Why I will never buy any of your games ever again.

[eymerich 11]

How is that evident? DayZ has its own development team, and Arma 3 has its own.

DLC is necessary for Arma 3's sustainability, so they can keep fixing the game, as they have been since release.

Just because there are still things to fix, or what you want hasn't been fixed, doesn't mean nothing is being fixed and BIS doesn't care.

Shortsighted comments like that are a serious downer and don't help anything. Say something useful or keep it to yourself. This is what I was talking about before. Criticism is not welcome if it isn't constructive. And especially if it's just not true.

How many times I have to pay to have a product fixed??

I have already supported Bis purchasing the game in alpha at 39.90.

After almost two year of developlment (Alpha March/April 2013) or 3/2 years (september 2013) I expect the game to be bug free.

And while I have no doubt that Devs work seriously, hard and honestly (I appreciated the Sitrep report), I have to disagree with their politic of charging me for fixing a game I have already payed.

Because of that I'm very glad I have not purchased the Dlc and, unless things change, for sure i would not purchase the Expansion neither Arma4.

I am not the first and, most probably, I will not be the last they loose as consumer.

Patience: in any case, best luck and whishes to a company which made me dream for a while.

[Maio 293]

How many times I have to pay to have a product fixed??

And while I have no doubt that Devs work seriously, hard and honestly (I appreciated the Sitrep report), I have to disagree with their politic of charging me for fixing a game I have already payed.

All engine updates/patches are free and are supported by your (the customer) initial purchase of the game. Otherwise they would have restricted access to the enhanced flight model/sling/FFV.

Seeing how the new expansion will require Arma 3 to run, I imagine things will remain the same (budgeting wise).

[zukov 483]

No you're right, although it is based on Arma's engine - albeit parts of A2's and A3's. It seems the DayZ devs are creating a superior engine to Arma's. Although of course they'd never admit that. Take the improved dynamic lighting for example. If the DayZ engine proves successful then I reckon it's only a matter of time before Arma uses a custom variant of it IMO. Although already I sense that BIS might plan to use it on Arma 4 and leave Arma 3 in its current state. New game news sales.

It would be pretty ironic if it was DayZ's development that eventually makes the Arma series better. I think we all better get use to the premium DLC because that's here to stay.

Dayz has more fps on MP than arma 3?

[infiltrator_2k 29]

Dayz has more fps on MP than arma 3?

I don't know how DayZ plays as I've not got it neither will I ever purchase it. Zombies aren't my thing. But if the DayZ devs are building from the ground up a new engine it will be better than Arma 3's unless it's an exception to the rule of evolution.

[orcinus 121]

I don't know how DayZ plays as I've not got it neither will I ever purchase it. Zombies aren't my thing. But if the DayZ devs are building from the ground up a new engine it will be better than Arma 3's unless it's an exception to the rule of evolution.

Let me guess - you aren't a biologist.

[jumpinghubert 48]

Let me guess - you aren't a biologist.

yep, evolution is slow and conservative :D

[infiltrator_2k 29]

Let me guess - you aren't a biologist.

Lol no :) I was referring to evolution but in a non-biological sense. Not everything has to be a living organism to evolve chap.

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

Just take a look at my build and I'm getting '20' FPS MP FFS!

Another vague and impossible-to-reproduce claim about getting low FPS in multiplayer. Are you afraid to say which server you were playing on and what scenario it was running, when you experience this FPS?

[windies 11]

you guys realise though that the dayZ team is a fork, right? it may be independent in terms of organisation but it's kind of naive to think that bohemia doesn't have a centered interest and resources aren't shifted according to that. it's the same stuff that always comes up for VBS (not quite but similar :p).

sure it's different teams and in the last years no mention of Spanel is to find connected directly to VBS. but let's not forget that OFP is the mother of all. and the rights to that (not the name :D ) should be at just plain old bohemia (who-/whatever that is). because everything else would be insane. why would they just give away what generates their income.

not saying that devs get directly "stolen" or crazy stuff like that. just using common sense here. this whole "but it's a different team" thing gets a bit old and is a bit overly defensive. let's be realistic please. i've accepted (kind of :D ) arma's state and i see slow progress. and i'm carefully optimistic for the future. i just hate these pseudo knock out arguments.

That's generally how I surmise it at least as well. It's more about where their interest lay, Something you can see in the news between both titles for example. DayZ is generally overly optimistic with detailed specifics on what they intend to do or implement in the future where ArmA is generally of the attitude of "We're gonna do what we can do" with nothing concrete ever really specified or stated. I don't have a problem with DayZ or even DayZ taking the focus as long as ArmA can be upkept in a playable and usable manner if they intend to keep selling it. The different teams thing is always going to be a scapegoat more or less, but it would be unrealistic to think that resources, in terms of team members, don't get shifted around between projects with more lucrative projects receiving more resources and support.

If that means that in the end we get a better ArmA, I will be happy but I'm honestly doubtful. In the mean time though It really feels like little is being done about the existing performance issue's within ArmA and it's core, things that have existed for awhile. I also feel somewhat burned by ArmA 3 as it feels like they threw bunch of ideas on an engine that just can't support those idea's. I know Dwarden talks about eeking out performance all of the time but frankly I have yet to see any benefits in general usage and it's mostly smoke and mirrors IMHO with probably a little truth to it in very specific limited scenario's.

---------- Post added at 00:17 ---------- Previous post was at 00:11 ----------

Another vague and impossible-to-reproduce claim about getting low FPS in multiplayer. Are you afraid to say which server you were playing on and what scenario it was running, when you experience this FPS?

I've played coop missions from people like Varanon and Alwarren that frankly ran like complete crap for honestly no ascertainable reason. No huge amounts of AI, no huge amount of scripts running, just simply ran bad for no real reason. Part of it is where on Altis it's located, part of it is server stress, part of it is the engine itself and part of it is the mission itself. None of that though has anything to do with the system running it and has a lot more to do with how the engine is coded in general and how it handles it's load.

[twisted 127]

How many times I have to pay to have a product fixed??

I've paid for three copies of arma3, two arma2 plus all add-on, complete arma as well as tkoh, and 2 copies of ofp. And dayz. I find arma3 trumps them all but do admit that a little extra performance boost and some big development in the core engine would be real nice. Especially since I read the devs stated they're focusing on growing Arma 3.

That said I bought one of those copies of arma3 for my father and couldn't believe how jerky it felt. I simply couldn't play it even though he could play crysis 3 and bf4 quite well. I'm trying to get him to try arma3 again as he has just upgraded his pc but he'd rather try out far cry4 now than download ten gigs.

Strange thing is another copy of arma3 I bought is played on an almost 8 year old pc and it runs pretty well if the settings like view distance are kept reasonable.

Edit. And I find right now arma3 runs much better than dayz. So much so that I've stopped playing dayz (although hlc pack, AIA TP, the amazing rhs pack and blastcore have a huge part to play in that as well, it's getting closer to the fidelity I'd hoped to see from arma3 rather than the hypothetical future angle chosen like so many other generic fps are going for. ) right now arma3 is the best game for me, and of course I'd like to see it get better so am always pleased to see it selling well on steam .

Edited January 9, 2015 by twisted
Ducken autocorrect

[infiltrator_2k 29]

Another vague and impossible-to-reproduce claim about getting low FPS in multiplayer. Are you afraid to say which server you were playing on and what scenario it was running, when you experience this FPS?

I've already stated that I'm playing on my 'own' dedicated server, the hosted mission and elaborated on both the server and gaming rigs specs. Even on SP Infantry Showcase I'm only getting 30FPS. That is messed up. Both my server and gaming rig have the latest updates, bios, drivers etc... I'm not hosting any viruses or malware either. It's just ironic that a friend who has an inferior spec can get 50FPS on 'my' dedicated server. Even if I play the mission LAN I still only get 20FPS. I tried reverting to older drivers but still no difference. I've optimised the card too. Even on high settings the FPS is 20'ish.

Something is seriously broken on Arma 3

[zukov 483]

without doubts arma 3 is far better than arma 2/rv3 engines. The proof is Iron front ported on arma 3, in stand alone version is litterally unplayable in rv4 engine runs smooth only in SP.

the FPS drop is due also to crazy BIS solution to make HUGE/mega/enormous unplayable useless terrain maps

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

I've already stated that I'm playing on my 'own' dedicated server, the hosted mission and elaborated on both the server and gaming rigs specs. Even on SP Infantry Showcase I'm only getting 30FPS. That is messed up. Both my server and gaming rig have the latest updates, bios, drivers etc... I'm not hosting any viruses or malware either. It's just ironic that a friend who has an inferior spec can get 50FPS on 'my' dedicated server. Even if I play the mission LAN I still only get 20FPS. I tried reverting to older drivers but still no difference. I've optimised the card too. Even on high settings the FPS is 20'ish.

Something is seriously broken on Arma 3

You are right sorry I did not see a few pages back.

I&A is one of the scenarios that pushes the AI count too high, in terms of performance. I used to code that scenario and I think it did not have good hard-coded maximums for AI count. Often it is possible to have 200 AI running around. Put some of them into combat mode, or put them into an urban area with lots of obstacles and objects, and the server will be choked by the lateral structure of the AI code, especially when they are in combat/danger FSM and doing lots of nearObjects, lineIntersects, getPos, terrainIntersects calculations. I suspect you are already aware, but the reason your friend gets better FPS on your server is because all the FPS burden is on one core of your CPU, with little on his.

If I was to revisit it or make another 'big' co-op scenario, I would cap the AI at 100 and find ways to make the battles feel 'big' within that maximum.

Also there is a reason why most of the current versions of I&A do not have major combat occurring in the big cities. Those areas (IE Pyrgos, Kavala) literally crush the CPU, since I believe the 1.08 update. The CPU-burden-per-AI is much higher in cities than on more open terrain.

I do not think this is an Arma 3 problem in general. It is an AI problem with the structure of the AI code. Designed for easy project management and stability, but the result is bad performance when there are many. (Tongue in cheek) Besides the BIS AI programmers are mostly working on making better zombies, not making better riflemen or drivers.

The main ArmA 3 issues for me is:

- As mentioned above, the AI code structure lends itself to poor FPS. A properly structured AI manager could reduce the AI CPU burden by many times.

- Vehicle instability due to locality, especially air vehicles and uavs. Too often air vehicles and UAVs explode when a local player takes control of them or gets in for the first time. They do not know their Z-axis position and sometimes briefly (setPos select 2) below terrain level, causing collision and explosion. This is unacceptable and always blamed on us, the scenario designer, since it does not occur in sterile testing environments.

- VON and comms in general. In a military simulation, communications technology should really be of exceptionally high priority, as it is in real life. It was given little priority to begin with, with no real modern communication simulation. That is fine, perhaps a budgetary constraint. But for a long time now the Side and Global VON channels have been quite broken. Combine that with BattlEye and impossible-to-disable system messages spamming the chat box, and it brings the state of A3 military communications simulation down very low, perhaps 2/10.

Other than those three issues I can forgive a little and chalk it up to $$$/time limitations (such as vehicle asset copy/paste).

---------- Post added at 20:01 ---------- Previous post was at 19:53 ----------

I've played coop missions from people like Varanon and Alwarren that frankly ran like complete crap for honestly no ascertainable reason. No huge amounts of AI, no huge amount of scripts running, just simply ran bad for no real reason. Part of it is where on Altis it's located, part of it is server stress, part of it is the engine itself and part of it is the mission itself. None of that though has anything to do with the system running it and has a lot more to do with how the engine is coded in general and how it handles it's load.

Thanks I'll check out the scenarios and see if I can spot any issues.

Edited January 9, 2015 by MDCCLXXVI

[inlesco 233]

I've already stated that I'm playing on my 'own' dedicated server, the hosted mission and elaborated on both the server and gaming rigs specs. Even on SP Infantry Showcase I'm only getting 30FPS. That is messed up. Both my server and gaming rig have the latest updates, bios, drivers etc... I'm not hosting any viruses or malware either. It's just ironic that a friend who has an inferior spec can get 50FPS on 'my' dedicated server. Even if I play the mission LAN I still only get 20FPS. I tried reverting to older drivers but still no difference. I've optimised the card too. Even on high settings the FPS is 20'ish.

Something is seriously broken on Arma 3

Post your video seetings, system specs, etc. People will advice you.

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

Post your video seetings, system specs, etc. People will advice you.

It's not his system specs, its AI CPU burden.

[vegeta897 13]

Forgive me, but I'm not that well informed with regards to DayZ. But unless the DayZ development team is fully self-funded from revenue generated from the sale of DayZ products then BIS would be sacrificing Arma's development to subsidise DayZ. IMO the financing and development of DayZ should have been an Arma 3 expansion like Operation Arrowhead was to Arma 2.

I've heard it from the CEO that BIS have doubled its staff in size over the past 12 months alone, so who and what is paying for the development of DayZ? DayZ is only in its Early Access development stage so I'm guessing it's the sales of the Arma series and the premium DLC for a half-baked Arma 3 that's supporting it. That's not a rhetorical question but a genuine one. Unless the DayZ development is 100% self-funded by sales of its products then BIS have sold out on Arma fans.

BIS still haven't fixed the Simulation Management Module and drone bug. An easy fix but months on and it still hasn't been addressed. The proof is in the pudding. There seems to be 'Team BIS' and 'Team Reality' on this thread. Just take a look at my build and I'm getting '20' FPS MP FFS! How can anyone defend BIS when there's irrefutable evidence that the Arma's a massively technically flawed game. There must be thousands of customers who cannot play this game online and BIS' answer was to start development on a zombie game what uses the Arma 3 engine???

Seriously.

I'd say it's quite likely that DayZ could be entirely funded by the excessive Arma 2: CO sales as well as the 2 million copies of the alpha sold within half a year after release. The decision to release on PS4 and possibly more platforms also justified a much bigger budget, because the return is going to be massive. Arma 3 simply doesn't have this same wide audience and massive appeal. Despite that, it's still doing significantly better than Arma 2 did. Why are you so hung up on the idea that something unfair is going on here? This all sounds pretty logical and expected to me.

But the main point my post was trying to reinforce was that your comment doesn't improve the situation. It's the equivalent of throwing up your hands in frustration, and that's not a welcome attitude when there's still room for the game to improve. Your last paragraph starts out with some real actual feedback, but then just devolves into rage over BI's internal operation, as if you have the inside knowledge to be able to make such criticisms. BI is one company, the money their games make benefit the entire studio, not just the game that made the money.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

He'll be back when the Marksman DLC hits. BIS has stated that they have a multiplayer mass improvement, it's Work In Progress, and the ETA is unknown. So lag will be less eventually. But if your still having lag now I'd suggest upgrading specs. I got a laptop that can run Arma 3 well. Also, if you have a good rig, I would avoid maxing out in multiplayer to begin with. Hell, Frankie has the best rig, plays on Low settings in BF3/BF4 I think. That's in multiplayer only though.

[Llano 11]

He'll be back when the Marksman DLC hits. BIS has stated that they have a multiplayer mass improvement, it's Work In Progress, and the ETA is unknown. So lag will be less eventually. But if your still having lag now I'd suggest upgrading specs. I got a laptop that can run Arma 3 well. Also, if you have a good rig, I would avoid maxing out in multiplayer to begin with. Hell, Frankie has the best rig, plays on Low settings in BF3/BF4 I think. That's in multiplayer only though.

Wow, i really looking forward to this "multipleyer mass improvment", you wanna know why? Because I don't think it will be a mass improvment.

It's been 13 years and no such thing has happened yet.

Given what bad performance people get with their monster rigs, it feels kinda weird to upgrade the computer specs. Rather upgrade the engine to fully utilize/support the specs.

[zukov 483]

in beta phase there was a once a patch with improvements, using more ram

it was very noticeable

[Llano 11]

in beta phase there was a once a patch with improvements, using more ram

it was very noticeable

Intressting. And still i'm getting the same performance as i did in the alpha.

[eymerich 11]

All engine updates/patches are free and are supported by your (the customer) initial purchase of the game. Otherwise they would have restricted access to the enhanced flight model/sling/FFV.

Seeing how the new expansion will require Arma 3 to run, I imagine things will remain the same (budgeting wise).

Well, I was answering to vegeta when he suppose that dlc is needed to patch the game.

In any case, Maio, I agree with your opinion and here lies the problem.

After the fourth product of Bis (opf, arma1, 2 and now Arma3) we are still at the same point: after 3/2 year we are still here to debate about issue which are not solved.

One for all: the Ai driving.

This is a problem since Arma1: we are talking about 6 maybe 7 years ago and still the issue is not solved.

Then the fps optimization: I am not a dev and I knows nothing about C++ but, as customer, I tend to have my opinion on what I have and not of what the game will be. Performance is not good on my rig which, I have said, quite far from the best rig at the moment, but which allow me to play at full detail to Doa Inquisition or with with High detail to assassin creed Black Flag.

I am not asking 60 Fps: for me it's good a stable 35 and unfortunalty with 10/15 Ai Fps drop to 25/28.

Arma2 was patched till 1.60 (opf till 1.99) and we are "just" at 1.34. That's the problem: issues not solved and bugs fixed slowly (not to mention the fact that the campaign was released after the game was released). How many time I have to wait to get 1.60? At least 3/2 year more.

It's nothing more than a story repeating itself: I have had enough patience with Arma and Arma2: now I can't bear it anymore.

And I am truly sad about this because Arma3 is truly a great improvment, in my opinion, over Arma2 and I really wanted to enjoy it.

[zukov 483]

found! arma 3 1.22 ....................17 june 2014

[brightcandle 114]

in beta phase there was a once a patch with improvements, using more ram

it was very noticeable

I remember that patch, the game was 60-90 fps for me with a pair of 680's and it was the best performing week of Arma 3 I have ever played. Its not happened since however, its got a little better or a little worse with each patch until now the range is 25-60 or on a big game 15-30. Would love to have the magic that was that beta patch back frankly, the game was a lot better running smoothly.

[I give up 152]

in beta phase there was a once a patch with improvements, using more ram

it was very noticeable

Also at alpha, the same for graphics card memory usage, even in high or very high with 5000 view distance and rendering at 100% we could use all memory available in our graphics card.

Right now to have more than 1.2 GB graphics card memory usage we need to set some graphics settings to ultra, otherwise the graphics memory usage remains very low when the game obviously needs more.

[infiltrator_2k 29]

You are right sorry I did not see a few pages back.

I&A is one of the scenarios that pushes the AI count too high, in terms of performance. I used to code that scenario and I think it did not have good hard-coded maximums for AI count. Often it is possible to have 200 AI running around. Put some of them into combat mode, or put them into an urban area with lots of obstacles and objects, and the server will be choked by the lateral structure of the AI code, especially when they are in combat/danger FSM and doing lots of nearObjects, lineIntersects, getPos, terrainIntersects calculations. I suspect you are already aware, but the reason your friend gets better FPS on your server is because all the FPS burden is on one core of your CPU, with little on his.

If I was to revisit it or make another 'big' co-op scenario, I would cap the AI at 100 and find ways to make the battles feel 'big' within that maximum.

Also there is a reason why most of the current versions of I&A do not have major combat occurring in the big cities. Those areas (IE Pyrgos, Kavala) literally crush the CPU, since I believe the 1.08 update. The CPU-burden-per-AI is much higher in cities than on more open terrain.

I do not think this is an Arma 3 problem in general. It is an AI problem with the structure of the AI code. Designed for easy project management and stability, but the result is bad performance when there are many. (Tongue in cheek) Besides the BIS AI programmers are mostly working on making better zombies, not making better riflemen or drivers.

The main ArmA 3 issues for me is:

- As mentioned above, the AI code structure lends itself to poor FPS. A properly structured AI manager could reduce the AI CPU burden by many times.

- Vehicle instability due to locality, especially air vehicles and uavs. Too often air vehicles and UAVs explode when a local player takes control of them or gets in for the first time. They do not know their Z-axis position and sometimes briefly (setPos select 2) below terrain level, causing collision and explosion. This is unacceptable and always blamed on us, the scenario designer, since it does not occur in sterile testing environments.

- VON and comms in general. In a military simulation, communications technology should really be of exceptionally high priority, as it is in real life. It was given little priority to begin with, with no real modern communication simulation. That is fine, perhaps a budgetary constraint. But for a long time now the Side and Global VON channels have been quite broken. Combine that with BattlEye and impossible-to-disable system messages spamming the chat box, and it brings the state of A3 military communications simulation down very low, perhaps 2/10.

Other than those three issues I can forgive a little and chalk it up to $$$/time limitations (such as vehicle asset copy/paste).

---------- Post added at 20:01 ---------- Previous post was at 19:53 ----------

Thanks I'll check out the scenarios and see if I can spot any issues.

MD, I'm aware of how much stress the Ai put on the CPU which is why I've always implemented the Simulation Manager Module, or created spawn scripts. I've created and hosted numerous missions on my old X58 board and played on the same machine and even that had a better FPS than I'm getting now. No matter what MP mission I play I can't get more than 20'ish FPS. As already mentioned my friend who has an inferior build to me gets over double the FPS than me on Invade and Annex. He gets around 50FPS, and that's on my bloody dedicated server!

I spent close to £2,000 on my tower alone to play Arma 3 and I'm getting 20FPS??? Do you honestly blame me for being frustrated and angry? People can forget about the blaming custom missions and people's rigs, I have proved beyond doubt that Arma 3 is broken. A mere 30FPS on Infantry Showcase with an 4.1Ghz overclocked i7 5820K and GTX 780ti?????

Like I said, my friend gets over 50FPS playing on 'my' dedicated server that's hosting the latest version of Invade and Annex when I only get 20FPS :/