Horrible Performance...

[Kevlar2007 1]

There is something wrong in the Arma Engine, I have allready posted elsewhere, I have tried everything and even on lowest settings from the driver and from the game I have only around 15 FPS in the Forests, near the Gras or Bushes even at 500 m view distance. I have clean system and can run every other game I have at 1280x1024 in medium to high settings. Please don't replay like "yeah buy new GFX card", "my system works your system is not set up properly" or such because I can't hear it any more.

My system is optimized, clean and set up properly. There is no consistance in the FPS drops among different systems.

Perhaps BIS had optimized the code too much on one of the development configurations so that if you are lucky that you have similar motherboard, CPU and GFX card everything works perfectly and on other systems it works poorly, I don't know. Only I know BIS should check the Arma Engine and try to fix this because in certain places Game is not Playable like it is now.

My Specs:

P4 3.2 GHz HT, ATI Radeon 9800XT, 2048 MB RAM, Audigy 2ZS.

[sickboy 13]

For all the ppl that have low fps or dropping out textures, check my post near the end of this page: Foliage thread

and check your used videomemory with rivatuner (as described in the post over a large timespan, if the usage's nearing the end of your amount ... I suggest going more easy on the resolution, texture detail and Anti Aliasing..

...

A 9800XT, ur joking right? Been a great card for years, but I'm afraid MOST modern cards are at least 8(16?) times faster.

Try running at 1024x768, that made the difference for me to be playable or non playable, on an X800XT, which is already 1 generation further Not sure but Shading Detail Low might add to the trick aswell But indeed, it seems that there are problems with the foliage for sure, maybe one of the LODS is screwed, and I also hope BIS will fix that

Please drop the "Other games run fine", as that's getting pretty tiresome aswell... Because ur car is great at drifting, it doesn't mean you will be fastest in sprint ...

[Kevlar2007 1]

I have tried also 1024x768 resolution with lowest settings but still I get only 20 FPS in the forests, so it is also not the solution.

Yeah,I am joking sure! Arma is not visually the best game I have and still with view distance 500m and lovest settings everywhere only 20 FPS in Foliage is not acceptable and 9800XT is not so bad it is made for shader 2.0 and still performs very good. I still think Arma Engine must be checked and optimized.

[sickboy 13]

...

So, how much videoram do you have in use while having low fps etc?

[Kevlar2007 1]

...

So, how much videoram do you have in use while having low fps etc?

I havent tried to monitor my video RAM usage yet. But what should it bring for me when I set all my settings to lowest possible setting and still get the FPS drop.

[sickboy 13]

I havent tried to monitor my video RAM usage yet. But what should it bring for me when I set all my settings to lowest possible setting and still get the FPS drop.

It might show if for some reason ur running out of videoram.. If ur not running out, then you at least know that by fact, instead of thin air guessing

[Raz0rx 0]

I've got no performance problems, myself.

25 - 70fps

AMD3500+

1gb Corsair XMS 3200XL

ATi X1950XTX

[Kevlar2007 1]

I havent tried to monitor my video RAM usage yet. But what should it bring for me when I set all my settings to lowest possible setting and still get the FPS drop.

It might show if for some reason ur running out of videoram.. If ur not running out, then you at least know that by fact, instead of thin air guessing

Yeah I will try that also and report the results when I finished the test, but it can take some time.

[Goldenwings2002 0]

I am curious to see if people are getting better performance with DDR memory or DDR2 Memory.

[Marines 0]

Bahahahahahaha, BF2 is vastly more detailed? Maybe in your opinion but BAD news for you, BF2 maps are about 1/100th of the size of the ArmA map. BF2 does not model things like ballistics or penetration to name a few. Everyone just assumes that if it looks better (this is subjective) and runs better, then ArmA is the problem. Not SO!

E

PS : Yet again this perception that a 2 year old Vcard/CPU with 256MB of RAM is somehow "top of the line". This is simply not the case, your rig is mid range. Im not saying this to be nasty but too many people buy this game, crank the settings up to High on there mid/low range PCs and then show up here bitching. According to you there are only 10 512 MB cards and all over $500.00? You need to do some research  

You can't keep using the size of the ArmA map as an explanation for bad performance. If you do keep using that as an explanation, then you're acknowledging that the whole game is horribly flawed because it has outdeveloped current technology, which is untrue.

The thing about a huge world is that only a small part of it is rendered at a particular time. Distant 3d objects are rendered as 2d sprites that look 3d. This is easily visible when flying, you can see the terrain render as you get closer to it. So a large map is not a big system hog when only a small part is fully rendered at any particular time, especially when you have the view distance on low.

Considering all the stories of random performance present in this thread, you can't possibly say the problem is on the user end and just move on to the next point feeling omniscient, because if someone has a 5000+ CPU and a high end video card and can't run the game on low settings, then you clearly have a problem on the developer side. If you can read this

Quote[/b] ]Not in my case im runnin wit a XFX Geforce 7600GT 256mb DDR3 and I am currently running mostly everything at high/very high(shadows disabled) at 1024 x768 resolution.

and still be comfortable with telling me that my video card is the problem, then you are in blatant denial.

Also, I never said my card is top of the line. I said I have a "good computer." Good is just above nice and just below great. Of course the 7800 has been surpassed, but you seem to think the fact that it's not top of the line provides an instant explanation for why the game can't run on low settings without unplayable lag. So basically, you're suggesting the solution is that I have to go buy a computer that costs as much as my car in order to play this at 1024X768...

...I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this is a problem that lies 100% with BIS.

That is a fairly accurate explanation and quite relevant.

Quote[/b] ]The thing about a huge world is that only a small part of it is rendered at a particular time. Distant 3d objects are rendered as 2d sprites that look 3d. This is easily visible when flying, you can see the terrain render as you get closer to it. So a large map is not a big system hog when only a small part is fully rendered at any particular time, especially when you have the view distance on low.

[Darkreaper 0]

The good old 9800XT (Im running a pro @XT) is still managing the new games. I played oblivion, fear etc.  

All I have do to, is get rid of all those dx9.0 posteffects.

No prob running ArmA on that card (of course, it looks more like OFP, since I have shadows deactivated, shader low, textures low (medium works as well, I dont loose many FPS but I get heavy LOD errors, like chunky choppers and bugged trees)) as long as you dont want eye candy. Since I focus on winning, I turn all that stuff off anyway, to be competative. (For example, you can see through some bushes/trees with object detail on very low, where on max detail, its full of leaves and branches, you cannot look through and will not see a possible enemy behind it)

I even run it with AFx4 on 1024 and have mostly 40fps, and around 20-25 fps in towns.

All we need is a goddamn TURN OFF GRASS option...grass is so annoying and serves NO PURPOSE AT ALL (except to show off in the games biz to get good visual ratings and to get more casual single player gamers to buy it)

Unless there is a working technique (like RT raytracing) to draw grass everywhere, screw it...

[bum71 0]

Man, this thread is very disconcerting. Was looking forward to playing ArmA a whole lot.

The first thing I'd like to get out of the way if whether or not the full version is going to be like this. For people who have the fullg ame already: is your performance very iffy and inconsistent, or is it just fine? Are all these graphical consistency problems limited to the demo, which will be fixed before the full game, or did these problems find their way into the gold version?

[Kevlar2007 1]

I have same problems, if not worse problems, with full german retail version with latest patch.

I still hope BIS will manage to optimize the engine untill EU Release.

[xela89 0]

I have absolutely no problem with my c2d e6300, 1gb ram, x1950pro

[bangtail 0]

I have tried also 1024x768 resolution with lowest settings but still I get only 20 FPS in the forests, so it is also not the solution.

Yeah,I am joking sure! Arma is not visually the best game I have and still with view distance 500m and lovest settings everywhere only 20 FPS in Foliage is not acceptable and 9800XT is not so bad it is made for shader 2.0 and still performs very good. I still think Arma Engine must be checked and optimized.

K, seriously, get a grip. 9800XT? Thats a 4.5 year old card. When are you people going to learn? You cant expect to play games in 2006/2007 on a card that old. PC's aren't consoles.

E

[Kevlar2007 1]

It is time that gaming industry learns not only earns, I have learned enough bro.

[bangtail 0]

Errrr ... NO, it's time you upgraded

E

[quiet_man 8]

Man, this thread is very disconcerting. Was looking forward to playing ArmA a whole lot.

The first thing I'd like to get out of the way if whether or not the full version is going to be like this. For people who have the fullg ame already: is your performance very iffy and inconsistent, or is it just fine? Are all these graphical consistency problems limited to the demo, which will be fixed before the full game, or did these problems find their way into the gold version?

go to some forest with bushes, set your options that you can walk/aim through forest and bushes

I have a 7800GT 256MB (AMDX2 4200 with 2 Gig RAM)

I had to switch down to 1024*768, first I was a bit angry but then I recognized:

1. As the game let you still adjust for TFT Format it is not to bad

2. As cool side effect of the reduced resolution I could increase the visibility to 3000 m !!!

the view is a dream with constant 30fps, only dropping to 15 when aiming through those bushes of fps death

I hope they find a solution for those RAM hungry textures, but other than that I'm very happy with the game and I'm looking how the prices for 1Gig graphic cards develop.

QuietMan

[Chris Death 0]

It is time that gaming industry learns not only earns, I have learned enough bro.

Does this mean you will not buy any new hardware and/or

any new software?

Man - it's not only the gaming industry - it's the hardware

industry aswell - and at the end of day it's your mother.

Why?

She's born you and you are hungry for new games on new pc's

and wanna play them good looking.

~S~ CD

[Marines 0]

Man, this thread is very disconcerting. Was looking forward to playing ArmA a whole lot.

The first thing I'd like to get out of the way if whether or not the full version is going to be like this. For people who have the fullg ame already: is your performance very iffy and inconsistent, or is it just fine? Are all these graphical consistency problems limited to the demo, which will be fixed before the full game, or did these problems find their way into the gold version?

I have the full version. Now, my overall preformance is excellent, however, when near any type of foliage my FPS drops like a bomb, and looks like a damned slideshow. It also doesn't matter what I have the settings at, preformance is still atrocious when encountering any type of vegetation.

I'd refer you to this post by dmitri.

Quote[/b] ]I want to stress that overall I am happy with the game's performance. My only issue is the large drop in performance around certain foliage objects. I don't experience this high\low performance drop around any other objects\situations in the game.

Again, not all of the foliage causes this large of a drop, refer to NoRSu's post on page 6 of this thread. And I don't experience it around buildings, player models or vehicles.

Rivatuner for FPS graph. Video Memory Watch for vid mem usage (I'm not using maxmem for this test, didn't have much of an effect when I did), here are my results:

Close to foliage:

Very close, inside foliage:

Video Settings:

Lowered and disabled some settings to cancel out their potential affect.

I have done this same test using Very High Textures - 120MB of memory available on the card, clearly not maxed out.

high: 47 FPS

low: 27 FPS

Shading detail, followed by Texture detail have the most affect on the foliage performance.

With texture details at normal and shading detail at low I still experience the drop, but overall performance is increased enough that I don't notice it. Setting texture details to low further increases performance overall, so the foliage drop is barely noticeable. However, setting texture detail to low is like jumping back to OFP. Doing this because of a performance drop suffered ONLY around some (not all..) foliage models..  does kinda suck  .

The drop, though diminished at low settings, will be noticable if you're fighting in a city with 60+ AI, a couple of tanks..and you happen to dive into a bush.

My very midrange specs:

AMD 4200 X2

Nvidia 7900GS 256mb

2 gig RAM

10 000rpm WD Raptor

X-FI

500 watt PSU

Nvidia 93.71

Driver Settings:

High Performance mipmap setting.

All trilinear and anisotropic optimization settings enabled (I have tried disabled as well, no difference).

EDIT: Drop is experienced around the majority of foliage that is "enterable" - meaning foliage that the player can pass through.

[Kevlar2007 1]

It is time that gaming industry learns not only earns, I have learned enough bro.

Does this mean you will not buy any new hardware and/or

any new software?

Man - it's not only the gaming industry - it's the hardware

industry aswell - and at the end of day it's your mother.

Why?

She's born you and you are hungry for new games on new pc's

and wanna play them good looking.

~S~ CD

I have enough from the Gaming Industry and Hardware Industry and whole M$ s**t.

Arma is the last game I ever bought and I will not by any new hardware till my recent hardware is so old that I can't work with it properly, untill I can do TEX on it, Open Office and surf the net with Firefox it is enough for me. I will work with XP so long I can because Hardware industry doesnt support anything else besides M$ after that I will switch to Linux. I will not buy any Vi$ta except it will be given to me free of charge.

[bangtail 0]

It is time that gaming industry learns not only earns, I have learned enough bro.

Does this mean you will not buy any new hardware and/or

any new software?

Man - it's not only the gaming industry - it's the hardware

industry aswell - and at the end of day it's your mother.

Why?

She's born you and you are hungry for new games on new pc's

and wanna play them good looking.  

~S~ CD

I have enough from the Gaming Industry and Hardware Industry and whole M$ s**t.

Arma is the last game I ever bought and I will not by any new hardware till my recent hardware is so old that I can't work with it properly, untill I can do TEX on it, Open Office and surf the net with Firefox it is enough for me. I will work with XP so long I can because Hardware industry doesnt support anything else besides M$ after that I will switch to Linux. I will not buy any Vi$ta except it will be given to me free of charge.

Hey that's your choice, but spare us your bitching about not being able to play. It's completely unreasonable to expect to play ANY nextgen game on a 9800XT.

E

[Kevlar2007 1]

It is time that gaming industry learns not only earns, I have learned enough bro.

Does this mean you will not buy any new hardware and/or

any new software?

Man - it's not only the gaming industry - it's the hardware

industry aswell - and at the end of day it's your mother.

Why?

She's born you and you are hungry for new games on new pc's

and wanna play them good looking.

~S~ CD

I have enough from the Gaming Industry and Hardware Industry and whole M$ s**t.

Arma is the last game I ever bought and I will not by any new hardware till my recent hardware is so old that I can't work with it properly, untill I can do TEX on it, Open Office and surf the net with Firefox it is enough for me. I will work with XP so long I can because Hardware industry doesnt support anything else besides M$ after that I will switch to Linux. I will not buy any Vi$ta except it will be given to me free of charge.

Hey that's your choice, but spare us your bitching about not being able to play. It's completely unreasonable to expect to play ANY nextgen game on a 9800XT.

E

Yeah I spare you sure, have fun with it, bro!

[bangtail 0]

I'm loving it, thanks for asking!

E

PS : Vista for free? What's the weather like on your planet?

[Marines 0]

I'm sorry, mate. But Ethne does have a valid point when it concerns your video card. However, it still doesn't negate the fact that their are some major graphical issues facing the game ATM.