ArmaHolic ArmA 2 Optimization

[hotel 10]

Thanks for that info m8. I am saving your post so that i can try and get my refund Monday. I got the game running decent with the upgrade but Steam and Arma2 in my opinion do not mix well. The retail version on DVD will be what i buy in the future.

[Masterfragg 10]

Hi guys,

Just checking back to see how things were getting on.

I'm shocked to see still no patch out, I'm guessing there is no news on it yet.

Still, got another "For Dummies" video to watch :P

Good video for new players I guess right?

Does anyone know if there is a difference in performance between Retail and Steam?

Also Hotel did you manage to get your refund?

[hotel 10]

No refund here m8. I was able to upgrade my pc enough to run the game somewhat decent and the new CPU I bought died. In the process of RMA'ing it. I am scared to try my new CPU with the game because i feel like the game overstressing the components in my machine for nothing really.

I ordered a Phenom X4 955 BE. With the Phenom X2 550 BE i was getting 30 to 35% improvement over my 6400+ X2. That was with the two extra cores unlocked. I am hoping the new 955 BE i ordered will get 10% or so more improvement. I managed to get a stable 22 FPS in that mission in the industrial city (forget what its called). That kinda framerate is still unacceptable :(.

The game consistantly stutters even in high framerate areas and seems to lack a overall smooth feeling. I never had an CPU die on me brand spankin new so I am not sure what to say about it. If I put down how I really felt the cpu was killed I am sure I would get flamed but fanboys. Anyway Im waiting for the arrival of my new CPU and heatsink/fan. I should have never contradicted myself because now I am wasting money on a video game that quite frankly does not deserve the time.

[GLeek 10]

I basically sold the guts (board, CPU and RAM) out of my machine so that I could upgrade without killing my pocket. I contradicted myself in doing this because i refused to upgrade. In reality I spent 100 bucks after selling my old stuff.

New Specs

AMD Phenom X2 550 @ 3.1ghz

Patriot DDR3 1600 Ram Gaming Edition

500 GIG 16MB Cache Western Digital HDD

500 Watt Antec PSU

ATI HD4890 1GIG DDR5 256-bit OC @ 930/1150

Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P 790FX North Bridge/SB750 South Bridge

Previous specs

AMD X2 6400+ @ 3.2ghz

A-Data DDR2 PC800

500 GIG 16MB Cache Western Digital HDD

500 Watt Antec PSU

ATI HD4890 1GIG DDR5 256-bit OC @ 930/1150

Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H 780G North Bridge/SB700 South Bridge

With the old PC specs I was getting 26 FPS average between Arma2 Demo benchmarks. The new one is giving me 40 sometimes 41 average. At the lowest I had 37 averages.

My CPU is dual core but my board had the ability to unlock 2 extra cores on the CPU (reason I bought this one). I did that and re-ran the bench and to my surprise no change. It was still around 40. I went into the game and with everything on high I was getting like 5 to 8 more fps average than with the dual core. I actually did a whole mission without going below 30 FPS believe it or not (Trial by Fire). On average with the new machine I have about 35 to 40% performance gain.

When I was shopping for upgrade parts I told myself I was going to buy a really good motherboard. The RAM and CPU I went more budget than performance. I am really happy I bought a better board and feel maybe the cheaper end boards create bottlenecks you otherwise wouldn’t see in a quality board. If I am wrong please correct me I will edit my post.

Game Settings

Resolution - 1920 * 1200

Fill rate - 100%

Draw Distance - 3600

AF - HIGH

AA - OFF (This makes my game blurry / reminds me of GRAW)

Texture, Texture Memory, Object Detail, Terrain Detail - VERY HIGH

Shadows - HIGH

Post Processing - HIGH (not sure why nobody likes this the blurry feel when running to me make the game more challenging and realistic, just my 2 cents)

Overall after the upgrade I am pleased with the games performance. Now if they fix the building performance robbing characteristics I will get even more FPS. When I get some money I’m going to get like a 80 gig Raptor drive and install my games on it. I think the hiccups i get in game is HDD lag. Other than that I am happy. It is a shame in every aspect that this game cannot run medium on recommended specs. My previous spec exceeded the recommended and I was unable to play the campaign. Even the Trial by Fire mission would drop below 20 frames.

you need more than dual core , in order to play in smoothest way. 3 core is the minimum decent way to play arma2 , because game usually eat 55-60% of my quadcore . count .

[Masterfragg 10]

you need more than dual core , in order to play in smoothest way. 3 core is the minimum decent way to play arma2 , because game usually eat 55-60% of my quadcore . count .

Interesting.

could you up both profile and settings cfg please mate?

I'm getting 40% of my cpu being used I would like to compare

Also specs would be nice if poss

Thanks duder

[=Spetsnaz= 0]

i have a dual core and it only get 70-85% usage!

[Shinanigans 10]

Hi peeps, just wondering if anyone could shed some light on a seemingly technical question;

Why does "Object Detail" hammer my CPU so much?

My current setup is an E8500 @ 4GHz, GTX285 O/C, 4GB 800, Win7. Arma2 absolutely destroys my CPU. I don't think i've seen it go below 70% and have seen it hit 100% many times.

Online, i can get a solid 60fps (capped) a lot of the time but when i'm in the middle of a town it can sometimes hit as low as 20-25fps. So buying in a busy, AI infested area kills the performance.

I've played with the settings a lot and have found view distance and object detail to be the two biggest hitters of performance. If i'm getting 45fps with object detail on normal, i'll get 55fps with it on very low. Similar gains can be had going from 2000m draw to 1000m draw.

Now, i know i'm not GPU limited in this game because dropping the resolution gains barely any fps. However, i'm curious as to how object detail is a CPU bound process. I would've thought that kind of visual change would be mainly processed by the GPU?

Anyway... has anyone else found similar results? Any other settings i can tinker with to give me an fps boost around busy towns?

Cheers :)

[Lisenki 10]

A newly released GPU will be around the $1000aus or $800aus mark and most can't afford to buy that, maybe after 12mths have passed and the price drops to a reasonable level. I think you missed what Balgorg meant.

When Crysis came out everyone did bitch about not being able to run at ultra-high on g92 hardware. Two years on I can play it on Ultra-high with FSAA with 40+ fps at 1680x1050 on my GTX296/Q9550@3.4 system.

It's 2009 and there is still nothing that looks better than Crysis. Arma2 graphics are good, but they are no Crysis or Stalker, or even FarCry2. Now Crysis seems almost like a pinnacle of optimization...

But the real kicker is that lowering the video setting from the highest to lowest gives only between 0-10 FPS!! I'm standing on the carrier in the beginning of the first SP mission, looking straight at the sky, 47 FPS, sli load graph shows gpu's loaded below 60%. There is no AI action going on. Seriously WTF? I wish I could debug it with PerfHud just to see what the engine is doing?? I'll still play it just as I played, finished and enjoyed another amazing, beautiful but horribly optimized game - Cryostasis.

[alpha9 10]

Guys need your advice regarding Performance

i got Core 2 duo 1.83

2.5 Gb Ram

GeForce 9500 GT

Vista 32

am not sure to do with the settings i cant hit targets its lag any advice?

[fmsam 10]

Hi all

first post here, .... great to see so many ppl passionate about their gaming :D

As has been said b4 a few times on this thread, yea its potentially an historic game but at this time its not quite right, I too was dissapointed when I installed it but its playable and fun and we can all be assured that in time it will be perfect, we just need to chill 4 a while

most of you know how to tweak your machines and Im sure most have done it b4 to optimize for crysis etc, so if your machine runs all your other games well then hey just hold fire ( sry 4 the pun there)

Rick

PS: just added 190.38 drivers and testing still

PSS : I dont think the sli patch nvidia sent out works with this new driver :-(

Edited July 23, 2009 by fmsam

[=wfl= sgt bilko 10]

You don't need the Nv SLI patch if you run 190.38 drivers, it's included.

[Rak 0]

Guys need your advice regarding Performance

i got Core 2 duo 1.83

2.5 Gb Ram

GeForce 9500 GT

Vista 32

am not sure to do with the settings i cant hit targets its lag any advice?

No chance I'm afraid, your system is just too weak for this game.

[fmsam 10]

oh right ok didnt know that

( I really should read the driver release notes some times) :rolleyes:

got sli workin' but not scaling to well right now :cool:

rekon Ill go play other stuff while the devs sort this one out :D

Rick

[lao fei mao 21]

Hi,fmsam,your gig is really fast.What's your average FPS when all options are setted at "very high"?

[fmsam 10]

cant do better than an average of around 25 / 30 at this time, Im sure it will improve soon.

Ive tried some of the suggested mods here but it seemd to make things worse :eek:

[Silentace07 10]

What disappoints me is that I have 50-60 fps during most scenario's and custom missions, yet no higher than 25 fps during campaign. Regardless of my settings, the fps wont increase. Very disappointing.

Not to mention Im on the Manhattan mission and regardless of how many times I try, Lt. Shaftoe suddenly dies out of nowhere and none of my objectives cant be completed. But hey, thats a whole 'nother issue. :)

[ChiefBoatsRet 10]

:yay:This cracks me up. All the big rigs are sucking crapjust like the rest of us. This game should be used as a benchmark for testing gaming rigs, it will drive them all crazy!!! And they thought Crysis was bad....

Edited July 25, 2009 by ChiefBoatsRet

[Silentace07 10]

Yeah haha.

Thing is, I can create a custom mission on either of the maps and have a ton of fighting going on, and it really isnt a hit on framerate. I just survived an hour long combat session on Chern doing secops and framerate never went below 40. Yet, if I load up campaign Im at about 18fps in the exact same places.

[alpha9 10]

No chance I'm afraid, your system is just too weak for this game.

My system is doing fine and am able to play arma 2 and its fine, but i try to do better

[Game__On 10]

Hello all .

Anybody have an idea of how tri-sli is scaling with arma 2 ??

[Magel282 10]

cant do better than an average of around 25 / 30 at this time, Im sure it will improve soon.

Ive tried some of the suggested mods here but it seemd to make things worse :eek:

What settings do you game at? I get about the same fps with my 285's.

[SgtMjr 10]

OK, so I have an OK system, plays Arma2 well at 30-33 FPS (Fraps) in most situations except smokey cities, where it's a jerky frame fest. I have all the settings at the optimum for my rig as per the various posts on this forum. Last night I changed the interface res to normal and set the screen res to 1900X1080. Now I'm in the low 40's FPS-wise. WTF! Initially the higher res and high/ V high settings had me at 26-28 FPS so I dropped it down.

Can anyone give a reason for this jump in FPS?

System: Q6600 3.0Ghz, P35MoBo, 8800GTX stock (190.38 drivers), 4G DDR-800 RAM, Vista 32. Dell 2408WFP.

ARMA: all settings at High or V High, view distance 1600, AA off, V sync off, PhysX off, pre-rendered frames 3, single display, most settings in Nvidia control panel on application controlled or auto. Nvidia scaling.

Edited August 1, 2009 by SgtMjr

[Game__On 10]

Yes i can explain it :d . (i think)

You basically set your render resolution lower, then stretched it out over a bigger number of pixels (interface res or displayed res, what you see on screen)

So your computer actually renders less, and then smears it out over more pixels.

I THINK that is how it works.

I play the other way around, 3d res at 2000 and displayed res at 1600. Makes for 125% 'filtrate' setting. Looks very nice and does not impact performance that much. (5 frames of 75 fps) .

I think what you did is some sort of pixel doubling, though not exactly doubling it.

But i am not sure if what i say is correct though.

[43st 10]

What seems very odd about optimizing Arma2 is that once in a while one seems to get a large performance boost, but it just doesn't stick beyond one session?!?! I've now had 2 or 3 different moments when I think I've found the holy grail of FPS, in a matter of speaking, only to re-launch my ill-fated Razor Two mission to get between 10-20 FPS?!?!

And maybe I'm just being more sensitive to it than before but this low FPS make me feel sick. After I shut down the game I can't even look at a PC screen without my head spinning. The constant low FPS is just killing me. :(

[SgtMjr 10]

I take it back, it was a fleeting example of a phantom boost. I can't explain it. I'm back to low 30's again, very playable mind you.