problem on the server ^^

I try to use maxMem & maxVRAM as startup parameters to limit memory if it was a memory leak but nothing to do with it.

[nicolasroger 11]

Just a though, but maybe you guys could try that: press SHIFT + '-' (shift plus the minus key on the numpad) it will open an invisible console. Now type FLUSH.

I often had the problem you mentionned in arma 2 and that often helped me to temporarily solve the problem.

I hope this help.

[eXpouk 10]

Just a though, but maybe you guys could try that: press SHIFT + '-' (shift plus the minus key on the numpad) it will open an invisible console. Now type FLUSH.

I often had the problem you mentionned in arma 2 and that often helped me to temporarily solve the problem.

I hope this help.

Had this issue and tried the above solution (like I did in Arma 2) and it didnt help.

Please fix this memory leak issue!!

[Hud Dorph 22]

Have same problem - both on dedicated server and on client.

[eXpouk 10]

Also my textures start messing up big time as well as my FPS dropping to like 2...

Here's a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/UgmdGWp.jpg (511 kB)

As you see, this happens in both singleplayer and mulitplayer. All my temps are fine etc.

[Drumheller 19]

So I may have found a solution for this a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to be sure before I posted it:

Assuming everyone having this issue is using a geforce card - delete ALL geforce components from your computer other than the drivers and audio drivers and physx. SPECIFICALLY Geforce Experience. I deleted the 3d vision drivers, other random misc things, and geforce experience around 2 weeks ago, and I haven't had the frame skipping problem since.

Also, if this works for you, make sure you report back to this thread with the results(also report back if it doesn't work for you.

I'm 85% sure that Geforce Experience was the program causing this issue. I noticed it when the issue happened once and I IMMEDIATELY tabbed out and saw that the geforce experience had some sort of pop-up up, indicating that it had just done something.

NOTE: This is only for people having the frame skipping issue after ~45 min of playing in which when you look around your frames skip badly but if you're standing perfectly still your frames recover.

[Whispy 10]

So I may have found a solution for this a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to be sure before I posted it:

Assuming everyone having this issue is using a geforce card - delete ALL geforce components from your computer other than the drivers and audio drivers and physx. SPECIFICALLY Geforce Experience. I deleted the 3d vision drivers, other random misc things, and geforce experience around 2 weeks ago, and I haven't had the frame skipping problem since.

Also, if this works for you, make sure you report back to this thread with the results(also report back if it doesn't work for you.

I'm 85% sure that Geforce Experience was the program causing this issue. I noticed it when the issue happened once and I IMMEDIATELY tabbed out and saw that the geforce experience had some sort of pop-up up, indicating that it had just done something.

NOTE: This is only for people having the frame skipping issue after ~45 min of playing in which when you look around your frames skip badly but if you're standing perfectly still your frames recover.

I don't have the Geforce Experience installed (nor do I have the audio or 3D components installed either). All I have is the NVIDIA drivers and PhysX.

[eXpouk 10]

Think that is a different issue MacScottie. For me, I can play perfectly for around 45mins and then all of a sudden my FPS drops to around 2-3, no matter if Im moving, standing still, looking up/down, map screen, whatever! Using the flush command doesnt fix it and textures stop rendering properly (see screenshot in my previous post).

I had this issue in Arma2 and it was caused by a JayArma2lib memory leak. This is the same thing except the actual game is the issue and not a mod.

[Whispy 10]

I still have this problem, even after completely reinstalling my game. Can I get some help with this please?

[miniYo 10]

Did you configure properly the video memory according to your graphic card?

On arma2 there is a bug with this setting.. In this version the solution was solved by always configure with auto.

[Greenfist 1863]

Did you try the FLUSH command suggested earlier?

I'm not sure if I have the same exact problem but when I set the texture detail (along with some else video memory intensive settings) to high or higher, I get fps drops after playing a while. Not constantly low fps, but drops from 40 to 10 every few seconds.

Flush helps, but generally I just keep the settings lower.

I have 2GB of vram but when the fps degrades it's not even fully used, usage usually sits at 1500-1700MB. Vram usage hitting that 1500MB barrier is the only thing I see consistently when fps starts dropping.

[Whispy 10]

Flush command does not help.

[SYH 10]

The problem is that fps drops that hppen in multiplayer are caused by servers that are unable to process the huge ammount of data when full more than 40-50 players are on. Altis life turns to slideshow once packed.

The whole concept with the huge world on untested dedicated servers avalible is just ridiculous.

A3 should have gone to another level with bohemia providing proper servers and adequate services, similar to those on modern mmo games.. this is a mmo after all with all the modes/ mods floating around. 100 players on some questionable server is a joke and it will never be fixed.

P.S. check how flawlessly ps2 is working with literally hundred of soldiers and vehicles fighting around the certain areas..why? Because the proper mmo concept brought fps to another level.

Sadly it's not my flavor :(

Edited February 27, 2014 by SYH

[doveman 7]

I was getting 9fps playing on a co-op server with about 10 people the other night and it's a decently specced server. I'd estimate there were about 30-50 AI in the area (Marina) that the mission had us assigned to capture. After I died, I managed to get it up to 20fps by disabling MSAA and tweaking a few other things but I obviously don't know if it would have stayed at that if I was actually playing rather than being in the menu.

@SYH, PS2 only has about 4-5 servers though doesn't it (it did the last time I played but that was a while ago, as it's not really my cup of tea either). Would really suck if ArmA3 only had 4-5 servers to choose from wouldn't it and clearly BIS couldn't run 100's of servers to cover every gamestyle that people might want to play. I doubt it would help anyway as the fact is the engine causes low fps on the clients due to things happening on the server, particularly large amounts of AI.

Edited February 27, 2014 by doveman

[SYH 10]

PS2 has 5 server clusters for the different regions of the world.

It's an MMO shooter.

Each server supports up to 6k, 2k per continent.

So basically 2k player battle can happen.

huge battles are happening whole the time and when i mean huge.. i mean it.

200-300 people are fighting, vehicles, soldeirs, buildings.

So the excuse of having few AIs at one part of the map.. that's ridiculous.

I have no problem with the offline gaming no matter how high the settings or what i put in the editor, no matter how hard the battle is.

I have no problem online either on a decent server until it's capacity for a decent game play hasn't been reached.

Then the problems start and i think; 60 players, 80 players... few cars, few choppers, few trucks, few buildings... woods... trees... no matter where are i go fps are gross. and that's the server problem.

the whole concept is wrong.

So far there are 90% Altis RPG servers and people are playing that.

There are fewer servers hosting other mods/modes.

Same as it was with A2.

I know that is not even close to SONY when the finances are spoken of, but still..

they had to think ahead.

from my point of view this is a huge step backwards.

maybe with A4 if it ever comes out the concept of hosting will be changed.

till then..roleplaying some dude 15-20 FPS with 80 ppl in a game what initially supposed to be the best tactical milsim avalaible is just plain ridiculous.

[chaz69 10]

I'm barely getting 14-19 fps in any server. I've messed with the graphic settings in and out of game. I've set parameters/affinity/priority. I can't seem to break 20fps or higher in any mp servers. I understand that AMD cpu's suffer in the Single core spectrum of Arma 3, but dang. Is this normal? It seems as if those who are using AMD have given up on Arma 3.

My current specs:

FX 8350 w/H100i

Gigabyte 990fx-ud3

16gb Corsair Dominator

GTX 770 4gb

60gb SSD OCZ vertex 2 (OS)

2tb WD

[Ophichius 10]

The problem is that fps drops that hppen in multiplayer are caused by servers that are unable to process the huge ammount of data when full more than 40-50 players are on. Altis life turns to slideshow once packed.

The whole concept with the huge world on untested dedicated servers avalible is just ridiculous.

A3 should have gone to another level with bohemia providing proper servers and adequate services, similar to those on modern mmo games.. this is a mmo after all with all the modes/ mods floating around. 100 players on some questionable server is a joke and it will never be fixed.

P.S. check how flawlessly ps2 is working with literally hundred of soldiers and vehicles fighting around the certain areas..why? Because the proper mmo concept brought fps to another level.

Sadly it's not my flavor :(

PS2 is far from flawless, suffered from massive performance issues at launch, and still suffers from poor performance now. It also does significant corner cutting, for example, in large battles it will only render a subset of all players to each other, something which would be unforgivable in Arma. It also has very imprecise position code and a very, very poor server tick rate (200ms between ticks). The only reason it 'feels' smooth is because it uses client side hit detection and motion prediction. If Arma went that route, it would be even more of a mess than the current MP situation. Imagine being hit and killed by a friendly vehicle that looked like it was driving past you 10m away on your screen. That happens all the time in PS2, because vehicle and player position is only updated on clients once every 200ms, leading to a massive desync between apparent and actual positions. PS2 manages to have huge battles because it has incredibly low precision, not because it has a better design.

[SYH 10]

of course.

why?

because it has hundreds of players per "zone".

imagine it it only had like 80.

considering the numbers and players connecting form various distances... its doing a helluve better job than this, whatever it is.

and btw.

this(hit detection) has nothing to do with the poor netcode, poor servers, the concept and performance of A3.

Edited March 5, 2014 by SYH

[bvrettski 10]

Dwarden.... we see this all the time. Its not new to A3. Its been going on sicne day one of the A3 release and perhaps back to A2. Go on almost any populated server right after a server restart. With a good system you'll see 70 or 80 FPS if your optimized but as time rolls on, the server populates and the mission runs longer the fps drops. Sometimes it seems to happen all at once and other times its just a slow decay. I've seen mine drop from the aforementioned 80 fps down to the mid 30's. Under extreme conditions even the high 20's. Unplayable. I usually log out and take a break or find another game to play that runs just a little bit better.

The issue here in the forums, then become a cyclical debate over the state of Arma 3 engine vs the mission coding vs the players computer setup with no clear cut answers from BI. I'm sure you BI guys can't be content knowing the game goes through this and that thousands of players suffer through this bad performance all the time. It would sure be refreshing if BI would at least acknowledge the problems and give us some assurance they its important enough to be fixed. I'm not a DICE fan but at least they fall on the sword when their game is having issues...even if it is after they took your money.:D

If your going to put us on giant maps, with big objectives and expect us to play for hours then it would sure be nice to know that A3 was going to run consistent enough to be playable without performance degrading over time.

[haleks 8206]

I'm digging up this thread...

I've been experiencing the same issue (sudden FPS drop after maybe 45 minutes in SP) - my machine is up to date, same for the drivers, .NET services, my OS etc...

I tried every solution I could think of (including changing memory allocators); after all I tried, all I've been reading, there's no doubt that the issue is from Arma3 itself.

We haven't heard anything from a dev on this - last time it was in September last year (Dwarden confirming someone his computer wasn't faulty I think), nothing since then...

This is extremely frustrating since the game runs smoothly otherwise... But until BI adresses that memory leak, I can't say Arma3 is playable for me.

Could we have some feedback from a dev? At least let us know if someone has tried to/is going to work on this problem?

[kklownboy 43]

so you saw the Mem leak? Using Performance monitor? Is it pure vanilla game/no mods? is it a default SP mission?

[haleks 8206]

Nope, I didn't monitored the mem usage; I assume it is a memory leak - I don't know what else it could be...

I made a fresh install on my PC and often check for driver updates, HD defrag, clean registry etc... I highly doubt it is an issue on my end; my rig meets the minimum requirements and I have a solid 30 fps most of the time (40 with not too much AI).

But after an hour or so, my framerate drops below 10, no matter what happens ingame.

I did have a few mods running; will give it a spin without them, but I'm not optimistic.

[kklownboy 43]

Which missions?, Yeah I dont think its a HW issue.