Arma 3 : Operation Make Faster Game

[smiley_ie 7]

Any chance BIS - Arma 3 can do what the Planetside 2 guys are doing ?

Part 1

Part 2

We've made some really great optimization progress in the last few weeks across several different areas of the game. Overall we're running faster across all our hardware test cases, in some cases with up to a 30% increase in framerate, and we're not even done yet.

Update Part 3 and Part 4

Part 3

Interesting stuff with part 4 and PhysX

Edited October 12, 2013 by Smiley_ie

[antoineflemming 14]

I wonder if the devs have such discussions/are actively working on trying to improve performance... Not saying they aren't, but I just don't know. But I like that the Planetside devs are specifically focusing on it. I tried the Battlefield 4 Beta (got it through MOHW), just to kinda see how it ran, and to confirm that it's basically just Battlefield 3 (it is). And they have performance issues. So they put out an announcement that addressed certain issues, like crashes and stuff. But they also acknowledged, in a public announcement of known issues/bugs, that a good number of their players were having performance issues, and they said they were looking into it to try to find a fix. That's the sort of thing I wish BIS would do. Because it's one of the most commonly talked about issues with Arma 3. So I hope they're at least having discussions like this.

waiting for someone to come in talking about how Planetside 2 doesn't have all the calculations or graphics or AI of Arma 3

[A. GrayFOX 10]

i BEG for better frames optimization, in fact i´m going to return to ARMA III when framerate is comfortable. is the only thing i want, and the only thing keeping me away from it.

[ledhead900 10]

i BEG for better frames optimization, in fact i´m going to return to ARMA III when framerate is comfortable. is the only thing i want, and the only thing keeping me away from it.

I'm not going to say that it could use improvement because it sure could. I know ArmA was an intense engine but it brings titans and i'7's to the knees on High-mid settings. But I saw this coming, I mean really BI was never known for optimization and smooth running games they build an incredible engine and leave us to figure out how to tune it for our hardware It was the same with ArmA2.

Now in no way am I suggesting this is an acceptable I really do wish they would optimize the game and say to us community " hey you know we need to spend time optimizing this engine for you guys so we are going to let the community handle the bug reports for a while you guys can create community updates which we will take the time to review at a later date and push them out as official steam updates." This way they only need to focus on the improvement of the game and let the community do it knows how to do and create content and patches for issues until BI deem that the engine is optimized as best as its going to be.

The community around ArmA has always been simply amazing and the content I see come out of here just blows my mind especially when comes to community scripts and missions. I have full faith in the community to be able to band together with a few of our best modders to create an official community patch to tidy up lose ends while BI focus on core engine improvements.

I came across a community guide though which improved my frames a whole lot. I run an i73820@4.5ghz that's a 4 logical core and 8 virtual core processor I use that with a 670OC 4GB windforce3x card which I further overclocked and 16Gb of 1666mhz downclocked from 2400mhz RAM. I had some really bad FPS issues myself when Ai and smoke starting being abused. I ran the game on almost max ultra at the time I was getting between 28-60 frames.

I used this guide http://www.realitygamer.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=186&Itemid=217 as a template and tweaked the settings higher until I was happy with the FPS cost for the quality improvement. Now I run the game between 50 frames and 95 frames. In well optimized multiplayer dedi servers speaking from experiences in wasteland my FPS would be as high as 120 frames at times. Sure I still get some drops to 40 but 40 is better than 16 right!.

I will admit I should be using SLI by now in fact it is on my list of things to do when money is not as tight as it is now. Until then I think I managed something amazing with that guide the game is now actually quite playable and enjoyable at the same time.

[metalcraze 290]

Any videos that show devs talking about how awesome they are instead of 100% gameplay instantly lose any credibility.

So no. I hope BIS will not just pretend to do something on video while the game remains ridden with issues like PS2 still is, so much time after release - but will do something instead.

[Alabatross 1]

waiting for someone to come in talking about how Planetside 2 doesn't have all the calculations or graphics or AI of Arma 3

PS2 looks better than ARMA 3. Arma 3's performance to quality ratio is a joke

PS2 ran terribly for me at first, one of the devs said something like "we wont stop optimizing it until I can run it on my sons laptop"

5 months later game ran like butter and looked just as good

[Tonci87 163]

PS2 looks better than ARMA 3. Arma 3's performance to quality ratio is a joke

PS2 ran terribly for me at first, one of the devs said something like "we wont stop optimizing it until I can run it on my sons laptop"

5 months later game ran like butter and looked just as good

PS2 looks better? Come on, the enviromental textures are quite bad, the ammount of objects in the scene is quite low and they achieve those optimization results by using some tricks that would be unacceptable for Arma. Like Infiltrator having higher Viewdistance on Infantry, but lower on anything else... and so on. BTW, the viewdistance on enemy soldiers with every other class but the Infiltrator is a joke.

[bad benson 1733]

PS2 looks better than ARMA 3.

are you serious?

[dayglow 2]

I find Arma runs fine as long as you keep realistic view distance and AA settings. These 2 can bring a system to its knees.

I have a i3820 w/ sli 660ti's. It's a high end system, but I do push 3 1080P monitors with it. With SMAA normal and 3000m view distance I can max all other settings and still get 30+ fps. If you're a 60fps or give me death type person you'll never be satisfied.

[RushHour 11]

I find Arma runs fine as long as you keep realistic view distance and AA settings. These 2 can bring a system to its knees.

That´s great but AA settings does exactly ZERO difference in Arma.

Neither does Ultra to Standard. We are talking if you are lucky, about 2-3 fps.

In other games that gap is 20-30 fps.

[St. Jimmy 272]

That´s great but AA settings does exactly ZERO difference in Arma.

Neither does Ultra to Standard. We are talking if you are lucky, about 2-3 fps.

In other games that gap is 20-30 fps.

It does make difference until there's too much calculations for the CPU or the server is running slow.

[galzohar 31]

Server running slow cannot affect your FPS. In fact, even if the server is outright shut down (power off completely) your FPS will remain unaffected (that is, until stuff stop moving due to the game realizing the server is dead). Stuff that load your CPU is a completely different thing and has doesn't really have much/anything to do with how good the server's machine/connection is. But yes, if your CPU is falling behind even the most badass GPU in the world running at minimum settings will not help your FPS.

[sxp2high 22]

You are talking SONY ($151.131 billion company) vs small independent studio from czech republic? Give BIS a break ffs.

Those videos are a ridiculous PR piece.

[MavericK96 0]

You are talking SONY ($151.131 billion company) vs small independent studio from czech republic? Give BIS a break ffs.

Sure, Sony is much bigger, but I wouldn't say BIS is "small" exactly.

Plus, how many games is Sony actively working on vs. BIS?

[BL1P 35]

Server running slow cannot affect your FPS. In fact, even if the server is outright shut down (power off completely) your FPS will remain unaffected (that is, until stuff stop moving due to the game realizing the server is dead). Stuff that load your CPU is a completely different thing and has doesn't really have much/anything to do with how good the server's machine/connection is. But yes, if your CPU is falling behind even the most badass GPU in the world running at minimum settings will not help your FPS.

Incorrect.

A servers performance in Arma will have an effect on the clients FPS. Always has done.

Especially when the server starts to get below 20fps on the #montor.

See it all the time.

You play on a server thats running at max fps of 50 on #monitor and everyone will be fine. All getting the client fps they expect.

If your on a server thats running at #monitor fps 7 everyone will complaining about how they only have exceptionally low client fps.

I realise that what your saying should be true but it isn't where Arma is concerned.

[antoineflemming 14]

Server running slow cannot affect your FPS. In fact, even if the server is outright shut down (power off completely) your FPS will remain unaffected (that is, until stuff stop moving due to the game realizing the server is dead). Stuff that load your CPU is a completely different thing and has doesn't really have much/anything to do with how good the server's machine/connection is. But yes, if your CPU is falling behind even the most badass GPU in the world running at minimum settings will not help your FPS.

You mean for games other than BI games. Because I certainly haven't experienced this in any other game. But most certainly, for the Arma series, server FPS does GREATLY affect client FPS. Unless, you are saying that it's actually the scripts on the server and not the server that affect fps. But, even then, server FPS still does affect your FPS, although in a lot of cases it's mainly the scripts.

---------- Post added at 22:10 ---------- Previous post was at 22:09 ----------

Incorrect.

A servers performance in Arma will have an effect on the clients FPS. Always has done.

Especially when the server starts to get below 20fps on the #montor.

See it all the time.

You play on a server thats running at max fps of 50 on #monitor and everyone will be fine. All getting the client fps they expect.

If your on a server thats running at #monitor fps 7 everyone will complaining about how they only have exceptionally low client fps.

I realise that what your saying should be true but it isn't where Arma is concerned.

I've never seen the answer to this (maybe I've just been oblivious) but exactly why is this? Because I've only experienced this with Arma games.

[NeuroFunker 11]

if the server has 10 fps, you will have 10 fps as well, no matter what. It was since arma 2 like that or earlier. Nearly everyone knows that already.

[antoineflemming 14]

if the server has 10 fps, you will have 10 fps as well, no matter what. It was since arma 2 like that or earlier. Nearly everyone knows that already.

But why is that? That's what I never understood.

[BL1P 35]

if the server has 10 fps, you will have 10 fps as well, no matter what. It was since arma 2 like that or earlier. Nearly everyone knows that already.

This isnt quite correct.

The server fps as listed in #monitor does have an effect on the clients fps but they are not twinned.

This is obvious if you consider that the max server fps from monitor is 50 yet players easily surpass this.

I dont think fps means fps as we see it from the #monitor function.

I think its something else but what that is I have Idea.

Maybe ticks per second ?

Edited October 5, 2013 by BL1P

[.kju 3244]

It is NOT about server fps. It is about syncing data between server and client (most likely).

[xendance 3]

PS2 looks better? Come on, the enviromental textures are quite bad, the ammount of objects in the scene is quite low and they achieve those optimization results by using some tricks that would be unacceptable for Arma. Like Infiltrator having higher Viewdistance on Infantry, but lower on anything else... and so on. BTW, the viewdistance on enemy soldiers with every other class but the Infiltrator is a joke.

The view distance is related to network performance, not rendering. The PS 2 servers just can't send update packages from each player to each player, so it prioritizes them based on their distance to each other.

Regarding textures, I would say that PS 2 terrain textures look way better. They don't fade to a satellite image.

[fred41 42]

This isnt quite correct.

The server fps as listed in #monitor does have an effect on the clients fps but they are not twinned.

This is obvious if you consider that the max server fps from monitor is 50 yet players easily surpass this.

I dont think fps means fps as we see it from the #monitor function.

I think its something else but what that is I have Idea.

Maybe ticks per second ?

... simulation cycles per second, should be a better, self explaining, term than "server fps" ...

[windies 11]

This isnt quite correct.

The server fps as listed in #monitor does have an effect on the clients fps but they are not twinned.

This is obvious if you consider that the max server fps from monitor is 50 yet players easily surpass this.

I dont think fps means fps as we see it from the #monitor function.

I think its something else but what that is I have Idea.

Maybe ticks per second ?

Equate FPS to simulations per second or the speed at which the engine processes X amount of code/scripts, simulates what happened in the game world in X amount of time and in the case of the game client, renders a single frame.

[Kamakazi 11]

When you run #monitor on the server the number returned is nothing to do with fps. Many associate it with a graphical term when the server draws nothing visually.

I have lost my original reference sorry, but I believe is correctly called a simulation cycle so it is i guess more of a 'cycles per second'.

What that is exactly only Suma could answer - but my guess it is every single object that has to be updated, moved, blown up or whatever. Not so confident on this next bit, but on top of that the server would be trying to send the information to every client AND calculate the next cycle ahead of the current one. Possibly even several ahead of the current one.

Imagine the load and lvl of calculations to move every trigger finger and update this - in real time - Arma realy does push whats possible on something the scale of Altis. Low server cycles means low client fps because it (the server) simply does not know what happens next and cant transmit and syncronise anything about any object or player updates until it does. The server must basicly be one step ahead of anything a player see's at all times.

Edited October 5, 2013 by Kamakazi
spelling - took so long to write this was ninja'd twice

[clydefrog 3]

if the server has 10 fps, you will have 10 fps as well, no matter what. It was since arma 2 like that or earlier. Nearly everyone knows that already.

Nonsense, I've played on a server with 6fps before and still had over 30 myself.