Campaign Missions limited to 25fps?

[da_smirk 10]

Hi all,

thats my first post here, be kind :)

I noticed a strange, performance related phenomenon.

No matter what I try and do, I can`t get beyond 25fps in the campaign missions (right now at 'Manhattan'). Not even when staring in the sky! Weak videocard you might guess, but I just received my HD4890 (replaced a 8800GT) and its exactly the same 25fps crap. (I use fraps to measure). The following description is equal for both cards.

In the mission editor, the fps performance is completely charming and scaling well to the settings and the CPU clock.

After fiddling around for some time I`m now convinced that its an artificial and deliberately set limit. Why? I have no clue. What makes me sure of that is:

-none of the 4 cores is ever at its limit when i play

-CPU at 2,4 Ghz or 3,2 Ghz: 25fps max, all the time

-no matter how low the settings (640x480!) : 25fps

Now something special: as some guys at the 'NV users read this' thread already stated: the GPU Temp doesn`t go up like in other games. That is a clear sign for not working at full load. I extend that to: it only works hard enough to get those 25fps.

Let me clearifiy that with the 'fill rate' or '3d resolution' option. Set to 100% which is 1280x1024 for my 19", the Radeon gives me a nice audible feedback that its doing a bit more than just drawing the Windows desktop. Let me quit the campaign and return to the menu: the fan roars up and Fraps says something like 60+ Frames. I couldn`t believe it! Loaded the Manhatten mission again, set the Fillrate to 200% and it still gave me 23-25fps, but the GPU temp and the fan really went to the sky. Means: the GPU struggles harder to get those 25fps, but still doesn`t go beyond that.

Final thought: unless its a weird constellation in my pc, that limits the performance JUST IN THE CAMPAIGN, the developers really limit the games performance to a very unpleasant framerate. 40+ fps when playing single missions is so much smoother...

Does anyone get past that framerate in the campaign?

PC specs: Vista64 SP1, 6Gig, Q6700 @ 3,2 Ghz, HD4890/8800GT

tried all the -winxp -cpucount stuff, same result

latest:

-ARMA2 Build german

-Catalyst 9.6/ Nv 186.18

-DirectX

[-=seany=- 5]

I could only get about 28-30 when looking at the sky or ground in campaign. In the editor I get the full 120 of my refresh rate. There does seem to be a problem.

[von_paulus 0]

Does anyone get past that framerate in the campaign?

Sure. In the first four campaign missions, get around 25/60.

[da_smirk 10]

Sure. In the first four campaign missions, get around 25/60.

What about the later and more compley ones? You`re using XP, I`m reading info that the game runs better on it rather than vista/7.

[von_paulus 0]

What about the later and more compley ones? You`re using XP, I`m reading info that the game runs better on it rather than vista/7.

I haven't yet tried them.

[whateverman1579 10]

i think it's because of your cpu having trouble handling all of the AI, i have the same problem, my video card does fine on all high, but the framerate stays the same because my cpu is bottlenecking the game.

[Cpt.Goose 10]

My campaign is relatively the same, when I got ot manhatten I noticed the average frame rate drop about 4. I guess it's a larger mission with more things to render. But I can stay around 26-32 avg. frame rate on the missions. So I don't know if the cap is correct. Looking at your specs you definitely should be getting better frames then what you are.

I would suspect you check your drivers are the latest from ATI and then wait for a patch. I have a feeling once the companies get there hand on the game both ATI and Nvidia should role out better support in future drivers along with BI. I think BI is going to have a patch that will definitely change what it renders and how it renders objects due to so many people complaining about performance. I think the code is just very "Beta" and they need to polish it. Should have post pone the title but everyone wants money now.

Core 2 Dual @3.6ghz/4GB DDR 2 @1066mhz/EVGA Geforce 8800GTS 512mb G92/Rez @ 1680x1050/Setting Medium/High mix

[Helmut_AUT 0]

Arma2 is seriously CPU limited. The regrettable fact is that BIS stuffed more AI in their mission than the average >1 year old CPU will handle. Either that or they really is a performance leak somewhere.

[Fortran 1]

Take a look here: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=78365, as suggested by slimSpencer it is basically down to the AI + your CPU, there is no "blocking" for the AI and no matter where on the map they are located it will still utilize your CPU to calculate them. The last image in that thread demonstrates this where I placed 150 AI soldiers spread out miles across the map, the result was the FPS became choked at 30fps. Makes no difference if they are close to you or you can see them the engine will still utilize your CPU to conduct their calculations resulting in a choke on the fps. This isn't really a bug as such as the ARMA gameworld is perpetual and the AI that populate it will act and patrol as instructed even if that is miles and miles away from your position. The only solution would be to utilize some kind of dynamic loading/unloading of the AI characters based on their relative proximity to the player.

Edited July 5, 2009 by Fortran

[Helmut_AUT 0]

The only thing they can do (and IMHO should have done) is to enable two AI modes: With Micro AI, and without (same AI as in Arma1). Depending on distance to player, they need to switch Bots between these two AI versions.

Because if a player is not present to see it, it really shouldn't matter if the AI fights like it did in A1 - without using cover. A1 firefights weren't that bad, and we had NO micro AI.

Only when the player closes in to engagement range, or at least close to visual range, should they swap in the "Micro AI" so the player will have the challenge. But if there's another two squads fighting somewhere far off in the north, let them do it in the A1 way of "go prone and shoot" - it will not really matter to the game feeling, but free up resources.

Right now, WARFARE for example is completely unplayable for me at 15FPS - and my CPU even exceeds the "Recommended Optimum". I do not believe they meant to release a game which only people on systems 1 year old or younger can run.

[da_smirk 10]

I also had a CPU limit in mind, but what really destroyed that guessing is the fact that lowering my Q6700`s clock from 3,2 to 2,4 Ghz didn`t change anything. Frames should have dropped with 1/3 of cpu speed gone, shouldn`t they?

I`m gonna take a look at the thread you mentioned, Fortran.

After the HD4890`s quick death, im now back at playing with a 8800GT and, at least in the campaign, theres no major performance difference. Though it`s a complete contrast in single missions.

update:

Ok I just read it; I`m not so much in multi threaded programming but I think the cpu limit exists due to the necessary thread cooperation. When looking at the per core utilization, you see that every one of them is doing somethin whilst playing but none`s really at full load. I can just guess that the load balancing between available cores isn`t optimal, because there are threads wating on each other. Anyway, "that`s not my construction site" as we say in germany. The guys at BI get payed for doing that, and they surely are aware of those problems.

Edited July 7, 2009 by da_smirk