ArmaHolic ArmA 2 Optimization

[mc_conor 0]

Nocturna i have:

e8400 @3.00Ghz stock due to a dell.

3GB DDR2 400Mhz

9600gt lowprofile 512mb ddr3

Textures on 2 sata drives using deadeyes guide.

And i run at 1360 x768 resolution with the following settings:

Texture: High

Video Memory: Very High

Anisotropic: Very High

Anti:Very High

Terrain:Normal

Object: Very High

Shadows: Disabled

Post Processing: Very High

Fillrate: 100%

FPS Helper 1.21

Frames between 18 and 35, average around 24 in an average online game.

Whether i use these settings or 640 x480 everything on low i get no difference in fps, well about 3 increased on average.

The E8400 just doesn't seem to cut it with Arma2. If i am getting similar framerates with the much inferior 9600gt to your 5850, the e8400 must create a severe bottleneck.

I suspect that the draw distance is CPU intensive as i reduced this from 3km to 500m and it would hit low 30s in chernargorsk in an average online game. But i left it at 1200m as that is the minimum in order to play imo.

Edited January 13, 2010 by mc_conor

[Armstrong =:) 10]

Something is terribly wrong with the game BIS know's that they f"$(/#) up big time with ARMA2.

After reading all hundred of post's I don't see a solution.

I tried many, many setting, many "stuped" mods with low gras, low this, low that.

Game hase serius issues. No mather what I make to my PC game wont run normaly with at least 35 FPS. If I put everithing on LOW and downscale all my graphic setting in control panel I get shitty graphic's and 195 FPS If I look to the sky but when i look to the city, village, forest I get unplayable 17-21 FPS. And Im all alone on Chernaraus with no specific addons. I can't imagine puting big scale battle in editor. I couldn't finish none of the campaign's. Game just hurt's my eyes. Im big fan of OFP, ARMA1 and not so much fan for ARMA2...

Im playing on native 1920x1200 resolution on 26" screen. (Im not going on lower res. since I dont wont to broke my LCD on this bad game) Lower res. doesent make big diference. Playing on LOW isnt worth the time not even minute. Playing on med. is sufficent for me but cant play since game isnt optimised.

Now don't start reply's that I'm idiot that doesent know to count to 10.

MY SPECS ARE FOLOWING:

CPU= Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33Ghz (standard no OC)

RAM= Kingston 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3

GPU=GeForce 9800 GTX, 512 MB (tried OC-ing but not worth the energy consumtion since no big diference. Guys with NV-GTX295 have issues)

DISK=WD Raptor 160GB

MO.B= Asus Striker II Extreme

Windows 7 Ultimate OEM X64

Im running on Default setting's and with 1920x1200 res. I have 26" LCD so smaller RES. settings are excluded. I tried all sort of setting's im not that stuped not to try something diferent.

On FPS test 1 I have 29 FPS and on FPS test 2 I only get pathetic 17. No background program's running that would be causing problems. No connection, only NOD32.

Original ARMA2 Copy DVD box version, patched to 1.5 with only CBA 3.0 and sound replacement. And some Islands but this lagg is at all island's so no addon issue. Game is one big BUG AND BIS KNOWS IT. I saw enough in past 6 month's trying so badly to play game descent but quickly got convinced not to buy any game from them anymore. It's just noth worth.

Edited January 28, 2010 by Armstrong =:)

[Greg 0]

...Im playing on native 1920x1200 resolution ..

Well there's your problem. Please drop your 3D or game resolution to 1280x800 (or similar) and watch what happens to your average and minimum frame rates. And yes, the game does have a performance issue which a good chunk of this forum testifies to.

You will not break your LCD running this game at a lower resolution, and you don't even have to if you drop the 3D resolution alone. It will look bury and ugly but it will also become playable.

Edited January 29, 2010 by Greg

[Armstrong =:) 10]

Games gives me default interface 1920x1200 and 3d res. to 1280x800.

Game is playable, but it's blured and gives me "eyepain" after 10 minutes of play. If game let us play at lower resolution on high resolution screens would be great. But instead all that "stuff" liek team talk, compas, gets washed to the edges of screen so it seen only half way. They need to rework game in next patch mainly resolution changes.

Off topic.

I can play GTAIV normaly on any resolution without any graphical cake. Cars, people dont get affected by lower resolution.

[Greg 0]

Games gives me default interface 1920x1200 and 3d res. to 1280x800. Game is playable, but it's blured and gives me "eyepain" after 10 minutes of play. ..

I know what you mean by eyepain. I can't stand the in game upscaling either. I just run the whole game at 1280x800 both 3D and interface. The interface can be set to very small. It is not great but the game is then a bit blocky rather than blury. BIS has improved upscaling on their ToDo list but who knows when it will be implemented. Also, make sure you turn off post processing for both performance and to reduce eye-pain due to all the bur effects.

[Armstrong =:) 10]

I will try to play on 1280x800 but it's hard to get used in 2010. Since I played games on this resolution 10+ years back. And what settings do you ron then?

I tried many even on high res or medium and even on low difference betwen this 1280x800 vs 1920x1200 resolution I only gain 20 FPS more. Im not FPS junkie, I just want descent playability when I encounter forest's and cityies.

[nyran125 10]

to play this game with all the bells and whistles and have good fps aswell you really need to upgrade that card of yours for one thing (that card is just about 3 years old man). + This game in a years time with all the latest hardware in a year should run sweet. Well it better LOL or alot people will never buy another Bohemia game ever again if the performance doesnt increase with the next generation of Video cards.

I personally think they SHOULD of not gone so hard out on the Graphics and toned it back , Battlefield Bad company 2 (Yes doesnt look half as good texture wise) Runs fine and it doesnt look that bad. But the really good thing about BF bad company 2 is i can PLAY THE DAMN GAME PROPERLY!!!!!! i can play it and yes it is nowhere near as great looking as ARMA 2, not even close, But it looks ok . YAY yA yAy.

I think Arma 2 was only made for complete Elite computers that arent even out yet lol. Ill be interested if the new Ati cards and the new F100 series from Nividia ups the performance by much. Well hopefully ALOT. Because i want to upgrade my VIDEO card from a 8800 gts 512mb. but heard so much bad sht about this game with the 295GTX's that i skipped the 200 series completely and i am waiting for the F100 series line up . Better boost arma 2 though lol.

[hotel 10]

You know the more i bench and the more I play this game the less I can tell much difference between normal settings and very high. The shadows are the biggest thing i see huge differences in. When you run at a uber high res (ie. 19by12) then you wont see much difference between normal and very high textures. Also i don't see a lot of difference with the other settings either. Now obviously they do change things but when your in first person view (which you should be if your into the simulation aspect of this game) then you wont notice the graphic perks "as much". Third person I notice a lot more of the eye candy and actually wind up dieing more because I'm looking at my character and all the objects in awe at there beauty. LOL

Perks:

* Terrain detail increases the distance and height of grass layer (more to process with wind blowing (CPU bound))

* Object detail increases the detail of grass and object (ie vehicles\buildings) at greater distances. Sacrificing this in first person view is fine for me. Even flying at high speed you don't need it. If you do a lot of heli flying at low altitude low speeds then you might be more inclined to crank this up.

* Shadow detail is something I cannot sacrifice. It too seems to utilize my CPU to process but with this on normal your really old schooling shadows of the blocky days. On high you get a decent boost in performance rather than being on very high and still have similar GQ

* AF doesn't seem to effect my performance but in reality it doesn't work very well. The ground is still blurry about 100 meters in front of me where as in Arma 1 the AF seem to work a lot better at further distances

I have a 5870 and the game doesn't run 30+ all the time even in user created missions. The orange brush and trees are murder when everything is on Very High. The only thing I was able to move up on my graphics slider from my 4890 to this card was the Anti-Aliasing. Bare in mind I am at 1920 by 1200 with everything Very High and VD 3K using 4890 and terrain detail normal.

The 5870 gave me the ability to increase AA but the funny thing was I saw the same performance drop from terrain detail when i set it to Very High. With terrain detail off in domination i can run the game maxed with Super sampling enabled in my control panel. So the grass is murder as well.

My CPU or my hard drive I feel is holding me back. 955 BE OC to 3.82 and 500 Gig WD 7200 16mb HDD. The CPU has to be what is processing the grass and killing my game performance. I don't see the graphics card having an issue processing grass like that.

CONCLUSION:

A lot of you need to realize this game is more of a simulator. Have any of you been in a real flight simulator? The graphics suck HUGE! Also the machines that run those flight simulators out at the air force base are massive compared to our home machines. I too was upset about performance and posted many bad things about the game due to it. As time went on I realized more what this game was about and where it stands in the world of simulators. In all honesty BIS has done an awesome job of mixing graphics with simulation and have been above the bar compared to any other "Simulation" games. Stop trying to max the game! I have a 5870 and run everything normal/high and I still have better graphics than Arma 1 and and other simulators.

**As for the Battlefield BC2.......all I can say is the graphics and ambient sounds etc are amazing. The game play on the other hand is the worst I have ever seen.

If anything in my post about what things do needs correction please let me know via PM

[EDcase 87]

You may hate this but give it a try. It gives a HUGE boost to FPS and I think it looks very realistic.

AA disabled

Post Process HIGH

Fine details like fences suffer from no AA but for me the higher FPS makes up for it and the post process blur helps in the distance.

[goaz 11]

These are my specs: Ati 5850 x 2 @CROSSFIRE X

cpu i5 quadcore @3.8 ghz , 4 gb ddr3 1600mhz cl8, monitor syncmaster p2450h@1920x1080...

how should i configure the settings?

do i have to set 3d res and video res at the same figues or how?

Please help me how to configure my arma.cfg

Thanks!

[Dead3yez 0]

Another tip. :D

Run ArmA2 with High CPU priority. This gives more time for processing with ArmA2. For me it gives about 10% more performance when there are plenty of units on the field. In games such like Domination and Warfare etc I've noticed going from ~27FPS to ~30FPS. To run ArmA 2 with a high CPU priority you can go to task manager and right click arma2.exe and alter the priority that way. Alternatively you can edit your target line on your shortcut.

Add this to the front:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /C START "ArmA 2" /high 

Example:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /C START "ArmA 2" /high "D:\Program files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\beta\arma2.exe"  -world=empty -nosplash -winxp -mod=@ace;@acex;@acex_pla;@acex_sm;@cba;beta

:) Hope that helps some people.

[Greg 0]

...Run ArmA2 with High CPU priority. This gives more time for processing with ArmA2....

As a fellow video game programmer, I can't recommend this technique for improving game performance. Sure you may see some more FPS but you are effectively overriding the schedulers priority for certain tasks. Some of those tasks are critical, so the more you increase that priority the more problems you will encounter eg. sound breaking up, networking disruption, background game processing such as terrain streaming effected etc. There is probably no harm in bumping it up one level but don't push your luck. Just a friendly warning because you really can't get something for nothing with shared system resources. Close other applications while running games and let the developers and driver writers try to manage the system. If this technique was truly effective, the developers would do it from within the game.

[Dead3yez 0]

As a fellow video game programmer, I can't recommend this technique for improving game performance. Sure you may see some more FPS but you are effectively overriding the schedulers priority for certain tasks. Some of those tasks are critical, so the more you increase that priority the more problems you will encounter eg. sound breaking up, networking disruption, background game processing such as terrain streaming effected etc. There is probably no harm in bumping it up one level but don't push your luck. Just a friendly warning because you really can't get something for nothing with shared system resources. Close other applications while running games and let the developers and driver writers try to manage the system. If this technique was truly effective, the developers would do it from within the game.

So far, for me, I have not come across such problems that didn't already previously exist. It's optional and all I can say is that if You experience a performance increase within ArmA2 and don't have any other problems then why not? That might sound a little naive to you but I find it worthy to run in high priority because I of those reasons.

[otrebla_snake_ita 2]

Edit\/

Edited February 18, 2010 by otreblA_SNAKE_[ITA]

[sick1 13]

Error

[Gottberg 10]

I have a suggestion that hopefully will help noobs like me. This thread is helpful but it's over 60 pages in length. Perhaps a locked thread that one optimization master could start, that details each suggestion to get the game to play better.

It's just seems sometimes what one person says works, another person says doesn't work, and it's hard to keep everything in order. The fricking game has potential, but I'm like most people who get anywhere from 27-33 fps no matter what I do, and my computer is on the high end of power.

Regards...

[ChiefBoatsRet 10]

If the game runs smooth without problems and looks good with everything on high why do you care so much about framerate? I quit using fraps and go by feel and looks and am a much happier ArmA2 player.

[endofwar 10]

my game is installed in C on OS XP 32bit and minutely to block for 1 second. What should I do? My system hardware: CPU Core 2 Duo@3.0 GHz, 250 GTS video card, 4 GB RAM.

Edited February 21, 2010 by endofwar

[Fox '09 14]

If the game runs smooth without problems and looks good with everything on high why do you care so much about framerate? I quit using fraps and go by feel and looks and am a much happier ArmA2 player.

because lots of peoples computers are not fast enough to play it un tuned.

also guys, I think I might remake this thread.

[Thruster 10]

Hello all,

Quite new here, but I thought I would pass on some advice on how you could improve the overall smoothness of ARMA 2.

I found on a google search that it's possible to load most of the big texture files into RAM, so that they are not constantly being streamed from the hard drive (which causes stuttering frame rates). I tried this with success.

My frame rate did not improve or drop (stays about 30 fps no matter what the scene), but it does not stutter and is smooth as silk. I have to say it does add something to the quality of the gameplay. My FPS is steady even in those heavily wooded areas :)

Another interesting point is that I believe ARMA 2 is coded for a 32 bit, so therefore won't use anything above 4 GB of RAM. So if you have 8 GB, there is 4 GB available for storing textures if you use a RAMDisk (which transfers data at around 5.5 Gb/sec!). Somebody correct me if I am wrong - is this the same if it runs on a 64 bit system?

It's worth a shot and not that difficult to set up. Worked for me.

Google "ARMA 2 RAMDisk" I hope it helps...

Edited February 23, 2010 by Thruster

[otrebla_snake_ita 2]

There's already a topic about that ;)

Yes, it improves performance but what for those (like me) who have 4GB of RAM? (worse for those who have 2gb of ram!)

BIS MUST optimize the game engine for 32-bit systems but above all for 64bit systems.

[Leopoldo 10]

your graphics chip is waiting for cpu to feed it. clearly, your weak part is CPU here. PURE LOGIC , people need to understand that.

identify wich part is the bottleneck: set resolution to 640x480 no AA , no aniso.

same FPS ? lawl , you find .

With my experience thats pretty much baloney, there is just something wrong with the coding or driver optimizations for this game.

check my specs in sig, my game is pretty much capped at 25-30FPS no matter what changes i make i still only get 25-30FPS, the good thing is that it doesnt ever drop really.

On my low spec rig i actually get better FPS and thats only using a Intel core 2 Quad at its stock speed of 2.66GHz and a single GTX 285 at stock speeds. Everything about my second rig is mediocre or poor, i use an old Maxtor DiamondMax 10 for my OS and the game yet the game gets better FPS.

[darthmuller_cro 10]

Hello! I found some intresanting settup and my game run smooth like never before...My specs are phenom 2 965 oc and ati 5850 with catalyst driver 10.3.

language="English";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=-93750;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Windowed=0;

Resolution_W=1280;

Resolution_H=1024;

refresh=75;

winX=16;

winY=32;

winW=800;

winH=600;

winDefW=800;

winDefH=600;

Render_W=1920;

Render_H=1536;

FSAA=0;

postFX=3;

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=2;

HDRPrecision=8;

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=1063755776;

nonlocalVRAM=1870135296;

Please post is enyone helped that.

Edited March 15, 2010 by darthmuller_cro

[domokun 515]

I'm happy for you but what exactly did you change?

[darthmuller_cro 10]

My 3d preformance was -4194304 and i changed it to -93750 like it was detected with 10.1,

driver and GPU_DetectedFramesAhead from 3 to 2. I dont know why but expirience is much much better, no lags only little slow texture loads on threes but that is better too...if you have radeon 5850 try it.