ArmaHolic ArmA 2 Optimization

[Fox '09 14]

Hello BIS! over at armaholic, we found various ways to improve arma 2s performance greatly.

original thread http://www.armaholic.com/forums.php?m=posts&p=54150#54150 (cleaner and more useful to some)

This guide will show you how to improve performance in ArmA 2 using various tweaks. Use this ONLY if the recommended downloads below do not solve your FPS problems.

Most of the guide isn't really needed anymore. Back when this thread was posted, the game ran awfully on most PCs.

ArmA 2: Operation Arrowhead optimization and tweaks can be found here:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=101124

Recommended Addons and other downloadables:

VFFPSS Project

http://dev-heaven.net/projects/vffpss/files

Dynamically changes view distance and whatnot depending on your FPS

Proper Projects

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=85739

Lots of tweaks to look into, especially the foliage section.

ArmA 2 BETA patches

http://www.arma2.com/beta-patch.php

As of May 2010, the recent beta patches really improve preformance.

Texture loading is done in the background.. extra threads.. and much more!

Guide

Dead3yez :

Some of you may have realised that in ArmA 1 the optimisation of the graphics was a little weird, i.e some of the graphics settings on higher levels increased your FPS rather than decreased your FPS. I am just wondering on what you have found with ArmA II. Given that I am playing an early release I do also hope that the game will be optimised further in later versions.

I'm currently running ArmA 2 on a duelcore AMD5200, 4GBram, xfi soundcard and an XFX 8800gs 680mhz, 384mb ram, and will be for the next month or so until my pockets get a little more bigger. I have a 24inch monitor 1980*1200, running the graphics of ArmAII at this resolution really puts strain on my card, so I have to run on 1680*1050 to get away with a decent FPS. Personally I call a good playable level >30FPS, with my current settings I can reach up to 50FPS in single player, leaving leeway for when playing multiplayer, or missions with high GPU and CPU usages.

To give you an idea of my settings and what my game looks at the moment here are some images, the difference from ArmA-ArmA2 appears to be substantially different.

Here is parts of the thread. ( I have permission to put it here)

ArmA2 CFG

Where to find the config:

Your Config file is usually located in:

XP: C:\documents and settings\user\<login account>\My documents\ArmA 2

Vista: C:\users\<login account>\documents\Arma 2

Windows 7: 1. C:\users\<login account>\my documents\Arma 2

Basically, it's in your documents folder under the name "ArmA2.cfg"

Resolution

Resolution_W=1600; -Screen resolution (Width)

Resolution_H=900; -Screen resolution (height)

Render_W=1600; -Render Resolution (Width)

Render_H=900; -Render Resolution (Height)

As far as i know, the render resolution is what is rendered, and then the screen resolution is what is outputted on the screen. So by changing the render resolution to match the screen resolution, it renders the screen size rather than 2560x1600 (or higher?)

My whole config: (DISCLAIMER: Remember, this in no way, should be what your computer is if it is less than my computers specs. This is for showing what my config looks like, and nothing else.)

language="English";
adapter=-1;
3D_Performance=-180000;
Resolution_Bpp=32;
Resolution_W=1680;
Resolution_H=1050;
refresh=60;
Render_W=1680;
Render_H=1050;
FSAA=0;
postFX=2;
HDRPrecision=8;
lastDeviceId="";
localVRAM=924188672;
nonlocalVRAM=1475895296;

Same thing with the player profile, where you put "sceneComplexity" except its named "loginname.arma2profile"

Go to the bottom, and if you don't see "sceneComplexity=" then add it. For instance, mine is

sceneComplexity=160000;

Sorry for the confusion about putting it in the arma2.cfg.

REMEMBER TO SET THE FILE AS READ ONLY SO ARMA 2 DOES NOT CHANGE IT!!!!

Scene Complexity

Benchies

Running at 1680x1050 here is a result of an earlier test, SceneComplexion 160k

Frames: 4219 - Time: 101274ms - Avg: 41.659 - Min: 30 - Max: 60

And now a newer one using those render settings and higher complexion, SceneComplexion 180k.

Frames: 4983 - Time: 115663ms - Avg: 43.082 - Min: 34 - Max: 66

That' gave me the opportunity to run it maxed out completely.

Dead3yez :

I did some playing with the Scene complexion as it seemed to be the best way of improving the quality without much drop in the framerate. I also decreased the shading detail a little more by two. After applying some values to the scene complextion I ran around the village taking the same route and recorded the frame rate. (SC = scenecomplexion) These are the results.

SC@110k

Frames: 4843 - Time: 101276ms - Avg: 47.820 - Min: 33 - Max: 68

SC@160k

Frames: 4219 - Time: 101274ms - Avg: 41.659 - Min: 30 - Max: 60

SC@160k Battle 1

Frames: 3010 - Time: 90679ms - Avg: 33.194 - Min: 20 - Max: 48

SC@160k Battle 2

Frames: 3137 - Time: 126169ms - Avg: 24.863 - Min: 13 - Max: 44

[thumb=datas/thumbs/3321-bat2.jpg]3321-bat2.jpg[/thumb]

SC@250k

Frames: 3907 - Time: 100802ms - Avg: 38.759 - Min: 31 - Max: 55

SC@350k

Frames: 3631 - Time: 93669ms - Avg: 38.764 - Min: 26 - Max: 53

All setting very high VD@1600 1920*1200

Frames: 2403 - Time: 127963ms - Avg: 18.779 - Min: 8 - Max: 47

Terrain/Foliage

Check this image out, was posted by someone in this thread, compares differences between the settings.

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/2256/armavergleich.gif

I hope this solves all problems for you guys.

Some feedback would be nice and details on your experience with graphics performance / settings.

NOTES + BRAND SPECIFIC ENHANCEMENTS

the VRAM settings in my config "896 (MB)" is supposed to be in bytes. Sorry for not mentioning it. (corrected now, if you missed it)

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=73947

SLI SUPPORT:

Download Newest NVIDIA drivers. In earlier versions you had to use the -winxp parameter or change the name of the .exe, however, ArmA 2 now has its own SLI profile.

NVIDIA OWNERS! Set

Max pre rendered frames to 8 in the advanced 3d settings for global or ArmA 2. This improves performance vastly. Discovered by some guy in another thread..

thread is not organized well.. sorry. will fix soon

Post in the thread if you have any questions

Edited June 29, 2010 by Fox '09
cleaned the thread

[binkster 0]

Mine is very different..My local vram is so much larger. I wonder if some of this config automatically adjusted because of hardware...

language="German";
adapter=-1;
3D_Performance=-4194304;
Resolution_Bpp=32;
Resolution_W=1680;
Resolution_H=1050;
refresh=60;
Render_W=1915;
Render_H=1197;
FSAA=0;
postFX=0;
HDRPrecision=8;
lastDeviceId="";
localVRAM=1061224448;
nonlocalVRAM=804532224;

[Shadow NX 1]

Isnt this basicly like i would set fillrate to 100% only?

[garack666 10]

yep it is you cant set to 100% cause the slider match not exatcly, but who cares..100 or 110...my4870 dont care

[EDcase 87]

Mine is very different..My local vram is so much larger. I wonder if some of this config automatically adjusted because of hardware...

It does configure automatically the first time you run the game.

Duno if it checks every time.

[moosenoodles 0]

yep it is you cant set to 100% cause the slider match not exatcly, but who cares..100 or 110...my4870 dont care

Dunno running a 4870 here and I can get 100% on the ingame slider stupid window refreshes though so u cant do it nice and smooth..

regarding localVram set to what was it up there 896 or something? what does that work out at with the games decimal setup? 868mb or .868 lol I do wonder..

[sgt gul 0]

what can i do if i have a 3870 512MB card?

[usmc123 1]

Mine is very different..My local vram is so much larger. I wonder if some of this config automatically adjusted because of hardware...

language="German";
adapter=-1;
3D_Performance=-4194304;
Resolution_Bpp=32;
Resolution_W=1680;
Resolution_H=1050;
refresh=60;
Render_W=1915;
Render_H=1197;
FSAA=0;
postFX=0;
HDRPrecision=8;
lastDeviceId="";
localVRAM=1061224448;
nonlocalVRAM=804532224;

My VRAM is like that too, not sure why.

[Fox '09 14]

That's because i set It to that manually.

[Nicholas 5]

Doing this greatly improved my performance, I have the ArmAholic thread favorited.

[usmc123 1]

That's because i set It to that manually.

So local should be what your Video Card has and Non Local is what?

[Fox '09 14]

So local should be what your Video Card has and Non Local is what?

non local is your paging file space, set it below the maximum page file size. Usually around 1500 MB to 2.5 Is ok.

Local is your video card VRAM as far as it seems.

[usmc123 1]

non local is your paging file space, set it below the maximum page file size. Usually around 1500 MB to 2.5 Is ok.

Local is your video card VRAM as far as it seems.

Alright thanks, I remember in ArmA I that if you had 2 Gigs of RAM or higher that you should put in the Maxmem 512 command. I did that for ArmA I, is this similar? If I put 512 into the NonLocal would it be similar to the Maxmem command?

[maddogx 13]

Lowering SceneComplexity does nothing more than lower the object detail setting in the in-game gfx options, just on a finer scale. My object detail was previously set on medium, the SceneComplexity in the cfg was at 300000. I lowered it to 200000 and it turned the object detail setting down to low. Setting it to 100000 tuned object details down to very low.

I've been advocating lower object detail settings for about a week, by the way. ;)

[moosenoodles 0]

what is this and what is it related to.

3D_Performance << ?

[Fox '09 14]

Yeah.

[4 IN 1 0]

the problem is that while i dont care about object details, i do care object rendering distances, how would it be change?

[Dead3yez 0]

the problem is that while i dont care about object details, i do care object rendering distances, how would it be change?

Increasing your scene complexity.

Some objects over 2km may require shadows enabled, as someone said I think.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1302071&postcount=28 Post count 28, for link to original topic

Edited September 22, 2009 by Dead3yez

[4 IN 1 0]

guess i would have to get the game first to find out, agrhhhhh the waiting is killing me!

[Skeptic 10]

My whole config:

language="English";
adapter=-1;
3D_Performance=-80000;
Resolution_Bpp=32;
Resolution_W=1600;
Resolution_H=900;
refresh=59;
Render_W=1600;
Render_H=900;
FSAA=0;
postFX=2;
HDRPrecision=0;
lastDeviceId="";
localVRAM=896;
nonlocalVRAM=1900;
sceneComplexity=160000;

Why would you set HDR precision to 0 from default 8. Any reason? Benefits/drawbacks?

[Dead3yez 0]

Why would you set HDR precision to 0 from default 8. Any reason? Benefits/drawbacks?

None, HDR can't be disabled... Yet. Kegety's no bloom, no blur mod works though.

Might be able to change it to 16 or 32 though, as with ArmA1. I expect higher values will give drawbacks in performance, most likely.

[EricM 0]

Anyone tried FSAA=1 (or 2 or whatever?) to see if kicks in standar antialiasing ?

[Psilocybe 3]

Where abouts is the config?

[Potatomasher 0]

Where abouts is the config?

Same place as your saves. It's in the windows HDD somewhere. Can't remember the exact place now.

[evilfury 0]

In my documents there is ArmA 2 folder and cfg file in there.