GTX TITAN SLI OC (2000€) = 30 / 25 fps

[wreckington 10]

I've got an old i7 920 @ 3.4 and SLI GTX570s and it seems to run pretty well. Better than I expected considering my old CPU.

I am getting ready for a new build and it's easy to see why the PC enthusiast market has tanked. It's like 2500.00 just for a new CPU, MB, GPUs, RAM and PSU. And the build I am looking at is not what I would consider top end.

[gammadust 12]

But why wouldn't it use up as much processor and gpu as it possibly could since it is a resource heavy application? Also why does a "simulator" have to operate at a lower frame rate?

It does not have to but it is very likely to...

Imagine all of us in this thread can make an addition operation. Imagine we want to know the sum of all members posts since they joined. Each of us knows the amount of posts to add.

Problem: how can we reach the actual sum of all if we each make the addition operation simultaneously?

We can't. Each of us MUST add and communicate our sub-total IN SEQUENCE to the next guy so that we can reach a final result. (Note the sequence order is irrelevant in this example)

Now arma and many other games are composed of interdependent systems (each poster), the breath and complexity of which will allow, or not, to reach results simultaneously. Arma and simulators generaly, focus on fidelity to reality, shortcuts are not an option in many cases.

Optimization in these cases is finding in the sub-systems' calculations (orders of complexity higher than simple addition), opportunities to communicate stable information to the next dependent sub-system. When you get 20% usage (whole of a number of cores) just means that there are sub-systems waiting for each other to provide information to act uppon, while not having any other option to proceed with own calculations.

[jiltedjock 10]

Guys, we're playing a SIMULATOR! Not a level based first person shooter, but a full blown SIMULATOR! What's the last simulator you played before the arma series that avged 30-40 fps?

Rise of Flight. Steel Beasts. Both of which are actually simulators, unlike Arma.

The issue is the engine's threading meaning the Arma client is unable to heavily utilise much more than 2 cores. If you have a quad core and you play your missions on a dedicated server hosted on the same PC, the mission's AI will be using different cores to those used to render and calculate in the client. The result is generally much better, more stable framerates on the client.

Even better, if you have a 6 core you can run client, dedicated server, and a headless client controlling the AI all on the same PC, and the results will be good.

Edited October 2, 2013 by jiltedjock

[Valken 621]

mineral oil submerged ;)

yes usually with my game group i use my PC as dedi server which is =AMI= dedicated Arma 3 server, but i'm on line just from 9,00 pm to 1,00 am almost everyday

Wow! Can you post a picture of your rig and what kind of performance are you getting in ARMA 3? If it is not too messy to work with, I may consider it. Next paycheck of course. :P

@ Flowa 91

Your PC is beautiful and fairly powerful. Makes my i5-760 @ 4 GHZ with 6950 CFX unlocked look so old and slow!

Please do as the others have said and goto your Nvidia Control Panel and set your video cards to maximum performance. I did that when I was on Nvidia and it really does work for certain games.

I think your CPU @ 4.4 GHZ is good enough but when you go into a town with a lot AI, let us know if your system slows down.

Rise of Flight. Steel Beasts. Both of which are actually simulators, unlike Arma.

The issue is the engine's threading meaning the Arma client is unable to heavily utilise much more than 2 cores. If you have a quad core and you play your missions on a dedicated server hosted on the same PC, the mission's AI will be using different cores to those used to render and calculate in the client. The result is generally much better, more stable framerates on the client.

Even better, if you have a 6 core you can run client, dedicated server, and a headless client controlling the AI all on the same PC, and the results will be good.

How can you set tasks to certain cpu cores? Do you have a bat file example to share? Would be awesome for single playing ARMA players.

[kklownboy 43]

not to bag on Simon1279, but geting 4.4 on a Kseries CPU is easy and on Air. Depending on the MB its just two settings in the bios... There is no need for exotic cooling under 5ghz, and even then...

If you live in a hot area of the world you may have issues with Air.. but 4.2 on air with my old i7965, ambient in the 90-100f runs fine(summer no AC on) just hot(80c) but 80c isnt a problem for modern CPUs.Or GPUs except for NVDAs lame throttle setting. Oh my CPU has been at the speed since Nov 2008.1.4v 16+hours a day.(turn off at nite). Average 60cs all the time D15 cooler

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

Rise of Flight. Steel Beasts. Both of which are actually simulators, unlike Arma.

The issue is the engine's threading meaning the Arma client is unable to heavily utilise much more than 2 cores. If you have a quad core and you play your missions on a dedicated server hosted on the same PC, the mission's AI will be using different cores to those used to render and calculate in the client. The result is generally much better, more stable framerates on the client.

Even better, if you have a 6 core you can run client, dedicated server, and a headless client controlling the AI all on the same PC, and the results will be good.

And here's the main problem; misconception.

The AI, within the client, are also using different cores. The real problem is that the simulation thread is stuck on one core. But there isn't really a realistic way to fix that. Can they split the thread up on different cores? Possibly (most likely). But what would it really do? Lets say you split it so the simulation thread is using 4 cores instead of 1. Then you have a set of simulations on one core that could possibly be finished, but it'd still have to wait on core 2, 3, and 4 to finish it's simulations before it could combine it all into something meaningful for the engine/client to use. So what are you doing while you're waiting for those threads to finish? Experiencing low performance, because the stuff that NEEDS to be done, isn't done, and now every part of the engine is waiting on it to catch up.

So when you look at it with some logical flow, you realize that even with concurrent threading, you'll still be waiting on that simulation thread to finish, and then when it's finished, you have to wait for it to all get put together into something usable (un-needed overhead).

And as for your examples, I'm not sure comparing systems with much less complicated worlds that have much much smaller simulated systems to work with is entirely fair. Rise of flight renders a terrain without micro detail, far less AI that don't really require a lot of processing overhead for pathfinding, and a less demanding graphical engine. Quite frankly, if ROF is using 100% of both GPU and CPU, it's wasting resources, not using them. It's simulating flight characteristics. Arma simulates nearly every interaction between anything interactive.

[flowa91 10]

Wow! Can you post a picture of your rig and what kind of performance are you getting in ARMA 3? If it is not too messy to work with, I may consider it. Next paycheck of course. :P

@ Flowa 91

Your PC is beautiful and fairly powerful. Makes my i5-760 @ 4 GHZ with 6950 CFX unlocked look so old and slow!

Please do as the others have said and goto your Nvidia Control Panel and set your video cards to maximum performance. I did that when I was on Nvidia and it really does work for certain games.

I think your CPU @ 4.4 GHZ is good enough but when you go into a town with a lot AI, let us know if your system slows down.

How can you set tasks to certain cpu cores? Do you have a bat file example to share? Would be awesome for single playing ARMA players.

i try to set maximum performance but is same!.. i think to get overclock but is a shame overclock for 1 game! gg

next time think 2 times before writing the requirements of a game!

[jiltedjock 10]

The real problem is that the simulation thread is stuck on one core.

The "simulation thread". LOL, right....

You are misunderstanding what I am saying. You can split out the processing to 4 or more cores quite easily.

Example:

6 core 3930k - Arma client, Arma dedicated server, Arma headless Client.

Client - runs the render and any AI that are local to the client - ie in the player's group. So could be zero AI.

Dedi Server - runs the server threads.

Headless Client - runs the mission AI

The effect of this is that the client gets higher, stable, frame rates and the cores used by the client are not competing for cycles with the AI processing, for example. Additionally the mission AI will be much better, because it has its own core.

I have a quad core and this is how I play all my single player missions, using a dedicated server on my PC.

As for the sims I mentioned, Rise of Flight has a physics engine that surpasses anything that is going on in Arma. As you would expect from a dedicated flight sim. The most complex terrain that is being rendered in RoF is the one you can't see - the air. Additionally the clouds - which the AI can't see through - is better simulated than any terrain in Arma.

Arma simulates nearly every interaction between anything interactive.

And this is the problem. It largely doesn't, because there is so much to play with in the Arma world, attempts at simulation are spread so thin that they are almost invisible - destructible terrain, AFV combat, AI use of buildings, wind effects on trajectories, any kind of suppression, wounding effects. None of these are simulated well, or at all in some cases.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing Arma - and I have been since creating my own missions with the OFP demo - but it is a game with a lot of toys to play with, not a sim.

Edited October 3, 2013 by jiltedjock

[kklownboy 43]

The "simulation thread". LOL, right....

You are misunderstanding what I am saying. You can split out the processing to 4 or more cores quite easily.

..

Sure you can... Your knowledge is just what all DEVs who make PC games need. WOW! It just so easy... Lets see DICE said it was lame... Crytech poo-pooed it, But you have it figured it out! Maruk even talked about recently...just isnt worth it.

As most DEVS say now, WDDM DX multi-threaded CPU support isnt worth the effort and can hurt performance... Heck even AMD has made a API to get around it(Mantle), Its not the game its the API/DXs overhead. Not to say they wont get what they can from it, but the overhead is a huge issue, for all PC games.

[jiltedjock 10]

Sure you can... Your knowledge is just what all DEVs who make PC games need.

You are also not reading what I am saying. Try reading my example before replying. I am not talking about the Devs, WMMD or GPUs.

I am talking about what the user can do to distribute the threads better across the CPU. Whether or not this approach would be one that could enable Arma to make better use of multi cores is a different conversation. Many of us think it could.

If you run your missions in a dedicated server on the same PC as your client - assuming you have a good quad core or above - the AI processing will take place on a core which is normally unused by the Arma client. That means that the threads in the client which handle rendering get far more CPU cycles because they are no longer competing with the AI thread.

This is basic and has been around for a long time, and many Arma players already do it.

If you want to go even further, use a Headless Client, either on your 6 core box or a separate box on your LAN.

Do a search.

Edited October 3, 2013 by jiltedjock

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

.

You're not reading what anyone is saying. Try reading the opinions of those more educated on the process in this thread, this forum, the devs, other devs of other games, etc.

The main issue with your point above, is the fact that this already happens by default. Your AI is already split up and run primarily on a different core. And in the mean time, it's processing path finding for micro terrain twice the size of Washington DC. Does it simulate all the things you mentioned? Nope. Can it? Yep. And what happens when it does? FPS drops even more. (Go test TPW's mod suite)

I'm not even going to comment on the ROF stuff, because I can tell already there's no convincing you to let go of that ignorance.

But if we're discussing optimization, ffs don't bring up the headless client. It's built for distributed processing, not for running alongside your game. (Not everyone has a 6core CPU) Wrapping something like that into the main client just isn't realistic, since it'd essentially require everyone to run out and buy a hex or octa cpu, just to play the damn game.

On the other hand, if you're able to use it effectively to improve your game. Use it, don't bitch about it. Enjoy the game.

[jiltedjock 10]

Try reading the opinions of those more educated on the process in this thread

Not you, chum. Having read some of your other posts its clear you haven't been around this series or the engine for all that long. Nothing wrong with that, we were all new once, but you might wind your neck in a bit - post count means nothing, many of us have been tinkering with this engine and making our own mods since the OFP Demo in 2001. Vanilla Arma now is as much a "sim" as OFP was then - ie not all that much - but when everything came together it was phenomenally good gameplay. The closest you will get to a sim is using something like ACE, but even then only some elements will be at sim level. The difference is that when OFP came out the scale of its ambition and the sandbox was something that most of us had not experienced anything like before. The scale of the ambition has remained - perhaps questionably in Arma 3, only time will tell - but the engine has not changed much. Not because it's good, but because of technical debt - as BIS themselves have explained, there is no-one left who has a 360 degree view of it, so they are left with a legacy block design to which they can only bolt on the equivalent of different air filters or bigger carbs.

Distributed computing doesn't have to mean separate physical devices, think of virtual machines running on multi CPU servers. If those VMs have to communicate with each other - say web server, mid tier application server, database server - they have the advantage of being able to communicate over the local bus. Architecting and building solutions like this is what I do for a living.

In the context of Arma, when I run my mission in a dedicated server on my client PC, I can offload - and bind - the AI processing to a core that is otherwise unused, because the AI is local to the server and the server is a separate Windows process. That means that whatever is going on with the AI processing, it has no impact on the client render.

Why are you finding it so hard to accept that that is an improvement on the limitations of the client engine? This is distributed computing within the architecture of your CPU - 4 cores working near 100%, which you will never see running the client exe alone - and if you have sufficient cores it will improve your frame rates on any mission. If you are a single player it is a no brainer.

Edited October 4, 2013 by jiltedjock

[tonschuh 3]

The question is, why someone creates a game with certain details and certain size maps, when there is no proper hardware available to run it afterwards in an acceptable way ?

Would someone not change things within the development-period to get a better / playable outcome ?

What is the point to be stubborn / ignorant and just to keep going with the whole process without any adjustments ?

If I see / realize as a Dev that a 20km/2 size map is to heavy on the hardware, then I make adjustments and if I figure out that the calculation of 20 million different parameters is just to heavy on the hardware, then I make adjustments.

Really, where is the point to create a game which sounds awesome on a piece of paper, because even the fish in the pond has an AI, but is running in reality like crap ?

I never heard of a Dev which woke up on the morning of the release day and things radically changed over night to the worse.

A Dev would have known about this essential issues for quite a long time, but didn't change a thing and in my point of view, there is no excuse for such a behavior.

PS:

The Story above is completely fictional and not related to any actual scenarios, persons or products.

:confused:

[stk2008 14]

ive said this to why BIS insist on adding new models,textures,missions when no one can play them at decent FPS.

BIS need to STOP every thing there doing and sort the bloody engine out its a total waste of time BIS adding all these cool idea and no sod being able to play them in SP let alone MP where FPS is bloody terrible.

AMRA 3 is a cash cow for DayZ plain and simple no dev would release a game that runs like shit with out an under lining reason. They must have thought ok we have many arma fans they will purchase the game even in alpha we know it runs like shit but lets release it get there money promise a fix (cus hey its alpha it will run like shit).

And then we can cash fund DayZ with the money and forget about arma 3 ohhh but we will add pointless new vehicles,missions,models etc etc just to make it look like we care.

plain and simple arma 3 is a disaster to dedicated fans of BIS and ARMA series.

I loved OFP etc got it the exact day it was released played the demo that came out before all day every day.

But what BIS have done to arma 3 is a total wash out :(

Edited October 4, 2013 by stk2008