Resolutions make no difference to my frame rate?

[jaundiced 10]

wait for a patch Jack, and disregard those that suggest hardware is to blame until it is known if hardware is indeed the issue. they just like to flex their PC knowledge (using the term lightly) muscles in an attempt to impress with little knowledge of the real issues at hand.

this game is based on the original Arma engine, only modified - by no stretch of the imagination should the game require more than it suggests on the box.

use common sense, and exercise patience while we wait on the patch - then make a decision. it's performing poorly for a broad range of systems from old to new - certain configurations yield better results. all signs point to a software issue at this point.

you do not pay to play unless you need to pay to play. making any assumption without that knowledge is ridiculous. i do not have another game in my library which performs nearly as poorly as this one - and i'll be damned if one poorly optimized game makes me shell out cash to make it run slightly better (or perhaps not judging by the posts on these boards :)).

gametrailers review calls it a faulty product. gamespot review says everything but bugs and poor optimization are great. all reviews say something similar. bugs & performance problems.

Edited July 22, 2009 by jaundiced

[private plowjoy 0]

Can anyone here tell explain to me why changing my resolution has no effect on my frame rate? I have the game set at 1920 x 1200 which is my Lcd's native resolution, but If I set my resolution to a very low setting my frame rate remains just the same.

Windows Vista 32 bit, but also tried windows 7 with same result.

Asus crosshair motherboard.

Amd64 x 2 dual core 6400+ 3.21 Ghz.

Geforce 260 Gtx.

monitor 26" IIyama.

4gig Ram.

Audigy gamer soundcard.

HardDrive, Western Digital 600GB.

Correct me if i'm wrong but apart from the view-distance, nobody appears to have suggested that you could try altering the rest of the in-game settings?

One huge mistake that a lot of people, me included like to make is going into a game with expectations on it roaring and putting all the in-game settings to max. The reality is that most of the time for new games the results are less than stellar.

First off, make sure out-game settings in the Nvidia Control Panel are set as follows. V-Sync off and all the rest of the Arma2 settings set to Application Controlled.

Next, make sure your in-game settings are set to no higher than Normal, with AA, AF and Post Processing set to Off.

When you're happy that the game is running acceptably, go back into the in-game settings and notch one of them up to High. Try the game again. Repeat until you have good performance with acceptable graphics settings.

Also, OS-level settings can be tweaked to further improve performance. Try to put the Arma2 install onto a different physical drive to the OS and Page File. Set the Page File to be a set size, in your case 6000 - 6000 should suffice. Remove indexing on your hard-drives.

Grab the Ultimate Defrag (http://www.disktrix.com/ultimatedefrag_home.htm), free for 14 days and put your Page File and Arma2 install folder to High Performance. After this is done, perform a File/Folder run and make sure you select 'Respect High Performance' so you don't overwrite those placements. This will mean your Page File and Arma2 install folder will be in the optimal location on your hard drive, for the best possible seek times.

I'm not going to pretend that all of this will be a wonder cure for Arma2 as there are clearly issues with the game but if you can squeeze another 4-5 FPS out of the above, its still a free benefit.

Give it all a try mate, you've got nothing to lose. Good luck!

[Bulldogs 10]

Do what Plowjoy said, and Jaundiced has it kinda right there too. It's not necissarily your hardware that's causing the problem, it's likely, but not definite. Your best bet is to wait til the next patch and see how performance go's after that.

A hardware increase will almost always give you a performance increase (barring bottlenecks and incompatibility issues) but you may not need new hardware to be happy so just wait and see.

[Zepboy 10]

Having read the 3 pages of this thread, it seems that noone really wants to get down to the basic issue.........dropping the resolution results in no differene whatsoever to the rate. Whilst a few people think its a CPU bottleneck (and that's a hell of a bottleneck, let me just add a "me too".

I'm running an OCed E6600 (3.4Ghz, granted not the fastest or most recent processor out there) with a GTX275 in Vista x64. I can set solution at 1680*1050 with all settings on High or Very high and get exactly the same FPS as when I choose 800*600 and all settings on Low. Seriously, never budges off the 21-22 FPS (drops to 15-16 intermittently). View distance set to 400-500.

I have never seen anything like that. By all means, tell me my CPU is a bottleneck, but I should be able to *SOME* difference at the very low resoution and settings. Its frustrating as hell, and unplayable at this FPS......

[ron mexico 10]

It is NOT a CPU Bottleneck, look at my rig and see its not just the AMD guys that are having this problem

I did the first test at 1920x1200, with everything set to very high, except no AA and post processing disabled.

Test One - 27

Test Two - 25

Test Three - 21

Test Four - 26

Test Five - 10

OFPMark is 2100

Then I did the test over with 2560x1600 resolution, and left the other settings the exact same as the test above and got the following numbers

Test One - 25

Test Two - 23

Test Three - 20

Test Four - 24

Test Five - 11

OFPMark is 2050

What the hell is going on with this game! Something is very very off, when the difference between 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 is 2fps!

I'm runnin two ultras in SLI, 8 gigs of ram, evga 750i FTW, a water cooled INTEL Q6700 oc'd @ 3.6ghz & vista ultimate 64

--------------------

EVGA 750i FTW

INTEL Q6700 @ 3.6

Swifteck H20 Watercooled

Two 8800ultras in teh SLIz

8 GB G.SKILL PC2-8500

Omega Claro Soundcard

Thermaltake 1000w PSU

Antec 900 case

Gateway XHD3000

Vista 64 Ultimate

[bangtail 0]

Having read the 3 pages of this thread, it seems that noone really wants to get down to the basic issue.........dropping the resolution results in no differene whatsoever to the rate. Whilst a few people think its a CPU bottleneck (and that's a hell of a bottleneck, let me just add a "me too".

I'm running an OCed E6600 (3.4Ghz, granted not the fastest or most recent processor out there) with a GTX275 in Vista x64. I can set solution at 1680*1050 with all settings on High or Very high and get exactly the same FPS as when I choose 800*600 and all settings on Low. Seriously, never budges off the 21-22 FPS (drops to 15-16 intermittently). View distance set to 400-500.

I have never seen anything like that. By all means, tell me my CPU is a bottleneck, but I should be able to *SOME* difference at the very low resoution and settings. Its frustrating as hell, and unplayable at this FPS......

There are known problems with A2, H/T and i7s. If I enable H/T under Win7, A2 turns into a stutter festival.

It's perfect under XP 64.

Games/simulations that are running a lot of AI are very dependant on CPU power by design and while some of the info I have seen with regards to A2 is strange, "Bulldogs" posted a test he had done in another thread which clearly shows the CPU scaling and I have experienced the same thing myself.

The game runs perfectly on my machines so I'll go with those experiences and with the others who seem to have the game running well.

No doubt the patch is going to fix some things (although there are no notes on performance as of now) but some people seem to think they are magically going to get the 100 FPS they need to justify their existences. They would be better served by playing something else. They are setting themselves up for a major disappointment.

Eth

Edited July 23, 2009 by BangTail

[Jackdaniels 10]

I could agree with you but... You should remember there was OFP, 10 years ago.It also contained an open world with endless activity of all AIs. What about hardware these days? Today we have HW X times more powerful. So.. I don't think, that moving AI on the map is so CPU consuming. More I suspect there are no advanced physics calculation. So in overall ARMA2 should not eat such amount of modern CPU power.

But of course we don;t know details of the game engine. So it is hard to judge for sure.

How do you explain this then? The guy is right, Ofp is an old enough game, so how do you explain the Cpu been able to handle ai back then? Cpu's have come along way since the days of Ofp, so why are the struggling to run this game 8 years on from Ofp?

[bangtail 0]

How do you explain this then? The guy is right, Ofp is an old enough game, so how do you explain the Cpu been able to handle ai back then? Cpu's have come along way since the days of Ofp, so why are the struggling to run this game 8 years on from Ofp?

OFP can still cripple my rig with enough AI and several enhancements like ECP enabled.

A2 is a much newer game with a completely overhauled engine, and more complex AI routines. It's no wonder that it continues to tax the CPU, as do many simulations.

Eth

PS : There wasn't a machine around that would play OFP at max details at launch**, same thing for Resistance. It always takes time for the technology to catch up and a few patches to iron out the rough bits.

** I should qualify this by saying that the Campaign and SP missions were fine for the most part, but with some of the more complex user missions that had a lot of AI it would choke.

Edited July 23, 2009 by BangTail

[Bulldogs 10]

A good reference is to note most high end Real Time Strategies. Effectively it seems like the only thing increasing in RTS' is the graphics (and some gameplay changes), but RTS' are heavily dependant on CPU power (more than graphics), especially in large scale battles. You try to play a large scale multiplayer DoW 2 battle on a CPu that you played DoW 1 on and you'll notice a major difference in fps (even if you're using the same Graphics Card)

Think of Arma Campaign as an RTS that the computer is playing and you're just looking at it from a zoomed in view.

[MaXyM 10]

How do you explain this then? The guy is right, Ofp is an old enough game, so how do you explain the Cpu been able to handle ai back then? Cpu's have come along way since the days of Ofp, so why are the struggling to run this game 8 years on from Ofp?

You didn't got a point.

I played OFP 10y ago, and then, with old CPU, there was no problem with CPU power, rather with gfx performance.

I don't think ARMA2 has AI more complex to get todays CPUs on the knees. They moving like in OFP, they hear and see like in OFP. What may be more CPU-eating in their behaviours? I'm sure AIs don't try to think using some sophisticated neural networks or genetic algorithms or so.

More, if it would really depends on AI algorithms, than it wouldn't be possible to create 1500AIs battle as we saw on movies. No one computer would handle this, since quite powerful ones can't handle 100AIs on the map.

That's why I cannot agree with theory that performance problems are due to game complexity. Of course it may be related, but it is rather a bug or algorithm calculated in wrong way rather than "a feature".

Edited July 23, 2009 by MaXyM

[Herbal Influence 10]

To my feeling AIs strategies are much more complex than in OF.

That's always been cpu-eating.

Just make a small mission in OF yourself (with editor) and turn AIs intellligence on the max level - you will notice significant more cpu work is to be done. Therefore the possibility to change it surely was implemented - to have lower cpus work nevertheless with lower intelligence settings.

Second: AIs are more "creative" than before. They creep up from behind the principal fireline, hide much better, even lean behind walls etc. etc.

Read:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=80584

I think it's time for us to get informed about what fraps JackDaniels is talking about.

Maybe he already hits the ground or the top level of it - depending on what vsync-frequency he has.

Edited July 23, 2009 by Herbal Influence
Inserted thread link

[Jackdaniels 10]

Maybe he already hits the ground or the top level of it - depending on what vsync-frequency he has.

My vsync is switched off in nvidia control panel. I aslo use a LCD/TFT monitor 26" so refresh rate is not as big of an issue

Edited July 23, 2009 by Jackdaniels

[Herbal Influence 10]

What's your fraps ?

Just interested.

And: Is there no difference at all - or just a little ?

Edited July 23, 2009 by Herbal Influence

[Jackdaniels 10]

What's your fraps ?

Just interested.

And: Is there no difference at all - or just a little ?

When I play a multiplayer game that has ai on the map Coop/Evo etc, I get between 12-29 Fps. On other multiplayer maps, like Hold/CTF/DM that have no ai on, I get between 20-35 Fps.

Maybe they should of concentrated on making this game PvP only and ditched the ai altogether. I am not spending crazy money on a CPU just to run this game at a decent frame rate. Seriously, if this game relies on the latest CPU to run it, then lots of people are going to give this game up very quickly.

I have my fingers crossed for the next patch but I am not building my hopes up.

Edited July 23, 2009 by Jackdaniels

[MaXyM 10]

Second: AIs are more "creative" than before. They creep up from behind the principal fireline, hide much better, even lean behind walls etc. etc.

Yea... creative to walk straight ahead of BRDM and get a bullet. It is what surprise me, that "my" AIs are really stupid. I can see the armored vehicle, AI knows its position but it stands and waits for a die.

I really doubt in its creativeness and wise.

But it is a bit out of topic.

[Herbal Influence 10]

Maybe they are frightened to death and can't move anymore ?

That's close to realism.;-)

Yeah, but real life is buggy too. And it lags --- at least sometimes! ;-)

And maybe it's difficult not to make them too intelligent - for they may stop making war at all then ! ;-))

(don't get me wrong - little off topic)

[jaundiced 10]

OFP can still cripple my rig with enough AI and several enhancements like ECP enabled.

sure it does...

[bangtail 0]

To my feeling AIs strategies are much more complex than in OF.

That's always been cpu-eating.

Just make a small mission in OF yourself (with editor) and turn AIs intellligence on the max level - you will notice significant more cpu work is to be done. Therefore the possibility to change it surely was implemented - to have lower cpus work nevertheless with lower intelligence settings.

Second: AIs are more "creative" than before. They creep up from behind the principal fireline, hide much better, even lean behind walls etc. etc.

Read:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=80584

I think it's time for us to get informed about what fraps JackDaniels is talking about.

Maybe he already hits the ground or the top level of it - depending on what vsync-frequency he has.

Agreed.

While the AI in OFP was very good at the time. The AI in A2 is significantly enhanced. When it works (which is most of the time for me) it is a sight to behold (or not when it sneaks up behind you and lobs a grenade into the middle of your squad).

At the moment however, there are some shortcomings. The worst offenders tend to be my own team who sometimes insist on doing some very stupid things. No doubt this will be remedied and tbh, it's not "game breaking" for the most part.

Eth

Edited July 23, 2009 by BangTail

[jakal66 10]

I just feel that I bought this game looking at the recommended specs and then feeling that I have been lied to... If I had known I would have waited a bit longer to buy it...I just don't see the point in optimizing so poorly a game that only top knotch cpus can barely hit the 30 -50 fps...( if they're uber lucky)

I know there's a lot happening at the same time and the world maps are inmense but I would sacrifice some of that to make it more playable and hence more enjoyable.

I really think that a patch will minimize this issues but not fully address them...

On topic: Wait untill futurte patches arrive may be that will help your performance...I would never spend more money on enhancing my Pc if 99 % of my games run perfectly on ultra high settings...

I'd preffer to wait untill I have to change cpu and video card and may be motherboard as well when I start having issues with all new games and then install Arma 2( I am being ironic just so you know hahaha)

[bangtail 0]

It is NOT a CPU Bottleneck, look at my rig and see its not just the AMD guys that are having this problem

I did the first test at 1920x1200, with everything set to very high, except no AA and post processing disabled.

Test One - 27

Test Two - 25

Test Three - 21

Test Four - 26

Test Five - 10

OFPMark is 2100

Then I did the test over with 2560x1600 resolution, and left the other settings the exact same as the test above and got the following numbers

Test One - 25

Test Two - 23

Test Three - 20

Test Four - 24

Test Five - 11

OFPMark is 2050

What the hell is going on with this game! Something is very very off, when the difference between 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 is 2fps!

I'm runnin two ultras in SLI, 8 gigs of ram, evga 750i FTW, a water cooled INTEL Q6700 oc'd @ 3.6ghz & vista ultimate 64

--------------------

EVGA 750i FTW

INTEL Q6700 @ 3.6

Swifteck H20 Watercooled

Two 8800ultras in teh SLIz

8 GB G.SKILL PC2-8500

Omega Claro Soundcard

Thermaltake 1000w PSU

Antec 900 case

Gateway XHD3000

Vista 64 Ultimate

Wow, you copied the same post from 2 pages ago.

Bravo.

Eth

[Herbal Influence 10]

And by the way: AMDs seem to be quite content!

-->> http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=77206

[Jackdaniels 10]

And by the way: AMDs seem to be quite content!

-->> http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=77206

Dude - are you serious? Have you read any of the other posts? Are you speaking for everyone's Amd or just your own? I have an Amd and it's crap for this game, or should I say it's the other way round.

I have given up on this argument now, because you sit telling people you have a problem and they just come back with the same things, it works for me blah blah. I will just have to wait on the next patch and see what happens.

Edited July 23, 2009 by Jackdaniels

[jaundiced 10]

Wow, you copied the same post from 2 pages ago.

Bravo.

Eth

wow, you contributed nothing to the thread once again.

Bravo.

---------- Post added at 08:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:09 PM ----------

Dude - are you serious? Have you read any of the other posts? Are you speaking for everyone's Amd or just your own? I have an Amd and it's crap for this game, or should I say it's the other way round.

I have given up on this argument now, because you sit telling people you have a problem and they just come back with the same things, it works for me blah blah. I will just have to wait on the next patch and see what happens.

i think you've got the right plan jack. just be patient and see what the next patch brings. no sense whatsoever in buying new hardware to overcompensate for poor optimization.

if it were clear that hardware was the issue i'd suggest otherwise, but after spending hours going over this board that is quite obviously not the case.

[bangtail 0]

I just feel that I bought this game looking at the recommended specs and then feeling that I have been lied to... If I had known I would have waited a bit longer to buy it...I just don't see the point in optimizing so poorly a game that only top knotch cpus can barely hit the 30 -50 fps...( if they're uber lucky)

I know there's a lot happening at the same time and the world maps are inmense but I would sacrifice some of that to make it more playable and hence more enjoyable.

I really think that a patch will minimize this issues but not fully address them...

On topic: Wait untill futurte patches arrive may be that will help your performance...I would never spend more money on enhancing my Pc if 99 % of my games run perfectly on ultra high settings...

I'd preffer to wait untill I have to change cpu and video card and may be motherboard as well when I start having issues with all new games and then install Arma 2( I am being ironic just so you know hahaha)

Well, some observations here.

Crysis can only hit just over 50 FPS on what amounts to the highest spec rig available at 1920 x 1200 with eye candy on.

I'm not saying that to excuse A2's performance on some people's rigs. I'm saying that because this kind of thing is not limited to A2.

Upgrading for one game is ludicrous. Upgrading because your hardware is showing it's age is not. Having said that, as much as I know that the patch is not going to add some miraculous 100% performance enhancement, I'm equally sure that it will alleviate some problems for some people.

Upgrading right now, with a new generation of video cards arriving in a few months, doesn't necessarily make sense although there are always deals to be had.

Hopefully this patch will arrive in the near future and hopefully it goes some way to helping more people enjoy the game.

Eth

Edited July 24, 2009 by BangTail

[MPBR 10]

Eariler the comment was made, you pay to play.

And its spot on. If you want to play the latest PC games @ high res with lots of eye candy then you need to keep your rig on the edge.

And there is more than just A2 out / coming out that can benifit from upgrades, especially when you start gaming @ high res (see >1680).

Case in point - Review all the crysis posts / whines where people were muffed that there 6x / 7x series cards could not play native res @ max.

FC 2 was kinda the same as was oblivion.

You can;t compare OFP performance to A2. AI is a killer and to a degree the next holy grail in gaming. There is a reason that there was development etc into discrete AI processing cards. Was a great article from the MTW about the limitations and requirments on AI and the processing required.

There was discussions of throwing alot of AI routines into PhysX cards from nvidia, and I hope like hell down the track we actually realise this. Either combined physics + AI processing on 1 spare PhysX card, or throw 2 of your older cards in and use one for each.

Hell I did a fun mission with ..ok quite a few units / air / armour etc and I watched as my Quad CPU went to 98-100% on all 4 cores and stayed there for about 5 mins. Then the remaining units only dropped it back to 95%ish.

I am also wondering, some report that in the main map etc there dual core's never get over say 30-40%, yet I can confirm that my Quad gets hammered as more and more units get added. I wonder if there is some scaling of AI rountines based on CPU availability / power. That some AI get taken off an advance AI routine and get a more basic scripting applied. It may explain how some people report really dumb AI that TBH apart from the AT - AA weapon dance swap I have not encountered.