ArmA 3 Low-FPS (likely / possible reason)

[Polymath820 11]

It appear ArmA 3 utilises a lot of disk-reading really big files, ArmA 3 at times is reading 558MB/s now if this is so, it is filling the disk-queue to maximum which it also appear that ArmA 3 has a dip in FPS when doing a lot of these I/O operations, now I am going to induct an idea that if ArmA 3 has an addressable limitation of 32bits then when it reaches 2GB of RAM it is going to shift that into the pagefile, now I am not sure if this works or not but with some tampering of the pagefile "priority system" I was able to get frame-rate increases 2 - 5 frames. I have no "fully tested this" but it appears promising.

So it's not CPU ArmA 3 is using all the time it's both CPU and HDD "reading". A likely solution would be to put ArmA 3 specifically on an SSD as it will perform faster than the HDD and slower than RAM but your addressable limitation is what is causing the bottleneck. Which can be over-come by a highspeed disk. It's this "disk queuing" that is causing considerable FPS drops.

So not only does ArmA 3 have it's addressable limitation but it requires an SSD to function at full-effectivensss. This is why in the "recommended system specifications it says a "Hybrid(SSD / HDD) / SSD drive" ArmA 3 is basically streaming ENORMOUS files from the HDD at times I am seeing 128KB/s upto 500KB/s+

So as a test someone try putting ArmA 3 on their SSD.

Edited April 18, 2014 by Polymath820

[Hud Dorph 22]

Putting Arma on a ssd have been known for a long time that it increases performance.

[kremator 1064]

I only put Arma3 on my SSDs (both on my server and my client) and I have ZERO problems at all. Totally recommend it.

[Polymath820 11]

The reason for that is stated above. But ArmA 3 will probably kill the SSD with the amount of reading / writing it does.

Could go down the 15K SAS drive route. Yes but the reason ArmA 3 has such poor FPS is because people are using HDD's. It states in the "recommended" requirements that you use an SSD, Hybrid HDD or an SSHD.

All you need to do to confirm this is go into windows Adminstrator tools and and find resource manager. Also I recommend windows Sysinternals or ProcessHacker Portable. I/O causes a lot of the FPS drops.

ArmA 3 is streaming a lot of data from the HDD the Graphics card appears to be almost completely idle. And CPU around 30 - 40%

Edited April 18, 2014 by Polymath820

[xendance 3]

Devs have the source code. Devs have the profiling tools. Devs know their engine inside out. I really, really honestly doubt this is the cause and I really doubt devs don't know why it performs poorly.

[nikiforos 450]

SSD will not improve your FPS but will make the game a little bit smoother to play.

SSD is not the solution, the solution lies within BI and their programmers. If they do something to optimize the game , then good. Otherwise there are no miracle cures to Arma engine.

[Sneakson 1]

Wrong. SSDs have been shown not to improve ARMA performance at all in terms of fps/ft, though I've heard some say it decreases the amount of texture pop-ins.

I believe the big issue is with the CPU. Graphics less so.

[jiltedjock 10]

The reason for that is stated above. But ArmA 3 will probably kill the SSD with the amount of reading / writing it does.

Could go down the 15K SAS drive route. Yes but the reason ArmA 3 has such poor FPS is because people are using HDD's. It states in the "recommended" requirements that you use an SSD, Hybrid HDD or an SSHD.

All you need to do to confirm this is go into windows Adminstrator tools and and find resource manager. Also I recommend windows Sysinternals or ProcessHacker Portable. I/O causes a lot of the FPS drops.

ArmA 3 is streaming a lot of data from the HDD the Graphics card appears to be almost completely idle. And CPU around 30 - 40%

It isn't THE reason. Nor does it use the page file heavily - search for Arma filemapping API:

From Dwarden - The technique is based on using the File Mapping API. Yes, you hear well, the same API which caused problems with Flashpoint, but this time it is used a very different way, using it not to read the files, but as a way to allocate memory:

•on game initialization, enough memory is reserved and committed by using CreateFileMapping API. This consumes the physical memory, but no virtual addresses

•when storing or retrieving a page of data, temporary view is created using MapViewOfFile, which is destroyed again once access is finished. This uses very little of the virtual space (64 KB). Typically only a few pages are mapped into the memory this way at the same time.

Windows is handling this pattern very well, while the space can be backed up by the "page file" in theory, in practice it works in such a way that as long as there is enough of physical memory available, there is zero page file traffic and all information is handled in the physical memory only. The memory kept in this type of storage is not mapped to any virtual addresses at all, it is identified by the offset in the file mapping instead. Addresses are assigned only temporarily, when the content of the cache is read. This is possible thanks to the fact that the data stored in the file cache are location independent (do not contain any pointers).

Since 2011 I have run Arma from a SSD, with a RAM cache ( http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/primo-cache/ ) in front of it, and a page file on a RAM drive ( http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk ) for belt and braces. I am also using Win 7 x64 so there is 4GB of addressable RAM, although a hard coded 2047MB limit on usage.

All of this creates a smooth client with no visible stutter. What it doesn't do is fix the issues in an AI heavy scene, where the CPU starts to bottleneck (i5 2500k @ 4.7Ghz , 4GB GTX680 ) . That issue can only be helped - not fixed - by offloading the AI processing to a different core via a dedicated server, either hosted local to your client or on another PC.

Edited April 18, 2014 by jiltedjock

[John Kozak 14]

Wrong. SSDs have been shown not to improve ARMA performance at all in terms of fps/ft, though I've heard some say it decreases the amount of texture pop-ins.

I believe the big issue is with the CPU. Graphics less so.

FPS - no, texture pop-ins+FPS jitter+micro-stutters - yes. I'm running ArmA off an OCZ Vector IV. Both A2 and A3 feel much smoother.

[b0s 18]

It does help yes with stutters and slow LOD loadings. FPS maybe 10% increase. I have a decent SSD and all but my fps still drops to 20 in campaign.

[Sneakson 1]

FPS - no, texture pop-ins+FPS jitter+micro-stutters - yes. I'm running ArmA off an OCZ Vector IV. Both A2 and A3 feel much smoother.

It does help yes with stutters and slow LOD loadings. FPS maybe 10% increase. I have a decent SSD and all but my fps still drops to 20 in campaign.

There was a test by someone with a decent computer in another thread and it showed a small average fps decrease (due to chance) and no difference in microstuttering.

Feel free to do your own measurements to back up your claims.

[kiwey 10]

I still have an unused "Crucial m4 SSD 256GB / 2,5 SATA 6GB/s" here. I was too lazy to instal it yet and re set up windows. I´ll do that the next week after i cleaned my tower. Before i start with the OS ill try it with arma3. Im sure ill see if something changes because i´ve all the problems you can have with arma^^ Incredible low FPS, graphic bugs and constant crashes. (all only in MP)

[bullhorn 18]

You'll see an incredible improvement with the OS, incredibly faster load-times in ArmA and almost no performance/FPS increase at all.

[P0ci 10]

Nope even with SSD there is still performance issues due to poor CPU cores utilization

[k0rd 3]

You could make a virtual drive with ram to see what it would be like without disks involved. If you are talking about multiplayer performance, your disk probably isn't the problem.

[MavericK96 0]

SSD does very little in terms of raw framerate gain. What it does do is greatly improve the stuttering and texture/object pop-in while doing stuff like flying in a jet. Also just makes the streaming much smoother in general.

I've tried using a RAMDisk and personally saw zero gain over using an SSD...in fact, possibly even worse stuttering due to CPU overhead when using a RAMDisk.

[John Kozak 14]

There was a test by someone with a decent computer in another thread and it showed a small average fps decrease (due to chance) and no difference in microstuttering.

Feel free to do your own measurements to back up your claims.

His tests had shown exactly what I said. Feel free to think before you post.

In overall FPS neither is the clear winner; actually, the spinner looks a bit faster, but that's almost certainly variance at work. Already, though, the SSD is showing fewer stutters, especially in Kavala, but also far faster load-in for the setpos sudden moves. Still, overall they're basically the same.

But it's clear that if there's any overall FPS gain from an SSD, it's miniscule. The real difference is in reducing stutters and stutter amplitude and in quick loading (the latter isn't very important usually, though). Going from having serious stutters 2% of the time to just a quarter as much is going to feel better, and having massive game-stopping stutters all but disappear is pretty huge since those happen all too frequently on the WD.

Edited April 19, 2014 by DarkWanderer

[Sneakson 1]

His tests had shown exactly what I said. Feel free to think before you post.

I didn't see any difference in micro-stutters in his test. Can't remember the thread name though.

[phronk 895]

Used to get ridiculous lag spikes with a standard Hard Drive. Then I upgraded both my CPU and HDD to a i7-4770k @3.5ghz and a 220gb Samsung SSD. Massive improvement in average framerate performance and much less stuttering.

Frames used to be: 14 up to 38

Frames are now: 24 up to 80, sometimes higher on Stratis or Takistan

[Llano 11]

Used to get ridiculous lag spikes with a standard Hard Drive. Then I upgraded both my CPU and HDD to a i7-4770k @3.5ghz and a 220gb Samsung SSD. Massive improvement in average framerate performance and much less stuttering.

Frames used to be: 14 up to 38

Frames are now: 24 up to 80, sometimes higher on Stratis or Takistan

Your framerate increased thanks to the cpu upgrade, not hdd to ssd.

But yes, upgrading to ssd might remove stutter

Edited April 21, 2014 by Llano

[Llano 11]

Your framerate increased thanks to the cpu upgrade, not hdd to ssd.

Double