A request for "Startup Parameters" renewal

[oldbear 390]

While Arma 3 has substantially evolved, we are currently still using startup parameters built for ArmA : Armed Assault.

As an highlight I want to take the SITREP #00068 and more accurately this part : " ... Borivoj Hlava, uncovered a detailed guide to getting the most out of Arma 3's many configuration options ...".

This guide is, in my eyes, correct in most aspects however something ticked me off. You guessed it : the part about the Startup Parameters

Quoting :

You can also use the startup parameters to increase performance slightly by right-clicking ArmA 3 in Steam > Properties > Set Launch Options and entering the following.

-cpuCount= set this to however many physical CPU's you have, usually either 2, 4 or 6.****

-exThreads= Correct info coming soon, need to test. Ballpark settings are use 7 for high end quad core CPU, 3 or 5 for mid range quad core CPU and 1 or 3 for Dual Cores. Stay tuned for updated testing results. ****

-maxMem= set this to 2047 or about 1GB (1024) less than your maximum RAM, I am not sure if higher values have an effect as I'm pretty sure 2GB is the maximum.

-maxVram= this option will tell ArmA how much Video RAM your graphics card has, not really important for it to know however.

-noBenchmark mainly for the development build this option disables any benchmarking that ArmA automatically does.

-noLogs mainly for the development build this option disables any logging that ArmA automatically does.

-noPause Does not pause the ArmA window when alt-tabbed in Fullscreen window mode, good for multi-taskers and streamers.

-noSplash gets rid of the intro stuff at startup.

-world=empty Starts up the game faster as it loads empty level.

[...]

**** cpuCount and exThreads can help smooth the game by letting it know to spread the load properly.

For a guide, which is supposed to be I'd say "absolute", I find this part of it both lacking - '-enableHT' is missing for exemple - and actually quite I'd say "vague" - see the bolded parts in the quotation above.

While BIS can always rely on the community to sort that stuff out, I think that it would best for someone having an intimate knowledge of the RVEngine and the ways it works to throw in some informations and bring some rationalization.

Because as of now the stuff is so confusing that I've actually encountered people saying their game doesn't work correctly while using those kind of starting parameters :

-cpuCount=12 -exThreads=7 -high -exthreads=7 -maxMem=8192 -noPause -noSplash -world=empty

(Source French)

[mamasan8 11]

All you need is here

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Startup_Parameters

Why go on unofficial sources?

And some of it being old? Well, in the scripting language used, some of it is from OFP/Arma1. It works, why change it. Some get added, some get deprecated, thats normal.

[kklownboy 43]

because in the sitrep , the Bi dev said the "guide" at that forum was good~... The "Startup Parameters" in the guide are wrong, and should not have had a Bi "Dev Seal of approval". Anyways a nice shout out to the "DayO" folk.

[oldbear 390]

@ mamasan8 : I am feeling you are not understanding what I am requesting.

I don't want "unofficial sources" as Dwarden Fred Gandt has already suggested as I was asking them about this, on the contrary!

I request from some guy(s) from BIS having an extended knowledge of Real Virtuality Engine to clean the bin and introduce some 'ratio' in the Arma 3 Startup Parameters WiKi page

Seriously do you think that '-winxp' parameter is not out of place?

Why '-enableHT' is being missing and what is now '-cpuCount=<number> ' role ?

Edited August 7, 2014 by OldBear

[Greenfist 1863]

BIKI has always been a little out of date. Devs only seem update info about new editing things but old pages are left to rot. You just have to rely on the community. :icon_twisted:

But it doesn't really matter what the wiki says, because nobody even reads about the startup parameters. For example, every other "performance guide" has included that -high parameter which has never even existed. :D

Btw, devs on enableht & cpucount:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?152866-General-Discussion-(dev-branch)&p=2693893&viewfull=1#post2693893

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?152866-General-Discussion-(dev-branch)&p=2694366&viewfull=1#post2694366

Edited August 7, 2014 by Greenfist

[oldbear 390]

At last some info from behind the wall ...

From Dwarden on : Low CPU utilization & Low FPS thread

don't use -cpuCount if you want use -enableHT ...

[Greenfist 1863]

At last some info from behind the wall ...

From Dwarden on : Low CPU utilization & Low FPS thread

You didn't read the post I linked above? Because that was exactly what was on the first line of the second link. :)

Also, review the wiki page, it says the same thing.