i7 + GTX295, what's the deal?

[JohnyFrosty 10]

Hi,

I like to think that I donot have any graphical issues with the game. Single play missions go superb.

I do crash all the time in multiplayer, which I'm really sick of now :-( but maybe this IS due to graphical issues, I dont know...

SLI works, I'm happy with graphic performance, just would like to be able to play for more than 10 minutes at a time.

What's this 'HT' off/on people talk about?

cheers, enjoy!

Edited June 21, 2009 by JohnyFrosty
adding some info

[Alienfreak 0]

i7 CPUs have a feature called Hyperthreading...

Go for Wikipedia :)

[JohnyFrosty 10]

i7 CPUs have a feature called Hyperthreading...

Go for Wikipedia :)

thanks!! I'll go ... hmm.... threading ???..... or hypering??.... ;-)

[Alienfreak 0]

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39237341,00.htm

A good read. This is probably why the performance seems to be so bad... and the game stutters...

[Philll 10]

Guys... so much misinformation, if you don't know what your talking about please stay out of the thread. There's 5 or so posts there that are completely false.

You just posted a link to an article from 2005 about performance on servers for HT, it has nothing to do with gaming desktops or the exact game in question, it is totally irrelevant.

Again, if you don't know what you're posting, don't post it.

[B-oodThorn 10]

Guys... so much misinformation, if you don't know what your talking about please stay out of the thread. There's 5 or so posts there that are completely false.

You just posted a link to an article from 2005 about performance on servers for HT, it has nothing to do with gaming desktops or the exact game in question, it is totally irrelevant.

Again, if you don't know what you're posting, don't post it.

Spot on!!..HT has been around for a while and its not a new feature for i7....the main problem with Arma 2 is it hasnt been optimized yet or even finished, and graphics drivers havent yet been updated by nvidia or ati...give it a few months and we should see a difference.

[Supernova 0]

Guys... so much misinformation, if you don't know what your talking about please stay out of the thread. There's 5 or so posts there that are completely false.

You just posted a link to an article from 2005 about performance on servers for HT, it has nothing to do with gaming desktops or the exact game in question, it is totally irrelevant.

Again, if you don't know what you're posting, don't post it.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i7-975-950_7.html#sect0

Don't lecture those who have i7 systems on the benefits of HT in gaming because there arent any. The majority of games aren't optimized for HT that is why you see performance taking a hit. Generally turning off HT will yield noticeable improvements.

Edited June 22, 2009 by Supernova

[galzohar 31]

Yeah, that article is totally irrelevant.

I just got my i7-920 HD4890 4GB DDR3 up and running (with win XP 32 bit, after all other OSs keep getting complained about I'd rather stay away until the complaints stop). 100% fillrate 1680X1050 and everything on highest is smooth as butter normally (tested on the first scenario), but then on certain events stutters pretty badly (freezes for 0.5++ seconds then continues as normal). It seems like they might all be related to the friendly helicopter that comes when your team sees the incoming APC. That is, the first time the chopper came it instantly started stuttering BADLY.

I just got it so hadn't overclocked it yet, wanted to get everything running first. I wonder if it'll make a difference, but I doubt it since it seems like a fundamental game issue.

I wonder if that stuttering is caused by CPU, RAM or HDD issues, though. It's probably not the graphics card though since graphic card performance issues seem to usually express themselves in the form of lower FPS rather than total freezes. Is there any way to troubleshoot which of those is the bottleneck when those stutters occur? Not hinting it's a hardware problem, but at least we'd know what stuff to try tweak if we knew which part of the hardware the game is "abusing".

[Philll 10]

Don't lecture those who have i7 systems on the benefits of HT in gaming because there arent any. The majority of games aren't optimized for HT that is why you see performance taking a hit. Generally turning off HT will yield noticeable improvements.

First of all, I didn't lecture anybody about HT, genius. Second of all, I have HT turned off as stated previously in the thread. Perhaps if your comprehension skills were a bit better you would know that.

[Jonney Napalm 10]

Firstly hello all, ArmA newbie here. :)

I'm running and i7 920 with a GTX 295 and I've been getting a reasonable framerate that makes the game playable and fun, so that's good.

I've, on the bad side been suffering alot of CTD's, so that's not good.

But anyways, I've been browsing the forum for some clues to the above and came across this thread.

I decided to disable HT just to see what it did and OMG, 0-2 fps on the carrier menu screen!

No idea why, just went into the bios (Asus Rampage II Extreme) and disabled it and, wham!, unplayable.

Just wondering how other peeps are getting a smoother ride with it disabled.

Seriously feeling like my setup ain't performing TBH.

[-=seany=- 5]

Yeah, that article is totally irrelevant.

I just got my i7-920 HD4890 4GB DDR3 up and running (with win XP 32 bit, after all other OSs keep getting complained about I'd rather stay away until the complaints stop). 100% fillrate 1680X1050 and everything on highest is smooth as butter normally (tested on the first scenario), but then on certain events stutters pretty badly (freezes for 0.5++ seconds then continues as normal). It seems like they might all be related to the friendly helicopter that comes when your team sees the incoming APC. That is, the first time the chopper came it instantly started stuttering BADLY.

I just got it so hadn't overclocked it yet, wanted to get everything running first. I wonder if it'll make a difference, but I doubt it since it seems like a fundamental game issue.

I wonder if that stuttering is caused by CPU, RAM or HDD issues, though. It's probably not the graphics card though since graphic card performance issues seem to usually express themselves in the form of lower FPS rather than total freezes. Is there any way to troubleshoot which of those is the bottleneck when those stutters occur? Not hinting it's a hardware problem, but at least we'd know what stuff to try tweak if we knew which part of the hardware the game is "abusing".

There was a problem in Arma1 where a single texture unloaded on an object would cause the game to stutter (caused constant FPS loss) while it was waiting to load. Do you notice any missing textures around when you are getting the stutter? Might be a dash board in a vehicle, might be your gun or part of your uniform. Maybe try to lower the texture detail just to test it.

In Arma1, in Warfare for example, I spawned a truck and my game was stuttering any time I went near the truck, couldn't figure it out until I got into the truck and noticed the dashboard texture had decided to take like 3 minutes to load, then it finally smoothed out when it had loaded. I think that particular issue with "stuck" textures may have been fixed in Arma1 but it still sucks the way streaming textures causes such a performance hit, up to 50% my frame rate I have noticed.

[Philll 10]

No idea why, just went into the bios (Asus Rampage II Extreme) and disabled it and, wham!, unplayable.

Just wondering how other peeps are getting a smoother ride with it disabled.

Technically it doesn't make sense so I'm unsure of that. Did you disable anything else?

[Jonney Napalm 10]

Exactly Philll, that's why I posted really.

Nope, just HT disabled, I'll go back and recheck what I did tho.

[galzohar 31]

Just for the hell of it, try -world=empty and see if that does anything to your 0-2 FPS problem. Not a supposed solution, but seeing if it does anything might point at the problem really.

Yeah Seany, it does seem like some "loading" thing. Though when the helicopter was coming it was stuttering every few seconds for a duration of 0.5-1sec for a while, so if it was just about loading the helicopter's texture it should've only stuttered once. Also I don't think I even looked at the helicopter, just its presence made the game stutter.

Anyone has a mission that spawns stuff on-command to test this idea?

If it's actually a texture loading issue, would that be loading it from HDD to RAM or something else?

Also on another thread someone complained about how wasteful the mission scripting in Arma 2 is, so that's another possible cause (helicopter seems scripted to attack the APC -> causes stutters when running script).

[B-oodThorn 10]

Why are you disabling things in your bios?...Is it because of a random comment in a forum?..Think about it logically..your rig probably plays every other game....and why?...Because its got mature Graphics Drivers and the latest game manufacture Patch..just be patient!!!!

[Alienfreak 0]

You just posted a link to an article from 2005 about performance on servers for HT, it has nothing to do with gaming desktops or the exact game in question, it is totally irrelevant.

First of all, I didn't lecture anybody about HT, genius. Second of all, I have HT turned off as stated previously in the thread. Perhaps if your comprehension skills were a bit better you would know that.

At least you have a "healthy" ego :) (or so to say... one click short off the report button)

And it IS relevant to gaming desktops and the exact game of question.

But as I see it you can englighten us, the dumber part of humanity, with you wisdom.

Why are you disabling things in your bios?...Is it because of a random comment in a forum?..Think about it logically..your rig probably plays every other game....and why?...Because its got mature Graphics Drivers and the latest game manufacture Patch..just be patient!!!!

Its not like his PC will blow up when he changes a thing in his BIOS.

So what is your explanation why ArmA2 runs worse with HT enabled?

Edited June 22, 2009 by Alienfreak

[Jonney Napalm 10]

Well, this time I tried exactly the same thing (Intel® HT Technology - Disable selected)

and I'm now getting 10 fps more (gone from 50 to 60) on the carrier menu screen.

Totally weird! More investigation required methinks!

@Bloodthorn, it's called 'bouncing idea's around'

That's how problems get resolved, I know it's not a 'fix', but it helps people to try and understand the issue at hand.

I'm gonna select HT back on, but just wanted to see what effect it had off.

Anyways, not ryed playing with HT disabled yet, so I think I'll give it a quick try.

A very quick try as it's 02:30 here :(

[B-oodThorn 10]

I never said his bios would blow up so dont bate a arguement.

Lets see some valid information on HT issues first,screenshots?..different missions?..settings?....Phill is the only one to post full details (quick scan of thread)

The more info the better,just trying to help you guys!!!

[galzohar 31]

There are a lot of discussions as to whether HT is a good or bad idea for gaming. At the end it depends on how the game code is actually written, so a recommendation directly from BIS would be very nice. The next best thing (other than massive testing) would be to see how many "heavy" threads the game actually runs on AI-heavy and/or graphic-heavy scenarios.

[Nazul 10]

I've got an i7@2.66 GTX295 vista64 6gigs ram. I just disabled HT and noticed no difference on the mission i made to test it.

Performance in general is inconsistent with htis game, it will run fantastic 70-80% of the time, other times its jerky with low fps.

[Philll 10]

And it IS relevant to gaming desktops and the exact game of question.

But as I see it you can englighten us, the dumber part of humanity, with you wisdom.

Alright then, please explain to me how Hyper threading on SQL Server and Citrix Terminal Server installations being enabled or disabled, from PC gear back in 2005, 4 years ago relates to PC gaming systems, with gear from 2009 running Armed Assault 2?

Moron.

[shadowze 1]

Regarding the HT on /off thing again

This is why I think it makes a difference

HT OFF: When HT is off the system presents to OS as having 4 cpu cores

(these are physical real cores that exist on the silicon) ,

the OS then hopefully balances the different processes across these cores and all is well in the world.

HT ON: When HT is on the system presents to the OS as having 8 cores

( ONLY 4 of them are real , other 4 are virtual ) , Now when the OS goes

to balance out the processes across the cores and there is a problem.

ONLY 4 are real , so how to you balance across 8 cores when only 4 exist ?

Context switching : this involves storing what ever a real core is doing (register contents / stack space)

somewhere and then switching in another context ( another cores process ) ,

this saving / restoring does 2 things.

1. Wastes time storing / restoring contexts

2. Buggers about with TIMING in critical sections of code.

Google context switching to know more!

Did some more experimentation yesterday with fraps under xp sp3 with my sig stuff:

I played the single player mission 04 a few times with fraps running:

ok , I admit its not the most scientific method in the world but:

2009-06-21 09:23:23 - arma2

Frames: 21551 - Time: 425261ms - Avg: 50.677 - Min: 6 - Max: 63 - settings normal - post off

2009-06-22 01:07:56 - arma2

Frames: 10067 - Time: 271322ms - Avg: 37.104 - Min: 8 - Max: 61 - all high post on

2009-06-22 01:13:22 - arma2

Frames: 14943 - Time: 400764ms - Avg: 37.286 - Min: 25 - Max: 62 - all high post on

2009-06-22 01:21:52 - arma2

Frames: 14007 - Time: 363573ms - Avg: 38.526 - Min: 27 - Max: 61 - all high post low

2009-06-22 01:29:23 - arma2

Frames: 21630 - Time: 495178ms - Avg: 43.681 - Min: 25 - Max: 63 - all high post off

About 7fps between all high gfx settings and all normal with post processing off ( thought I would have been more myself but as Jack Burton says "You never can tell" )

[ubermachtig 0]

I'd just read this in a Dutch forum, ArmA 2 related:

" quote:

Dani86 schreef op zondag 21 juni 2009 @ 00:08:

Heb arma 2 een beetje gespeeld vandaag, hij is echt superzwaar om m'n systeem. Het maakt ook niet uit waar ik de graphics settings op zet.

Hij loopt met alles op "very high" net zo traag als met alles op low 8)7

specs in sig.

Ik heb een soortgelijk probleem gehad met mijn E6600 op een Asus P5K mobo. Mijn systeem was overclocked met een lagere CPU multiplier en hoge FSB (412*8). Toen had ik ook constant een lage framerate in Arma 2 (onspeelbaar), ongeacht de settings (sub 10 FPS..).

Toen ik hem weer op de normale multiplier zette werkte alles weer goed (366*9) (gemiddeld zo'n 30/35 FPS)

Beetje raar, maar misschien heb je hier wat aan."

It basically says his overclock really messed up the performance in a negative way. When clocked it back to stock speeds, his FPS boosted up.

[shadowze 1]

Maybe the guys a tard , and doesnt have a clue how to overclock properly ?

[ubermachtig 0]

Maybe the guys a tard , and doesnt have a clue how to overclock properly ?

Instead of calling people tards, you can give it a shot. Maybe you'll be surprised by the outcome???