Possible fix for the "3 FPS Drop" Issue

[mickeymen 324]

3 hours ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

 

Audio update (1.58) coincided with introduction of the 2 fps bug

Are you sure about this? When exact  was added 1.58 update?

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

10 hours ago, mickeymen said:

Are you sure about this? When exact  was added 1.58 update?

 

sorry ive gotten the updates in wrong order.

 

1.60 was visual upgrade (may 30)

1.62 (apex) was environmental audio upgrade (july 11)

 

From my experience this bug first manifested in a regular way (where I see connected clients getting the issue regularly) in 1.60, but my belief (anecdotal through seeing literally thousands of clients get it) is that its audio-related and specifically (even more speculation) related to environmental echoes.

 

Of course there is a cumulative component too. If I just boot up my PC and start up arma3.exe fresh, it can be several hours till I get the issue (several hours of using zeus with many clients). However if I've been doing some iterative mission testing for a few hours and haven't closed arma in awhile, joining/exiting test sessions in private dedi, then it can manifest itself quite quickly after rejoining a highly populated MP server.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

 

[djotacon 190]

I have done an exhaustive research on the implications of activating the high precision timer on Windows.
 

These investigations - in my case - have proven positive eliminating much of the problem with the irregular FPS.
 

Can anyone corroborate this on other personal computers?

 

You must activate the HPET on the BIOS and the O.S. - you can undone easy without any issue -

 

More info:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1075781-tweak-enable-hpet-in-bios-and-os-for-better-performance-and-fps/

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

 

[das attorney 858]

@ fn_quiksilver:

 

That's kind of the sum total of it for me as well.

 

It's really hard to recommend this game to any of my mates and spend time playing it with them as it crashes out so much.  Pointless spending so much time doing seemingly random tweaks and endlessly reloading the game with the precious little time we all have together for online gaming.

 

Much better to play something stable (like BF3 etc) and have some enjoyment playing together.

 

Hopefully BIS can sort this one out, but it's dragged on for ages now and is sapping any motivation to spend time editing or playing Arma 3.  As that guy said in the video, it seems like they have big plans for DLC etc, but it seems like a moot point currently as the game won't even run maps like Altis/Tanoa for more than 30 mins without throwing a wobbly.

 

Also, if and when they do get around to releasing some more DLC, I'd like to see a more polished result (for example, some of the "marksmen" guns have weird belt feeding animations, which feels unfinished).  Anyway, that is a separate issue, and I can live with that to an extent, but then it makes me think that maybe the upcoming DLC's will be left in an unpolished and slightly damaged state, so I don't feel as excited about their release.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

7 hours ago, das attorney said:

@ fn_quiksilver:

 

That's kind of the sum total of it for me as well.

 

It's really hard to recommend this game to any of my mates and spend time playing it with them as it crashes out so much.  Pointless spending so much time doing seemingly random tweaks and endlessly reloading the game with the precious little time we all have together for online gaming.

 

Much better to play something stable (like BF3 etc) and have some enjoyment playing together.

 

Hopefully BIS can sort this one out, but it's dragged on for ages now and is sapping any motivation to spend time editing or playing Arma 3.  As that guy said in the video, it seems like they have big plans for DLC etc, but it seems like a moot point currently as the game won't even run maps like Altis/Tanoa for more than 30 mins without throwing a wobbly.

 

Also, if and when they do get around to releasing some more DLC, I'd like to see a more polished result (for example, some of the "marksmen" guns have weird belt feeding animations, which feels unfinished).  Anyway, that is a separate issue, and I can live with that to an extent, but then it makes me think that maybe the upcoming DLC's will be left in an unpolished and slightly damaged state, so I don't feel as excited about their release.

 

Eh, most of the small bugs dont really bother me, like reload animations. the "3 FPS" bug though is indeed a gamebreaker, has been for some time, and there is a cumulative effect of having ones game crash for the 500th time over the same issue.

 

I'll be quite happy to buy the DLC, but won't be until this "3 FPS" issue is fixed, and I've used whatever soap box i have to tell others to do the same.

 

basically dont buy their any new DLC until this bug is fixed, that is a pretty simple transaction.

[.kju 3244]

its quite disappointing how BI handles the issue indeed.

it seems they are fully concentrating now on the 64b version and just hope to solve the problem that way.

 

1) takes way too long to solve such drastic issues affecting many people!

2) what if the 64b version doesn't solve it but just delay the occurrence? what about the people not able to use the 64b version?

 

unfortunately there is no longer the popular uproar by people affected. i guess most have given up on Arma 3 or switched to other games for now.

 

in regards to it being a slowly building memory leak - from what ive seen and read about it,

it seems to be a sudden event that causes it - again not a slow build up.

having narrowed down, "debugged" and sorted very similar problems together with Ondrej during OA days,

it seems to me more like a "crash" in the sense something triggers it and it leads very fast (matter of seconds or less)

to the memory made full with chunk data and as result of no more free memory space available you see the FPS drop,

visual issues, game shutting down/crashing. 

in summary I am very doubtful, and people's experience with the 64b version seem to confirm that, it will get fixed by the 64b.

it would need a concerted effort by the BI programmers with debug builds to narrow it down, find the actual issue and solve it.

[djotacon 190]

Someone is seeking DPC related issues when this bug happens?

 

I have a severe improvement activating the HPET in BIOS and the O.S.
 

[acer5200 1]

On 1/19/2017 at 1:26 AM, fn_Quiksilver said:

 

sorry ive gotten the updates in wrong order.

 

1.60 was visual upgrade (may 30)

1.62 (apex) was environmental audio upgrade (july 11)

 

From my experience this bug first manifested in a regular way (where I see connected clients getting the issue regularly) in 1.60, but my belief (anecdotal through seeing literally thousands of clients get it) is that its audio-related and specifically (even more speculation) related to environmental echoes.

 

Of course there is a cumulative component too. If I just boot up my PC and start up arma3.exe fresh, it can be several hours till I get the issue (several hours of using zeus with many clients). However if I've been doing some iterative mission testing for a few hours and haven't closed arma in awhile, joining/exiting test sessions in private dedi, then it can manifest itself quite quickly after rejoining a highly populated MP server.

Not gonna lie, I've been experiencing this issue since 1.56. (At least that's what I think the version was on May 5th or 6th)

 There was a major memory related crash that would happen to everyone on the server, on top of the FPS bug. 

 

Got so bad that the server shutdown due to everyone quitting. The crash issues seemed to have been fixed with 1.60 but the FPS bug only got worse. 

Edited January 20, 2017 by acer5200

[das attorney 858]

On 1/20/2017 at 7:16 AM, .kju said:

2) what if the 64b version doesn't solve it but just delay the occurrence? what about the people not able to use the 64b version?

 

 

I initially thought that, but having played a few times, it seems it's some other memory bug.  The 3 fps one for me only really happened on big maps (Altis/Tanoa etc) and I could play for hours on Stratis.

 

I just booted the game up and played a mission on Stratis, which crashed after 19 minutes.  It's seemingly independent of the maps now, and they're just as likely to crash as each other.  Hope to see a fix soon as the game is nigh-on unplayable right now.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

8 hours ago, das attorney said:

 

 

I initially thought that, but having played a few times, it seems it's some other memory bug.  The 3 fps one for me only really happened on big maps (Altis/Tanoa etc) and I could play for hours on Stratis.

 

I just booted the game up and played a mission on Stratis, which crashed after 19 minutes.  It's seemingly independent of the maps now, and they're just as likely to crash as each other.  Hope to see a fix soon as the game is nigh-on unplayable right now.

 

19 minutes is pretty bad

 

I usually get about 2 hours of Zeus play on Tanoa (40+ clients) before the first memory event

[Jnr4817 215]

I have just recently starting having this issue, usually after 60min or so of gaming.

No mods, playing on multiplayer.

[cyruz 103]

Using the system malloc seemed to hold this bug at bay, there was a stuttering event but it recovered, I manually flushed post that and it seemed ok for the remainder of my playing. Felt like this was at the cost of lower performance overall though.

[Juan Domingo Peron 0]

desactive (ATOC) the tree is simple solution for now. 

[domokun 515]

4 hours ago, Juan Domingo Peron said:

desactive (ATOC) the tree is simple solution for now. 

Are you certain of this?

It seems remarkably simple solution

[Gruman 123]

On 18.1.2017 at 0:06 PM, mickeymen said:

Version 1.66, the bug of low FPS, continues to hinder the Arma3 player. This can happens as in multiplayer and in single player game also.

After the fall of the FPS, the player sees something like that: 

 

Catastrophic low FPS  and at the same time models are distorted, part disappeared. Only restarting the game helps to solve the problem, but it is only for a while. After 20-40 minutes, the problem can recurs. Unfortunately I can't understand why what exactly is causing this bug.

 

Until the spring-early summer of 2016 I had not experienced such a problem ever.

As seems to me, This bug has been added in the some updates in the indicated time of 2016

Bi, raise the priority of this issue and spare the player from this problem finally !

 

 

Yeah, had this exact visuals as well last saturday. Down to 2 FPS, Guys clipping through the floor and their gear floating.

I was running the performance binary from 17. January... Newer had this 2-3 FPS bug before... great, it has started on my machine as well.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

How many staff are assigned (and actively working) to fix this bug?

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

I get this issue occur occasionally but not to the point I can repeatedly have it re-occur.

Having said that I also have sessions where there's no trace of this; last night 10 of us played for over 4 hours with no issues on Tanoa.

[tomhighway 30]

So, after years of playing Arma, years of development, after paying for 3 expansions and they come out with a bug like this... Well done Bohemia Interactive.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

51 minutes ago, tomhighway said:

So, after years of playing Arma, years of development, after paying for 3 expansions and they come out with a bug like this... Well done Bohemia Interactive.

 

easy there tiger

 

programming and building big game is hard

[redarmy 422]

I realise this is dev branch forum,but this issue kills me in stable.

 

Some one pointed out,it could be due to a sound issue,and i agree.Usually if auto cannons go off,the stuttering follows.

 

Some one also pointed out the sound echo causes the issue,which i also agree on.As flying in a jet and dropping ordinance,then flying away(5mins into a mission,60fps) the issue occured as the sound reverberates,i think is the word im looking for.

 

As a STARK contrast,i also booted up a ravage mission,played for 3hours + on many occasions.I NEVER had the 3fps bug occur.

The difference? My ravage mission has no explosive noises at any point as its totally small arms and zombie moans.

 

It has to be a sound issue(possibly a ammo config issue) Im not clued into Arma engine all that much,i simply enjoy using the editor,and learning how to create interesting missions.

 

I really think BIS needs to pick up the slack on this.It really unforgivable that they can let this continue for so so long.Its their engine,shouldnt they know how to fix it?Its their baby,right?I wouldnt treat my baby this way.

 

BIS,please get on this.There should be no higher PRIORITY at this point.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

@redarmy Can you create a scenario with vanilla assets that reproduces it then? The devs want to fix it badly too. Wouldn't it be something if you made a mission and they could see the problem and finally fix it! 

[redarmy 422]

10 minutes ago, HeroesandvillainsOS said:

@redarmy Can you create a scenario with vanilla assets that reproduces it then? The devs want to fix it badly too. Wouldn't it be something if you made a mission and they could see the problem and finally fix it! 

Thats the thing,its every scenario in which contains any explosive/explosive sound.

 

I could create a scenario in 5minutes,all i need to do is put an IFV down and give it something to shoot for a few minutes.Of course its not limited to auto cannons,but explosives in general.

 

Which is why its frustrating,its happening in every scenario,why do i need to submit a scenario?The issue isnt on my end is easily reproducable by the devs.The issue has lasted what seems like forever,there is no playing the game with any real confidence.I know this engine is complicated,its a beast,and i love the scope of it,and can accept most issues as i know the developers will fix it.It just boggles my mind how we are this far along since the issue surfaced,and its not been addressed.

 

If this was say, BF4 and servers crashed every game,no one would play,and even DICE would roll out a fix ASAP.I have more faith in Bohemia,but this bug,DOES and HAS made the game unplayable for some time.If i could do something constructive to help i surely would.

 

Im voicing my dissapointment,as im entitled to do as i have supported Bohemia and purchased this title.

[domokun 515]

@redarmy Submitting a scenario helps devs because reproducing bugs often takes far more time than it takes to correct them.

As for BF4, you've either got poor memory or selective memory because when BF4 was released it suffered from poor peformance for almost year before Dice released a patch that addressed the problems.

No-one is questioning you voicing disappointment. On the contrary, your analysis seems to show promise. That's why people have shown interest and courtesy when they could have ignored you or even been rude.

However I'd loose that sense of entitlement, as it'll get you nowhere.