ArmA 3 Sudden FPS Drop

[Jinef 2]

Dear Troubleshooting Forum,

 

I am having an issue with ArmA3 becoming suddenly unplayable after random periods of time of play.

 

Normal FPS is around 60. Without much warning FPS will drop to around 8 or lower and video artefacts appear.

 

I believe from the RPT and similar users experience that this could be a memory leak.

 

Please find attached both RPT and DxDiag.

 

Kind Regards, Jay

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uwh00kdtdeyuc6q/arma3_2016-09-06_19-31-03.rpt?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5gutj2r1jhkhkdy/DxDiag.txt?dl=0

[austin_medic 109]

video card? how old? hard drive or ssd? mods? how many and what kinds? so many questions we have, its impossible to answer yours.

 

if you have mods try it with vanilla, then there's no reason to yap about mods not working in this forum, contact the developer of said mod and ask them to fix it.

[Utopia_Amaury 21]

Check your running programs consumption with the task manager , it can come from there .

it can also come from scripts or addons you are using.

[kridian 33]

Hopefully when the update rolls out next week *crosses fingers* this memory glitch will mysteriously vanish.

 

I'm close to a month without touching ArmA.

[austin_medic 109]

Hopefully when the update rolls out next week *crosses fingers* this memory glitch will mysteriously vanish.

 

I'm close to a month without touching ArmA.

How would you know this is a "memory glitch"

[kridian 33]

After trying numerous drivers for the GPU and other tweaks, I decided to keep an eye on the memory usage by the game. Every time, like clockwork, when it hit 3,700 mb the framerate went into slideshow mode (2-8 fps), even if I set the -maxMem parameter to use 20gb.

That is why I believe it is a memory problem. I run this game vanilla with no mods so it rules that out.

What is more puzzling, and others have mentioned it, is that the same weird glitch happened in ArmA 2 for a while, but I can't remember what the cause of it was(?)

 

Here's a similar thread created when ArmA3 released in 2013. FPS Drops After ~45 minutes of Gameplay

[Jinef 2]

Austin_Medic, all that information is in the files I provided in far more detail than I could ever write in my post.

 

Will try fiddling with malloc settings and monitor memory usage.

[teabagginpeople 398]

And this happens in all branches?

If you would be willing I'd like to make you my experimental bish. It could solve your issue.

Follow instructions lemme know how you get on

http://ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

[Jinef 2]

Hi,

 

I have resolved the issue by setting maxmem to half of my physical RAM (8192) and increasing the OS pagefile to the same as my physical RAM (16384).

 

Sorry I didnt get the chance to use your solution however it was certainly focused in the same area!

[focher 15]

This is likely the same problem that is discussed in the later pages of https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/138999-low-cpu-utilization-low-fps/.

 

The profiling branch appears to have a fix (unconfirmed by BIS) but some of us have found the problem doesn't happen when using the latest profiling branch version. See https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/160288-arma-3-stable-server-162-performance-binary-feedback/?p=3088264. The profiling branch also contains capture functionality that can be submitted to BIS to help them troubleshoot the problem.

[kridian 33]

Tried the new Profiling Branch, still got the 2fps bug after an 1 hour. Server: [Official] Invade & Annex #01 (NA-US) Tanoa

Talking to other players in the chopper, they said to go back to the lobby and jump back in. That actually worked, but only for about another 7 minutes... strangely. Guess I'll do another profile trace over the weekend.

 

--Edit--

Tried to run profile trace using the Left Shift + Numpad Minus + frame but it just popped open the map instead. FAIL

 

I'll come back when ArmA3 has a new engine.

[scimitar 221]

The memory bug is present in the beta 1.64 release candidate as well. When the sudden fps drop occurs, I can tab out of the game and my overall memory usage will consistently be at 41% of 16GB, with no programs (besides Steam and OS related ones) running in the background. Without A3 running, my memory usage is at 17%. After doing the math, that means that when A3 memory usage gets to about 3.8GB, then the FPS/memory bug will appear and the framerate will drop to an unplayable level. That memory usage number seems to be very consistent with what other users that are experiencing this problem have reported. I tried the newest profiling branch as well and the bug didn't appear but I believe that was because the game would always crash (often requiring a system restart) within an hour of playing. On the plus side, with the beta 1.64RC, the save game bug (https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/190597-tasks-missing-can-not-see-in-j-or-map-after-loading-game/?hl=tasks) where tasks sometimes don't show up has been fixed. I know that these things take time to fix but the game is currently unplayable without an extreme level of frustration. With 1.62 and 1.64RC, I have the memory/FPS issue and with the Profiling Branch, I have game crashes that often lock up the computer and require a restart. I could deal with that because it only take a few minutes to restart and get back into the game but I can't deal with the fact that when it does happen, I lose all progress, including the saves for whatever mission I'm playing.

[focher 15]

Tried the new Profiling Branch, still got the 2fps bug after an 1 hour. Server: [Official] Invade & Annex #01 (NA-US) Tanoa

Talking to other players in the chopper, they said to go back to the lobby and jump back in. That actually worked, but only for about another 7 minutes... strangely. Guess I'll do another profile trace over the weekend.

 

--Edit--

Tried to run profile trace using the Left Shift + Numpad Minus + frame but it just popped open the map instead. FAIL

 

I'll come back when ArmA3 has a new engine.

Be sure you're actually running the Profiling branch. It will display text in the bottom right corner. Even without a FRAME capture, I would recommend to create a ticket in the bugtracker and upload your RPT etc files.

[ViperAleks 7]

Apex Protocol missions run very smooth on 2560p resolution and distance 3000 with constant 60 fps but game is almost unplayable on any other server with custom missions. I have 25 fps and sometimes it drops to 2 fps on 1920p and distance 2000. Something is wrong with the custom missions or network protocol.

[Antoine Ferreira 0]

I do have the same problem in warlords missions. After a certain time (many hours), the frames suddenly drops to 10 fps and i have to restart the game for it to fix