Bad Fps down to number of units on map.

[pipsta 10]

Guys

Reading through all your threads with regards to poor fps with what ever settings you are using, Your rigs are plently man enough to run this game.

What I have noticed.

I start up editor, whack the graphics settings all to very high i can get 30-40 fps average where ever i go on the map. My rig is not the best in the world.

9800gtx x2

dual core 4800 X2

2g ram

As soon as i start adding units to the map the fps starts to fall.

I dont think however much you tweak the graphics, you are not going to improve things a great deal.

The load here is on the CPU, carrying out all the AI's thinking/calculations etc. You've even said yourselves the GPU load is at 20-30%. If the GPU's are not being stressed then are we still seeing poor fps, stuttering.

Conclusion.

Either BIS have been to ambitious with the complexity of AI and current rigs are not yet powerful enough to run the game effiently or they have coded it in such away that this game requires massive amount of CPU power or there are memory leaks everywhere using up all our machines CPU resources.

My 2p worth

Your thoughts?

[Yapab 10]

I think most people already knew this but its good that you point it out to the new players.

I dont think the AI is that extraordinary that it would require so much power from even i7 3ghz machines.

So I think its pretty badly optimised and has problems... after all these are the same guys who made ARMA1 and that ren like a dog until a few patches later.

Yapa

[pipsta 10]

If they know this why are going on and on about tweaking graphics settings etc.

[Kenjineering 10]

to make the best out of what we have! :)

[pipsta 10]

yeah but as most have said, no matter what settings you change fps stays same.

Down to CPU calculations not, texture detail etc etc

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

I have created a mission with (to borrow a phrase from another game) a "metric s*** tonne" of ai on and it doesn't nuke the fps as badly as the campaign mode, in fact the fps stays pretty constant.

[BloodRaideN 10]

I think most people already knew this but its good that you point it out to the new players.

I dont think the AI is that extraordinary that it would require so much power from even i7 3ghz machines.

So I think its pretty badly optimised and has problems... after all these are the same guys who made ARMA1 and that ren like a dog until a few patches later.

Yapa

Actually the AI is extraordinary as it can navigate independently in centimeters on a 230km2 chunk of land. Other games such as Crysis require the map maker to place points (pre-defined AI pathways) where the AI are actually able to walk, points where they can take cover etc. If you just dump an AI in Cryengine Sandbox Editor, they'll just stand around with their penis in their hands.

In ArmA2 they AI have to figure out on the fly what applies as cover/concealment as well as navigating on a grid with less than a meter in between nav points.

Now think of that and multiply that by every AI soldier, vehicle, chopper...

[von_paulus 0]

Actually the AI is extraordinary as it can navigate independently in centimeters on a 230km2 chunk of land. Other games such as Crysis require the map maker to place points (pre-defined AI pathways) where the AI are actually able to walk, points where they can take cover etc. If you just dump an AI in Cryengine Sandbox Editor, they'll just stand around with their penis in their hands.

In ArmA2 they AI have to figure out on the fly what applies as cover/concealment as well as navigating on a grid with less than a meter in between nav points.

Now think of that and multiply that by every AI soldier, vehicle, chopper...

True. This is not a script AI. It's a true AI.

And yes, it will be optimized by BIS and by modders in terms of performance and efficiency. Please be patient, you've a game for the next couple of years. :)

[Mcoupe99 10]

True. This is not a script AI. It's a true AI.

And yes, it will be optimized by BIS and by modders in terms of performance and efficiency. Please be patient, you've a game for the next couple of years. :)

I guess the real questions are:

Is it a code optimisation issue that BIS will be able to sort out soon or do the majority have to wait for PC's to come out that are man enough and spend hard earned cash to upgrade? i.e., is this a game slighly before its time when it comes to hardware, therefore anoying lots of people who think they have kit that should run the game at highest details?

Is this good or bad by BIS?

Good long term or bad short term?

Or Both?

[Helmut_AUT 0]

Please see my suggestion in the relevant forum for BIS to implement "A1-like" AI for those bots not currently in contact with the player.

[von_paulus 0]

I guess the real questions are:

Is it a code optimisation issue that BIS will be able to sort out soon or do the majority have to wait for PC's to come out that are man enough and spend hard earned cash to upgrade? i.e., is this a game slighly before its time when it comes to hardware, therefore anoying lots of people who think they have kit that should run the game at highest details?

Is this good or bad by BIS?

Good long term or bad short term?

Or Both?

I understand your concerns. As you may guess I can't answer for that. But BIS is always optimizing the performance of the game and fixing issues. I guess you're new to the series. This kind of things happened with Operation Flashpoint and with ARMA. Both games since the first version until the last patch was out had an significant increase of performance, not due to hypothetical upgrading hardware, but by pure optimization. BIS is known for this. It's one of the reasons why there is a loyal community surrounding BIS products.

How long it will take I just don't know. But with each patch things in general will get better.

[stun 5]

Can someone else please try this and let me know what your result is. Open task manager and select the performance tab. Go into the editor and place a soldier as player on one of the islands (don't add any AI units). Walk around the island, or stand still for 30 seconds or so. Then check your CPU usage in task manager.

I'm getting close to 100% usage on both cores without having any AI active. I have a C2D E6400 @ 2.68, 8800GT, 2gigs of Ram and xp sp3.

The CPU usage seems a bit excesive to me. I have only tested this a couple of times, I will need to re check to make sure I'm not imagining it all.

Edited July 7, 2009 by stun

[nuggetz 0]

I just tried this on the island map and with my character just running around the airfield, I noticed that 2 of my 4 CPU's were at about 85-90% while the other 2 were at 50%. However, I added 5 or 6 more soldiers to the map - they were BLUFOR just like me and I placed them on the map with nothing to do and they were not visible to me as I spaced them apart on all corners of the island and the CPU behavior on all my cores were 80% 40% 40% 30% but the FPS dropped by half! Even though it seemed like I had CPU cycles to spare on all of my cores, the FPS suffered immensely. I'm not sure what the soldiers are programed to do by just placing them on the map. Not sure if I'd just find them standing there if I came across them or if they'd be seeking out enemies by default. All I did was double click an area on the map and dropped some soldiers on the map.

Edited July 7, 2009 by nuggetz

[Yapab 10]

I cant comment about the AI in this game and Crysis, but from what I saw in Crysis the AI didnt seem to be scripted or use pre-defined path nodes... the soldiers could walk anywhere you put them and fight using cover etc... but thats another topic.

I know the AI is advanced but to bring i7 CPU's at 3ghz down to 30fps basically means the majority of players with decent but older (1 or 2 years) pcs wont get a playable game.

Also as stun is saying, why is the game using 100% cpu usage in the Menu and Editor without any AI navigating or fighting?

I'm on an old machine but still pretty fast (in every other game), its a Core2Duo at 3.5ghz... so faster than the fastest available without overclocking. Yet my FPS still drops to below 20 in the towns...

I know that ARMA1 was patched so I'm hoping they can improve the perf, however I dont think we'll see a miracle like in ARMA patch 1.14 where they stated 100% performance improvement!

I played OPFlash1 on a 700mhz Athlon XP :) back in 2001 and it seemed to run fast for me.. dont remember having perf issues back then. Still have the box and cd, in as new condition :P

Yapa

[MechanicalElk 10]

I just tried this on the island map and with my character just running around the airfield, I noticed that 2 of my 4 CPU's were at about 85-90% while the other 2 were at 50%. However, I added 5 or 6 more soldiers to the map - they were BLUFOR just like me and I placed them on the map with nothing to do and they were not visible to me as I spaced them apart on all corners of the island and the CPU behavior on all my cores were 80% 40% 40% 30% but the FPS dropped by half! Even though it seemed like I had CPU cycles to spare on all of my cores, the FPS suffered immensely. I'm not sure what the soldiers are programed to do by just placing them on the map. Not sure if I'd just find them standing there if I came across them or if they'd be seeking out enemies by default. All I did was double click an area on the map and dropped some soldiers on the map.

I think this is touching upon the real issue. I just saw a case is posted in the community issue tracker with the same info.

I am sure a lot of frames per second are hiding here.

[Yapab 10]

When I place units in the editor they dont do anything, just stand there unless I put two separate enemy units into the editor within close range.

This shouldnt be killing FPS or eating up CPU cycles.