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jaguax

Any SLI Users?

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Hey, just got the Czech version in the mail yesterday. biggrin_o.gif

Great game, but what is with the performance?

I'm running on:

Asus A8N32-SLI Mobo

Athlon X2 4400+

2GB OCZ low latency

Dual eVGA 7800GT's in SLI(factory overclocked to near GTX standards)

Dual 150GB Raptors (10,000 RPM, 16MB Cache top of the line HD's)

Creative X-Fi

Always the newest drivers.

So it's not the highest end system out there, but it is at the upper end of the spectrum. And FAR beyond their recommended settings.

I have to run everything at normal pretty much to get acceptable frames. AF max since that never affects the frame rate much(in any game), AA on the lower end (tried it totally off as well - not a huge difference)... Post processing low, view distance default (which is pretty low by default)... And still, the game will dip well below 30, even below 20 in complicated scenes(especially the towns and heavy foliage areas)... Runs great in the the middle of the desert though! haha.

So anyway, just wondering if there is any other SLI users out there, and what SLI setting are you using for this game, split frame rendering, alternate frame rendering 1, alternate frame rendering 2, or default(letting the driver choose - though I haven't checked if ArmA has been added to the games list in the latest driver release)...

Any other tweaks known about besides the memmax thing?

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Try downloading the patch from armed-assault.net if you didn't already, it might fix your bad framerates. Although there shouldn't be a problem with the Czech version.

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You must have some config issues with your system somewhere, I run everything at normal bar postprocessing and shader(?) on v. high and view distance at aroun 3000m.

system is:

core 2 duo * 3GHz

2GB RAM

1 7900GT @ GTX speed.

seagate 7200.10 250gb

very rarely does the fps stutter, haven't actually measured it but game plays fine.

Have you tried running the game at higher settings? With newer cards you may find they run better at higher settings than lower setting due to their design and use of more advanced technology (that's the reason in short anyway .. wink_o.gif).

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There shouldn't be any config issues, all other games run great.

I just think that this game, like OFP, has a bad rendering engine, but I don't blame it considering the size of the island... I would prefer some loading (Oblivion style, where it loads the next section without pausing) instead of having the whole island loaded at once...

Maybe our perceptions of bad frame rates differ. Compare the performance of this game with something like HL2. HL2 I run at 1600x1200, everything on the highest possible quality, 16x AF and 4x AA. Runs beautifully.

ArmA I'm forced to run at 1280x1024, and most settings at normal to have halfway decent gameplay.

I think I'm gonna start a thread to compare framerates (using fraps) at certain menu screens.

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I'll get FRAPS going when I next fire it up and get some records of my FPS.

Out of interest i'm running ArmA at 1680*1050.

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Wow, I just found out some very useful information for all the SLI users out there.

I did a test of all SLI performance modes using fraps... I loaded up the same mission for each test and did not move the mouse to ensure that the scene remained the same for each test.

First off, if you have "Nvidia recommended" chosen for your SLI performance mode setting, you are only using a single GPU. This is because Nvidia has not yet added ArmA to the games list, even in the very latest driver. So, you must do this manually. Go to your Nvidia control panel, click manage 3d settings, and then click the program settings tab to get to a huge list of games. Now click the add button and select ARMA.exe. Now you can specify settings for Armed Assault only.

Now scroll down to SLI performance mode and choose "Force alternate frame rendering 1" and then click apply. Make sure you choose 1 and not 2!!!

All this time I've been using 1 GPU because I had "nvidia recommended" enabled, not realizing that there was no built in ArmA profile. But once I added a profile, and specified "force alternate frame rendering 1", my frame rates literally skyrocketed.

Using only 1 GPU, the test scene got roughly 44 fps.

Using alternate frame rendering 1, the test scene reached 70 fps!!! A 26 fps increase! Looking up at the sky resulted in 140 fps. biggrin_o.gif

Now, alternate frame rendering 2 really screwed things up. I think I was getting worse readings than using a single GPU. I don't know how it's possible, but I was getting only about 32-36 fps in the test scene using this.

So MAKE SURE to use alternate frame rendering 1 if you are running SLI. The game loves it. smile_o.gif

Mogadon, choose a mission, and load it up(from the beginning) with FRAPS running... But don't move at all or change the view. We'll use it as a template to compare FPS.

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thats great info, thanks for it!

Im afraid there's no help for my 8200 Dell Dimension with a Asus GF 5900

LOL

Do you think two 7800's in SLI run better than one 7900gtx?

Im shopping xmas_o.gif

thanks

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Thats pretty good info for people that use SLI, this kinda info should be pinned or somethin...

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Jaguax, thanks man!! Great find! I had noticed when in SLi I had seemed to be getting worse framerates. Your fix did the trick. Im getting much improved performance.

Im running..

MSI K8N Diamond Plus mobo

2 X 7900GT's 256mb

2GB Corsair PC3200

AMD X2 4800+ CPU

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ive done this SLI fix and got no difference in frame rates. can you tell me what the other settings should be in the profile?

For example, the default had "optimise for multi monitors" which i dont think i really want as i have 1 monitor.

should AA and Anisotropic be set, or just left to application?

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You're kind of correct Whopper. Although I did get about an 8-10fps gain in most situation, this game just does not truly take advantage of SLi at this time. I litterally spent my day at my pc trying hundreds of combinations in ArmA's graphic options screen, trying to achieve a best performance/look balance. But SLi does NOT have the effect in this game that it has in every other game I play (BF2, GRAW, MFS:X, GTR2, AA). That effect being a huge performance gain. I truly hope a future patch optimizes ArmA for SLi use. Im running 2 X 7900GT's, FYI.

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I am running SLI w/ 2 - 6800's. I am also not seeing th ebigger gain that I do on other games. I am hoping they will take care of this

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Like the OP, ive got 2x 7800GT

Processor is only 4000+ though, 3GB ram.

I had very similar frame rates that he described, i.e. low 30s until we got to more complicated areas where it might be around 20.

I'd be more than happy if i got FPS of 30 consistenly everywhere.

Setting this Force framerate thing to 1 has resulted in zero gain, not even 2 or 3, let alone 26.

So i am really wondering if it has been applied correctly or if it is dependent on other settings people might have played around with too.

What was interesting, was that i changed something else prior to Force framerate = 1 (i wish i could remember what), went into the same map and the game was a hell of a lot smoother, no mouse lag, was almost like playing counterstrike - but the FPS was reported exactly the same. I dont care what FRAPS said, it was a lot smoother/quick. Unfortunately i changed it back, whatever it was,  when i decided to get greedy and try the Force Framerate = 1 option smile_o.gif

Went back to normal. Silly me.

QUESTIONS TO PEOPLE:

1) Clarifiying this is the correct process in Nvidia control panel:

Go to 3d settings

Go to right tab and manually enter ARMA.exe

Adjust setting Force alternate frame rendering = 1

Apply

Then must go back to left tab, and manually select that profile? Press ok/apply

2) Is the windows/nvidia driver not smart enough to invoke that new profile automatically when running the process arma.exe, i.e. the user must manually select the new profile (which would mean we could have called the program whopper.exe in the nvidia control panel and still have it work if we selected the whopper profile) ?

I would have thought if there was a profile for bf2.exe and another for arma.exe then the nvidia drivers would automatically fire up the correct profile when the game is started. i.e. it detects the process name.

3) If you did get an increase from Force alternate frame = 1, can you please list ALL the options in the new nvidia profile.

Will try n figure out what that other thing i changed was tonight.

Edit: now that i've thought about it more, i think i got a CTD after seeing that speed boost and changed everything back.

4) Anyone gone over maxmem=1024 with success ? Mine didn't like 2048 smile_o.gif

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I looked into SLI before I bought my Motherboard, I would not have gone down that route if SLI Zone had not stated you could create your own driver. But when I finaly installed my 2nd GPU and added the Arma.exe to the SLI profiles. I still saw no improvment in FPS. I wasn't expecting a great deal, something around 40-50% increase. After digging around in the SLI Zone forums, I found a thread that suggested renaming your exe to one that was supported by an offical profile.

But before I start banging on about various things. Here is something to try, for anyone who did not see an increase in FPS, after adding Arma.exe to their SLI profile.

Make a copy of your Arma.Exe, and rename it to:

3DMark06.exe

Now run that exe and and see if it helps. BTW I used Fraps and the single player mission, Convoy Ambush as benchmarks. Running both the original and renamed exe's with the mission, while comparing the FPS reported by Fraps. I got my 40-50% increase in FPS, hope it works out for anyone else having similar problems.

Actually, I would be interested in the results from the guys who did see an improvement when adding the Arma exe to their SLI profiles.

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oh this sounds too funny to be true, but i'll give it a go smile_o.gif

what profile did u have set? i.e. im currently using arma.exe profile...did u somehow set it back to a default one first?

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Like the OP, ive got 2x 7800GT

Processor is only 4000+ though, 3GB ram.

I had very similar frame rates that he described, i.e. low 30s until we got to more complicated areas where it might be around 20.

I'd be more than happy if i got FPS of 30 consistenly everywhere.

Setting this Force framerate thing to 1 has resulted in zero gain, not even 2 or 3, let alone 26.

So i am really wondering if it has been applied correctly or if it is dependent on other settings people might have played around with too.

What was interesting, was that i changed something else prior to Force framerate = 1 (i wish i could remember what), went into the same map and the game was a hell of a lot smoother, no mouse lag, was almost like playing counterstrike - but the FPS was reported exactly the same. I dont care what FRAPS said, it was a lot smoother/quick. Unfortunately i changed it back, whatever it was, when i decided to get greedy and try the Force Framerate = 1 option smile_o.gif

Went back to normal. Silly me.

QUESTIONS TO PEOPLE:

1) Clarifiying this is the correct process in Nvidia control panel:

Go to 3d settings

Go to right tab and manually enter ARMA.exe

Adjust setting Force alternate frame rendering = 1

Apply

Then must go back to left tab, and manually select that profile? Press ok/apply

2) Is the windows/nvidia driver not smart enough to invoke that new profile automatically when running the process arma.exe, i.e. the user must manually select the new profile (which would mean we could have called the program whopper.exe in the nvidia control panel and still have it work if we selected the whopper profile) ?

I would have thought if there was a profile for bf2.exe and another for arma.exe then the nvidia drivers would automatically fire up the correct profile when the game is started. i.e. it detects the process name.

3) If you did get an increase from Force alternate frame = 1, can you please list ALL the options in the new nvidia profile.

Will try n figure out what that other thing i changed was tonight.

Edit: now that i've thought about it more, i think i got a CTD after seeing that speed boost and changed everything back.

4) Anyone gone over maxmem=1024 with success ? Mine didn't like 2048 smile_o.gif

whopper_with_cheese:

Zero gain? So you mean to tell me that no matter which you choose, single GPU, split frame rendering, AF1, or AF2, none of them give you a performance gain? I find that hard to believe.

Make SURE you have SLI enabled in the first place and make SURE that your drivers are updated to something very recent. I'm currently running 93.81 beta.

To answer some of your questions:

1 and 2) Yeah, all you have to do is browse to the ArmA directory and double click on ARMA.exe... I'm sure you can type it in too I don't think it makes a difference. You do not have to select any profile(selecting profiles is SOLELY for changing settings specific to that game), the settings are automatically applied when the game is launched. In other words, the nvidia drivers keep track of the file names that get get launched, and then apply the proper settings if a match is found.

3) My settings(for the ARMA.exe profile):

Anisotropic filtering: Application-controlled

Anisotropic mip filter optimization: Off

Anisotropic sample optimization: On

Antialiasing settings: Application-controlled

Conformant texture clap: Use hardware

Error reporting: Off

Extension limit: Off

Force mipmaps: None

Gamme correct antialiasing: Off

Hardware acceleration: Single display performance mode

Negative LOD bias: Clamp

SLI performance mode: Force alternate frame rendering 1

Texture Filtering: High quality

Threaded optimization: On

Transparency antialiasing: Off

Trileaner optimization: On

Triple buffering: Off

Vertical sync: Force off

4) As far as I know, it is unnecessary to go over 1024 as the game only reaches a bit over 800MB during peak (well, from what I've read people say on these forums at least), so I would just leave it at 1024.

Finally, I did not change any single setting when messing around with the SLI setting. All I did was switch between single GPU, split frame rendering, AF1, and AF2, and recorded my frame rate at the same exact scene.

Perhaps different system configurations will yield different results, but I definitely did get a 25+ fps boost, at least at that particular scene. The flyby intro was a good 20+ fps above the other settings as well.

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Sorry, I don't know who is replying to who?

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UNN, that did make a huge difference for me. For the first time since I installed ArmA I felt like it was using both cards. I went from mid 30fps to mid 40 fps WITH AA set to Normal and Post Processing on high. yay.gif

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he is replying to an earlier post of mine UNN.

zero gain as prev stated Jaguax. SLI on (so windows tells me), same drivers as you, that setting doesnt seem to have an affect, hence why i was asking about profiles actually being active.

I'm testing this by hosting an MP game, since im more interested in playing MP with decent frame rates, moving around etc. Maybe thats having an affect.

Thing i was playing around with yesterday must have been the anisotropic. Turned it off and the game flew. FRAPs reported same frame rates but its lying - it was amazingly fast. Pity the roads looked rubbish with no anisotrophy on.

As for UNNs little post - i have definately got 5 FPS increase in busy and bare areas according to FRAPS, and also feels a little smoother. Nice !

Must be something to do with that profile thats diff to my arma.exe profile.

What i want to know is (yes, maybe a stupid question), is this game even supposed to support SLI?

i.e. FSX doesnt, and doesnt support dualcore processors either. Just a thought since this is supposed to be more of a simulator too.

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Glad to hear it shows an improvment on soneone elses rig to. I'm running a humble 2x EN7600GT setup, so seeing an increase of 20 FPS to 29 FPS was a relief. Before that I was hitting 20 FPS regardless of SLI being enabled or not.

I still can’t create the same FPS with a dedicated Aram.exe profile. The only difference I can see between the 3DMark06 profile and my Arma.exe profile is : SLI stereo Mode. Which has nothing to do with regular game play. Only makes me think Nvidia are not telling us the whole story. Tried the same setup with OFP, but with no luck.

BTW if you haven't tried it yet. Check out nHancer It's a bit easier to manage profiles this way. Although you will need the beta of version 2, if your running it under XP 64 bit.

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Ok I finally took some screens for you guys to prove that forcing AF1 gives a significant performance increase, at least on my rig:

Please note that the frame rates shown in these screens were perfectly consistent, despite the clouds moving and foliage swaying in the wind, so the foliage/cloud cover may be a pixel or two off between the shots.

Screenshot 1:

Alternate frame rendering 1: http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/4609/af1pic1kt9.jpg

Alternate frame rendering 2: http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8772/af2pic1ug3.jpg

Screenshot 2:

Alternate frame rendering 1: http://img356.imageshack.us/img356/8612/af1pic2mp7.jpg

Alternate frame rendering 2: http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/9712/af2pic2rz8.jpg

Screenshot 3:

Alternate frame rendering 1: http://img370.imageshack.us/img370/3915/af1pic3yk5.jpg

Alternate frame rendering 2: http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/9136/af2pic3js3.jpg

So as you can see, there is a significant increase in frame rate when using AF1 in all three scenes, ESPECIALLY the last in which there is a 27 FPS increase!!! This also proves how much of a performance hog the foliage is.

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I got the same results Jaguax. So I can vouch for your experiment. I probably gained 5 to 8 fps using AFR1. But when I changed my exe to another name and forced it to use another Nvidia profile, wow... SLi lives!! Bring on the action! pistols.gif Either way, thanks to everyone who has posted an SLi tweak or idea. Been a huge help!

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I got the same results Jaguax. So I can vouch for your experiment. I probably gained 5 to 8 fps using AFR1. But when I changed my exe to another name and forced it to use another Nvidia profile, wow... SLi lives!! Bring on the action! pistols.gif Either way, thanks to everyone who has posted an SLi tweak or idea. Been a huge help!

Renaming it to 3DMark06 is just going to use the 3DMark06 profile. If it does give you better results, it's because something in it is different than in your ARMA.exe profile that you made. Go and look at it, and see what's different.

I just tested it out myself, I renamed ARMA.exe to 3DMark06.exe and got the same exact result as with my ARMA SLI profile. 59 FPS in the 3rd test scene that I posted.

Then I checked the settings to compare the two profiles and they were exactly the same. The 3DMark06 profile had ONE extra option, something like stereo SLI rendering which has nothing to do with ARMA nor does it have any effect on performance. I think it's for multi monitor rendering or something. Otherwise both profiles are the same so nothing should be different.

So either you are experiencing a placebo effect, or your ARMA profile differs from your 3DMark06 profile. Go check it out.

As shown in the pics, I got a 27 FPS increase with my ARMA SLI profile. Just look at your settings. Renaming ARMA.exe to 3DMark06.exe does nothing but use the SLI profile for 3DMark06, and if the ARMA profile that you make is the same as the 3DMark06 one, it isn't going to make any difference whatsoever.

Oh, and just in case, MAKE SURE you have advanced view enabled in your 3D settings otherwise it is displaying only the most basic 3D settings, so maybe you are not seeing them all.

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only one set of those pictures show anything above 35, so i think i will try and do a screenie in the same position (mission) you got that 50+ shot taken...but rest seem to have 30ish fps which is what i am getting now anyway after using 3dmark06 settings.

Will help if I am benchmarking in same place...

can you also detail the in game settings you have (AA, Aniso, PostProcessing, resolution etc). Think u mentioned 1280x1024 which is what i am going at too.

reading other forums, it does appear the game does not support SLI, and some people have gotten better results pulling a card out smile_o.gif will try that tonight, before my hair comes out.

Will also try putting my older driver back on from the vid card manufacturer. It had a much clearer 'load balancing' thing that you could display on screen to see how busy the vid cards were during the game, i.e. wasnt just a horizontal line going up and down as per the latest nvidia driver.

Might help in deciding if it is the CPU/something else that is bottlenecking the FPS.

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