Extreamly low performance with powerful pc!!

[CyDoN 0]

I just got this new pc of mine which has these specs:

Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.

Processor: Intel® Core2 Quad CPU Q9400 @ 2.66GHz (4 CPUs)

Memory: 2046MB RAM

Hard Drive: 250 GB

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285

Monitor: SyncMaster T220HD/T220MD(Digital)

Sound Card: Realtek HD Audio output

Keyboard: Logitech Media

Mouse: Logitech HID-compliant G5 Laser Mouse

Mouse Surface: Steelpad 4S

Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090206-1234)

As taken by xfire, so.

The problem is that I can play Counter-Strike Source at 300fps, Ins Mod at 250+ and Far Cray 2 at around 60 (did the test will unraring files).

But when I play ArmA (with all settings at the lowest they can get) everything goes wrong I have a total number of 14 humiliating FPS so whats the problem? This is not normal of course. I don't have the most powerfull system of the world but since ArmA is a 3-4 year old game It must have the ability to run it smoothly, also at my other system which runs with a 3.2 AMD and a GForce 7800GT gets higher scores around 25 FPS (in 1.08 With the settings at the high level it reached about 35).

What do I do?

[.kju 3245]

Tested with 1.16?

Lowest setting don't give you most FPS necessarily.

[CyDoN 0]

well I tested all the settings. Does the version play any role? The system overcoming arma by far. and now I don't have 1.16 i play the official

[.kju 3245]

Only latest patch works good with latest HW and drivers.

[Yoma 0]

Have you tried setting textures to "Default"?

[Binkowski 26]

Like Yoma Said, setting your texture to "Default" usually will fix lag. At least, it did for me on my fairly good computer.

[Cionara 10]

I have the same problem.

My PC:

Q9550 @ 4x3,7Ghz

4GB DDR2-Ram

GTX-280 OC

X-Fi Xtreme Gamer

I turned all options in the menu to verylow/deactivated, view distance to 500 and I get around 20fps when there's a little action going on.

Is there any way to fix this ? =(

Maybe it's my x-fi soundcard. Can I test this somehow ?

Edited May 24, 2009 by Cionara

[vilas 478]

Arma 1 is "strange" game when it comes to PC behaviour

all other games can work suuuuper, while Arma not, other games are not so demanding when it comes to PC

i hope you have newest drivers and DX ?

i had the same = many people said that 1.14 gave them extra FPS, game was better, well i had better FPS in 1.08 ;)

but... after reinstalling drivers and DX9, now on CWR islands i have 60 FPS in Arma

and 40 FPS even when i put 100 soldiers and 10 tanks

yesterday all night i was making my missions on CWR islands and had no problem

Wolle helped me a lot showing new drivers, maybe you have the same problem as i had ?

i had drivers from end of 2007 (1 year after Arma release), but seems new patches required new drivers and DX versions

now all my claims to BIS game graphical behaviour are gone (althought i neve thought that game from 2006 and VGA from 2008 with drivers from disc won't work)

seems that with new patch, new drivers and new DX should be installed aswell (althought other software suffers)

Edited May 24, 2009 by vilas

[Potatomasher 0]

You guys have terrible fps on monster machines like yours. Maybe reinstall OS and drivers and uninstall every not needed backround programs you might have. Only thing you need is a virus scanner and maybe a firewall.

My detail levels:

resolution 1280*1024

terrain very high

object very high

texture very high

shading very high

postprocess low

shadow high

AA high

AF high

blood high

And i got superb fps average 40fps everywhere, even in the woods.

Specs are shown below.

[vilas 478]

Potatomasher - Arma sometimes worked better on lower PC than on stronger - my friends who had worse PC were surprised that i had such problems

now after reinstal of drivers and DX i have 60 FPS on Kolguyev, previously i had 20 FPS and game frozen after 30 minutes of gameplay

so it was :

- strange game (comparing to dozen of other games, even newer than Arma like SOF3, COD3..., Stalkers...)

- my fault that i not installed new drivers and DX9 after 1.14

Edited May 24, 2009 by vilas

[Cionara 10]

My OS is installed clean and new, and I only got neccessary processes running.

I'm using Windows 7 64-Bit.

I tried reducing my memory to 2048 but it didn't work.

The strange thing is that it doesn't matter if I set everything to very high or verly low and deactivated.

There were many X-fi and OpenAL issues as I read.

Could this be the problem ? =/

Edit: There's another thing.

I tried to host a server on a map (some kind of mountains with forest i think it was) and it ran 55-60fps all the time... that's strange isn't it ?

In campaign i get around 20... I will test some more things out.

Edited May 24, 2009 by Cionara

[kklownboy 43]

Its a nvidia issue, and win7 or vista with the latest drivers which are not the best for ARMA, such is the driver world, updating your driver isnt always a cure and can be a bummer. But you have to try anways. Win7 and NVDA is still up in the air with the latest nvida cards and arma. Win7 runs great with ATI beta 1.16. I bet the next driver release for Win7/vista by nvidia will fix the issue. you can run vista drivers on Win7 with some tweaking, try http://forums.guru3d.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21

[Potatomasher 0]

I have no trouble running Arma powered with Nvidia gfx and Win7 x64 and latest drivers.

[kklownboy 43]

I have no trouble running Arma powered with Nvidia gfx and Win7 x64 and latest drivers.

you are on 9800, the issues seem to be on the 260,280 ect, my quote "...Win7 and NVDA is still up in the air with the latest nvida cards and arma...." 8xxx and 9xxx are different.

[CyDoN 0]

thx for your time guys i ll check it out

[SASrecon 0]

you are on 9800, the issues seem to be on the 260,280 ect, my quote "...Win7 and NVDA is still up in the air with the latest nvida cards and arma...." 8xxx and 9xxx are different.

hmm i have a GTX 260 (core216) and on singleplayer i get around 45 fps with everyting set to very high/high and maybe a 5-6km vd, on multiplayer i get around 30fps with a 6km vd with 1.16. imo 1.16 raised my avg. fps on multiplayer :)

i'll benchmark my gameplay next time i play arma and come back to this topic.

[cross 1]

I tried to host a server on a map (some kind of mountains with forest i think it was) and it ran 55-60fps all the time... that's strange isn't it ?

In campaign i get around 20... I will test some more things out.

You need to understand that AI and scripts in a mission/campaign and net traffic puts heavy load on your CPU, makes arma heavier and thus less FPS. This is due to the way Arma is designed (as single thread game), somethings has wait for the next calculation cycle. I get 60 FPS when I place myself on Sahrani / Rahmadi in the editor but 20 FPS while playing a coop mission online.

This will change with ArmA2 which is a multi-thread design and will be able to use the parallelism and do more in the same time thus a smoother gameplay and ability to handle heavier scripts.

[Cionara 10]

Yea I understand that it only uses a single core but even though my cpu is at 3,7ghz. But I'll wait for next nvidia drivers for WIn7 :D

[Yoma 0]

This may sound silly but have you tried disabling your overclock?

[Cionara 10]

Yes, but didn't notice any change of performance.

[volkov956 0]

so no increase or loss?

[Cionara 10]

I think there was a bit loss but it was around 20/25fps average, like before.

Edited May 27, 2009 by Cionara

[=Spetsnaz= 0]

i dont know i always found that depending on your system arma works better when its on higher settings..