ArmaHolic ArmA 2 Optimization

[Fox '09 14]

yes i am but i do not understand what was the point of saying that?

I don't know either :confused: :confused: :811: :eek:

[randir14 10]

Why is my FPS locked at a max of 60? I've gone into the ATI Catalyst Control Center and disabled VSync but it didn't help.

[MegaSevan 10]

Why is my FPS locked at a max of 60? I've gone into the ATI Catalyst Control Center and disabled VSync but it didn't help.

there is something funny about fps detection in ArmA.

[GLeek 10]

arma2 should force vsync or have a FPS limiter. because it never goes above 60 on my 60hz LCD.

if any XP user could say us if vsync can be disabled in arma2 , it might be a prove that's VISTA CRAP

[apollo4war 10]

arma2 should force vsync or have a FPS limiter. because it never goes above 60 on my 60hz LCD.

if any XP user could say us if vsync can be disabled in arma2 , it might be a prove that's VISTA CRAP

i've disabled vsync for testing in winxp prof., vista-64bit and win7-64bit - but with nvidia cards using nhancer. vsync off works and fps goes up to ~70-85, but only on arma2 main-menu. while playing campaign fps is ~20-25 fps :(

vsync disabled has no positive performance effect on my system.

[Dead3yez 0]

Today I made an addon to help improve performance with ArmA 2, which works on some very basic principles atm. There will be no news about it until I have made more updates. I understand there may be a demand for addons like this so it is free to download, test and try it for yourselves.

Read more here:

http://www.armaholic.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=7146

Download:

http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/3321-@fpshelperrc1b.zip

Leave your feedback in the Armaholic topic, thanks.

[Masterfragg 10]

arma2 should force vsync or have a FPS limiter. because it never goes above 60 on my 60hz LCD.

if any XP user could say us if vsync can be disabled in arma2 , it might be a prove that's VISTA CRAP

Well I can tell you with a 9800 GTX+ and my new CPU with vsync forced off through the NV Control panel I get up to 80 FPS so it isn't locked on Vista.

Seems to be system limitations and bad optimization on BIS's part

[Väinämöinen 0]

My lcd supports two refresh rates 1600*1200 at 60hz and 1280*1024 at 75hz. On my rig i get v-sync forced off 60hz or 75hz depending on resolution.

Settings are for ATI card and from CCC.

[Fox '09 14]

Today I made an addon to help improve performance with ArmA 2, which works on some very basic principles atm. There will be no news about it until I have made more updates. I understand there may be a demand for addons like this so it is free to download, test and try it for yourselves.

Read more here:

http://www.armaholic.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=7146

Download:

http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/3321-@fpshelperrc1b.zip

Leave your feedback in the Armaholic topic, thanks.

Ill add it to the thread once it's progressed more, imo it's not that significant right now.

[GLeek 10]

Well I can tell you with a 9800 GTX+ and my new CPU with vsync forced off through the NV Control panel I get up to 80 FPS so it isn't locked on Vista.

Seems to be system limitations and bad optimization on BIS's part

or ATI problem maybe ...

[Cheeba 10]

I just hit an FPS killer in the campaign. The level that Cooper gets promoted to leader, its down past 20fps. Everywhere. I even lowered the settings to very low on everything I could. Visibility 500....and it still ran slow.

On the first Island I could run it smoothly pretty much on all high with visibility at 10000. MP runs smooth at the same settings, usually have tolower it a bit on servers with foliage on.

basic rundown of my setup:

i7-920 @2.67ghz

Asus P6T mobo

3gb RAM

4870 1gb

It can run crysis almost maxed out, so I didnt need to get another tri-channel, or crossfire. But apparently this game may force me too.:mad:

[nzjono 10]

Well I can tell you with a 9800 GTX+ and my new CPU with vsync forced off through the NV Control panel I get up to 80 FPS so it isn't locked on Vista.

Seems to be system limitations and bad optimization on BIS's part

It is locked on vista when you use an SLI card.

[apollo4war 10]

It is locked on vista when you use an SLI card.

i use sli. not locked on my system. but still not more performance if it's off

[Alienfreak 0]

If vsync is off you can get lines on your screen while turning because of the desync. It makes me freak out.

vsync on is a MUST on a LCD

[nzjono 10]

i use sli. not locked on my system. but still not more performance if it's off

Its IS internally capped at 30 fps in game and 60 fps in the menu screens

here check out the photo of my G15 Fraps display..live framerate is on 23 here and to the right is the 30 capped framerate which does NOT move in game. It changes to a capped 60 in themenus.

The EVGA fix helps raise the cap to 60 in game but the actual live framerate does not get much above 30 anyway.

Edited July 2, 2009 by nzjono

[Dead3yez 0]

FPS Helper v1.0b

For those of you who are in desperate need of improving performance check the link. ;)

Features:

- Lower (smaller) grass

- Grass rendering altered

- Grass clusters are less dense

- Less dust produced from vehicles on land

- "removed" animations from grass

- Wildlife removed from Chenarus and Utes

Edited July 2, 2009 by Dead3yez

[thr0tt 12]

Cool, lower grass will give me that edge on MP games over the competition plus with the reduced dust (smoke ?) and animations I should be able to spot those snipers easier.

I assume this is MP compatible (other than removal of wildlife). Can you also remove sun glare so I can hit the enemy even when staring into the suns direction...

[nocturna 10]

btw no idea why but i have MUCH better FPS on the full game than the demo:yay:

[Dead3yez 0]

Cool, lower grass will give me that edge on MP games over the competition plus with the reduced dust (smoke ?) and animations I should be able to spot those snipers easier.

Yes, it might give the edge sometimes in MP games (being able to lay down and just see above grass), but it at least improves performance so you can actually play.

No - Snipers far away do not have grass around them (grass is not rendered 100s of meters away from your position), I've never heard of any sniper using the dust created by vehicles as cover and I have no idea how the grass' swaying motion makes it harder to spot.

[Masterfragg 10]

Awesome addon Deadz

I haven't checked it out myself I've ditched Arma2 until further notice sadly.

Some weird updates though...GTA IV average FPS in benchmark 67 FPS (Med Textures High all else) ARMA2 still cack lol

I'll check back in a few weeks take care all thanks everyone for the help.

Masterfragg

---------- Post added at 12:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:50 PM ----------

Its IS internally capped at 30 fps in game and 60 fps in the menu screens

here check out the photo of my G15 Fraps display..live framerate is on 23 here and to the right is the 30 capped framerate which does NOT move in game. It changes to a capped 60 in themenus.

The EVGA fix helps raise the cap to 60 in game but the actual live framerate does not get much above 30 anyway.

There is no internal cap in game for me...

I can get over 30 in some instances just in campaign its still quite low.

So might be worth someone looking into properly...Don't trust the G15's display.

I can take a screenie if need be to prove it.

Although I hear it may be an ATI problem

[=Spetsnaz= 0]

I just managed to tone out my AA,Shadows to Normal, Objects Detail to High and i get about 30-45 fps average impressed..

[Heatseeker 0]

Start like this:

Visibility: 2 KM

Texture detail: Normal (or high).

Vid memory: High (if over 512)

Anisotropic filtering: high

AA: Normal or high (nvidia GPU's handle AA like its not even there, sweet)

Terrain detail: very low (no grass)

Object detail: normal (or low)

Shadows: High or Off (high performs and looks better than normal)

Post processing: Off!!

3D resolution: 100%

At these settings most of you should be getting no much less than 30 fps minimum but you wont have grass and you might notice low detail trees and houses popping up.

Usually resolution, AA, textures and shadows are what kill performance but in Arma II the settings that affect performance the most (atleast in my case) are visibility, terrain detail and object detail.

Visibility is a no brainer, longer draw distance means more objects being rendered wich is bad bad.

Terrain detail is not because of the terrain itself but because of the grass, the higher the terrain detail the further away the grass will be drawn around you and the grass is very demanding (atleast in my case), its like BIS didnt learn from their mistake with Armed Assault (north Sahrani grass) so for now im using very low terrain detail wich disables the grass, this brings too advantages:

1. More playable performance.

2. A.i. wont shoot you thru grass.

Object detail is a general LOD (level of detail) switch, everything in the game has diferent LOD's (model and textures), you might have noticed objects changing from low detail to high and the other way around.

This makes it so that if you are close to an object the object is being drawn in full detail and if you are far then the object is in low detail lod.

Now if you use high/very high object detail everything around you will use high detail LOD and look very nice, this is most noticeable on buildings, vegetation and vehicles too, another thing level of detail does is it draws more objects, like bushes and the likes wich increases the complexety of the picture/scene.

If you have terrain detail above very low you will notice that object detail also increases or decreases the density and detail of the grass, if you combine high terrain with high object detail you will have very detailed grass being rendered in a large circle around you, for me this means bad frame rate.

If you have high view distance (above 3 KM), object detail and terrain detail you might be pushing too far, even if you use low antialiasing, texture detail, etc.

If your graphics card is low end you might want to disable antialiasing and shadow detail, atm there seem to be a problem with ATI cards and AA.

These are the settings im using for now with resolution at 1680*1050, i also disable the shadows most of the time because of the forests.

In due time better drivers and future patches should help increase performance, for now im using these settings explore the game and use the editor (the campaign is bugged), increasing and decreasing graphics setting all the time is a waste of time ;) .

[apollo4war 10]

Its IS internally capped at 30 fps in game and 60 fps in the menu screens

The EVGA fix helps raise the cap to 60 in game but the actual live framerate does not get much above 30 anyway.

Hey, same keyboard as mine ;). And same frustrating fps. :mad: ... and yes you can trust G15's lcd display :)

Yes, you're right. Vsync is forced on by ArmA2 as it was on ArmA and many other games and is the best choice for quality etc. But it's not only on vista.

I mean you can use nvidia driver (no idea for ati) to force vsync off using nvidia control panel or nhancer etc. as you know. Then you will see fps go over monitor's vsync, which is on most common lcd-monitors 60 hz and give same max. 60 fps when vsync on. with vsync off, my system fps is >~80 up to 110-120 fps sometimes - but only on arma2's main menu (nice to see with fraps on g15-lcd :D). in campaing still 15-25.

and then...

you can get lines on your screen while turning because of the desync.

and you will know...

vsync on is a MUST on a LCD

anyway... this will show you how much 'power overflow' (:p) your gpu('s) have... damned to see game engine's 3d-rendered main-menu on over 80fps and ingame no chance over 23/24, ohh boy sometimes 25... on multiplayer sometimes ~32/33 - i think there's no other cap than vsync like ut3's frame rate smoothing.

btw... EVGA FIX: i see some people with ati card's or non-sli-setup using evga's fix for arma2 - you should know that this fix (as the name says "EVGA SLI Ehancement" Patch) does nothing more than adding a sli-profile as you could do with nhancer or nvidia control panel (better options with nhancer) to enable sli for nvidia's sli enabled mainboards and graphics. this has absolutely no effect with ati cards or single nvidia cards. you must not install that. oh - and in my windows 7 installation, evga patch doesn't install correctly - give sli indicator a chance to see if sli is really enabled.

Edited July 29, 2009 by apollo4war

[KJT 0]

Its IS internally capped at 30 fps in game and 60 fps in the menu screens

here check out the photo of my G15 Fraps display..live framerate is on 23 here and to the right is the 30 capped framerate which does NOT move in game. It changes to a capped 60 in themenus.

The EVGA fix helps raise the cap to 60 in game but the actual live framerate does not get much above 30 anyway.

This is just how fraps display in G15 works. If your max fps within display's time frame is <= 30 it shows 30 at the corner, if it is <= 60 it shows 60, if it is <= 90 it shows 90, if .. (well you get the idea). So it is not internally capped to 30, its just your hardware.

But there seems to be problem with forcing VSYNC off in ATI CC as I'm not able to do that with my ATI4890 and latest Arma2 patch - earlier when it was off I was able to get > 60 when looking at sky or ground.

-KJT-

[Dead3yez 0]

If you are not running RAID and have 2 hard drives.

Run on multiple hard drives!!

ArmA2 is heavy on the harddrive I decided to split the ArmA 2 files onto two different hard drives, this can be done by making a mod folder on one of your separate hardrives. This makes loading faster, and allows you to simulate a faster data transfer rate.

For example I have moved the following files (they mainly contain textures and models), others containing configs may cause problems if you are running addons. into F:\CA\addons as shown below:

You can then run these files via the modfolder method

(safest method) I use.

-mod=F:\CA;@mod2;@mod3

or

to work with some mods/addons, depending on which files you have moved.

-mod=@mod1;@mod2;F:\CA

When patching the game you will have to move your files back into the original directory

Also, check the master copy thread for more details:

http://www.armaholic.com/forums.php?m=posts&p=54150#54150

Edited July 2, 2009 by Dead3yez