Worst Performance EVER!

[Swedish_-_M@ssacre 0]

@ SlurrpyChillyFries

Thnx bro for the support! , well the rig cost me a arm and a leg *lol*

And i've been doing this since jesus was running in his shorts!

quite some time that is *lol*

Well as a remark twards my offending opinion of hardware and software producers.

Use your common sence!, if a game looks and feels better on another engine with less or more graphical load on the gpus, then why should a lesser one run so badly?

I can bet my bet my right ball that QW won't have the same probs, and then were talking really big maps with full HDR, maybe full DIRX10, antialising and softshadows.

Im just greatful that i didn't fall for the GF 8800 ULTRA and QX6800, that would have set me back about $3000 more *lol*

@ DMarkwick

Well i didn't write this for u, so u can take ur ego and suck my ---->

[Michael_Wittman 0]

When I first saw this game I felt like it was focused for PS3 or Xbox360. The hook of this game is the scale...Its huge. But for some reason it performs weird.

For example,

Im playing Evolution MP, I get killed in masbete, then I respawn in the airbase...it takes 5 seconds to load the textures.

Im sniper with M24...im spotting Obregan from the road on West...both sides of the road are covered with trees. I zoom in....fps drops instantly to 10 or 5.

Im sniper and I see a enemy tank...texture and model displayed tells me that the armor is alive....then I walk ro a distance were I can see it with the naked eye....all of a sudden it turns alive model into destroyed model (textures aswell)

Im sniper...I see a UAZ far away...I zoom in...It takes 3 seconds to change the lo-res model for the hi-res model.

Im playing Evolution...Im driving to the FARP bettween Ortego and Dolores...trucks suddenly pop-up when Im at 200m.

And...how many people need to shoot helis to be able to get in?

This game has no phisics to make it as heavy as other games.

I also saw the infamous postpo effect on Red Orchestra and had absolutely no change in frame rate. (btw. in my CGI software is called "Diffuse Glow").

People say that this game is so massive in meshes thats why is so stressing...I´m not pretty sure because the most heavy areas like large towns i.e. Paradiso the 90% of the building are solid...and even if they are not...the detail level inside is zero compared with other games like Half-Life 2 based.

And here are my GPU specs. (note its a pro-designer card)

ATI FireGL v7100:

Graphics Technology

Powered by ATI’s scalable FireGL workstation Visual Processing Units (GPU)

Up to 256-bit high bandwidth memory architecture

2, 4 or 6 parallel geometry engines

4, 8 or 16 parallel pixel pipelines

128-bit full floating point precision

24-bits per RGBA component displays beyond 16.7M colors

 

Display Support

Dual DVI-I supports any combination of digital and analog displays1

Maximum resolution of 2048x1536 per display (dual mode)

3840 x 2400 support (dual link2)

Independent resolution and refresh rate selection for any two connected displays

Dual integrated 10-bit per channel 400 MHz DACs

Integrated 165 MHz TMDS transmitter (DVI compliant)

API and Operating System Support

OpenGL® 2.0 + extensions

OpenGL Shading Language

Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0

DX9 HLSL

Windows® XP/Windows XP64/Windows 2000

Linux® 32/Linux 64

Graphic Features

Hardware acceleration of the following:

Anti-aliased points and lines or full scene anti-aliasing (2X, 4X, 6X)

3D lines and triangles

Stipple points

Two-sided lighting

Up to 8 light sources

Directional and local lighting

OpenGL overlay planes

Occlusion culling

6 user defined clip planes

OpenGL polymode functions

32-bit (24+8-bit stencil) Z Buffer

Fast Z and color clears

Full DX9 vertex shader support with up to 6 vertex units

Quad-buffer stereo support 3

SmartShaderâ„¢ Technology

Programmable pixel and vertex shaders

16 textures per pass

Pixel shaders up to 512 instructions with 32-bit floating point precision for each RGBA component

Multiple render target support

Shadow volume rendering acceleration

High precision 10-bit per channel frame buffer support

SmoothVisionâ„¢ Technology

2X/4X/6X anti-aliasing modes

High performance adaptive algorithm with programmable sample patterns

2X/4X/8X/16X anisotropic filtering modes

Adaptive algorithm with bi-linear (performance) and tri-linear (quality) options

HyperZâ„¢ Technology

3-level Hierarchical Z-Buffer with early Z test

Lossless Z-Buffer compression (up to 24:1)

Fast Z-Buffer Clear

System Requirements

Intel® Pentium® 4/Xeon™, AMD Athlon®/Opteron™ or compatible CPU

PCI Express bus4

AGP 8X/4X bus5

128MB of system memory (256MB or more recommended)

Installation software requires CD-ROM drive

350 watt or greater power supply (recommended)

Warranty and Support

3-year limited product repair/replacement warranty

Dedicated Workstation level technical support via email and toll free hotline

Advanced parts replacement option

And now....tell me that my GPU isnt good enough for this game.

BTW: I use to manage large meshes like this with the whole body and a fully detailed scene with no problem.

This is a promo model of softimage facerobot (its not mine...I would have post one of mines if a upload image option were avaivable).

[rowdied 44]

I'm adding my 2 cents too, well 3 I'm in Canada...

I have an AMD FX60 @ 2.9, 2gig mushkin and an 8800gts 320 mb card and... performance in 1.5 is around 20-40 fps settings on normal 1024x768 16x9 on a 22" acer lcd. Trying the demo 1.6 I maxed out all settings with 10000 view distance and was getting 18-40 fps but.. it feels much different. There was no hesitating and bad loading of textures. Yes the bug in textures is still there for me as well the fog, but the slide show affect of turning in the heli at 1200 meters was not present. When I turn the settings back to the ones used in 1.5, I have an average of 40-70 fps. Big difference in performance in my opinion.

 Now this game needs more optimization and WAY better drivers for the 8800gts in XP and Vista. I have used all different drivers to 165 and reinstalled 158 because they seemed to work better. I also use this on 2 single core amd 3800's with a 7900gs, an ati 1950 pro and 2 gig's of ram and have performance on par or better than with my dual core system. I also play graw, r6vegas, ravenshield and swat and my fx60 kicks the others assess but not in arma.

To the point now, this game is wonderful but still needs to be optimized ALOT more. The biggest difference in performance I've seen was 1.5 to 1.6 (demo). Now if BIS relases 1.7 in a few weeks, I'm sure those of us with "good" computers will see a dramatic increase in performance.

Patience is a virtue which some of us don't seem to have ( I don't ) but ofp started off much worse than this and look how it ended up.

@Swedish_-_M@ssacre

How was the demo's performance for you?

[Swedish_-_M@ssacre 0]

@ Michael_Wittman

Well bro, if you cant run it properly on att fire GL card, imagine on a Quadro GTX

Fire and Quadro, the overall best Graphic Gpus on the planet, most expensive too

And Wow, those meshes i would understand if Arma had big problems to put out, but no, to be frank, Arma is not a WOW game, u don't stop and look at it in awe, now do you?

The same with Stalker, it's more like grain graphics, not fluent like ID, Cryengine or Epic engines.

But i can live with that if it would deliver the gameplay im looking for. if they just could optimize the cores and put SLI in overdrive i would be thrilled!

@ rowdied

I Dunno m8!, cause i downloaded it last night, our conversation took much energy *lol*

But i'm gonna install it ASAP, so i get back to you all

*******************************************

DJ @ Myspace

*******************************************

[maddogx 13]

@Swedish Massacre:

When you say you want to run ArmA with everything maxed out, do you mean you actually have everything on high and view distance maxed out to 10k?

If so, you might want to turn down the settings at least a little bit, because as far as I know, no one can run ArmA with truly everything maxed out at the moment. I think you'll find, if you put your settings down to reasonable values, like 5k view distance and some settings (such as shaders) perhaps on medium, your fps will be ok.

I'm not trying to tell you something you probably already know, but I've got the feeling, you think your OMG 1337 g4ming rig FTW!!1! can handle absolutely ANYTHING any day of the week.

Granted, ArmA and/or the nVidia drivers do not currently use your system to it's full potential, and that would piss me off a bit too, but I bet you can still play the game at reasonable fps with the setting set slightly lower until the issues are solved. ArmA still looks great on medium by the way.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

If so, you might want to turn down the settings at least a little bit, because as far as I know, no one can run ArmA with truly everything maxed out at the moment.

Urm... that would be me.

I would refer you to a little challenge that someone set me on the forums, but I can't seem to find the thread anymore...

...and this is with 8X AA, compared to the standard maximum of 4X. Although I will admit that while the game is playable, 20-25 FPS is the minimum I got during the challenge, and I usually get another 10 - 15 FPS from heading back to 4X AA.

[Heatseeker 0]

Game runs fine for me with patch 1.5beta.

xfx 8800gtx.

c2d e6600.

2 gigs corsair xms2 pc6400.

Everything high except PP and shadding detail, much lower resolution though (1280x960).

Shadding detail can bog FPS down when i look at a bunch of trees. It also makes FPS less stable when you look around or zoom out in a detailed area. I can use normal shadding detail but since im playing MP where things arent as smoothly i set it to low.

Game looks fine and plays smoothly for me, could always be better but its nowhere near as bad as i see people report in here. I have high fps touching the refresh rate most of the time.

35/40's in the northern forests but with high shadows, textures, objects and antialiasing im not complaining .

If you have a good system and experience poor FPS i recomend you to try lowering the <span style='color:red'>shadding detail!</span>

It might be due to a combination of diferent high/demanding settings or unified shadder model 4.0 used in new DX10 cards, i have no idea...

I dont do any "tweaks" or ever disable antivirus or anything and dont even feel like o'clocking yet.

I think BIS went a little crazy with Sahrani and some of the artwork but i dont see why some high end systems are running that bad .

[[aps]gnat 28]

I run a 8800 GTS 640MB with most things maxed out and vd of 4500 ...... works great with FPS toppin out at 60 more offen than not.

And before you go writing BIS off for their code vs other games out there ...... lets get 1 thing clear.

<span style='font-size:11pt;line-height:100%'>There is no other "game" out there that is on the same scale as this .... period</span>

- Every tree, every bush, every post, every bridge, every footprint, every crater, every door, every building on that HUGE map is tracked by ArmA

- Every avitar is animated such that everyone sees exactly exactly what you see

- Every AI is operating some HUGE script on how to react to the 100's of different threat and terrain variables.

- A TRUE 3D environment where sound, vision and physics for both human and AI is dealt with properly.

- Every character and every vehicle can be damaged in a whole different variations.

- Designed with open code and structure to specifically allow for user mish making and mod making

- etc etc etc

This is on your PC, not some MMORPG running on a bunch of servers.

Bring it all together ...

.... bugs? duh! no friggin surprise there, but what amazingly flexible open architecture and getting better by the patch!

.... CPU and Gfx load? duh! no friggin surprise there either

On ya BIS .... thats partly why I own 2 copies  

[Michael_Wittman 0]

For what has been said OpenGL games performs much better than Direct3D ones...so maybe its been a mistake to choose this kind of 3D acceleration...(maybe this goes beyond what BI can go as they are using OPF engine).

I´m not pretty sure of this but maybe one of the main problems with the GPUs is that they are not doing model instancing and thats why we get such crappy fps in large woods. GPUs are rendering each tree separately whyle they should be all rendered at once...and that can be applied to all elements that are indenticall.

Other thing is the crappy fps when scoping areas with a lot of brushes, it looks like the trasnparency calculations arent optimized too.

For what regards view distance I see no point in setting it over 3000 as it will only load terreain triangles you barely see but nothing more...it only loads terrain geometry but not objects or characters.

And...Gnat....All those things in the map can be replaced by "Nulls" when you dont see them...and that takes the GPU zero efford to move....and bot scripts are run by the CPU...nothing to do with geometry and textures.

btw: check this...if this were implemented in ARMA I would understand the poor performance.

AEGIA

[xendance 3]

Ok, first of all, since nvidia hasn't released drivers for the 7 series geforces since last november, you don't get SLI in ArmA unless you do the SLI profile yourself. You can do it by nhancer.

Other option is to rename the arma.exe to fear.exe. Then nvidia drivers will think it's the real fear.exe, and because the drivers have a SLI profile for it, you get SLI in ArmA.

But I suggest doing the profile by using nhancer. It isn't hard, just click "add" and then find arma.exe. Then select the SLI method (Split frame rendering or alternate frame rendering).

I get 30-40 FPS on my 7950 GX with everything on normal (no AA though and post processing is on low and textures on low because of the memory bug) with the resolution of 1920x1200. I used to get 15-30 fps on the same setup and options before I made the SLI profile. Yes, ArmA looks hawt in 1920x1200 8)

I also have C2D E6700 and 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 RAM.

[Dwarden 1125]

erm ...

if I remember correct ArmA should be able gain advantage of Geometry Instancing (you can easily check this when You disable GI for D3D DX9 in ATI Catalyst drivers vs enable) ...

let's hope Suma get time to answer You more about these engine features ...

about view distance ...

Objects details regulate number of objects rendered on distance

perfectly visible on number of objects beyond 2500m if You switch from Normal to Very High ...

also i see no point to use AGEIA/HAVOK as BIS stated they (want) use (hard to say to what level in ArmA/VBS2) heavy modified ODE (Open Source physical engine)

for sure ODE usage was meant for Game2 ...

[[aps]gnat 28]

And...Gnat....All those things in the map can be replaced by "Nulls" when you dont see them...and that takes the GPU zero efford to move....and bot scripts are run by the CPU...nothing to do with geometry and textures.

btw: check this...if this were implemented in ARMA I would understand the poor performance.

You missed my point, while the gfx may "null" them but the MB CPU, ram and HDD still have to keep track of everyone of those items so it can FEED the gfx card.

And a special physics chip (hardware) will always beat software, but it will be much more restrictive of who has coded specially for it and what you get. ie .... thats why Consules like that shyt.

Many of those games are limited sized environments with only a select amount of "models" running at one time.

[Swedish_-_M@ssacre 0]

*lol*

Well i tried the Demo 1.06, and i got?, 12-15Fps with SLI and Latest drivers, 30-40 without SLI

That says much all about it

Don't however try to incorporate the SLI cause you cant reset the profile and the game will crash when you select Armademo in the nforce profile.

Well Gnat, if Arma is state of the art, i don't give much for the developers engine, sorry

There are older games with more eyecandy that runs like a charm.

I now got stalker to run decent and thats way older than Arma,

enginewise!, but it got big maps, adequate graphics and sound, so it both looks and runs better than ARMA

it's a shame the developers dosn't do proper research or cowork with Nvidia or ATI, so we the gamers get what we pay for.

Instead we sit here with great hardware that won't be used in the near future, cause GAME 2 is in the starting pit.

Adios los patchos!

[Michael_Wittman 0]

The question is that I play LOMAC with better performance...and that game really have a HUGE amount of objects and a Freaking big map (whole crimea).

Then if this game is not for mid-range GPUs the developers should really focus in making the game run smooth on High-End configurations.

A powerfull Phisics engines is more than making the grenades and other bodies bounce correctly...I think is a must if you want reallistic reliable ballistics. I explain myself:

I used to be a big fan of Red Orchestra but it came a point where I started to feel ballistics were not what they told us...in fact there were massive posts on their forums about Tigers shooting T-34 in front turret at 300-100m without penetration (as well as the invincible Su-76 superstructure)...so I ended up resolving the problem myself creating an algorithm for real ballistics...it wasnt that hard you only need some maths knowledge and some AP stadistics. Then...based on geometry normals you can create a almost perfect accurate ballistics system. So if you are using particles colliding with meshes the best way to do it real time is through phisics engine. I told them...with no answer and I ended up quiting playing that game.

[Dwarden 1125]

that were known and most are fixed already bugs in ROO

u know there are bugs even in middleware like physics engine so it's not some holy grail ...

anyway if You think it's all so easy made own PE or program game/mod

ROO is great game and most likely PE may enhance it even more

but try imagine for what cost (workhours, PE licence etc)

now consider it's based on somewhat obsolete UE 2.5 then You must agree it's better to keep resources that for true next gen game on UE3...

[moosenoodles 0]

Hey sweedish m....

what a weird lousey frame rate u have..

My specs: e6600@3.2 : pc8500 ram at 800mhz only.. : Evga 8800Gtx gfx card (158.22 drivers) : X-fi sound card. Abit aw9d Max board.

I can run arma at full settings, yes all maxed and even full HDR post whatever its called.. with no lag in gfx etc.. And that was even on evolution map.. normal AF and dont matter what i set AA to it seems to not change the look anyhow so left it at 4 or put to normal as well.

So no idea why u get such cruddy performance, its probably down to end user as normal. still moaning wont change anything huh :P

Moose.

[lee_h._oswald 0]

So no idea why u get such cruddy performance

Yeah, you got it.

And the frustating part about this:

No one knows. You don't know, I don't know, all the other users here don't know.

But who knows? BIS? If yes, why they don't tell us? If no, well, that doesn't help also.

MfG Lee

[mooch 0]

Please, don't brandish your uselessness to us by offering nothing but complaints, and zero solutions. No, "Make your game like this one" is NOT a solution.

When you learn WTF you are talking about, please post useful information. Those of us that have JOBS dont have TIME to sit here and scroll through all of this CRAP.

I originally came here to find out if ArmA supported multiple cores and/or SLI to determine which new hardware I should invest in (Also known as "look before you leap"). I've finally found this information and am now completely satisfied. I know enough about game engines and software development to know that there's not a whole lot of it that supports multi-core or SLI. Keep your expectations a little lower my friends, you'll lead a stress-free life of minimal disappointment.

As for BIS; they are great guys, they started building they're own engine back as early as 1994, before many of us even knew what a computer was. They have been through the ringer when it comes to the gaming industry and shady publishers, some of us can attest to that.

ArmA, just like OFP before it, is destined to become a great game with constant re-playability, due to it's highly community-based niche. Many people have written mods and add-ons for OFP, and will continue to write them for ArmA. It's not like many other games in which the studio releases the game and one or two patches then just forgets about it and moves on to a crappy sequel. I think BIS has done a great job of keeping the community involved even after all these years. My only SUGGESTION would be to make the engine more customizable (as they appear to be doing already) and allow more fine-tuning of things like texture cache size, etc.

I admire BIS, for they have stuck to their guns, and continued working on their game, their baby, through thick and thin. It hasn't been about the money or the fame, but about making something awesome, that not everyone will love, or even be able to play... but that everyone should appreciate.

I used to write for Tacsim.com, I've worked as a designer and developer for a few game development shops, and I know first hand how crappy this industry can get. For them to make such a beautiful engine out of it, I think they deserve some major applause. I met some of the BIS crew back in 2000 and at E3 in Los Angeles. With the industry as foobar as it is now (and steadily declining - see hollywood industry), I'm glad they are still around.

If I were you, I'd stick to single core systems for now. Concentrate on getting faster single core CPUs and Single GPU Video cards with faster core clocks and lots of RAM. Make sure you got some fast HDs, I got a couple 10kRPM WD Raptor SATA drives in Raid 0. Makes for faster texture caching.

If you practice K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid), as I have to remind myself to do all too often, I think you'l find yourself spending far less money on a rig that will allow you to enjoy a much wider variety of today's games.

Thats my rant for this flame-fest, and now that I've gone and added to the scrollbar, Mooch out.

{10th}Mooch

http://regiment-hq.com

[NeMeSiS 11]

I believe there is something in the game engine that makes it run poorly on dual core systems.

Do you have any reason to believe this? And do you also have a reason why it runs fine on almost all dual core systems.. (except those with certain high end cards).

[Michael_Wittman 0]

Ok mooch....

To tell the truth my first computer was a Spectrum 64k...with tape for games...back in 1986...many of the people posting here werent ever in their parent best thoughts.

2nd. Im on CGI industry...with the leading software used on ILM. Softimage XSI... software used in the creation of the leading game Half-Life 2. Im not specilly skilled on Direct3D or OpenGL SDK but my 5 years of experience in this industry tells me that you should take a good cup of STFU.

Now once this is said Im in peace with jesus crisht.

And...as it took me time....a lot to manage this software (7.000$ license + 3.000$ my current hardware) I will not model, script or any other fu*** thing unless its paid... you know what...because its my job.... And I DONT WASTE TIME.

So.... If BI or anyone else say.... "We have this problem...if you solve it you got this money"...then Ill move...and of course I can make scripts in C++ Java or Phyton but BE SURE IT WILL NOT BE FOR FREE.

Making mods...and that for most of the people is changing textures and making a few models FOR FREE its not for me.

As Im freelance there are many times that my computer is rendering frame by frame HDRI+Global+Shadow map and takes a fu*** week to finish the render for a 1 min scene....(nothing to say if I put Hair or Heavy displacement Zbrush).

So....dont say I dont know what im talking about...IF YOU ARE SO KIND.

P.D. Whoever thinks this game doesnt need Phisics check this.

[mooch 0]

Micheal,

I'm glad you're good at what you do, you don't have to justify anything to me. I'm sure your a very capable designer/devolper.

I tried to refrain from singling anyone out, but mainly my post is addressing the individual who started this thread and any others that were being disrespectful to the developers.

I don't believe you were being disrespectful, so obviously this wouldn't apply to you.

Again I'll say that unless your a developer with experience in DX9, OGL, etc... I don't think you should be trash talking someone's code and telling them that it "f*** sucks".

edit: dude... you had some great suggestions... why would you think my post was remotely directed at you? Maybe you do work too hard.... this is why i generally avoid forums. cheers.

[Michael_Wittman 0]

I´m sorry if Ive been rude to you...but I was supporting this guy in the sense that he has a top line computer and cant make ARMA run good.

Im only trying to say that this game...although it hasnt the better distributers (as I from spain had to get it through sprocket) is a killer gamer...better than CS on its day...this game is f*** awesome... and...as I know its a killer game...and also a killer for average gamers I only want to have it running decent on my High-End pro computer...thats all.

This is the kind of games that make industry go a step ahead...kids say..."one day Ill be capable of buying hardware good enought to play arma"...hardware doesnt move on for text processors or calculus sheets...and for databases only on servers (like new IA64 Itanium Montecito).

So, my final point is that...although the guy who posted this have been slightly rude with BI and ARMA I think he indeed feels like me but with much more hours of tweaking, installing, reinstalling, checking, overclocking.....etc more than me.

I think if this guy have the money to buy a Hi-End gaming platform is because he is not a 12 yrs old kid. And...more than that...this game is so good and there are so many times my main computer is rendering Mental Ray for many days I was seriously thinking about buying a Ultra-killer-gamer PC. As I think both the post starter and I feel the same passion for gaming. I also was thinking about buying the latest TrackIR. But when I see that its not only ATI user its also NVIDIA users.. (specially CrossFire and SLI) that are having problems I think....yeah...I want support this post...this guy although he is not using the finest form he is right in the bottom.

Regards

[SlurrpyChillyFries 0]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahaha

that video is hilarious.

i give the ai 10 style points for that move...

[mooch 0]

Michael,

Point taken. Perhaps I came down a little hard, I agree that it's quite frustrating to build a killer rig, then a game comes out that you can't hardly play.

Let's try to find a solution first, instead of dis-respecting BIS, and each other (my bad). I got some free time so what the heck.

I think a large problem with even the cutting edge multi-core hardware is that the cores themselves are slower. Yes, you have more of them, but if they aren't being utilized then you are trapped with a slower processor.

If you got the cash to play with... you can get an athlon 64 4000+ (2,4ghz, 1mb L2 cache) socket 939 and OC it to 3.0ghz (about 200 for CPU/Mobo/Cooler), that along with a decent Nvidia card like a 7950GT (about 200 bux), a couple gigs of RAM, and some fast SATA HDs, will run just about every game out there right now quite nicely.

In my experience, the WD Raptor 10kRPM HDs in Raid 0 provided me with the most noticeable performance increase. Texture caching has always been a bottleneck for game engines.

Unfortunately I dont think you're realistically going to get a multi-core workstation to run ArmA much better than what's described above.

[sniper pilot 36]

But what i dont get they still havn't released an official word on this BS...

I still love ya BIS... just give us a message! Its ok to say "We dont know"