"3FPS Issue" - Call for Help

[pettka 694]

We have been hunting for the so called "3FPS Bug" for some time without any clean success. We managed to squash several issues on the way, be it potential memory leaks, scripting issues and security concerns, but there are still many reported occurrences of this behaviour:

• After some time of playing (usually 45-60 minutes) the game goes instantly to roughly 3FPS
• Game doesn't recover until it is restarted
• This doesn't only depend on modding of the game, even game without mods may encounter this issue
• It usually takes place in MP environment

As we are yet unable to reproduce said behaviour on our internal machines, we need your help  to crush this issue. There is a Feedback Tracker Ticket about this issue, we would like to ask anyone experiencing said behaviour to collect their dxdiag data (simply by typing "dxdiag" in their start menu and saving the profile, removing the Machine Name and Machine ID parts), trying to get minidumps of their memory prior and after the issue using ProcDump (thanks to the guys from Microsoft for recommending this software to us) and adding an Arma 3 RPT. That could possibly help us to localize the issue better and to address it in the future.

Thanks a lot for your participation, lets make Arma better together.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

ProcDump:  https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/dd996900.aspx

[Dwarden 1125]

thanks everyone for constructive help in advance...

[Variable 322]

When I get that (and I get that a lot), it usually helps to alt-tab out from the game, and alt-tab back in. When alt-tabbing back in, the FPS goes up to normal. I hope that can help.

[fl3x 0]

when i get it, opening steamoverlay / tabing out and in / changing graphic presets sometimes helps

[Schulz Hersmann 0]

I'm have the same bug. Next time i'm but de file ProcDump to.

[computer 113]

I can reproduce the bug on x-cam taunus. Do you require this bug to be found without mods ?

[Igor Nikolaev 511]

8 minutes ago, computer said:

Do you require this bug to be found without mods ?

 

3 hours ago, pettka said:

This doesn't only depend on modding of the game, even game without mods may encounter this issue

 

[iV - Ghost 50]

I have the bug oftenly if I look through a scope or a binocular. Sometimes when I look down on the ground the FPS comes back but mostly I have to stop arma with the task manager. I have this problem every day (~1 per hour).

[AndrewsRG 22]

 

 

This vid was recorded by a member on Sunday during our official ops last weekend. It only happens to certain clients/members, due to out large mod set and use of custom maps we have tried to crunch this internally, as of now we have no fix. 

 

I am not sure if this apples to vanilla arma3. 

[jAMDup 2]

I seem to be one of the more lucky ones, I've only have this memory leak a couple of times. I play with a group who have a fairly large mod pack but in our experience, we see significantly more crashes on BI maps.

Quote

• Game doesn't recover until it is restarted

A couple of times, my game will drop down to 3FPS and after ~10 seconds, it will recover. Unfortunately I don't have the logs from those occasions, but next time it happens I'll bare this post in mind. 

Note: I was recording at the time of these incidents, let me know if this would be useful.

 

Good luck BI

[FanBF2 13]

It was both on some Life mission so take it with a grain of salt.

We (some friends and me) were playing on an Altis Life server with no mods (except the mission with maybe customs textures) and we experienced quite often that 3 FPS bug after some time playing (like Pettka said, 60 min or more). Sometimes it was posible to recover with ALT+TAB, sometimes not.

Now what I find weird is that we changed server. It's a Tanoa Life server with only CBA and Task Force Radio and customs textures (in the mission file) and since, we did not expericenced this bug even with the game running for more than 1 or 2 hours. Both servers had approximately the same amount of players (30-50).

Everybody has their (obviously) own different computers, with differents parameter in the ArmA 3.

 

This is what I use :

 

-skipIntro -noSplash -name=NameOfMyProfile -malloc=system -enableHT -noPauses

 

And my config :

 

CPU : Intel Core i7-4771 3.50 GHz
RAM : 16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz
GPU : NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1080 < Driver 378.49
SSD: 2x Crucial M550 512 GB (RAID 0) < where ArmA 3 is installed
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 3 TB

 

That's all I know for the moment about this issue.

[alphamike 10]

How would one use procdump? I would gladly give my logs if i would know how to set up procdump.

[mhn23 1]

Serval Player from the Invade and Annex 77th JSOC Public Server 1 on Altis get this Bug very frequently.

 

So far a workaround on the Server was this:

set Maxmem and maxvram to 2047 and change the memory allocator to system or jemalloc_bi.

Specially for Pilots a common trick to avoid it, tho ocasionally even with this in infantry play i get the fps bug.

 

i will spread this post and try to collect Data for you by switching the fix off.

[markocro 66]

My story:

I never had this bug until last patch, playing on EUTW servers MP.

When i having 3fps i once managed to evade it, by coming close to some flag and teleport on main base HQ which is on other side of map (over 10 km), when teleported in base fps is normal, and when i return to same place again where i had that bug i have 3 fps bug again.

Also, will try to gather data dxdiag

[Pictureclass 19]

@pettka, @dwarden 

FYI: We also got this error in our unit. 95% (round 20 Players) fixed this issue with Profiling Branch and maxMem=1792

[bryan103 0]

@pettka

 

I have had really good luck with a temp fix for when that happens.

You hold down shift and press the minus (-) key on your numpad.
Next type "flush".
you will see the game screen reload and it's usually fine after that.
 Not entirely sure what is going on but that fixes the issue almost every time when I am on the KOTH servers.

Edited February 6, 2017 by bryan103

[das attorney 858]

I used to experience this bug all the time, but since this, I haven't experienced the bug at all:

• Fixed: Crash (to desktop ;)) connected to AI driving 

On DB (64bit + hugepages).    Maybe co-incidence, but it's not happened at all and I've deliberately kept the game open for some time with lots going on in MP just to see if it would crash/3fps etc.

[kridian 33]

Yep, Dev Branch 64bit + Hugepages is working fine.   I say roll that bitch out to Main Branch already.

[dealman 21]

Not sure how much of help this will be, but I personally have only ever had this bug happen to me while playing Escape From Tanoa as host with 3 friends of mine. And once when I was playing Liberation with a friend of mine. When I was playing Liberation I tried to redeploy to another FOB to see if that helped fix the issue - but that resulted in the game crashing.

I've had it happen I think 3 times while playing Escape From Tanoa, 1 of these times however it fixed itself after a few minutes. Neither of my friends experienced this bug during those sessions.

Not sure but both of those missions have some hefty AI stuff going on, so maybe it's related to the AI?

 

No mods. Hosting with UPnP enabled.

[Dwarden 1125]

58 minutes ago, Pictureclass said:

@pettka, @dwarden 

FYI: We also got this error in our unit. 95% (round 20 Players) fixed this issue with Profiling Branch and maxMem=1792

 

since 1.66 it's not recommended to use -maxmem= nor -maxVRAM= at all (the engine auto-detect and tries use maximum available)

it's now only fall-back for 'troubleshooting` or non-standard problematic hardware situations ...

[sawboss 10]

I sometimes get this 3fps thing when holding in right mouse button to zoom, also usually when flying.

[Horus 83]

How to use ProcDump http://dev.withsix.com/projects/cis/wiki/CIT
 

Quote

 

Full Memory Dump for Game Crash
Attach Procdump-utility to the game before the game crashes with command line:

procdump -e -ma arma3.exe CrashFullMemoryDump.dmp

Full Memory Dump will be created automatically when the game crashes.

 

Full Memory Dump for Game Freeze / Hung Process
Attach Procdump-utility to the game before the game freezes / hungs with command line:

procdump -h -ma arma3.exe FreezeFullMemoryDump.dmp

Full Memory Dump will be created automatically when the process window is not responding for 5 second.

 

To get smaller size Mini Memory Dump
Attach Procdump-utility to the game with command line

procdump -h arma3.exe FreezeMiniMemoryDump.dmp

If the process only appears to be hung for you, but the window/task does still basically respond,
you can omit parameter -h and just run it at the time you wish to take a dump.

It is useful to to use patch build number and descriptional naming for the filename. For example: "96751CrashFullDump.dmp".

 

 

[alphamike 10]

Thank you Horus. But how do I attach procdump to arma when there is no crash? Im geting the 3 fps forever but no crash.

[Horus 83]

Maybe use this command:
 

procdump -ma -e 1 arma3.exe

but is better to wait for @pettka and @dwarden to respond.