Will we ever see a stable multiplayer running at 50-60 fps?

[windies 11]

Bottom line with ArmA and BI seems to be that content trumps engine support and performance as a large scale objective. We know the problems exist, we know they won't ever be fixed because they haven't ever been fixed, what better way to read the future than through history after all and if you can't accept it you might as well just stop supporting it. I know I'm not anymore.

[aseliot 2]

FYI, pobably because his graphics card is weaker than his CPU and the games that run worse for him and better for you are graphics card dependent :p

ARMA3 is often said to be CPU-dependent. Not completely, at all, but more so than other games.

How hot is your CPU? With water-cooling your CPU shouldn't be warm at stock clock if that's what you're saying.

Well I asked because he could have a i3 clocked at 3,6 Ghz and I thought I read that ArmA only uses 2 cores or something so that could explain it. I know the game is more CPU intensive. I can get mine on 3,2 but it does get near 80 and at 3,6 it goes to 90 (With stresstests). I've already reseated the cooler the thing just overheats.

[novemberist 2]

Well I asked because he could have a i3 clocked at 3,6 Ghz and I thought I read that ArmA only uses 2 cores or something so that could explain it. I know the game is more CPU intensive. I can get mine on 3,2 but it does get near 80 and at 3,6 it goes to 90 (With stresstests). I've already reseated the cooler the thing just overheats.

My i3 is currently clocked at 3,22 Ghz and stays relatively cool with a moderately priced fan. I have one side of my case open constantly, though. On medium settings (1280x1024) I can get 40-50 sometimes even 60 fps in Arma 3 SP, but since I don't really care about high fps that much, I prefer to play at ~30 with a little more eye-candy. So in my case the GPU is really the weak spot while my CPU, despite not being high-end and only dual core, seems to do reasonably well.

By the way, Arma 2 runs much much worse than Arma 3 and crashes/freezes regularly. So there must be some optimizations in the new engine that my pc really benefits from.

Edited March 12, 2014 by novemberist

[bravo93 37]

To all these people saying BIS never done any improvements in previous games and left them unplayable...what is it you're referring to? Like I was getting pretty smooth FPS and a genuinely faultless experience in Arma 2 in the last couple of years. Only thing holding it back was things like no physx, maybe graphics became a little behind the times and the engine being rather limiting on what you can mod. Been on loads of 80-90 player servers and been getting real smooth FPS. You know the FPS where you're actually spending more time playing the game than constantly glancing in the top left corner of the screen like you've got OCD or something. And these servers were really rather script intensive like RP ones etc. That said I am using a i7 and GTX 780 which is probably a tiny bit overkill for a 2009 game. FPS wasn't an issue even when I had a GTX 260 and a dual core though. There's just so many people in here that seem to get a buzz off pessimism. Multiplayer FPS is far from ideal but give it some time.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Bravo93

[1DeadlyTrooper 10]

I can run arma 2 fine but arma 3 i get a horrible fps, only in mulitplayer though. Its very annoying, I doubt it has to do with our comps its just the game being poorly optimized.

[bravo93 37]

I can run arma 2 fine but arma 3 i get a horrible fps, only in mulitplayer though. Its very annoying, I doubt it has to do with our comps its just the game being poorly optimized.

Yeah, I'm no technical geek but I'm pretty sure our GPU's/CPU's see a MP client the same as an AI so don't see it being a hardware problem. May be wrong though. My multiplayer FPS stays the same no matter what settings I have.

[Sneakson 1]

To all these people saying BIS never done any improvements in previous games and left them unplayable...what is it you're referring to? Like I was getting pretty smooth FPS and a genuinely faultless experience in Arma 2 in the last couple of years. Only thing holding it back was things like no physx, maybe graphics became a little behind the times and the engine being rather limiting on what you can mod. Been on loads of 80-90 player servers and been getting real smooth FPS. You know the FPS where you're actually spending more time playing the game than constantly glancing in the top left corner of the screen like you've got OCD or something. And these servers were really rather script intensive like RP ones etc. That said I am using a i7 and GTX 780 which is probably a tiny bit overkill for a 2009 game. FPS wasn't an issue even when I had a GTX 260 and a dual core though. There's just so many people in here that seem to get a buzz off pessimism. Multiplayer FPS is far from ideal but give it some time.

Well congratulations, you can run a game that's 5 years old with a brand new $500 graphics card... such wow.

[spanishsurfer 58]

Game runs smooth for me! SP= 55fps, MP= 35fps. AMD8350 with a GTX580, with every patch the game because a little smoother. BIS is def doing a lot of optimizations, to say otherwise is just stupid.

[Sneakson 1]

Game runs smooth for me! SP= 55fps, MP= 35fps. AMD8350 with a GTX580, with every patch the game because a little smoother. BIS is def doing a lot of optimizations, to say otherwise is just stupid.

35 fps in multiplayer is far from the 60 fps standard though... really makes a difference in close quarters combat.

[mausAU 10]

Man, there's some hilarious reading in this thread. A lot of erroneous disinformation but also some genuinely entertaining e-remarks.

Just a couple things that I feel need to be pointed out, however...

1) Graphics (& physics for those of us with Nvidia hardware) are processed by the GPU. Geometry, scripting, sound et al. are all handled by the CPU. Ergo, the engine is running exactly how it's meant to. This talk of the engine being poorly built and causing multiplayer performance headaches is so totally unrelated to the root cause of the issues that it is almost Byzantine.

Frankly, we should be thankful that BIS had the foresight and consideration to implement a degree of future proofing into it. Just look at the low quality, unappealing environments of Titanfall for an example of what people with low morals will do with a crap engine if they can get away with it. Two years from now ARMA 3 will still look fantastic. They've made a game with consideration of the future, not the past.

This has no bearing on the matter at hand, but is interesting nonetheless. When a company decides to make a fancy game, they purchase a computer that represents the 90th price percentile of the 80th performance percentile as the target system to aim for. This is because as the game will take several years to develop, hardware that is fancy at the time will, upon release, be almost totally adopted by the majority of their target market and no longer be anything more than median. In simple terms most, if not all, games you see are built to cater to the lowest common denominator.

2) There is a massive difference between 30 and 60 frames per second. 30 frames per second works for film simply because there's very little rapid movement occuring on screen (well, technically anything above ~24.98 FPS will deceive your eye into recognising persistence of vision). When you delve into the world of games, 60 is the new 30 due to the generally rapid visual pace of video game entertainment. If you cannot notice the difference I recommend visiting a specialist immediately as you may be experiencing the onset of degeneration of your optic nerves. The only difficulty in perceiving frame rate should occur between the 60 FPS and 120 FPS range. Well; 60 FPS to 100 FPS in fact. Pretty much nobody can tell the difference between 100 and 120 FPS - it's simply what we've ended up with due to marketing companies' love of large numbers.

As for the original topic of this thread, I agree that the frame rate drop between SP and MP is unpleasant but it isn't going to be like that forever. It's a simple job for a team of coders to rectify, which no doubt is what they are focusing on at this moment despite no regular developer updates affirming it. Does anyone remember Soldier of Fortune 2? There was a similar situation going on; SP would give you an excellent frame rate, around ~60 FPS with a Northwood 2GHz and a Ti 4200 in those days, but MP would cripple you with not even half of that. I discovered an interesting fix that gave me frame parity between the two modes. I just copied over the MP .cfg with the SP .cfg and that was that.

Simple problems often have simple solutions. For those of you who are angsty and gripingly unhappy with the lowered MP frame rate, take solace in the fact that adversity breeds strength and adaptability. It's not great now, I know, but you should relish it while you can. When the issues are resolved you will discover that you suddenly become a whole lot better at the game, in the way that a man who has been carrying a great weight now released finds himself able to perform almost any task without a trace of exertion.

Anyway, this has turned out much longer than I anticipating but I very much enjoy correcting other people, so I must in good conscience give this thread a 6.5/10 all told.

:)

[calin_banc 19]

I think they've said already that PhysiX is CPU exclusive in this game.

[Sterlingarcherz101 15]

Man, there's some hilarious reading in this thread. A lot of erroneous disinformation but also some genuinely entertaining e-remarks.

ioJust a couple things that I feel need to be pointed out, however...

1) Graphics (& physics for those of us with Nvidia hardware) are processed by the GPU. Geometry, scripting, sound et al. are all handled by the CPU. Ergo, the engine is running exactly how it's meant to. This talk of the engine being poorly built and causing multiplayer performance headaches is so totally unrelated to the root cause of the issues that it is almost Byzantine.

I

Frankly, we should be thankful that BIS had the foresight and consideration to implement a degree of future proofing into it. Just look at the low quality, unappealing environments of Titanfall for an example of what people with low morals will do with a crap engine if they can get away with it. Two years from now ARMA 3 will still look fantastic. They've made a game with consideration of the future, not the past.

This has no bearing on the matter at hand, but is interesting nonetheless. When a company decides to make a fancy game, they purchase a computer that represents the 90th price percentile of the 80th performance percentile as the target system to aim for. This is because as the game will take several years to develop, hardware that is fancy at the time will, upon release, be almost totally adopted by the majority of their target market and no longer be anything more than median. In simple terms most, if not all, games you see are built to cater to the lowest common denominator.

2) There is a massive difference between 30 and 60 frames per second. 30 frames per second works for film simply because there's very little rapid movement occuring on screen (well, technically anything above ~24.98 FPS will deceive your eye into recognising persistence of vision). When you delve into the world of games, 60 is the new 30 due to the generally rapid visual pace of video game entertainment. If you cannot notice the difference I recommend visiting a specialist immediately as you may be experiencing the onset of degeneration of your optic nerves. The only difficulty in perceiving frame rate should occur between the 60 FPS and 120 FPS range. Well; 60 FPS to 100 FPS in fact. Pretty much nobody can tell the difference between 100 and 120 FPS - it's simply what we've ended up with due to marketing companies' love of large numbers.

As for the original topic of this thread, I agree that the frame rate drop between SP and MP is unpleasant but it isn't going to be like that forever. It's a simple job for a team of coders to rectify, which no doubt is what they are focusing on at this moment despite no regular developer updates affirming it. Does anyone remember Soldier of Fortune 2? There was a similar situation going on; SP would give you an excellent frame rate, around ~60 FPS with a Northwood 2GHz and a Ti 4200 in those days, but MP would cripple you with not even half of that. I discovered an interesting fix that gave me frame parity between the two modes. I just copied over the MP .cfg with the SP .cfg and that was that.

Simple problems often have simple solutions. For those of you who are angsty and gripingly unhappy with the lowered MP frame rate, take solace in the fact that adversity breeds strength and adaptability. It's not great now, I know, but you should relish it while you can. When the issues are resolved you will discover that you suddenly become a whole lot better at the game, in the way that a ma who has been carrying a great weight now released finds himself able to perform almost any task without a trace of exertion.

Anyway, this has turned out much longer than I anticipating but I very muc enjoy correcting other peole, so I must in good conscience give this hread a 6.5/10 all told.

:)

Hope you wiped your ass after you were finished patting yourself on the back.

[pr0ph3tswe 1]

Man, there's some hilarious reading in this thread. A lot of erroneous disinformation but also some genuinely entertaining e-remarks.

Just a couple things that I feel need to be pointed out, however...

1) Graphics (& physics for those of us with Nvidia hardware) are processed by the GPU. Geometry, scripting, sound et al. are all handled by the CPU. Ergo, the engine is running exactly how it's meant to. This talk of the engine being poorly built and causing multiplayer performance headaches is so totally unrelated to the root cause of the issues that it is almost Byzantine.

Frankly, we should be thankful that BIS had the foresight and consideration to implement a degree of future proofing into it. Just look at the low quality, unappealing environments of Titanfall for an example of what people with low morals will do with a crap engine if they can get away with it. Two years from now ARMA 3 will still look fantastic. They've made a game with consideration of the future, not the past.

This has no bearing on the matter at hand, but is interesting nonetheless. When a company decides to make a fancy game, they purchase a computer that represents the 90th price percentile of the 80th performance percentile as the target system to aim for. This is because as the game will take several years to develop, hardware that is fancy at the time will, upon release, be almost totally adopted by the majority of their target market and no longer be anything more than median. In simple terms most, if not all, games you see are built to cater to the lowest common denominator.

2) There is a massive difference between 30 and 60 frames per second. 30 frames per second works for film simply because there's very little rapid movement occuring on screen (well, technically anything above ~24.98 FPS will deceive your eye into recognising persistence of vision). When you delve into the world of games, 60 is the new 30 due to the generally rapid visual pace of video game entertainment. If you cannot notice the difference I recommend visiting a specialist immediately as you may be experiencing the onset of degeneration of your optic nerves. The only difficulty in perceiving frame rate should occur between the 60 FPS and 120 FPS range. Well; 60 FPS to 100 FPS in fact. Pretty much nobody can tell the difference between 100 and 120 FPS - it's simply what we've ended up with due to marketing companies' love of large numbers.

As for the original topic of this thread, I agree that the frame rate drop between SP and MP is unpleasant but it isn't going to be like that forever. It's a simple job for a team of coders to rectify, which no doubt is what they are focusing on at this moment despite no regular developer updates affirming it. Does anyone remember Soldier of Fortune 2? There was a similar situation going on; SP would give you an excellent frame rate, around ~60 FPS with a Northwood 2GHz and a Ti 4200 in those days, but MP would cripple you with not even half of that. I discovered an interesting fix that gave me frame parity between the two modes. I just copied over the MP .cfg with the SP .cfg and that was that.

Simple problems often have simple solutions. For those of you who are angsty and gripingly unhappy with the lowered MP frame rate, take solace in the fact that adversity breeds strength and adaptability. It's not great now, I know, but you should relish it while you can. When the issues are resolved you will discover that you suddenly become a whole lot better at the game, in the way that a man who has been carrying a great weight now released finds himself able to perform almost any task without a trace of exertion.

Anyway, this has turned out much longer than I anticipating but I very much enjoy correcting other people, so I must in good conscience give this thread a 6.5/10 all told.

:)

before correcting people you should make sure you're correct yourself, physics in arma is done on cpu, even if you have nvidia graphics

[hardsiesta 1]

35 fps in multiplayer is far from the 60 fps standard though... really makes a difference in close quarters combat.

Just to be fair: "Standard" in games none of which do anything like ArmA does... Really makes a subjective difference in games that have nothing but close quarters combat. (Don't know if I can speak for anyone else, but I'm doing fine with stable 30fps+ in twitch shooters, against people who most likely have far superior fps and hardware on average.)

On the other hand, I'm stupefied how much resources those typical primitive action games require, to do nothing (in comparison to ArmA). Not every game was built on and to live on cinema standards, yet ArmA beats the blockbusters single-handedly in so many aspects of quality, other than fps, it's amazing. Even visual quality. I'm quite happy with the tradeoff, although I'd take higher FPS if it came for free on top of what ArmA already is. If not, no prob.

That standard 60fps doesn't come free either. That's why the blockbusters are standard craptastic in mostly everything else but fps and hype, too. I guess the real question is: What would we have to trade in for the indisputable, objective smoothness in frames? Apparently it wouldn't be visuals, which is all those "standard compliant" comparisons are.

2) There is a massive difference between 30 and 60 frames per second. 30 frames per second works for film simply because there's very little rapid movement occuring on screen (well, technically anything above ~24.98 FPS will deceive your eye into recognising persistence of vision). When you delve into the world of games, 60 is the new 30 due to the generally rapid visual pace of video game entertainment.

30fps seems to have worked fine for consoles too. Haven't heard much 60fps cries from that side of the fence myself, though afaik most if not all console games are capped at 30. At least up to last gen. Which is funny, because despite all the advance features in ArmA, it still runs faster than any primitive shooter on the greater console markets.

I can tell the difference between 30 and 60 frames if I'm looking for it on the screen, but not by looking at my KDr or SPM or whatever, even in the fastest action shooters.

Edited March 14, 2014 by HardSiesta

[roshnak 41]

Just to be fair: "Standard" in games none of which do anything like ArmA does...

This isn't fair. This is giving preferential treatment. The fact that Arma is a larger scale game doesn't make poor performance turn into good performance.

Now, if Arma weren't a first person shooter, you could make the argument that lower frame rates are acceptable, but that's not the case. For the record, it's the panning of the screen that causes low frame rates to be especially evident, which is a thing in all first person shooters, regardless of the pace of the game itself. You're always going to be looking around your environment, which causes everything on the screen to move at once.

I can tell the difference between 30 and 60 frames if I'm looking for it on the screen, but not by looking at my KDr or SPM or whatever, even in the fastest action shooters.

Frame rate impacts control input. That's just a fact. If low frame rates aren't negatively impacting your gameplay in competitive shooters, you're probably not good enough at those games that it would make a difference. There's nothing wrong with this; the vast majority of people who play competitive shooters aren't very good at them. Even if you think you're doing pretty good, you're probably playing with a bunch of people who also aren't that great at the game.

30fps seems to have worked fine for consoles too. Haven't heard much 60fps cries from that side of the fence myself, though afaik most if not all console games are capped at 30. At least up to last gen. Which is funny, because despite all the advance features in ArmA, it still runs faster than any primitive shooter on the greater console markets.

Console games also aim for you, so there's that. Also, console games are capped at 30 FPS and don't run that great because consoles aren't very powerful. Furthermore, who cares what console games do? There are tons of things wrong with the console market. This is a PC game, and those games that are capped at 30 FPS on consoles almost universally run significantly better on PCs.

Here's something that I bet a lot of people aren't considering: If you're averaging 30-35 FPS in Arma, that means your frame rate is probably getting as high as 45 FPS and as low as 20 FPS (I'm being generous, it's probably dipping as low as 15), which is far from playable, and certainly low enough to cause a machine gun to fire slower than it is supposed to. Furthermore, the circumstances in which your frame rate is going to dip to those levels are exactly the circumstances in which you want the best performance -- during scenarios of intense combat.

[hardsiesta 1]

This isn't fair. This is giving preferential treatment. The fact that Arma is a larger scale game doesn't make poor performance turn into good performance.

Now, if Arma weren't a first person shooter, you could make the argument that lower frame rates are acceptable, but that's not the case. For the record, it's the panning of the screen that causes low frame rates to be especially evident, which is a thing in all first person shooters, regardless of the pace of the game itself. You're always going to be looking around your environment, which causes everything on the screen to move at once.

Yes it's preferential, because there's really nothing like ArmA in terms of features which I prefer over smooth>playable frames, with its subjective effect at point blank in simple run&gun games. I said the real question is what ArmA would have to trade in for the indisputable smooth frames. This is a decision that every dev has to make, even on far more primitive games (no, not just with smaller maps). But are you really implying ArmA is just a first person shooter with just a larger scale? If yes, then you should take a closer look at what you are comparing here.

Frame rate impacts control input. That's just a fact. If low frame rates aren't negatively impacting your gameplay in competitive shooters, you're probably not good enough at those games that it would make a difference. There's nothing wrong with this; the vast majority of people who play competitive shooters aren't very good at them. Even if you think you're doing pretty good, you're probably playing with a bunch of people who also aren't that great at the game.

It does, but as I said, as long as it's stable and roughly the same for everyone, it doesn't make difference in how well I play, to my self. At least I'm good enough to do fine against people who most likely have your dream frames, so I guess it's more like I'm just good enough to compensate the "tremendous" difference in frame performance, and this is in games in which the FPS actually impacts even the guns rate of fire dramatically, lol. Maybe you're making the frames an excuse for losing instead?

How about someone makes an actual demonstration how important the 60fps minimum is to controls? Because at least I'm not losing while dipping under it.

Console games also aim for you, so there's that. Also, console games are capped at 30 FPS and don't run that great because consoles aren't very powerful. Furthermore, who cares what console games do? There are tons of things wrong with the console market. This is a PC game, and those games that are capped at 30 FPS on consoles almost universally run significantly better on PCs.

I actually read a bit about it and there are some few 60fps console games. Pretty much the simpler games have it while the more featured games don't. Like CoD does, Battlefield doesn't. They aim for you too, just as much as 30fps games do. The aim assist is there to compensate controller inaccuracy, not the lack of frames.

Who cares? It's a perfect example of choice of features on given hardware restrictions. You have console hardware, you get 60fps as long as your game isn't too complicated. Exactly the same applies here, except we're talking about a game that does a shit ton more work than your average competitive shooters that are mostly visuals, and that's it.

And still, those games are universally f*ing simple compared to ArmA. I say the problem here is that ArmA's features are more under the hood than on the visual representation of it, while great many people don't understand the difference. Ever seen those Kharg Island trees, by the way? Lmao.

Here's something that I bet a lot of people aren't considering: If you're averaging 30-35 FPS in Arma, that means your frame rate is probably getting as high as 45 FPS and as low as 20 FPS (I'm being generous, it's probably dipping as low as 15), which is far from playable, and certainly low enough to cause a machine gun to fire slower than it is supposed to. Furthermore, the circumstances in which your frame rate is going to dip to those levels are exactly the circumstances in which you want the best performance -- during scenarios of intense combat.

Now <30 I agree is too low, but we're talking <60 here. In primitive shooters the gun's RoF is by the FPS. Are you sure this happens in ArmA? Because I tried this once: I started the game on a very crappy computer, cranked all the settings so that it became a slideshow. Then I emptied the magazine with pretty much a frozen screen. To my surprise, it took about what I would say quite the same time as at normal frames. Now this was just one try, and IIRC I was using an AR and not a machine gun, but still, I think that's enough to question your assumptions about whether this feature as well is as you expect it, coming from the primitive shooters standpoint.

Edit: Ok I played around with it a litte bit more, dumping mags with both the nato and csat lmgs. I think there was a very small difference in time, like 10% between 30fps and 130fps. Going <20 the time increased more dramatically, so what I said earlier wasn't correct either. Probably the RoF of the AR, sample size and that it seemed to function separately from frozen screen and sounds going all over the place made the difference then. And back then I was primarily trying to see if the RoF wasn't even capped, like in some popular primitive shooters that accelerate the weapons even past their supposed RoFs at extremely high FPS's.

Then I dumped a doorgun at once. No difference between 50 and 90 fps, but it did seem to take about 20% longer to empty all the 2000 rounds, when going 50fps to 30fps. While the RoF seemed pretty consistent at around 35 and 40, I had these huge dips in it every now and then. Based on what I played around with, I would make a guess that the minigun starts to slow down at around 45fps, up to about 20% at ~30fps.

That said, these were by no means anyway scientific tests, and how much this reflects on actual gameplay is another thing, but the difference isn't exactly huge unless you dip below 30 as a doorgunner. So yes, the fps does have an effect, but let's consider this: The bullet calculations are one of the ArmA's special features that eat up a shitload of frames too, especially when dumping thousands of bullets at extreme RoFs. But on the other hand, I don't know any shooters that wouldn't behave this way, only worse (by not having even capped the rof but directly tied to fps), and that the difference is minimal even under deliberate strain, except perhaps for the door gun.

Also, I did this with a CPU that's probably considered the worst in the decade, that noone would buy for playing games even, which could explain the considerable dips in otherwise consistent RoF.

Bottom line: ArmA won't be your go-to series for optimal arena shooter experience any time soon. It pays it's awesomeness in frames, where the preferred arena shooters pay for their frames in simplicity.

Edited March 15, 2014 by HardSiesta

[Sneakson 1]

Man, there's some hilarious reading in this thread. A lot of erroneous disinformation but also some genuinely entertaining e-remarks.

Just a couple things that I feel need to be pointed out, however...

1) Graphics (& physics for those of us with Nvidia hardware) are processed by the GPU. Geometry, scripting, sound et al. are all handled by the CPU. Ergo, the engine is running exactly how it's meant to. This talk of the engine being poorly built and causing multiplayer performance headaches is so totally unrelated to the root cause of the issues that it is almost Byzantine.

Frankly, we should be thankful that BIS had the foresight and consideration to implement a degree of future proofing into it. Just look at the low quality, unappealing environments of Titanfall for an example of what people with low morals will do with a crap engine if they can get away with it. Two years from now ARMA 3 will still look fantastic. They've made a game with consideration of the future, not the past.

This has no bearing on the matter at hand, but is interesting nonetheless. When a company decides to make a fancy game, they purchase a computer that represents the 90th price percentile of the 80th performance percentile as the target system to aim for. This is because as the game will take several years to develop, hardware that is fancy at the time will, upon release, be almost totally adopted by the majority of their target market and no longer be anything more than median. In simple terms most, if not all, games you see are built to cater to the lowest common denominator.

2) There is a massive difference between 30 and 60 frames per second. 30 frames per second works for film simply because there's very little rapid movement occuring on screen (well, technically anything above ~24.98 FPS will deceive your eye into recognising persistence of vision). When you delve into the world of games, 60 is the new 30 due to the generally rapid visual pace of video game entertainment. If you cannot notice the difference I recommend visiting a specialist immediately as you may be experiencing the onset of degeneration of your optic nerves. The only difficulty in perceiving frame rate should occur between the 60 FPS and 120 FPS range. Well; 60 FPS to 100 FPS in fact. Pretty much nobody can tell the difference between 100 and 120 FPS - it's simply what we've ended up with due to marketing companies' love of large numbers.

As for the original topic of this thread, I agree that the frame rate drop between SP and MP is unpleasant but it isn't going to be like that forever. It's a simple job for a team of coders to rectify, which no doubt is what they are focusing on at this moment despite no regular developer updates affirming it. Does anyone remember Soldier of Fortune 2? There was a similar situation going on; SP would give you an excellent frame rate, around ~60 FPS with a Northwood 2GHz and a Ti 4200 in those days, but MP would cripple you with not even half of that. I discovered an interesting fix that gave me frame parity between the two modes. I just copied over the MP .cfg with the SP .cfg and that was that.

Simple problems often have simple solutions. For those of you who are angsty and gripingly unhappy with the lowered MP frame rate, take solace in the fact that adversity breeds strength and adaptability. It's not great now, I know, but you should relish it while you can. When the issues are resolved you will discover that you suddenly become a whole lot better at the game, in the way that a man who has been carrying a great weight now released finds himself able to perform almost any task without a trace of exertion.

Anyway, this has turned out much longer than I anticipating but I very much enjoy correcting other people, so I must in good conscience give this thread a 6.5/10 all told.

:)

Oh so you're saying it's our computers and not the engine causing multiplayer issues? Die please.

Also your argument about BIS developing videogames for the future is bullshit because the game has been released, we have paid for it and expect it to work today.

And video games requiring quicker framerates than movies has nothing to do with movements in movies being slow.

Anyone can tell the difference between 100 and 120 fps.

And fixing multiplayer performance isn't a "simple job"... if it was then they would have fixed it in the last year since Alpha started.

Good job of stomping into a thread with ten pages of discussion, not reading one bit of it and trying to set everyone straight with your obvious ignorance.

---------- Post added at 18:37 ---------- Previous post was at 18:19 ----------

Yes it's preferential, because there's really nothing like ArmA in terms of features which I prefer over smooth>playable frames, with its subjective effect at point blank in simple run&gun games. I said the real question is what ArmA would have to trade in for the indisputable smooth frames. This is a decision that every dev has to make, even on far more primitive games (no, not just with smaller maps). But are you really implying ArmA is just a first person shooter with just a larger scale? If yes, then you should take a closer look at what you are comparing here.

It does, but as I said, as long as it's stable and roughly the same for everyone, it doesn't make difference in how well I play, to my self. At least I'm good enough to do fine against people who most likely have your dream frames, so I guess it's more like I'm just good enough to compensate the "tremendous" difference in frame performance, and this is in games in which the FPS actually impacts even the guns rate of fire dramatically, lol. Maybe you're making the frames an excuse for losing instead?

How about someone makes an actual demonstration how important the 60fps minimum is to controls? Because at least I'm not losing while dipping under it.

I actually read a bit about it and there are some few 60fps console games. Pretty much the simpler games have it while the more featured games don't. Like CoD does, Battlefield doesn't. They aim for you too, just as much as 30fps games do. The aim assist is there to compensate controller inaccuracy, not the lack of frames.

Who cares? It's a perfect example of choice of features on given hardware restrictions. You have console hardware, you get 60fps as long as your game isn't too complicated. Exactly the same applies here, except we're talking about a game that does a shit ton more work than your average competitive shooters that are mostly visuals, and that's it.

And still, those games are universally f*ing simple compared to ArmA. I say the problem here is that ArmA's features are more under the hood than on the visual representation of it, while great many people don't understand the difference. Ever seen those Kharg Island trees, by the way? Lmao.

Now <30 I agree is too low, but we're talking <60 here. In primitive shooters the gun's RoF is by the FPS. Are you sure this happens in ArmA? Because I tried this once: I started the game on a very crappy computer, cranked all the settings so that it became a slideshow. Then I emptied the magazine with pretty much a frozen screen. To my surprise, it took about what I would say quite the same time as at normal frames. Now this was just one try, and IIRC I was using an AR and not a machine gun, but still, I think that's enough to question your assumptions about whether this feature as well is as you expect it, coming from the primitive shooters standpoint.

Edit: Ok I played around with it a litte bit more, dumping mags with both the nato and csat lmgs. I think there was a very small difference in time, like 10% between 30fps and 130fps. Going <20 the time increased more dramatically, so what I said earlier wasn't correct either. Probably the RoF of the AR, sample size and that it seemed to function separately from frozen screen and sounds going all over the place made the difference then. And back then I was primarily trying to see if the RoF wasn't even capped, like in some popular primitive shooters that accelerate the weapons even past their supposed RoFs at extremely high FPS's.

Then I dumped a doorgun at once. No difference between 50 and 90 fps, but it did seem to take about 20% longer to empty all the 2000 rounds, when going 50fps to 30fps. While the RoF seemed pretty consistent at around 35 and 40, I had these huge dips in it every now and then. Based on what I played around with, I would make a guess that the minigun starts to slow down at around 45fps, up to about 20% at ~30fps.

That said, these were by no means anyway scientific tests, and how much this reflects on actual gameplay is another thing, but the difference isn't exactly huge unless you dip below 30 as a doorgunner. So yes, the fps does have an effect, but let's consider this: The bullet calculations are one of the ArmA's special features that eat up a shitload of frames too, especially when dumping thousands of bullets at extreme RoFs. But on the other hand, I don't know any shooters that wouldn't behave this way, only worse (by not having even capped the rof but directly tied to fps), and that the difference is minimal even under deliberate strain, except perhaps for the door gun.

Also, I did this with a CPU that's probably considered the worst in the decade, that noone would buy for playing games even, which could explain the considerable dips in otherwise consistent RoF.

Bottom line: ArmA won't be your go-to series for optimal arena shooter experience any time soon. It pays it's awesomeness in frames, where the preferred arena shooters pay for their frames in simplicity.

In my experience aiming is a lot easier on higher framerates and twitch shooting sure is.

I doubt I could have made all of my shooting drill high scores in 30 fps.

[roshnak 41]

I said the real question is what ArmA would have to trade in for the indisputable smooth frames.

Probably not much -- the engine would have to be designed to scale properly to modern hardware, and buildings would have to not sink into the ground instead of being removed when they are replaced by damaged versions. I don't think those are changes that would negatively impact anyone's gaming experience, do you?

But are you really implying ArmA is just a first person shooter with just a larger scale? If yes, then you should take a closer look at what you are comparing here.

Why don't we go the other way and you tell me what specific parts of Arma 3 should excuse it from the standards by which I hold every other game? You're the one saying the game is somehow beyond comparison with other games - what makes this the case?

At least I'm good enough to do fine against people who most likely have your dream frames

Sorry, you're not. I'm really trying not to be offensive here. I am talking about people who take competing in video games very seriously. The very fact that you are saying these things means you are not good enough at whatever game it is you are talking about to recognize the point at which your skill is being limited by the hardware you are using.

I don't really understand why we are even talking about this, though, since Arma 3 isn't a good competitive game.

That said, these were by no means anyway scientific tests, and how much this reflects on actual gameplay is another thing, but the difference isn't exactly huge unless you dip below 30 as a doorgunner. So yes, the fps does have an effect, but let's consider this: The bullet calculations are one of the ArmA's special features that eat up a shitload of frames too, especially when dumping thousands of bullets at extreme RoFs. But on the other hand, I don't know any shooters that wouldn't behave this way, only worse (by not having even capped the rof but directly tied to fps), and that the difference is minimal even under deliberate strain, except perhaps for the door gun.

First of all, I can't think of any modern game that has an uncapped rate-of-fire on any gun, so I'm not sure what you are talking about there.

I didn't bring this up because it has a significant impact on gameplay. I brought it up to demonstrate that the game is not really supposed to run at these low frame rates, since certain aspects of the game (rate-of-fire) don't behave as intended at low frame rates.

Also, it would be nice to have some dev input on this, but I would be surpised if ballistics calculations are putting serious strain on the CPU.

Bottom line: ArmA won't be your go-to series for optimal arena shooter experience any time soon. It pays it's awesomeness in frames, where the preferred arena shooters pay for their frames in simplicity.

You need to stop referring to other games as being "simple" and "primitive." The fact that other games do not have the same scope as Arma does not mean they are less complex, they just aren't as complex in the areas that you care about.

I'd also like to say that the idea that Arma doesn't have to run as well as other games becuase it ostensibly "has more going on" is not a helpful attitude. We shouldn't just abandon the idea that Arma can have good performance and do all the things it does. No hope of progress lies in that train of thought.

[hardsiesta 1]

Probably not much -- the engine would have to be designed to scale properly to modern hardware, and buildings would have to not sink into the ground instead of being removed when they are replaced by damaged versions. I don't think those are changes that would negatively impact anyone's gaming experience, do you?

What's "probably not much"? If the building change you proposed does a considerable difference in FPS then sure, that's a great idea. You would have my vote on it. Is there any evidence at hand? I'm finding it a little bit suspicious that hiding simple buildings would be less efficient than replacing them with more complex, broken down versions. And what about all the buildings that already have broken down models?

Hardware scaling, that I agree with. But it's another subject. If they made the game super tight on the variety of CPU's out there and got the choice between having minimum 60FPS or further improved features, I'd pick the features as long as there's sufficient FPS (that's 30 minimum). There's a quote from DICE dev that says exactly the same on the issue: They could have gone high fps for BF on consoles (which it was built for ground up, if you ignore the PR bullshit about PC lead.), but they chose features, like vehicles and everything that generally sets it apart from CoD over it.

Why don't we go the other way and you tell me what specific parts of Arma 3 should excuse it from the standards by which I hold every other game? You're the one saying the game is somehow beyond comparison with other games - what makes this the case?

Excuse? Are we talking whether BIS can optimize a CoD style game or ArmA, here?

Everything that's more advanced or detailed than your standards, because they make the exceptions both ways, for the better as well, not just worse. AI, vehicle detail, character detail (stance, equipment), projectile calculations, for some examples, all related to the superior scale that you mentioned. These obviously make the CPU bottleneck in the end, which isn't a problem in games that don't have either such detail nor such scale, not to even mention those combined. That's why I said I'm yet to see a game that would make decent comparison and beat it at it. RO2 is the only game on different engine, I can recall off the bat, that competes at least in some features, but not all.

Sorry, you're not. I'm really trying not to be offensive here. I am talking about people who take competing in video games very seriously. The very fact that you are saying these things means you are not good enough at whatever game it is you are talking about to recognize the point at which your skill is being limited by the hardware you are using.

I don't really understand why we are even talking about this, though, since Arma 3 isn't a good competitive game.

I don't understand the argument to begin with either. I play games, and 30fps is enough for me to kill players who quite probably have a lot more of it on average, more often than they kill me. So, why use esports pros and arena frames as as arguments if our subject isn't an arena esport. Sure, maybe I would do even better if I had the optimal frames, but how much? Probably not enough to make a real difference, anything I would care about. It's just a game, and whether this relatively slow paced shooter runs visually perfectly smooth is going a bit OCD about it. The rate of fire is a valid concern, though.

About competition, I have shit ton of fun competing in strategy, tactics and accuracy with my friends. Don't have that in arena shooters. And I don't have that much to complain about the CQB parts either, altho I do acknowledge it's different experience from gimmick shooters that specialize in it. Compared to A2, A3 is actually pretty damn fine at it, all things considered. That's why I have quite strong trust in people who made the only game all this is possible on, while everyone else went with gimmicks like super fluid CQB action at insane frames, rather than developing niche features what ArmA has.

First of all, I can't think of any modern game that has an uncapped rate-of-fire on any gun, so I'm not sure what you are talking about there.

I didn't bring this up because it has a significant impact on gameplay. I brought it up to demonstrate that the game is not really supposed to run at these low frame rates, since certain aspects of the game (rate-of-fire) don't behave as intended at low frame rates.

Also, it would be nice to have some dev input on this, but I would be surpised if ballistics calculations are putting serious strain on the CPU.

IW engine is notorious on how you can shoot and run faster, jump higher and so on, the more you have frames. That's real MLG shit right there, bro. This was an issue on PS2 at least a while back as well, don't know if they've done anything about it since. These are some I can remember off the bat, but obviously nothing should be taken for granted in how the FPS affects game mechanics.

Speaking of competition, at least the frames tank equally for everyone on the server on ArmA, unlike other games. This is actually an equalizer lol.

About bullet calculations, check the "Arma 3 terminal ballistics" on Youtube and tell me you don't think 33 of those per second doesn't seem like something to have an impact on CPU, on top of all the other things ArmA needs to handle simultaneously. That's just for one door gun. I know I can forgive some hickups there.

But yeah, the RoF is something that deserves close attention. Other than that, to hell with standards in games that aren't even the same genre.

You need to stop referring to other games as being "simple" and "primitive." The fact that other games do not have the same scope as Arma does not mean they are less complex, they just aren't as complex in the areas that you care about.

I'd also like to say that the idea that Arma doesn't have to run as well as other games becuase it ostensibly "has more going on" is not a helpful attitude. We shouldn't just abandon the idea that Arma can have good performance and do all the things it does. No hope of progress lies in that train of thought.

ArmA isn't far more complex? Oh boy... How about the other games shouldn't be excused from having advanced and detailed features just for having high FPS? Why would the devs forget about making the game run better? Obviously they would care about it, they're not some f*ing EA. But I bet it's all about choices. They know the best because they've produced the best.

You still haven't named even a single title to compare to yet, while I've mentioned a few for you already. I won't repeat or go into more detail here until you come up with something that has at least as detailed features as ArmA, because that's ArmA's niche, not benchmarks. We can even forget the scale to make it easier, although the details are directly related to it, considering the workload.

As I said, I'd take the standard 60fps for sure, if it came free. There are more interesting things to do before that though. ArmA isn't about dodging bullets with lightning reflexes, the authentic mobility takes that out. All that's left is complaints about aiming being slightly different than over 60fps, which is a selling point only for the games in which you actually dodge bullets with it, but 30fps is not a universal problem for shooters and shouldn't be for a game like Arma. Most popular shooters out there, CoD (Aka the finest Quake 3 mod out there) excluded, are built for 30fps.

"Some people complain because it's a number, and you can compare numbers. And then there are a few people who complain because they say it's a worse experience. That group has their needs and their urges, and then you have the other group that says, you know what? I'd rather have destruction, vehicles, graphics and audio because it's fun.

DICE executive producer Patrick Bach"

Edited March 16, 2014 by HardSiesta

[Sneakson 1]

ARMA3 isn't as detailed as you think.

Other than the view distance there's nothing much to brag about, technically speaking.

The AI, characters and vehicle design is really nothing more than any other game and a lot of other games also have more complex bullet trajectories nowadays.

I don't believe there is anything happening on or off screen in ARMA that would make it much more difficult to optimize than any other heavy-ended shooter.

[hardsiesta 1]

ARMA3 isn't as detailed as you think.

Other than the view distance there's nothing much to brag about, technically speaking.

The AI, characters and vehicle design is really nothing more than any other game and a lot of other games also have more complex bullet trajectories nowadays.

I don't believe there is anything happening on or off screen in ARMA that would make it much more difficult to optimize than any other heavy-ended shooter.

Ok. What are these "a lot of other games", so I can have a look? I've asked many times for this, how about at least one actual example for the sake of the sustained argument? Because as I've said several times, I'm yet to see anything to make the comparison. Sounds like all those exemplary titles are easy to argue with, but very difficult to spell out.

Even if there was, the bullets are still doing rapid, high priority physical calculations on CPU, which I sort of relate to doing the "enhanced" PhysX on CPU. Just instead of ethereally moving clutter or gel, you have precise simulations of bullets, so it's not hard to believe these would tax the CPU. Especially if the simulation has to be somehow reprocessed on the server and other hosts as well. Anyway, that's just my guess and it could be completely off, but that was just one example. I'm holding my breath here, waiting to hear about all these games that beat ArmA in these CPU intensive simulations.

Edited March 17, 2014 by HardSiesta

[Sneakson 1]

Ok. What are these "a lot of other games", so I can have a look? I've asked many times for this, how about at least one actual example for the sake of the sustained argument? Because as I've said several times, I'm yet to see anything to make the comparison. Sounds like all those exemplary titles are easy to argue with, but very difficult to spell out.

Even if there was, the bullets are still doing rapid, high priority physical calculations on CPU, which I sort of relate to doing the "enhanced" PhysX on CPU. Just instead of ethereally moving clutter or gel, you have precise simulations of bullets, so it's not hard to believe these would tax the CPU. Especially if the simulation has to be somehow reprocessed on the server and other hosts as well. Anyway, that's just my guess and it could be completely off, but that was just one example. I'm holding my breath here, waiting to hear about all these games that beat ArmA in these CPU intensive simulations.

Why not just compare it to anything? Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Crysis series, Far Cry series, Metro series, Hitman: Absolution, BioShock: Infinite...

ARMA3 has the biggest maps in a shooter and allegedly it has some quite complex bullet trajectory calculations but the calculations don't translate into much for the end user.

Strategy games are often very CPU-intensive, see Total War series.

[doveman 7]

I'm regularly getting unplayable 15fps or even down to 9fps in some multiplayer (co-op) missions, not just briefly but for the majority of the mission. I'd be impressed with a solid 30fps in MP, let alone 60fps!

[roshnak 41]

What's "probably not much"? If the building change you proposed does a considerable difference in FPS then sure, that's a great idea. You would have my vote on it. Is there any evidence at hand? I'm finding it a little bit suspicious that hiding simple buildings would be less efficient than replacing them with more complex, broken down versions. And what about all the buildings that already have broken down models?

I'm assuming you're unaware of this issue http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?169682-the-houses-and-ruins-are-the-mp-problem/page2 (Linked to page 2 to show screenshots of the problem.)

When buildings are damaged, the undamaged version is moved about 40m underground and a second, damaged version is put in it's place. There are now two buildings instead of one. If this has been fixed, I haven't heard about it.

Hardware scaling, that I agree with. But it's another subject.

It's not another subject at all. The game doesn't properly utilize multicore CPUs. If BIS wants their game to be super CPU intensive, they should make sure it makes full use of the CPU.

IW engine is notorious on how you can shoot and run faster, jump higher and so on, the more you have frames. That's real MLG shit right there, bro. This was an issue on PS2 at least a while back as well, don't know if they've done anything about it since. These are some I can remember off the bat, but obviously nothing should be taken for granted in how the FPS affects game mechanics.

First of all, Call of Duty is also a terrible game for competition. Second of all, it does not have an uncapped rate-of-fire. Weapons hit their maximum fire rate at 60 FPS, anything over that will not increase the fire rate of weapons, although lower frame rates will decrease it. Finally, I'm not sure how any of this challenges my claim that high FPS is good. I've already stated that game mechanics are often affected by frame rate -- you're just providing more evidence of that fact.

"Some people complain because it's a number, and you can compare numbers. And then there are a few people who complain because they say it's a worse experience. That group has their needs and their urges, and then you have the other group that says, you know what? I'd rather have destruction, vehicles, graphics and audio because it's fun.

DICE executive producer Patrick Bach"

1. This guy straight up acknowledges that lower frame rates provide a worse experience, despite the fact that he feels it is okay to sacrifice that in the name of fun selling his game on outdated consoles.

2. This guy is talking about making compromises when developing for consoles, which I have already stated are significantly less powerful than PCs. Battlefield 4 is capable of running well above 30 FPS on PCs.

3. I don't care if this guy thinks 30 FPS is sufficient; he's wrong. I have a whole series of posts in this thread debunking the whole myth that 30 FPS is sufficient. There are numerous links to articles all over the internet. They're very easy to find for yourself: just google "30 FPS eyes."

I'm regularly getting unplayable 15fps or even down to 9fps in some multiplayer (co-op) missions, not just briefly but for the majority of the mission. I'd be impressed with a solid 30fps in MP, let alone 60fps!

This is completely unplayable. What do you get in SP?

[simon1279 52]

Why not just compare it to anything? Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Crysis series, Far Cry series, Metro series, Hitman: Absolution, BioShock: Infinite...

ARMA3 has the biggest maps in a shooter and allegedly it has some quite complex bullet trajectory calculations but the calculations don't translate into much for the end user.

Strategy games are often very CPU-intensive, see Total War series.

I was just reading this post before this, now i would like to say:

Battlefield 4 : Really !! are you serious ?, so basically you like filters, this is a corridor game not open world, big maps but not open world not so many factors to calculate, a game born for consoles

Call of Duty: Ghosts : do you mean the worst of the series, the same old engine, with bad textures and graphics except for new filters that are using dx11 hdr

Crysis series, Far Cry series : cry engine, good engine but sometimes this is a little clunky ain't it ?, games born for consoles

Metro series, Hitman: Absolution : others corridor games with lot of less calculation compared to arma 3, and filters and filters born for consoles

BioShock: Infinite : good graphics ? :confused:

Basically you're just saying all console games ported to PC have better graphics than A3, ArmA 3 will never be able to run on consoles because of memory usage (why this ? ), what you consider good are just a bunch of filters and HDR

People like you are the reason because most of companies are actually making just console games and porting on PC clunky console ports with tons of bugs, and at too high prices considering the overall quality of these games

Strategy games are often very CPU-intensive, see Total War series: i'm a strategy games lover, TW games aren't anymore strategy games and the reason of bad performance in TW games is the fact they're using the same engine since R1TW, if you ask to modders inside shogun 2 and R2 there are still R1 scripts inside, not even a renewed engine

Wargame series are strategy games, total war series is the CoD of strategy games, true garbage since ETW, and performance in wargame series is not really related to CPU usage

Edited March 17, 2014 by Simon1279