ArmA2 / OA (low) performance issues

[Hellhound 10]

ArmA2 is a different beast than other games. From reading this forums I understand that it is very much depending on CPU speed rather than raw GPU. Meaning that unless CPU can keep up, it doesn't really matter how fast GPU you have.

I heard this many times but i can't say i agree with this. I'm running i7 920@ 3.5 Ghz with HT on (also do 3d rendering) and Arma barely uses 50% off 4 main cores, so effectively about 25% from the total of 8 cores. When i do 3d rendering all 8 cores get maxed out and i'm twice as fast as with HT turned off.

[=wfl= sgt bilko 10]

OK, thanks Bilko. but my GPU is running PCI Express x16 (says speccy)...or is it the same as PCIe 1.0?

(how about sending me your second GTX 460? :D )

In PCIe 2.0 the speed of the bus is doubled compared to PCIe 1.0.

x16 is the bandwidth

---------- Post added at 09:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:24 PM ----------

I heard this many times but i can't say i agree with this. I'm running i7 920@ 3.5 Ghz with HT on (also do 3d rendering) and Arma barely uses 50% off 4 main cores, so effectively about 25% from the total of 8 cores. When i do 3d rendering all 8 cores get maxed out and i'm twice as fast as with HT turned off.

I don't think it's only about how many things (CPU load) the CPU is doing but rather how fast it can do it. High load on a slower CPU is not necessarily same as lower load on faster CPU.

Games in general do not play well with HT and most current games don't benefit much from more than 3 real cores. I'm sure some game programmer can explain why. ArmA2 might be different with the latest patch though.

Using exact same setup I overclocked the CPU and the gain in FPS was pretty much linear with the amount of overclocking.

Running SLI only added a smaller gain. Same deal swapping the 9600GT for a GTX460.

So on my rig the "old" GPU was able push more FPS if CPU speed was increased but faster GPU at original CPU speed did very little.

[Redrumsalad 10]

oh hey, i got this:

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGMBOX

think that'll help? haha

[funkee 0]

"ArmA2 / OA (low) performance issues" thread approaches to 100 pages... that says much. The truth is that the Virtual Reality engine is obsolete, uneffective (even on modern machines) and cant handle such amount of data. Whats the point of puting advanced (still dumb tho) AI and thousands km of terrain, if the framerate is unacceptable and whole fun from the game goes away?

IMO if BI still thinks about ArmA series, they should buy or lease a new engine, because this one is dead. Othervise they gonna close another studios or make arcade platformers for children.

Edited October 6, 2010 by funkee

[kridian 33]

It's definitely a "clunker". I'm really starting to become tired of the performance drain while I see other titles perform circles around the Virtual Reality engine.

I posted in another thread about the Avalanche 2.0 engine (used in Just Cause 2), and how fast it is, but I think BIS knows the deal and are in the works at something new.

Just wish they'd make an announcement to keep us interested.

[Toastmaker 10]

Hi guys, my theme: Laptop "lagg" issues..

I'm testing arma 2, arma 2 oa and the demoes on a laptop right now.

System specs:

- Intel core i3 processor 330M 2.13 GHz, 3MB L3 cache;

- Ati Mobility Radeon HD 5650, up to 2746MB hypermemory

- 4GB ram

I am not overclocking or anything.

My problem right now is that no matter how much i turn the graphic settings up or down there allways is some kind of constant lag throughout the game. It's as if you're playing a video on a DVD player which every 2 seconds kinda slows down the video and then releases it at full speed again.

Sounds strange I know, had the same issue on a different laptop and with a different game a couple of years ago.

Any suggestions or smart advice?

[JonXu 0]

its prolly ur harddrive what is spinning at 5400rpm

[Grimm 10]

Hello everyone,

I get some "strange" issue, at least in my opinion.

I'm working in a mission in editor preview. At begining, no problem, everything runs smooth.

About one hour later, sometimes (not verified on all cases), I have huge lag (5 fps max...) which doesn't seem to stop. But surprisingly, it's just on "real world view" : I mean, when I'm looking at the map, everything runs okay, my units in high command are moving quite fast and responding quickly.

Could someone establish a diagnostic?

My pc is quite old and I know that vista 32 is not the best system to run arma 2. But my surprise comes from the huge difference of fps during the mission in 3D view...

Here are my (poor) specs :

6600 2 procs

240 GT (1 Gb)

3 gb ram

Running arma 2 with cpuCount = 2 and maxmem 2048, in normal settings (no post processing and very low AA).

[corbin980 10]

First off here is my setup.

AMD Athlon II x4 640 processor 3.0GHZ

4g of RAM

Palit GTS 450 Card and its not overclocked.

Two Hard Drives (No SSD) Page file of at least 6000 on each.

Asus M4A785 MOBO and 3 case Fans

"C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\arma2OA.exe" -winxp -cpucount=2 -maxmem=2048

Vsync is forced off and not running SLI.

is my command line for the game.

When Arma 2 is running great I am getting 22 Fps in city and 30 or so in the country sometimes more.

When playing single player and sometimes multiplayer I get slow downs in FPS down to 5 or 6 FPS, and everything is streaking across the screen. I check the CPU load and no core is above 60% and temp is holding steading at 22C.

The game is perfect until it slows down, I used to get those out of memory errors ppl got, but have since gone away. I occasionally get a /.bin radio something or whatever error on Manhattan.

I run many other games with no problem, so I have a hard time understanding why a game like this is on the market with so many problems.

[=kct=blackmamba 44]

what are your graphics settings and viewdistance ??

[corbin980 10]

I unloaded my drivers and such last night for the graphics card. I got great FPS during missions with no slow down. I was reading about the bugs in the manhattan mission, so I hope that was the cause. I didn't really have any issues playing scenarios and only occasional slow downs in Mulitplayer. I didn get a crash to the desktop last night. APPcrash I believe it was.

language="English";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=48387;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Resolution_W=1920;

Resolution_H=1080;

refresh=60;

winX=16;

winY=32;

winW=800;

winH=600;

winDefW=800;

winDefH=600;

Render_W=1280;

Render_H=900;

FSAA=2;

postFX=3;

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=2;

HDRPrecision=8;

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=1041694720;

nonlocalVRAM=1475962880;

Windowed=0;

[=kct=blackmamba 44]

in manhatten its normal to have around 22 fps

when u have a viewdistance set to around 2000

it might help to set anti aliasing to low

[kklownboy 43]

or at least set your "Render" to your Resolution.

1280/900 is way to blurry for 1920/1080 rez. Then you could lower your AA, and for the Mission you can also just turn off PP.

FSAA=1;

postFX=0;

[stk2008 14]

Hi all would it be worth me going from 32bit win XP to 64bit win7 I have 4gb of ram and 1gb video memory.

or should I go with 64bit win XP?

please advise what would be the best OS.

Thanks

[domokun 515]

Win7 64 rocks mate. I don't see any reason to stick with WinXP-64.

[stk2008 14]

Thanks for the reply I may go and get WIN7 now ummmm does it run better than say win XP 64 bit?

[kklownboy 43]

Win7 64 rocks mate. I don't see any reason to stick with WinXP-64.

Xp64 is better for A2/OA, UNLESS you use Quadfire/4gpu ATI set up. Cause you cant use Quadfire/4gpu set up on XP.Only Vista/win7.

But i prefer Win7 overall over XP, by allot. A whole lot. Just a better OS.

[corbin980 10]

Just wanted to say thanks to the few who offered their advice for improving my game before my post got lost in the sea of hijackings.

[stk2008 14]

Ok all thanks very much for the info I am going to go and purchase ,e a copy of WIN7 64bit today :).

[funkee 0]

I run many other games with no problem, so I have a hard time understanding why a game like this is on the market with so many problems.

C'mon man, its only 2 years after release! They have been patching ArmA1 for 4 years (11.30.2006 - 04.24.2009). Let's give'em some time. No hurry:rofl:

[Jurugi 10]

Hey,

I have a somewhat new computer that I got for 300$, but I noticed I've been having some bad lag in some big cities like Chernagorsk. As long as I'm away from those cities its fine and everything is actually tweaked quite well, usually at around 40 fps or so and I haven't really had any problems with other games. I know Arma2 is a very tweakative game but just wondering if I should consider upgrading something..

CPU: AMD 7750 Black Edition (3.1 GHZ Duel-Core)

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 (I heard from others that this card is junky so any ideas on what a better one is?)

Ram: 3GB

Thanks

[firstrecon 10]

amd athlon II x2 215 processor (2 CPU's) ~2.7GHz

3072MB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce 9200

win 7 64bit

what is up with them specs? where am I going wrong?

Edited October 23, 2010 by firstrecon
update

[=kct=blackmamba 44]

start with a faster cpu i would advice atleast a quadcore/hexacore 3.4ghz

cant look in your wallet but maybe you could upgrade your graphicscard too.

[hetsar 10]

Hi all, I recently had to un-install ArmA 2 and OA due to hardrive space, now i have installed them again and well this is my problem

I could run them both VERY well before but now when i try to start, the menus on both are laggy and slow, also in-game...

the music lags to.

I also recently updated my ATI video card drivers using STEAM..

Specs

Windows Vista

ATI 4350 HD

AMD Athlon X2 6000+

2 GB RAM

as i said before it ran FINE on medium before, with around 25/30 FPS

Please help

[domokun 515]

start with a faster cpu i would advice atleast a quadcore/hexacore 3.4ghz

cant look in your wallet but maybe you could upgrade your graphicscard too.

@firstrecon : I'd agree with BlackMamba that you need to upgrade your CPU. However I'd avoid high-speed (3+ GHz) quad cores and suggest instead a high-speed dual core as you get more "bang for your buck", i.e. they're cheaper and almost as good, e.g. Athlon II X2 265 for £60. After that you can try overclocking it (squeeze an extra 10-30%).

With the money saved I'd also replace your GeForce 9200 with a recent mid-range graphics card, e.g. Radeon 6850 for £150

On the whole I'd say you should replace your graphics card first because:

a. GeForce 9200 is fairly weak

b. your CPU is fairly strong

c. it's easier to change a graphics card that a CPU

However, I'm concerned that your PC is a laptop. If so, all these hardware upgrades are pointless due to the closed nature of laptop computers. In which case your only hope is to fine tune your computer's software using such tweaks.

Edited October 25, 2010 by domokun