Zero/50% dual GPU usage!

[Hydraulis 10]

I just bought ArmA 3 via steam, and I can't get my frame rate above 7 fps. When I use the auto detect feature to determine my video settings, almost everything is set to ultra. I've tried dropping all settings to the lowest possible, which results in absolutely no improvement whatsoever.

After hours of scouring the internets for a solution, I've tried adding commands to the steam launcher, modifying the .cfg file, and installing MSI Afterburner to help diagnose the issue. Afterburner shows that occasionally during the startup splash screens, GPU 1 shows 5% usage and GPU 2 shows 1%. During game play, GPU 1 is never used and GPU 2 never goes above 50%, also, I have no sound (which is output through the HDMI signal from GPU 1). It seems to me that the problem is inherent to the game kernel and maybe the interaction between it and my video drivers, so I'm probably relying on my CPU to render almost everything. I have a dxdiag output file I was going to attach, but I don't see a file attachment tool.

I'm currently waiting for a response from BI customer support on the issue. Here's a basic summary of my system setup:

CPU: Intel i7 920 @ 2.6 GHz

Motherboard: EVGA Classified with Intel X58 chipset

Memory: 6GB OCZ DDR3 @ 1866 MHz

Video: 2 x ATi Radeon HD 5870 in CrossfireX

Storage: 120GB OCZ SSD

OS: Windows 7 Home 64 Bit

[f2k sel 164]

It's an awkward beast to set up as things aren't as simple as you think.

I don't think your going to get near ultra settings either.

Changing some settings to low will make things worse as it moves them from GPU to CPU which is the main problem in Arma series.

Reduce the distance to around 2500 and put shadows to High to get them off the CPU, then try most of your settings some where around the middle.

I don't know much about CrossfireX other than sometimes in certain games it can make it slower than using 1 GPU.

[kklownboy 43]

What are your settings in the CCC? What driver version for your 5870's? Just to test have you turned off CF and played the game?

What are you doing to test in game? The Editor, or a mission?

Also how much space do you have left on your SSD?

[MavericK96 0]

Overclock your i7 920 to 3.5+ GHz.

I'm not sure how well CFX works with ArmA 3. I've always heard of a lot of problems with AMD cards with the ArmA series.

[tinemem 11]

hate to break this to you, but this is normal for arma 3. it's using an outdated engine made when people didn't realize cpus could go up to 16 cores, and that gpus could be so powerful, so basically everything is being calculated on cpu, and it doesn't have proper multicore support, so if you have more than 2 cores and a good gpu, you're basically never going to harness that increased power. the only thing that will help in terms of modern hardware, is more ram and an ssd. those are universal traits that will benefit any application either modern or based on a decade old engine that received zero to little programing updates.

[kklownboy 43]

Overclock your i7 920 to 3.5+ GHz.

I'm not sure how well CFX works with ArmA 3. I've always heard of a lot of problems with AMD cards with the ArmA series.

just stop it... I have been using CF and CFX(quad) in the ARMA series since the beginning. Not a problem.

SLI and CF take some effort from time to time, but it works and works fine. Why his second card is higher than his first...?

Is he using windowed mode? is his PCI-e running at speed? Is he using two monitors? In the CCC is he running SuperSampling at 32AA with edgedetect (thats a 7fps rt there). Also a full SSD will blow up ARMA, poor FPS, like he posted, and stutter to stream the cache that A3 does from disk. More enfo less BS from no CF users...

---------- Post added at 14:54 ---------- Previous post was at 13:43 ----------

....

Ok.

Anyways to max your GPU usage in the ARMA RV engine, when all things working correctly, you need to have the Resolution, and Filters set to max it. There will be stalls do to scripts,lame drawcalls,stupid objects and whatnot. But for max gpu usage(which a 100% is not advisable), Uber Resolutions relative to your GPU and Max AA will give you Max GPU usage.

So after your regular complaint posts about Bis and the RV, maybe you can help him to get his current situation to work better?

[christianmo 10]

Your framerate seem abysmally low considering your setup.

MAX 50% GPU usage might not be unexpected, in A3 its usually the CPU that bottlenecks the system, thus limiting the FPS.

Seems like you have already tried the obvious solutions, like turning down graphics settings. Try lowering view distance to around 2000 m or so. Besides that reset 3D options in CCC to default. Try closing all software applications, anti virus an alike. Also try clearing some space on the ssd

[moderateshadow 0]

try something for me. 

 

Go to your documents, open the folder called arma 3

from there open the cfg file named arma 3

 

about 3/4 the way down you will see a like like this "GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=1000;" 

 

Change that to "GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=1;

 

Let me know how it worked ! Thanks

[Jackal326 1179]

try something for me. 

 

Go to your documents, open the folder called arma 3

from there open the cfg file named arma 3

 

about 3/4 the way down you will see a like like this "GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=1000;" 

 

Change that to "GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=1;

 

Let me know how it worked ! Thanks

The thread is 2 years old, chances are if the issue hasn't been resolved for the OP by now, he's moved on to other things...or died trying to fix it.

[moderateshadow 0]

The thread is 2 years old, chances are if the issue hasn't been resolved for the OP by now, he's moved on to other things...or died trying to fix it.

oh shit. all i read was january 6th. xD