FPS Drops and Texture Problems

[eXpouk 10]

After around 45mins to an hour I get a horrible fps drop (2-3fps) and texture LOD problems.... Happens both singleplayer and mulitplayer, with and without mods. Also just happened when I crashed my heli in to the sea, somehow it wasn't damaged but I got the problem as soon as I hit the sea?

I think it might be a memory leak?

RPT File: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ms6dxp0wlmttzn/arma3_2013-11-19_15-44-23.rpt

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Furret 0]

I would suggest you made a ticket on the support tracker first.

You could also try increasing your virtual memory size.

[oldbear 390]

@ eXpouk : before posting a ticket, I will suggest you to try to reproduce the situation without using 3rd party addons such as "@ACRE;@JayArmA3Lib;@3Cdo;@JSRS;@CBA_A3" .

I am asking because I can see in the .rpt many errors related to JSRS and ACRE and the issue is perhaps related to these addons and not to the game itself.

It will be great to give also some hints about the situation: the OS you are using, your CPU / RAM specs for we can already gather from .rpt that you are playing a GTX 560 Ti on a 1920x1080 monitor.

[MavericK96 0]

Running modless is a good suggestion, of course, but none of those mods listed would have any effect on LOD thrashing or major framerate drops (except maybe 3Cdo since I have no idea what that is).

[warlord554 2065]

I've had the same problem and after a lot of testing I think mine is related to my CPU and GPU temps. Can't confirm although I've noticed when I place a fan next to my open case the temps stay lower, and my gameplay FPS do a lot better on extended missions. Just a thought....

[oldbear 390]

@ MavericK96 : the 1st error message is an Arma 3 error about SimulWeather - Cloud Renderer line 348, but afterwards most of the errors are ACRE related starting at line 657 "Error in expression <le "acre_sys_vehicle_racks_rackArray";" down to line 796 where you can see the start of an unexpected amount of messages related to memory allocation from line 796 to line 1351 written just before the crash "Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION at 007B6EAC".

Well I think that a disorder in memory management can have a huge impact on rendering processes.

The memory allocation messages make me think something is wrong with OS and memory. If I remember well, BIS has addressed an issue with 32bits system limits on Altis :

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?152866-General-Discussion-%28dev-branch%29&p=2481817&viewfull=1#post2481817

So I was wondering the issue reported by eXpouk is related to this previous issue or an other one. That's why I am asking about OS and RAM specs.

[dnk 13]

You know, it helps to know more details. Like, your system specs, graphical settings, OS, mods used, etc...

Are you watching your physical and graphical memory usage during play?

I do with process explorer, and I find that typically the former fills up quickly, while the latter slowly builds up over a half hour or so up to about 85% GPU RAM usage (faster if I move around a lot or have a high VD), at which point it starts cycling up and down. If I stay on "low" texture size, this takes quite a long time to happen, but on "standard" or higher, it fills up really quickly and then will certainly start causing stuttering or slowdowns (I think) as older files are removed and then need to be reread as I move about (causing latency/bandwidth-related slowdowns from the load onto VRAM).

I would check that as well. As you go across the island, you keep needing more and more textures/models. I'm not sure, but it might start to fill up the virtual address space or physical RAM, and this might cause the engine to start (through dynamic resource management or something?) loading smaller files (lower LODs), even if its regularly clearing out unneeded files from earlier in the session. I think it's a bit simplistic to call this a "memory leak" - more like you just keep adding in more and more models/textures, and the cup fills up eventually.

[eXpouk 10]

It happens with and without mods. Seems to mostly occur after around 45mins of gameplay. I'm going to reproduce the error later and provide an up to date RPT without any mods running.

System Specs:

CPU: i5 760 @ 3.6Ghz

RAM: 4GB Corsair DDR3

GPU: MSI 560ti

OS: Windows 7 32bit (I really need to upgrade to 64bit... Got the disc and everything...)

All my temps are fine and the game runs well (40-60fps). My FPS doesnt degrade over time its just all of a sudden, it drops to like 2FPS and I get low quality lods as shown here when I was playing the campaign: http://tinypic.com/r/2luumv4/5 - Note as well that its at the start of the mission, I'd been playing previous missions so maybe the old missions were still in the memory? I dont know :D

I had exactly the same issue in A2 but that was caused by a JayArmA2Lib memory leak and using "flush" seemed to help then, it doesn't work in A3. Once the guys had fixed the mod (a lot of people had the same issue) it was fine.

Graphics Settings:

VD: 1600

OVD: 1600

Textures: High

Objects: Standard

Terrain: Standard

Shadows: High

Particles: Standard

Clouds: Standard

PIP: Standard

HDR: Standard

Dynamic Lights: Standard

Vsync: Disabled

SSAO: Disabled

Caustics: Enabled

FSAA: 2x

ATOC: All trees + grass

PPAA: Disabled

Aniso. Filtering: Very High

Really appreciate the help guys.

Thanks

Edited November 20, 2013 by eXpouk

[dnk 13]

Thanks for all that. I'll assume your graphics card has 1GB, has fairly recent drivers on it, and your RAM timings are C9-11 thereabouts.

Have you tried Process Explorer yet? It requires no installation. Just download it, run it, and maybe set the view\update speed: to 5 or 10 seconds for a "big picture" view of the performance. This program can also tell you page faults, working set and private bytes for the program, disk usage, network usage, and gives a core-by-core performance rundown of the CPU. It's not a silver bullet, but it might help spot the exact issue. I'll upload my own results from an hour or more of play in a bit (once I play it :)), for sake of comparison.

Also would help to have FRAPS running at the same time, making sure to check FPS\Benchmark Settings: Frametimes. This will allow you to quickly create an Excel-based FPS graph you can use to roughly correlate the Process Explorer data with the framerate data. Then run a benchmark once you start the game. Finish it whenever you like, and it will produce a log for that Excel graph.

For more information, you can get Process Monitor (same website as above). Add 2 filters to it: "path","containts",[Arma 3 directory] AND "path","is","C:\pagefile.sys" (or wherever yours is). This will give you a timeline of disk reads, basically. Then run it when you start the game. Stop it once you finish, and it'll maybe help you to see what's going on with the file reads as you play. This will create a report you can read to relate via timestamps to periods of high disk usage or low FPS from the other 2 monitoring programs.

For more, more information, use hwinfo. It can log a ton of data (though I'd set the refresh rate at like 1sec+ since it kills FPS in the process).

Again, this all may lead to nothing, but you might at least better understand the problem.

Edited November 20, 2013 by DNK

[eXpouk 10]

Thanks for your reply DNK. I'll run Process Explorer now and post the results!

and yeah, its 1GB, recent drivers and RAM timings are good.

[iLLcAtTiViSsiMo 10]

I don't want to pretend to be as technically savy as you guys or even intrude on the convo too much. But, isn't there a way to input a v-ram "flush" command in the console? I briefly read it in one of the "guides" I've come across but can't remember where.

Sent from my iPhone

[eXpouk 10]

Managed to reproduce the error just now in the Editor with no mods running.

Here's the RPT: https://www.dropbox.com/s/l1mjjiyn21j9y9j/arma3_2013-11-20_16-00-34.rpt

Screenshot of Process Explorer results: http://i42.tinypic.com/34975ud.jpg

I've tried the "flush" command but it doesnt help :(

Thanks guys

[eXpouk 10]

Created a feedback ticket: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=16176

Upvote if you can please! :D

[warlord554 2065]

Created a feedback ticket: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=16176

Upvote if you can please! :D

Upvoted!!

[dnk 13]

For graphs, maybe just the system-wide graphs would help. That said, this issue must've come up quite quickly if that's the graph you have, rather than as a product of 45+min of play.

[oldbear 390]

I am wondering if your computer is not switching on "energy economy" mode all by itself after X mn ... I had myself strange settings modifications in my computer since the 2 last Windows Updates.

[eXpouk 10]

Not sure what it is, power options look okay. I've just increased my pagefile so hopefully it may fix it.

[hansson0728 12]

i swithed of my page file to reduce reading from disk, although i havent had any crashes but my game stopped stuttering, also you can try alt+tabbing out/into the game and maybe this will work:

-----

I suggest if you're going to play long games with high settings that you "flush" your video memory now and then to ensure that you don't run out of it.

To flush your video memory do this:

1. Hold down left shift

2. Press the minus on your numpad

3. Release both keys

4. Type "flush"

The screen should turn black and some message should pop up. After a while it's done and then your video memory should be reset.

--

i dont know if this works with arma 3 though... you can try lowering your resolution also, ive noticed lots of people play at very high resolutions, i play in 1280x768 its still high but not that high game runs smooth in 45-60fps..

[hansson0728 12]

well the L+shift numpad- flush command works in arma 3, just confirmed it.

[dnk 13]

Something I've noticed with my own build is that once virtual memory gets about 80-85% allocated, the OS/engine stop filling it further. At that point, FPS and GPU memory controller load decouple (they usually track almost 100% the same), though FPS doesn't really get worse.

Additionally, as the video memory fills up, it has to constantly be partly flushed by the engine to make room for new data. This may have a performance impact, but the real issue might be a lack of bandwidth for the amount of data being loaded into VRAM. You can always try reducing things, particularly object quality and texture quality. That will reduce the size of sudden loads on your system and make memory management easier for the engine/OS.

[MavericK96 0]

Flush command is a band-aid at best...really should not have to be a recommended "fix" for these issues.

[eXpouk 10]

Something I've noticed with my own build is that once virtual memory gets about 80-85% allocated, the OS/engine stop filling it further. At that point, FPS and GPU memory controller load decouple (they usually track almost 100% the same), though FPS doesn't really get worse.

Additionally, as the video memory fills up, it has to constantly be partly flushed by the engine to make room for new data. This may have a performance impact, but the real issue might be a lack of bandwidth for the amount of data being loaded into VRAM. You can always try reducing things, particularly object quality and texture quality. That will reduce the size of sudden loads on your system and make memory management easier for the engine/OS.

I've tried flushing and it does nothing to help.

Thing is I've had it happen to me at the start of a mission as you can see in the screenshot I provided. Not really a sudden load compared to flying around Altis. Hopefully a dev will see this thread and provide a solution! :D

[EDcase 87]

For NVidia users...

Just installed latest drivers: 331.82

Getting better fps and can hear fans working harder.

[eXpouk 10]

Not sure that really helps to be honest.

[ratszo 17]

Not sure that really helps to be honest.

So, just to be clear, the game suddenly freezes to 1-3 fps after a certain amount of play time?

..., And temps are good?

Does it happen in other games, like arma2?

Ya know, it could be a bad ram stick.

Have you tried stress tested your rig?

Try Memtest:

http://www.memtest.org/

Or the old school way to find a bad stick is to pull then replace one stick at a time.

Good luck!