End Game multiplayer performance. Will it ever improve?

[zeep 3]

I was very excited to see a new multiplayer gamemode and i've been playing it a lot. Though after a while i got tired of the bad performance. It's like framerate takes a hit for God knows what reason in multiplayer games. And even though it's not a slideshow, it's definitely frustrating that one moment it can be relatively smooth and the next it's below 25.

I made sure to only play on official servers and after a while i tried non official ones too. Especially in urban areas fps goes from like 60 to 25 at times.

If i just play maps by myself there's nothing wrong, performance is fine. It's only in multiplayer games when it's like a roll of the dice.

Sitrep #00104.

".. In parallel, we also started a series of long-term tasks focused on further network optimizations, both in engine and in scripts. So, if you are interested, stay tuned for more detailed info in future OPREPs."

BIS will you please get this multiplayer performance up?

My pc is perhaps not super fast but it's certainly ok.

i7-3770K @ 3.50GHz - GTX 970 - 16GB low latency ram - Win 7 - XFi 7.1 - All SSD's. Games and OS separate.

Edit: Just searching the forum shows this problem has existed for very long now.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?185001-Why-do-we-have-such-a-low-FPS-in-multiplayer%28MP-performance-vs-SP-performance%29

Edited May 5, 2015 by zeep

[TSAndrey 1]

My pc is perhaps not super fast but it's certainly ok.

i7-3770K @ 3.50GHz - GTX 970 - 16GB low latency ram - Win 7 - XFi 7.1

Ok? OK?!?! That PC is amazing and the single fact that your FPS drops to 25 proves that the game is broken!

[themistercat 11]

Yeah, same here. I capped my fps at 30, I didn't like it in the beginning, but I got used to it.

[ratszo 17]

Performance has gone down for me since v1.38.

Altis benchmark was 47, now it's 42.

Was on the Bis server (chimera koth) yesterday.., full, 102 players, and frames were low about 23fps.

..., tho we are talking 100+ players which is an amazing thing in itself.

I'm on the same server now, alone, pulling 70+fps --so to me it looks like v1.44 needs work to get back up to par with large player counts.

I played a full 60 slot server and frames were good in the 40s.

Today gonna play a 75 slot server ..., see how it goes....

Forgot to mention bis test servers will be running in de-bug mode, so that eats frames too.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Ratszo

[brightcandle 114]

Performance has been steadily dropping since Alpha. The issue is entirely in the client, I can find no evidence the problem is with network traffic or network performance. So part of the problem is while BI fix the areas you don't have an issue (and most of us don't as its not a pressing concern) the main game performance just sucks. You can get performance below 20 fps just walking around an empty map, you don't need AI or other players even, its trivial to make the game perform badly on Altis.

[polecat.uk 11]

I haven't played end game yet but I just had a game of king of the hill on a 90 player server (Full)

Before 1.44 I'd be looking at 25 fps :( I was on a good steady 60 :) maxed at 1440p same as I would see in single player, although the view would be at 5000 v koth's 1000, IMO alot of the lag online is down to ppl hacking on the server.

i7 3770

gtx 780 ti

8 gig

ssd

[hoot 0]

Ok? OK?!?! That PC is amazing and the single fact that your FPS drops to 25 proves that the game is broken!

Telling people about reducing network load while in reality things are getting worse after patching is representing exactly what, on your low threshold? Quality assurance? Lol! We have rubber-banding back in the game, hell yeah. Sooo awesome! The only thing that prevents me from starting to rage again and again is my age and my life in combination with friggin' 15 years of BI gaming experience.

Now, go on with your babbling,Sir!

Edited May 7, 2015 by Hoot

[icehollowpoint 10]

Performance has been steadily dropping since Alpha. The issue is entirely in the client, I can find no evidence the problem is with network traffic or network performance. So part of the problem is while BI fix the areas you don't have an issue (and most of us don't as its not a pressing concern) the main game performance just sucks. You can get performance below 20 fps just walking around an empty map, you don't need AI or other players even, its trivial to make the game perform badly on Altis.

THIS

BI please understand. Your games number one issue, is, and always has been, PERFORMANCE.

Everything else is trivial compared to this.

when its gotten to the stage that a computer that ran arma perfectly adequately before can drop below 30 fps doing absolutely nothing and not even in MP, its a piss take. The lack of developer address or acknowledgement on this issue is also infuriating.

Literally at the point where if there was an easy way for me and my friends to downgrade arma to 3 or 4 versions ago, I'd do it in a hearbeat. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about mods, servers and missions designed to work with these broken builds : )

Edited May 7, 2015 by icehollowpoint

[loopdk 92]

Wierd... i got a FPS boost frome 1.38 to now..

actulay a nice one.. 6 fps

[zeep 3]

THIS

BI please understand. Your games number one issue, is, and always has been, PERFORMANCE.

Everything else is trivial compared to this.

when its gotten to the stage that a computer that ran arma perfectly adequately before can drop below 30 fps doing absolutely nothing and not even in MP, its a piss take. The lack of developer address or acknowledgement on this issue is also infuriating.

This is what i'm feeling too. I would LOVE to see that they are working on improving performance, dedicated! Just get a team going on that solely.

Surely the manpower vs finance can't be much of a problem nowadays.

Also, the End Game matches i've played aren't anything near 60 players. In my experience it was like max 20 people.

[nikiforos 450]

A friendly and experienced advice will be not to have any expectations at all regarding performance and optimizations. You avoid to get disappointed in the future.

[gossamersolid 155]

A friendly and experienced advice will be not to have any expectations at all regarding performance and optimizations. You avoid to get disappointed in the future.

Same here. This is the way to do it.

Making forum posts about performance won't do anything. They are already aware of it.

[brightcandle 114]

They are aware of the performance problem, but they haven't taken any steps to address it. All this time they have been addressing the dedicated server performance issues with network traffic and they haven't actually even started addressing the very real problem that the games CPU usage on the client is most of the problem. Its not a quick fix, its going to take a good long while to repair this but unless they actually start we can't count it down. There is no evidence they have started so I think its right that people should keep on about it because unless we express our opinions as their customers that the current situation isn't good enough they wont do anything about it. We have to constructive, we have to show them profile results and other performance tests of course but letting up on the issue is not the right thing to do, because right now they seem focussed on fixing something that isn't a problem for us.

[chortles 263]

Depending on who you believe, that may be all that they know how to fix...

[zukov 490]

there is a multiplayer in ARMA 3?

[ratszo 17]

This is what i'm feeling too. I would LOVE to see that they are working on improving performance, dedicated! Just get a team going on that solely.

Surely the manpower vs finance can't be much of a problem nowadays.

Also, the End Game matches i've played aren't anything near 60 players. In my experience it was like max 20 people.

That's all they got to do huh?

Maybe they should just hire you to sort it out?

Just played a long match on my usual server ..., 90 people, back to good frames.

Sometimes i think servers need to restart afew times after a patch to get rid of the jags & slow-down moments.

Frames in mp: First i find a server with good performance, then then tweak my settings, view & object distance, if set too high, will cripple any machine.

So i'll ask the OP, what server are you joining?

Tell me the server and i'll take a look for myself.

But telling bis how to build their game is a non-starter.

[inlesco 233]

Keep in mind that simply hiring new people / forming a new Optimization team of C++ programmers + QA doesn't make the progress much faster. In fact, it can cripple the current team's integrity. It takes time for new people to adapt to a new working environment and the engine itself. But, what if RV engine gets documented better for a brighter future and more scalable architecture? Oh, I know...

BIS is working on a new proprietary engine for use on all its titles. No worries.

[zeep 3]

Granted, i'm not in the game development business. I was thinking along rules that you have to invest in something you want to see improve, so like a team of coders put on an assignment. Some of you think the performance is fine, i think it's not.

I didn't know BIS is developing a new engine. Maybe Arma4 will do better for everyone.

[chortles 263]

I didn't know BIS is developing a new engine.

From BI's official company brochure:

Enforce is another game engine developed by Bohemia Interactive. It’s used for Carrier Command: GaeaMission and Take On Mars. Unlike Real Virtuality, which is a PC-only engine, Enforce was designed asa multi-platform solution.

Bohemia Interactive is currently in the process of unifying its Real Virtuality and Enforce engines and toolsto one universal engine, which it plans to use for its future games.

Note that BI also used Unity for Arma Tactics.

[KeyCat 131]

I haven't played end game yet but I just had a game of king of the hill on a 90 player server (Full)

Before 1.44 I'd be looking at 25 fps :( I was on a good steady 60 :) maxed at 1440p same as I would see in single player, although the view would be at 5000 v koth's 1000, IMO alot of the lag online is down to ppl hacking on the server.

From one cat to another....

Wow 60 FPS in MP! Would love to have that.

There must be a HW/driver/comp. setup/server setup/NIC/available bandwidht/other... reason/s in addition to the MP code. Otherwise it's hard to explain the variety in performance reported by users when playing on same/similar servers with same/similar HW:confused:

This is what i'm feeling too. I would LOVE to see that they are working on improving performance, dedicated! Just get a team going on that solely

I have news for you...they are - even if they don't make the progress you/others want's ) and 10+ programmers can usually not work on the same problem at the same time.

Also, the End Game matches i've played aren't anything near 60 players. In my experience it was like max 20 people.

I know this isn't our job and belongs to BIS but why don't you join the official test server and help them isolate and pinpoint the issue/issues instead of just complaining, much more productive. Here is a list of their test servers...

http://arma3.com/servers

They are aware of the performance problem, but they haven't taken any steps to address it. All this time they have been addressing the dedicated server performance issues with network traffic and they haven't actually even started addressing the very real problem...

Huuu :confused:

The server is part of the problem/solution so saying they haven't started on improving the MP performance is just false! I do agree that good and bad feedback is a good thing but fabricated misinformation and constant whining is not.

We have to constructive, we have to show them profile results and other performance tests of course but letting up on the issue is not the right thing to do...

Now this sounds like a much better way to move possible solutions forward.

The only thing that prevents me from starting to rage again and again is my age and my life in combination with friggin' 15 years of BI gaming experience.

I'm stealing that Hoot ;)

Bolded it so you don't get the impression I'm blaming the client/server HW/etc. alone!

/KC

Edited May 8, 2015 by KeyCat
Damn typos II

[calin_banc 19]

bad post, pls delete.

[vran. 13]

MP part definitely has to be improved. A3 is the kind of game that calls for large-scale battles and it just can't handle it. SP is ok on my system but MP is almost unplaylable.

[jakeplissken 81]

I just made a Stratis End Game MP game. This would have better performance than Kavala on lower specced machines. The key would be not having absurd amounts of AI and extra items on the map.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=441841498

Try this out and see how this works. This is WIP, but all modules are there.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

Lots of AI + lots of nearby objects (kavala) + combat mode = Low(er) FPS.

[zukov 490]

I just made a Stratis End Game MP game. This would have better performance than Kavala on lower specced machines. The key would be not having absurd amounts of AI and extra items on the map.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=441841498

Try this out and see how this works. This is WIP, but all modules are there.

infact the problem is the HUGE maps like altis are useless and unplaybles