Mouse Lag

[silver111 10]

Hello everybody!

I know that there already exist some threads on this problem like the “Radiosound + Mouse Lag Problem“ which discuss the mouse lag in ArmAII. I’ve read all 25 pages and it is really hard to get clear overview what cause this problem.

I’m also having these kinds of mouse lags since ArmAI and it is really annoying! With these mouse lags it takes a lot of time to target enemies, and this is really unacceptable for such kind of games where fast reaction is everything!

Short description of the lag:

• It has nothing to do with float zone or other options, so it is a “bug†in the engine!
  
• If you move your mouse it takes some time until the game reacts.
  
• You can see it in this video:
  
  

Here are some facts I found out on this problem:

• The lag appears on both games (ArmAI and ArmAII)
  
• The lag appears on every OS which is able to run the game (WinXP, Win Vista, Win7)
  
• Better framerate reduce the lag ( playing with <40fps is horrible :( )
  -> so everything which does effect framerate, effects the lag (e.g. VSync, resolution, … )
  
• Reduce maximum pre-rendered frames also reduce the lag
  
• Changing CPU clock speed to lower values sometimes reduce this lag though it also reduce framerate
  
• Adding graphic effects in low resolutions which do not change framerate, increase the lag
  
• Set the processor affinity to only one core drastically reduce framerate but lag disappears nearly completely
  

It seems to be some kind of timing or synchronization problem because I can dramatically reduce this lag by executing the ArmAII and ArmAI process on only one CPU core. Additionally it must be hardware related because some people didn’t seem to have this kind of problem.

This vote should help BIS developers to find out what hardware configuration cause this problem.

So if you have this problem please vote what kind of system you have.

If you are able to reduce the lag please tell us how you did it and what system specs you have.

It also would be very nice if someone of the BIS devs tell us if they already know what cause this problem and if it is possible to fix it in one of the upcoming patches.

Thank you all!

My specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 + Geforce 7900

[11aTony 0]

OK, first of all, for me, in A1 or 2 40, 50 or 60 FPS is not playable. It becomes playable with FPS on 60 all the time. Without vsync that means around 100FPS. If I set settings too high, that makes arma to drop under 60 from time to time means horrible mouse lag. Its the same in any other game I played. Maybe not in such huge proportions but its still there. OFP too on two PCs ago. Same thing, mouse lag due to not enough frame rate. If you turn some settings even higher, it sometimes feels like mouse lag is reduced but its not. I dont know anyone that plays arma over 60 and have mouse lags. Im playing with like 10 guys or so and not even one had mouse lag after achiving playable frame rate. Ive seen people saying here that it doesnt matter if you have 20 or 50 FPS, you still get mouse lag. Its both too low. Hell, video you provided tells you exacly that. He had VD too high and that coused mouse lag, then he lowered it and it was gone. Though I see you have GF7900, this should run arma on very low settings fine. How much FPS do you have? Its gotto be something on that. I dunno what mices guys with this mouse lag have, maybe that is the problem...

[datter 0]

You should have added a simple "I do not suffer from mouse lag" option just to see how many people don't.

[SockMonkeh 10]

I'm on a Core 2 Duo + Nvidia card. I've managed to increase the games performance to the point where the lag isn't bad at all and the game is completely playable, but you can tell it's still there. Sometimes, in heavy firefights near detailed areas, it can get kinda bad again. It was way worse in ArmA I. I couldn't even play that game.

[CaptRio 0]

I'm on a Core 2 Duo + Nvidia card. I've managed to increase the games performance to the point where the lag isn't bad at all and the game is completely playable, but you can tell it's still there. Sometimes, in heavy firefights near detailed areas, it can get kinda bad again. It was way worse in ArmA I. I couldn't even play that game.

Exactly the same here!

[Leopardi 0]

Rising the viewdistance removes the lag also.

[datter 0]

Rising the viewdistance removes the lag also.

I believe you have that backwards.

[Leopardi 0]

I believe you have that backwards.

Then quit believing so. It might also have something to do with ~8000 viewdistance forcing Terrain Detail to Normal.

[Mavrocket 10]

I agree with the above poster that state you should have added a "I don't experience Mouse Lag"

The main reason being I don't experience mouse lag!

The fix that has worked for me;

- Force V-Sync OFF in ATi Tray Tools/nHancer

- Increase Mouse DPI to Max (2000 DPI on my Copperhead)

- Decrease Mouse Sensitivity In-Game to meet needs.

Hope this helps anyone who hasn't tried it!

[Rhodite 3]

You should have added a simple "I do not suffer from mouse lag" option just to see how many people don't.

Indeed, please add that option if you hope to have the poll retain any value.

[11aTony 0]

I'm on a Core 2 Duo + Nvidia card. I've managed to increase the games performance to the point where the lag isn't bad at all and the game is completely playable, but you can tell it's still there. Sometimes, in heavy firefights near detailed areas, it can get kinda bad again. It was way worse in ArmA I. I couldn't even play that game.

And how meny FPS do you have in that heavy firefights near detailed areas?

[datter 0]

Then quit believing so. It might also have something to do with ~8000 viewdistance forcing Terrain Detail to Normal.

You've just negated your own post. If moving the view distance to 8000 forces terrain detail to normal then it's "terrain detail = normal" that would be alleviating the mouse lag, not the increased view distance.

[Leopardi 0]

You've just negated your own post. If moving the view distance to 8000 forces terrain detail to normal then it's "terrain detail = normal" that would be alleviating the mouse lag, not the increased view distance.

But I got heavy mouselag at Terrain Detail = NORMAL.

[slimSpencer 10]

mouselag don't seems to have anything to do with framerate in first place.

It seems to only occur when CPU delivers much more input/power than your gfx-card can deal with...

don't know, but i guess that 2 persons with the same gfx-card (maybe an HD 4870 or GTX 275), person a) has an older AMD Dual-core, person 2 a faster Core i7, the person with the core i7 will have more lag...

please also see my posts here http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=78225&page=2 #20 and 23!

regards

Edited July 8, 2009 by slimSpencer

[rowdied 44]

Originally Posted by datter

You should have added a simple "I do not suffer from mouse lag" option just to see how many people don't.

Indeed, please add that option if you hope to have the poll retain any value.

EXACTLY! If it's a bug in the game then why do some NOT experience this?

I think it's a harware configuration that exacerbates a problem in coding for some and not others.

[astral54r 10]

hm, i no have mouse lags

[volkov956 0]

I tested the game with the following

G5,G7,MX510,MX518,X7,MS Sidewinder

I dont use any software that comes with the mouse and none have the issues

I also tested PS2/USB and there is no dif in the ones that support it for the lag that is shown in the video

[slimSpencer 10]

as i wrote, i'm sure its not a problem with our mice.

guess its just a problem with Arma2-engine when CPU "outperforms"

GPU in some scenery...

regards

[DaveG 0]

Since the rendering and the actual game are done in the same thread (I think only micro ai is performed in a different thread from what I've read) surely it would be impossible for cpu and gpu to get out of sync?

I've had this problem since OFP. Arma 1 had it too. I've had multiple machines during that period and it's happened on all of them so I'm quite sure it's not hardware.

[slimSpencer 10]

hmm... i think its possible that the CPU can "overflow" the GPU with commands, even at moderate fps, so that GPU lags behind...

i'm not a programmer, but please read my post #23 in the above mentioned thread. This link helped me understanding the possible reason for mouselag.

[DaveG 0]

Interesting find. Funnily enough I am a programmer (only 2d as far as games and such) and I had no idea that could happen. but that's the thing about programming, there's always stuff to learn.

[voodoochile123 10]

Please don't attack me.... but....

I personally find it hard to believe that this is a bug and not just a performance problem. Believe me, I really WISH it was a bug because that way a patch could fix it and I could play it nice and smooth!

But I just don't believe that it is a bug. I think it's a performance problem due to the game being:

a) Very graphically demanding

b) Very CPU intensive

c) Very hard drive i/o intensive

d) Very unrefined - in terms of performance tweaking. For example, Crysis ran far better for me after the big patch they did, than when it was first released. The refinement they do during patches can make a big difference to performance. But I waited months for that Crysis patch... Arma2 hasn't really had any major performance tweak patches yet.

So, personally I think it is a performance problem, and I think the fix will be if/when they improve the game's performance with patches, and it will depend on how well they do with this. I had a top of the line PC when I bought it, and every game I would crank to absolute maximum settings, but some games are just very demanding and wouldn't run well no matter what you buy. Microsoft Flight Simulator X for example, would not run well on ANY PC when it was released. I suspect that this game is the same to some extent (unless you have an insanely powerful and expensive PC).

If I crank all the settings in Arma2, it is unplayable and it's because of this what you call "Mouse lag". But I've seen that before in other games too when I crank the settings too high and add full AA and AF. The way around it is simply to lower the settings. If I lower everything to "Normal" and turn AA and Post Processing off, and shadows to low, then there is very minimal mouse lag for me and I can play the game just fine. If I put everything on low, then it's basically as quick as Duke Nukem 3d.

So in my opinion, if you have mouse lag, you just need to lower the settings and admit the fact that the game is too demanding on your PC. But also understand that the majority of the blame of the blame is with the fact that this game is just so big and so complex. This is not Crysis, the AI in this game is far more advanced, the world is FAR larger, and there are civilians and vehicles and sheep and all kinds of things happening in the back ground. All of this uses up your PC's speed. In my opinion, we just need to wait for them to release a patch that fixes a bunch of things and refines the code and the performance of the game.

I've seen games go from 19fps on my PC, to 35fps in the exact same location, all thanks to a patch. I hope that this game can have that kind of improvement too.

If I'm wrong and it really is a mouse bug then I'm sorry but this is just my opinion anyway. Take it or leave it.

p.s. I watched the YouTube movie. If you had a high frame rate during that lag then maybe it could be a mouse lag bug, but I suspect if you looked at the frame rate when you were showing off the lag, it would have been very low indeed. When you changed the settings and the mouse lag went, it's because the frame rate went far higher because you lowered the quality.

Edited July 8, 2009 by voodoochile123

[silver111 10]

...

But I just don't believe that it is a bug. I think it's a performance problem due to the game being:

a) Very graphically demanding

b) Very CPU intensive

c) Very hard drive i/o intensive

d) Very unrefined - in terms of performance tweaking. For example, Crysis ran far better for me after the big patch they did, than when it was first released. The refinement they do during patches can make a big difference to performance. But I waited months for that Crysis patch... Arma2 hasn't really had any major performance tweak patches yet.

You’re right it is a performance problem because better framerate reduce the lag.

But I don’t understand why the Real Virtuality Engine needs at least 60 frames per second to run well :confused:.

Playing the game with a framerate beween 35 and 60 isn’t much fun because mouse input speed is constantly changing. Therefore aiming at targets, especially when they are moving takes very long time. This also means that in multiplayer people playing with an average framerate of 60 have huge disadvantages in comparison with people playing at 100 fps.

Looking at other FPS-Engines like Quake-Engine, Unreal-Engine, CryEngine or Refractor-Engine doesn’t show this kind of extreme mouse lag, even on very low framerates (20fps), mouse input is very accurate.

So I hope that this effect could at least be reduced in one of the upcoming patches.

[maxter 10]

I played Arma1 with FPS around 20-30, it felt smooth most of the time and I had just the mouse reaction I wanted. I can't understand why it can't be the same in Arma2. Also, people are still experiencing mouse lag at around 60 FPS, which is ridiculous, while some others claim it runs fine at 30-40. So, it can't solely be a performance issue, otherwise everyone with a certain FPS (or atleast system specs/settings) would get it, but in this case this varies greatly.

Also, this is atleast the third thread about this, people should learn to search.

Edited July 9, 2009 by maxter

[voodoochile123 10]

I think that might be due to Mouse Acceleration.

Basically the view moves further the faster you move your mouse, which is not nice in gaming. So if you move the mouse slowly, you have to move the mouse a much further distance. If you move the mouse quickly, you only have to move the mouse a very short distance (like an inch) to turn a whole 180 degrees.

This is a "feature" that some people find very useful, mainly when using MS Windows for example. But I think most people really dislike it in games. Usually it is not enable in games. And if it is, there is usually a way to disable it. You can't seem to disable it in Arma2, either from in the game or by changing the mouse settings in Windows control panel.

I think being able to turn that off might fix a lot of problems. Usually in games where the mouse movement is uniform (so no acceleration), if my frame rate is a bit low, I can just increase the mouse sensitivity and that makes the frame rate seem faster. That's how it worked in Crysis for example. My frame rate was only about 25fps but if I increase the sensitivity it makes it feel more like 35+fps.

In Arma2, I can't really increase the sensitivity because combined with the mouse acceleration, it just makes it far too fast. With high sensitivity AND the mouse acceleration, if you are running forwards and you quickly twitch the mouse just an inch, you can end up running all the way in the opposite direction. :p

I really hope they can disable this, or at least add an option to turn it on/off.

Edited July 9, 2009 by voodoochile123