Bushes and Trees incredibly eating Frames !

[Cionara 10]

I noticed a strange thing.

When I'm some meters away from a bush i got 60 fps, when I'm in a bush I got 60 fps. But when I'm near a bush and look at it i got 45-50 fps.

I was able to repeat this with every bush, walked near it and looked directly into the leaves and the result was 10 Fps less then before. I mean what the hell takes that much frames there ? HDR trough leaves ? But this wouldn't explain why i got 60 fps again when standing directly in it....

So here are some comparisons :

60fps not looking at the bush:

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/4615/arma22009060622573733.png

50fps looking at the bush:

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6095/arma22009060622574708.png

---------

60fps not looking at the tree:

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/5844/arma22009060622560474.png

45fps looking at the tree:

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6734/arma22009060622561382.png

---------

Someone able to explain this ? It can only have to do with the bushes/trees because I tested it on many different places with and without a city.

greetz Cionara

Edited June 7, 2009 by Sniperwolf572

[xmongx 0]

It would seem to me like you are under more load when looking at the bush which is perfectly understandable due to the intracacies involved with modelling semi realistic vegetation.

also in what version of reality is a variance of 15 fps resulting in a low of 45-50FPS bad?

Edited June 6, 2009 by xmongx
GO CIDER!!!

[Alex72 1]

Vegetation (trees and bushes mainly) have always taken a lot of performance in the ARMA series. In ArmA1 they killed most machines when you looked through a scope into a forest but BIS made this much better later on in a patch. I think the trees looked a bit worse (not much noticable though!) and saved a lot of FPS. Maybe they can do it again hopefully. Not only for high end pc's but for the whole range. Maybe an option to get lower shaders or what it was if needed?

Alex

[thr0tt 12]

Amazing, I get my best performance in or near trees and bushes. The slow down is in towns or near buildings with very poor LOD's popping up all ove the place.

[Cionara 10]

I got minimum ~50fps in a town like Chernogorsk for example and this little bush even takes more frames than a city, I can't explain it to me...

Vegetation (trees and bushes mainly) have always taken a lot of performance in the ARMA series. In ArmA1 they killed most machines when you looked through a scope into a forest

Ok but this doesn't explain why I got 60 fps again when I stand directly in it or some meters away.. it's only on this close distance to it...

So when I go some distance away there are even more trees and bushes in the screen but performance is best with 60 fps...

There must happen something when I'm standing on this 2-3 feet distance to the bush/tree. Hdr ?

Maybe someone able to test this, too ?

Start fraps, go ingame, and slowly move towards a tree and watch the fps.

Would be great to know if it's not only me having that issue.

Edited June 6, 2009 by Cionara

[xmongx 0]

http://linda.bistudio.com/

[usmc123 1]

I got minimum ~50fps in a town like Chernogorsk for example and this little bush even takes more frames than a city, I can't explain it to me...

Ok but this doesn't explain why I got 60 fps again when I stand directly in it or some meters away.. it's only on this close distance to it...

So when I go some distance away there are even more trees and bushes in the screen but performance is best with 60 fps...

There must happen something when I'm standing on this 2-3 feet distance to the bush/tree. Hdr ?

Maybe someone able to test this, too ?

Start fraps, go ingame, and slowly move towards a tree and watch the fps.

Would be great to know if it's not only me having that issue.

Becuase as you move farther away the trees typically look worse, their quality sort of diminishes. Not a whole lot but if you compare looking at trees from 500 meters and 5 meters there will be a difference in quality. I'm sure HDR also plays a part in it since the light has to go through parts of the tree and leave shadows at other parts.

[Cionara 10]

I tested some more and it's only when you are looking in the direction of the sun trough a tree. Not when looking directly into it because then it only renders the sky what of course doesn't take any performance.

Looking at the tree to the opposite direction of the sun (60 Fps):

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/5124/arma22009060701283953.png

Looking at the tree to the direction of the sun (45 Fps):

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/7262/arma22009060701285534.png

Edited June 7, 2009 by Sniperwolf572

[xmongx 0]

sorry

[dmarkwick 261]

Maybe it's something to do with the shader responsible for the trunk bark? At a certain LoD, and at a certain distance, and at a certain light incidence value, there's some slowdown.

[bravo 6 0]

I remember this was a problem in arma1, but after a while BIS made things more fluent in a patch.

I believe if this is a serious issue, they will fix it. They fix every thing. :)

[xmongx 0]

He's rendering a lot more stuff, on top of the hdr/bloom peeking through the foileage, in that second picture.

Edited June 7, 2009 by xmongx

[paragraphic l 2]

In ArmA the problem was with too demanding shaders. They where not really optimized and outdated I guess, as ArmA II uses 3.0 shaders compared to the 2.0 shaders in ArmA.

I would guess the First LOD has still some heavy shaders? But that wouldn't explain it doesn't cause any problems when not facing the sun. It might be HDR or something else that has to do with light and the rendering of it.

[Gumbah 10]

I have the same Problem. I have a 9800gx2 and i only can play the game on normal settings. Because the trees and bushes kill my FPS.

If i look with a scope throu a bush in to the sun, my frames going from 60 fps to 15 fps.

Also if i stand 2 meter from a bush and zoom in to it or not. Also 15fps.

Its not playable. I had the same issue with ArmA1.

After the newest nvidia patch 185.58 that was gone. But in ArmA2 it is now back.

Also i have flickering if SLI is anabled in ArmA1 bevore that driver. In ArmA2 i have only flickering on loading screen (like in the disco) ^^.

I think the problem is something with that HDR Effect.

I hope they will fix that quick, because it realy suxs. :-(

Edited June 7, 2009 by Gumbah

[Potatomasher 0]

Amazing, I get my best performance in or near trees and bushes. The slow down is in towns or near buildings with very poor LOD's popping up all ove the place.

Yeah i noticed the same thing. In forests or fields where there are no buildings near i got 20+ fps even with very high/high settings, but as soon as there is buildings near my fps drops to unplayable. 5-15 fps. Even when i put everything to low i got similar fps under 20

I have now tried everything from the day i bought Arma2 and now i'm pretty sure the game needs optimizing a lot. Otherwise low details should have impact on performance. Now it doesn't.

[Gumbah 10]

Did Bohemia read there forums ? And will there be an solution in the next time?

[kridian 33]

I'm just curious if you'll get that bad of a frame rate hit using Keygety's addon motion blur + bloom removal tool(?) armaholic_link

Let us know! I always try to turn off postprocessing effects with any game.

Edited June 8, 2009 by Kridian

[Gumbah 10]

Dont helps me at all

[Potatomasher 0]

I'm just curious if you'll get that bad of a frame rate hit using Keygety's addon motion blur + bloom removal tool(?) armaholic_link

Let us know! I always try to turn off postprocessing effects with any game.

Helped a bit, but doesn't much. Only about 2-4 fps max.

And one thing is that i really like the motion blur + bloom that BIS had put in the game. Looks very good when you run with the squad and all the jaggies disappear from the characters. Using fillrate higher isn't an option because that kills my frames totally.

I also keep my PP at very high. Looks much better that way and strangely i got better performance with very high setting than low.

I know many PC users hate bloom + HDR effects, but i have always liked them because i hate jaggies that are clearly visible without.

Edited June 8, 2009 by Potatomasher

[electron-libre 10]

Amazing, I get my best performance in or near trees and bushes. The slow down is in towns or near buildings with very poor LOD's popping up all ove the place.

I have exactly the same behavior. While runing throug forests and trees I'v got 30+ FPS .

While runing through cities, I've got aroud 20 FPS and strange textures behavior.

[OverDawg 10]

Stop staring at bush

[berghoff 11]

I think it just a case of alpha overdraw (happens when you look with a scope through dense foliage) in ArmA it was quite bad, don't know if its improved in ArmA II. Lowering shading detail will improve performance.

[huendchen 0]

Lowering the shadow detail from high to normal increased my framerate about 40% - 50% when staring at a bush; the other settings didn't affect the framerate much.

Edited June 8, 2009 by huendchen

[Bravo0246 0]

Yeah i hated this in ArmA, which i always had to play with shadows disabled, which after i do that trees etc have no effect on FPS, otherwise frames would turn to crap. Hoping it's not as bad in ArmA 2 as people are saying.

Though if does, disabling shadows isn't all that bad, cause game can still look great without them.

[-=seany=- 5]

Sorry to beat my drum :D, but this thread deservers a bump now the euro version is out. This is still a problem. Vegetation is too erratic in performance. It looks amazing, I love it and mostly it performs ok. But in a game, it killing your fps out of nowhere just ruins the atmosphere. It seems to be related to High Shadows. Normal seems ok.

Edited June 27, 2009 by -=seany=-