ArmA2 / OA (low) performance issues

[unsobill 10]

its not defrag in this case.

just read my message above

bytway whats ur motherboad ?

u can run aida if u on 32bit and report motherboard results here

http://majorgeeks.com/download181.html

Edited September 6, 2009 by unsobill

[Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz 10]

Very frustrating. Angry beyond words that Hyperthreading is locked. Gateway charges like $29.99 per phone call for customer technical support. I really don't want to shelf ArmA 2.

[unsobill 10]

see if you can get live chat guy and press him to guide you to unlock HT

http://support.gateway.com/support/contact/chat.shtml

[Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz 10]

Well, I tried phoning, and couldn't understand the guy past his accent.

I tried the chat with a tech guy thing, and was disconnected each time.

I guess my only option will be to wait and hope it becomes better optimized.

[st3a1th 0]

I use a 1gb Graphic card and that plays it fine

[randir14 10]

Maybe Gateway put a crappy hard drive in there. The game accesses the HD like crazy so that could be the problem. The amount of space doesn't matter as much as the speed.

[Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz 10]

Yah randir14 I'm not sure, I remember a friend of mine warned me about getting a 1 TB hard drive because he said it was slower than smaller drives, but he recommended a speed, and I think my hard drive was faster.

[hotel 10]

Why is everyone assuming this is a hyperthreading issue with his case? Use Ultimate defrag like i posted earlier (its free). It could not hurt trying dont you agree? PM me if you want instructions on how to move the arma directory to outter edge of disk, (2ms) read times with my HDD.

BTW performance issues with this game are totally inconsistant for everyone from what i see in this forums, so assuming HT is the issue is rediculous. Open the Task Manager and leave it run in the background on the performance tab. Play the game for 10 minutes then exit to see where the CPU usage was. Maybe the computer isnt using the full CPU like many of us.

Open the mission editor and place yourself on a blank mission without ambience or AI troops etc and see if the stuttering continues. If it does I hardly agree that this issue is CPU related.

Best Regards,

Brad

[Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz 10]

Allright Hotel, I have some interesting and (possibly) useful information:

I booted up ArmA, and for curiosity's sake, ran it under Windows XP (service pack 2) compatability mode, with privelege level as administrator (since I'm running Vista 64-bit).

In Utes, on the completely blank island to the north, stuttering continued, but each stutter was noticably shorter. I could run, and I could see the stutters occuring just as often, but they were much faster stutters.

Planting myself in the center of Utes with no NPCs / vehicles / etc, on the airport, the stutters became longer, but not as long as on Chernarus.

Starting up the editor with placing myself in the middle of the woods on Chernarus, with no NPCs / vehicles / etc, I got the same amount of stuttering that I mentioned in my first post, every few seconds, and noticeably longer than on Utes (which makes sense, from what I hear, that Chernarus is more demanding on a machine that Utes).

After running the game for 10 minutes, and looking at my task manager, it would appear that CPU usage is very sporratic. It shot up and capped at almost 95%, then shot back down to about 13%, then shot up and down every 30-45 seconds between 13% - 45% - 50% - 13% - 30% - 60% - 15% etc, bouncing all over the place.

Could this be a cause of the stuttering? If my CPU usage is stuttering, would my game stutter as well?

I will restart ArmA under normal compatability mode, and see if anything changes.

---------- Post added at 09:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:04 PM ----------

Hmmm... without going back to normal compatability mode yet, still running windows xp service pack 2, I decided to crank all of the settings to their absolute max. Stuttering still occurred as per normal, FPS dropped considerably to 15-20, and CPU usage looked like a heartbeat monitor attached to a humming bird. Jumping between 30-50% every few seconds.

---------- Post added at 09:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:09 PM ----------

After another test, putting myself ontop of a mountain and in the center of the airport on Chernarus, more results:

No noticeable difference in stuttering when view distance is at 500 vs 1800 vs 2200.

Slightly more intense stuttering at airport vs. ontop of the mountain, though not significant.

CPU usage seemed more sporratic when graphics were turned down.

Slightly less intense stuttering with graphics turned down, though not significant.

[Bulldogs 10]

Sounds like a bottleneck somewhere. Possibly the hard drive. (although could also be Hyper-Threading/Speedstep)

Basically what's happening is that Arma is attempting to utilize the full CPU but it's hitting a bottleneck so the CPU usage drops while it waits for more data to process. The spikes at the CPU point to the bottleneck most likely being at the Hard drive as the CPU is waiting til the hard drive has been read.

If possible, try splitting your hard drive up into smaller partitions. As everyone says, defrag with a good defrag program (not windows defrag), try not to defrag more than once a month though as it can put excessive strain on the hard drive. Update your motherboard drivers as well.

As a last point, if you only have 2gb of ram then upgrade to 4gb. Arma 2 only utilizes 2gb of ram but Windows and background programs use a lot too. If you don't have 4gb of ram, then Arma's likely to only be using about 500mb-1gb, and the less ram it can access the more it has to access the swap file on your hard drive.

Also, make sure the swap file on your hard drive is at least 1.5 times your ram for initial size, and 3 times your ram for maximum size (goto Control Panel->System->Advanced->performance->settings)

[Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz 10]

Hey Bulldogs,

I've got 12 GB of DDR3 RAM.

So it's looking like a good defrag system is in store? Would it be worth it to BUY one, or get the free one that Hotel previously mentioned?

And I'm using Vista, but I'm having a hard time of findnig my swap file. I can get to Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings but I don't know where to go after that.

[datter 0]

If you are using Vista or Win7 there is absolutely no need for a third party defragger. They helped a bit on XP and certainly on older operating systems, but at this point they are hold overs still peddled by snake oil salesmen. Totally unnecessary.

[Bulldogs 10]

Have to disagree with datter unfortunately. You can stick with windows defrag off you want but it puts extra stress on your hard drive and never fully defrags, especially when your drive is heavily loaded.

The program I suggest to most of my clients is o&o defrag, but I'm sure there's plenty of good alternatives out there.

---------- Post added at 11:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:54 PM ----------

I should also add that the only reason I don't test and recommend free defrag programs is for legal purposes.

BTW, to access page file settings under Vista, From "advanced system settings" click on the advanced tab at the top, then under "performance" click "settings...", then in the new window click the advanced tab, then click the "Change" button under Virtual Memory.

[Skeptic 10]

HDD is not an issue. I'm running off SSD RAID-0 with two OCZ Vertex drives that push about 460MB/s with sequential reads.

There is good discussion going on about DX API calls scheduling in Arma2. Somehow it is coded that causes conflicts and CPU struggles especially in cities. No amount of HDD defragging or speed of RAID will help at the moment.

[Borg 0]

While playing SP missions, lets say the SecOps my framerate is around 40 to 60.

WHen joining mp missions my framerate drops to 19-25 fps, no matter what graphicsettings i use.

Why is this?

GeForce 9800GT

Intel Core2Duo E6600 2.4Ghz.

2Gb Ram.

[Skeptic 10]

While playing SP missions, lets say the SecOps my framerate is around 40 to 60.

WHen joining mp missions my framerate drops to 19-25 fps, no matter what graphicsettings i use.

Why is this?

GeForce 9800GT

Intel Core2Duo E6600 2.4Ghz.

2Gb Ram.

Yep MP is very demanding, more so if it's coop with AI. So you get double whammy effect: CPU bottleneck in cities plus load of AI. BIS needs to do some serious optimizing.

[Borg 0]

Yep MP is very demanding, more so if it's coop with AI. So you get double whammy effect: CPU bottleneck in cities plus load of AI. BIS needs to do some serious optimizing.

Uh ok, then there is not much for me to do, as I do not have the money to buy new parts for my computer right now.

Let's hope the patchez do their work.

[hotel 10]

HDD is not an issue. I'm running off SSD RAID-0 with two OCZ Vertex drives that push about 460MB/s with sequential reads.

There is good discussion going on about DX API calls scheduling in Arma2. Somehow it is coded that causes conflicts and CPU struggles especially in cities. No amount of HDD defragging or speed of RAID will help at the moment.

This might be true but I dissagree defragging will not work for everyone because defragmentation fixed the stuttering for me and I run a regular 7200 WD HDD. My question is why not try defragging with ultimate defrag as I did and see if it helps then report back. There is a thread where people sucessfully fixed the stuttering by defragging.

At this point generallizing that defragging or anything for that matter will not fix the game for the individual is unacceptable due to the inconsistancy of the problems vrs solutions.

[Bulldogs 10]

My thoughts exactly hotel, the problems are so varied that we can't generalize them.

And Borg, overclocking your cpu may help, but don't do it unless you're comfortable with overclocking, although, your ram may also be a very likely bottleneck with only 2gb

[Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz 10]

Well, I have exhausted quite a few of my options, but I'll look into this ultimate defrag thing. When I do, I'll send you a PM, Hotel, if you would be so kind as to instruct me how to go about partitioning ArmA II.

[hotel 10]

Well, I have exhausted quite a few of my options, but I'll look into this ultimate defrag thing. When I do, I'll send you a PM, Hotel, if you would be so kind as to instruct me how to go about partitioning ArmA II.

I would be more than willing to help you just hit me up

[dogz 10]

I guess you guys know that defragging SSDs is bad...

[bangtail 0]

Have to disagree with datter unfortunately. You can stick with windows defrag off you want but it puts extra stress on your hard drive and never fully defrags, especially when your drive is heavily loaded.

The program I suggest to most of my clients is o&o defrag, but I'm sure there's plenty of good alternatives out there.

---------- Post added at 11:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:54 PM ----------

I should also add that the only reason I don't test and recommend free defrag programs is for legal purposes.

BTW, to access page file settings under Vista, From "advanced system settings" click on the advanced tab at the top, then under "performance" click "settings...", then in the new window click the advanced tab, then click the "Change" button under Virtual Memory.

Ditto on O&O, best defragger around.

[Bulldogs 10]

I guess you guys know that defragging SSDs is bad...

Yep, due to the limited write/rewrite capabilities (lowers the life of the drive drastically), but Hugo doesn't have an SSD from what I can tell.

[JAndreassen 10]

Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz

I have much of the same hardware as you and the same problem. I disabled HyperTreading, or HT as it was called in my BOIS, and now it's running smooth.

---------- Post added at 11:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:11 PM ----------

The question is what effect will disabling HT having on other programs/games?

Anyone?