Does mods cause lag, , slows down and conflict with your mission scripts?

[Coolinator 10]

My friends say that mods doesn't cause lag, but i don't know if they are just saying that so that they can still use mods in my server?

Some people say mods doesn't cause lag, and some people say it does cause lag? im really confused :(

From my experience, i tested last night using mods and without mods.

With mods: it shows signs of slowliness gameplay in mission, and it conflicts with my mission scripts.

withouth mods: Much smoother and no conflicting with my mission scripts.

Also, my past experience playing with my friends that like to use mods. This happened like couple weeks ago. We were playing a freshly new loaded mission. Everything was smooth, and no one is using their mods yet. Then my friends started loading their weapons mods, I noticed the server became choppy lag???

Could you guys share your knowledge and thought about using mods in a server?

Is it good or bad? does it reallly cause lag????

Should i make my server mods free and just pure vanilla?

Edited December 23, 2014 by Coolinator

[Greenfist 1863]

Of course mods can cause lag and conflicts.

If a mod spawns 6 billion exploding seagulls every 2.5 seconds, then it surely will cause a lag and conflicts if the mission wasn't designed with nuclear birds in mind. So maybe you should specify which mods in particular are you talking about? :)

Edited December 23, 2014 by Greenfist

[Coolinator 10]

Of course mods can cause lag and conflicts.

If a mod spawns 6 billion exploding seagulls every 2.5 seconds, then it surely will cause a lag. So maybe you should specify which mods in particular are you talking about? :)

The mods i want to allow only in my server is JSRS, Blastcore, Shacktac Fireteam HUD, and VTS Weapon Resting. ( i dont want to allow weapon mods).

i tested them last night, my mission was kinda slow, and was conflicting my mission scripts. (for example, my task bar stuck on the screen, TAW view distance script wont initalized in the beggining, but after you die and respawn it starts to initialize.)

Then i tested it again without those 4 mods, my mission was much smoother , and no conflict with my misison scripts.

[austin_medic 109]

judging by that i'd say the scheduler is probably bogged down with tons of scripts to execute from one of those mods. Either that or one of them is sending 16 metric tons (lots) of data over the network which is slowing down client to server communications for more important things. You could check the rpt log for error spam and figure out which one is doing it.

[dreadedentity 278]

JSRS, Blastcore, Shacktac Fireteam HUD, and VTS Weapon Resting.

I know JSRS and Blastcore are both client-side mods, Shacktac HUD and VTS Resting also appear to be client-side mods. If the case is that they are all client-side mods, no, they will not lag your server because it is impossible. However, they can still cause low FPS for the players that have the mods installed (which is what you experienced), and they can also conflict with scripts you have written.

Also, try to be a little more specific with your terminology, "lag" to me means "bad connection" not "low FPS", "low FPS" means "low FPS" to me. True, they can sometimes be related in arma, however, "lag" and "low FPS" have considerably different meanings

[jshock 512]

There can be indirect effects of lots of clientside mods on the server, I'm not too into networking/servers so I don't know why exactly, but in one of my units we had a few idiots running over 50+ mods in an operation which made the mission unplayable and buggy as hell, and most of the shit they were running was clientside effects.

[Coolinator 10]

judging by that i'd say the scheduler is probably bogged down with tons of scripts to execute from one of those mods. Either that or one of them is sending 16 metric tons (lots) of data over the network which is slowing down client to server communications for more important things. You could check the rpt log for error spam and figure out which one is doing it.

kk thnx, i try to check the server with rpt.

---------- Post added at 03:36 ---------- Previous post was at 03:34 ----------

Really Great info Dreaded!! thnx so much! i think your right, its low fps, and im only allowing 4 mods, so it should not cause lag for the server.

The only thing i hate is that its conflicting with some of my mission scripts :(. But i guess i have to live with it, if i really want to allow those 4 mods in my server.

---------- Post added at 03:38 ---------- Previous post was at 03:36 ----------

There can be indirect effects of lots of clientside mods on the server, I'm not too into networking/servers so I don't know why exactly, but in one of my units we had a few idiots running over 50+ mods in an operation which made the mission unplayable and buggy as hell, and most of the shit they were running was clientside effects.

50 mods? thats a lot lol. Im only allowing 4 mods, hopefully it doesn't make any bad effects for the server im hosting :/

[jshock 512]

And JSRS and Blastcore would be your main FPS hitters FYI.

[Coolinator 10]

And JSRS and Blastcore would be your main FPS hitters FYI.

Ahh i see, i guess im gonna take off those in my allowed mod list :/

---------- Post added at 05:19 ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 ----------

I forgot to say this, Thnx Jshock and everyone :) i really appreciate it :) I don't want to take this for granted :)

[redarmy 420]

Coolinator

In terms of blastcore,lowering your particles to low,can greatly increase fps when particles are present i.e explosions.However,blastcore looks at its best with high setting,though not so bad at low.

Jsrs is modular,take out some PBOs that you dont deem essential to increase FPS.However with both these mods total disabled,expect no more than 6FPS more and slightly less laggy during moments of explosions etc i noticed with blastcore even a simple scene with 5-6 tanks driving can kick up enough dust to drop frames by a few.

A good setting i recommend from the arma3 config file found in documents>arma3>username is "scene complexity" at default its set to 300000 beleive,lower it to 50000.It drastically improves FPS because it reduces polygons in the objects on the map,all of which within your obkect view distance.change that setting,then do NOT touch object view distance in game options or it will reset the setting.

Downside is that while flying a heli or plane,objects will render in much slower and closer. Enable -nologs in parameters,there are lots of things,but those two help dramatically.Also another tip,with AI,Make larger groups sized with less groups instead of lots of small sized groups. ie. 5 10man squads rather than 10 5man squads.

There are threads around here somewhere for more good advice

[Coolinator 10]

Coolinator

In terms of blastcore,lowering your particles to low,can greatly increase fps when particles are present i.e explosions.However,blastcore looks at its best with high setting,though not so bad at low.

Jsrs is modular,take out some PBOs that you dont deem essential to increase FPS.However with both these mods total disabled,expect no more than 6FPS more and slightly less laggy during moments of explosions etc i noticed with blastcore even a simple scene with 5-6 tanks driving can kick up enough dust to drop frames by a few.

A good setting i recommend from the arma3 config file found in documents>arma3>username is "scene complexity" at default its set to 300000 beleive,lower it to 50000.It drastically improves FPS because it reduces polygons in the objects on the map,all of which within your obkect view distance.change that setting,then do NOT touch object view distance in game options or it will reset the setting.

Downside is that while flying a heli or plane,objects will render in much slower and closer. Enable -nologs in parameters,there are lots of things,but those two help dramatically.Also another tip,with AI,Make larger groups sized with less groups instead of lots of small sized groups. ie. 5 10man squads rather than 10 5man squads.

There are threads around here somewhere for more good advice

Ahh thank you!!! thnx for sharing. but personally im still gonna bail out on JSRS and Blastcore, im already having problem with fps in arma, even the first time i played the game, i dont really have a good pc. The only way i could play the game is lowering all settings to get a decent fps sadly :( But still thnx for sharing good info :)

I didn't know having too many ai's groups could also affect game performance? So having large group ai's is better than having multiple small Ai's groups?

[redarmy 420]

Yes man,less groups,larger groups,is the way to go.Think about it a simple as this,its less waypoints.Downside is that AI squad leader takes longer to issue orders to all members of sqaud.And "possibly" the ai will be less reactive as a result.

Not sure what if any AI mod your using,id strongly suggest AISS though,for me its like bcombat and GAIA all in one(not as good as either in their own rite) but better than both combined because of a few factors,one of which is that AI groups break into small team,spread around(imagine u making a team yellow,green etc) and the result is with a large 20man squad(as i suggested you do) that you get one squad spread out about 300meters around a conflict zone,pretty good stuff.It also manually cleans up dead bodies/veihicles,great for FPS.

I used to have a mid end PC,know where yr comin from.I tried everything for ages to improve performance.

I would also suggest trying out a custom memory allocator by Fred,gave me 5fps avg increase i feel,and made game less laggy when i had older pc.Dont dis those mods yet man,test more things,there ARE ways to achieve reasonable frames,i did it with last rig,a phenom 955 x4(forget specifics)

here is a link to freds page,its a little more complicated to installing a mod,but i did it when starting out on arma,you can do it also.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?163640-Arma3-and-the-LARGEADDRESSAWARE-flag-(memory-allocation-gt-2GB)/page10

best of luck,lemme know if those things help you,they really should

[Coolinator 10]

Yes man,less groups,larger groups,is the way to go.Think about it a simple as this,its less waypoints.Downside is that AI squad leader takes longer to issue orders to all members of sqaud.And "possibly" the ai will be less reactive as a result.

Not sure what if any AI mod your using,id strongly suggest AISS though,for me its like bcombat and GAIA all in one(not as good as either in their own rite) but better than both combined because of a few factors,one of which is that AI groups break into small team,spread around(imagine u making a team yellow,green etc) and the result is with a large 20man squad(as i suggested you do) that you get one squad spread out about 300meters around a conflict zone,pretty good stuff.It also manually cleans up dead bodies/veihicles,great for FPS.

I used to have a mid end PC,know where yr comin from.I tried everything for ages to improve performance.

I would also suggest trying out a custom memory allocator by Fred,gave me 5fps avg increase i feel,and made game less laggy when i had older pc.Dont dis those mods yet man,test more things,there ARE ways to achieve reasonable frames,i did it with last rig,a phenom 955 x4(forget specifics)

here is a link to freds page,its a little more complicated to installing a mod,but i did it when starting out on arma,you can do it also.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?163640-Arma3-and-the-LARGEADDRESSAWARE-flag-(memory-allocation-gt-2GB)/page10

best of luck,lemme know if those things help you,they really should

I dont use any mods for my mission and im not really dissing them, i just use scripts for my mission, it's like a natural thing for me, and that's how i learned making mission in the first place since Arma 2. Also, i don't like the idea of forcing people to download mods so they can just to play my mission. But i allow simple mods that are only local like VTS weapon resting, and ShackTac Fireteam HUD.

I use UPS/UPSMON scripts and EOS for my AI's.

Cool i will try fred memory allocator! thnx :) and from now on, i will group my Ai's into larger groups, instead of multiple smalls groups :)

Thnx a bunch :)

---------- Post added at 08:55 ---------- Previous post was at 07:41 ----------

I just modified one of my mission which has a lot of ai's in it. I followed your advice by grouping ai's into larger groups. I group my Ai's into larger groups, 8 ai per group.

Results: It was much smoother compared last time i played my mission. Thank you so much it does work!!! :)

[das attorney 858]

I know JSRS and Blastcore are both client-side mods, Shacktac HUD and VTS Resting also appear to be client-side mods. If the case is that they are all client-side mods, no, they will not lag your server because it is impossible. However, they can still cause low FPS for the players that have the mods installed (which is what you experienced), and they can also conflict with scripts you have written.

Hi mate, that's not strictly true.

If we look at say JSRS, it spawns a lot of particle sources locally on each client (to play sound samples locally). Even though the sources are local and do not transmit data over the network themselves, the request to spawn them will still need to go through the server (client1 > server > client2).

So I would think that lots of samples simultaneously could potentially choke bandwidth. (like detonating lots of bombs at the same time or something like that).

OP should enforce keys for mods on his server, so clients can't decide to load up some weapon packs (for example) which cause problems if only some users have them and others don't. That's always a recipe for disaster.

Also Coolinator - there's no distinction between mods and scripts. Either type could be at fault for low fps/lag. It's down to you to test what each change you make does to the game separately if you care about fps and so on.

[Coolinator 10]

Hi mate, that's not strictly true.

If we look at say JSRS, it spawns a lot of particle sources locally on each client (to play sound samples locally). Even though the sources are local and do not transmit data over the network themselves, the request to spawn them will still need to go through the server (client1 > server > client2).

So I would think that lots of samples simultaneously could potentially choke bandwidth. (like detonating lots of bombs at the same time or something like that).

OP should enforce keys for mods on his server, so clients can't decide to load up some weapon packs (for example) which cause problems if only some users have them and others don't. That's always a recipe for disaster.

Also Coolinator - there's no distinction between mods and scripts. Either type could be at fault for low fps/lag. It's down to you to test what each change you make does to the game separately if you care about fps and so on.

THanks for sharing Das Attorney!!!

I just hosted my server with not allowing any mods earlier, my friends dont want to join because they say they rather play with mods -_- im getting a headache (i dont want to allow mods, cause i want t he server to run smooth), i just hope there no idiots gonna load 50 mods like Jshock expereience.

i have no choice but to allow mods again in my server :( so my friends could play in my server again...

[ArmaMan360 94]

Sorry to dig up this old thread but, I use 30+ mods at a time where well above 90% mods are just maps coz I like collecting them and like to browse through them in the editor to set the mood for the next mission  ;)

 

I was wondering if map mods also cause any sort of lag? I mean example the behemoth Australia.

 

If I run Arma 3 with just Australia mod, but play on stratis/ altis for sometime before switching to the OZ based mission (I do this coz its better than exiting game and then restarting with Oz enabled), will this also cause lag? Does the Arma 3 engine loads all the objects in its pbo and keeps them somewhere in the system's memory squandering it till its actually used for play?

 

 

Thank you.

[jshock 512]

I would say if the mission itself was not on a particular map, there shouldn't be a problem, however, yes certain maps can cause performance issues (or so I assume) when a mission is played on them, whether the issue come from lots of map objects or lots of those objects being simulated/animated to an extent.

[ArmaMan360 94]

I would say if the mission itself was not on a particular map, there shouldn't be a problem, however, yes certain maps can cause performance issues (or so I assume) when a mission is played on them, whether the issue come from lots of map objects or lots of those objects being simulated/animated to an extent.

Thanks J.

 

However, I find the huge community maps way better optimized than Altis. The fps is amazing in them and drops to pathetic in Altis. Sad.

[fn_Quiksilver 1635]

Everything has a performance cost.

 

Too many factors to go over, but yes some cost more than others.

 

For textures, higher resolution = higher performance cost

 

For models/assets, more detail/polys = higher performance cost

 

For terrains, more objects/detail = higher performance cost

 

For code, heavier/more frequent evaluations = higher performance cost