ArmA2 / OA (low) performance issues

[MavericK96 0]

Regarding my issue, I had a 2GB video card. That's why I was lagging. If you have a 2GB video card, set your video memory to VERY HIGH!

I really hope I fixed it, so far so good :)!!!!

I've heard if you use Very High instead of Default for a 1 GB+ card, you'll be artificially limiting the amount of VRAM you can use and thus incur more LOD swapping/stutter.

[dblkion 10]

I'm running :

I7 2600-k

8Go DD3

2x 6950HD 1Go

on W7 and have terrible overheating problems on the gfx's, as much as 80+ C°, fans working at 3200RPM to cool it ... my settings are mostly on low / normal for 1920*1080 screen ...

People simply have to admit Operation Arrowhead is terribly done.

[Redstarfish 1]

I have a question, I can play operation arrowhead fine, but when I launch Combined Ops I lag like hell! I can run fine on VERY HIGH in OA. Anyone?

[Leon86 13]

I'm running :

I7 2600-k

8Go DD3

2x 6950HD 1Go

on W7 and have terrible overheating problems on the gfx's, as much as 80+ C°, fans working at 3200RPM to cool it ... my settings are mostly on low / normal for 1920*1080 screen ...

People simply have to admit Operation Arrowhead is terribly done.

80 C is quite normal for a gpu. Also, dont blame games for graphics cards overheating, not even the starcraft 2 main menu which is a bit like furmark

---------- Post added at 09:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:10 AM ----------

I have a question, I can play operation arrowhead fine, but when I launch Combined Ops I lag like hell! I can run fine on VERY HIGH in OA. Anyone?

not a clue, combined ops and arrowhead is the same only with more content loaded.

[Redstarfish 1]

Do you think I should reinstall everything? Should I delete all local content first?

[domokun 515]

@ Redstarfish & Naka: check-out these tried and tested tweaks to get your game running smoothly but still looking good

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?85124-ArmA2-OA-%28low%29-performance-issues&p=2081466#post2081466

[Mongrolian 1]

I should preface this by saying I'm playing the mod "DayZ"

I'm having terrible performance issues in large cities like Cherno and Elektro. (Like sub 20 frames a second) The thing is; my computer can handle all current games with the highest graphics settings but for some reason ARMA eats it alive and I have to reduce everything to fairly low. Benchmark one comes back as 59 FPS.

My specs are as follows:

AMD FX 6200 (6 cores at 3.8ghz)

Gigabyte Radeon 7870 2GB

8 GB GSKILL Ripjaws ram

x2 7200RPM Samsung spinpoint hard drives at 500GB

I've tried most of the tweaks people have suggested with little to no noticable difference including adding the CPU number to the startup and making my video ram set to "Default" which actually lowers my performance drastically from "Very High". Any suggestions?

[Redstarfish 1]

Will this affect my gameplay? OA and Arma II run fine without playing 'Combined Operations.

I lag a lot on CO, and thanks for the mods i'll check the out. Does anyone know what can be causing the lag?

[Leon86 13]

@Redstarfish:

if you have input lag aka mouse lag put the maxframesahead and detectedframesahead thingy's on 0

I should preface this by saying I'm playing the mod "DayZ"

I'm having terrible performance issues in large cities like Cherno and Elektro. (Like sub 20 frames a second) The thing is; my computer can handle all current games with the highest graphics settings but for some reason ARMA eats it alive and I have to reduce everything to fairly low. Benchmark one comes back as 59 FPS.

My specs are as follows:

AMD FX 6200 (6 cores at 3.8ghz)

Gigabyte Radeon 7870 2GB

8 GB GSKILL Ripjaws ram

x2 7200RPM Samsung spinpoint hard drives at 500GB

I've tried most of the tweaks people have suggested with little to no noticable difference including adding the CPU number to the startup and making my video ram set to "Default" which actually lowers my performance drastically from "Very High". Any suggestions?

The problem is the cpu, arma scales well to 3 cores, but barely beyond quads. Your 6 cores have a relatively low "per core" performance and the buildings are just very heavy on the cpu, my fps takes a dive there as well.

Edited May 26, 2012 by Leon86

[Mongrolian 1]

@Redstarfish:

if you have input lag aka mouse lag put the maxframesahead and detectedframesahead thingy's on 0

The problem is the cpu, arma scales well to 3 cores, but barely beyond quads. Your 6 cores have a relatively low "per core" performance and the buildings are just very heavy on the cpu, my fps takes a dive there as well.

To clarify; each core is supposed to run at 3.8GHZ. Not the sum of all the cores running together. In my experience 3.8GHZ is much higher than my previous Phenom X4 running at 2.8GHZ per core and is astronomically higher than any of the other products I've seen on the market to date which is why I bought it. Although 6 cores running in parallel does not equate to 22.8GHZ of power because the way processes are handled this should be more than enough to play this game on max settings. After all, I play BF3 on ultra settings at 1900x1080 with 50 fps at its lowest. I'll try the tweaks you mentioned and get back to you with the results.

[Leon86 13]

To clarify; each core is supposed to run at 3.8GHZ. Not the sum of all the cores running together. In my experience 3.8GHZ is much higher than my previous Phenom X4 running at 2.8GHZ per core and is astronomically higher than any of the other products I've seen on the market to date which is why I bought it. Although 6 cores running in parallel does not equate to 22.8GHZ of power because the way processes are handled this should be more than enough to play this game on max settings. After all, I play BF3 on ultra settings at 1900x1080 with 50 fps at its lowest. I'll try the tweaks you mentioned and get back to you with the results.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-review-amd-fx8150-tested/8

look at the crysis warhead benchmark and the dawn of war 2 and dirt 3 bench etc. in nearly all those benches the lower clocked phenom II sixcore beats the higher clocked FX 8 core.

[subwayis666 1]

when ever i start arma 2 oa i get this message" no entry 'C:\Users\Stewart\Documents\ArmA2\ArmA2OA.cfg.3D_Performance'. " please help. im stressed out right now so if its in the front page im sorry, im just losing my mind and just need help. idk what it does but it worrys me. thanks if you can help.

[Leon86 13]

You might have to run as admin to allow that particular file to be created.

[Mongrolian 1]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-review-amd-fx8150-tested/8

look at the crysis warhead benchmark and the dawn of war 2 and dirt 3 bench etc. in nearly all those benches the lower clocked phenom II sixcore beats the higher clocked FX 8 core.

I looked at that and in some tests the 8 core Bulldozer processor outperformed its predecessors. Its all about which product you're testing it with as it comes down to the programs support for multiple cores. In theory, my cheaper 6 core processor should outperform the 8 core processor because it has a higher per-core clock speed. After all, programs use processors in parallel and not serial so you're never getting the full speed out of your processor unless the program you're running is optimized to utilize each core equally. (Example: An 8 core processor clocked at 2.8GHZ per core will be outperformed by a 6 core processor clocked at 3.8GHZ per core because the individual clock speed is higher and allows the processor more "breathing room") According to this benchmark comparison of all current market processors the 6200 outperforms every single other processor that AMD has out on the market at this time with 6250 marks. (Source: Futuremark, developers of 3Dmark benchmarking software) http://community.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu/AMD+FX-6200/review

I'm not sure where you're getting that my individual core speed is pretty low at 3.8GHZ per core.

[Redstarfish 1]

UPDATE:

So far so good. I installed the Dynamic View Distance, and it seems to have helped. I use DayZ mostly, and the other mods won't work on it. Hopefully I am optimized! Thanks everyone!

[MadMorgan 1]

Hello,

I am having a lot of trouble with the Arma 2 CO and Iron Front games. I am running the games on my Samsung RF711 laptop with Ä°ntel i7-2630QM quadcore processor that scales from 2.00 to 2.90 GHz with Turbo Boost. I have a GeForce GT 540M GPU with 1gig of memory and 6 gigs of ram. The game is installed on a partition of a 5600rpm HDD... I use gamebooster and have tried to run the game with and without multithreading. I have tried adjusting stuff in Nvidia control panel like rendered frames ahead and prettymuch every setting available. I have tried to set PhysX on and off and fiddled with the cfg files to no avail.

At this point I am getting 14 fps on avarage. Loading screens are consistantly running at 3 - 10 fps and while in the animated menu, I get 40 - 60 FPS if showing sky which drops down to 10 - 20 fps if there is anything else on the screen. Ingame I tend to get 1 - 21 fps which tends to avarage at 13 fps. My settings are ranging from all on Normal - High, with antialiasing , anisotrophic filtering and postprocessing always off and HDR on normal. Nothing I change seems to affect FPS at all except lowering 3d resolution to the lowest which looks horrible and still does not give steady FPS. Native resolution is 1600x900.

Now, I am considering the option of overclocking the CPU which is not such a great thing on a laptop that tends not to keep cool as well as I'd like. I am also considering getting an SSD external HDD and installing the game on that. But I will not get one unless I get concrete evidence that I will improve things. I have read a whole pile of stuff about optimization and am getting really confused... All I want is a playable level of FPS. I would be happy with even steady 20 - 25fps...

I KNOW some people can run the game with an identical rig. There is even a video of a guy playing the game on a laptop with the same specs on youtube. (waiting for a reply from him). So if anyone has any tips for me I would love to hear them!

[Leon86 13]

I'm not sure where you're getting that my individual core speed is pretty low at 3.8GHZ per core.

speed is not the same as performance. and it performs poorly.

[Mongrolian 1]

speed is not the same as performance. and it performs poorly.

You're wrong. It performs better than I expected in every single other application. The processor you cited was the 8 core FX. The processor I have just came out about a month and a half ago and has very little to no information out there for it. The numbers say it all and so does personal experience with all the big name titles out on the market today. It outperforms all of the other models (including the 6 core phenom you also cited) but for some reason ARMA 2 doesnt mesh well with it. Next time do a little bit of research before you try and "help" people. (Which you've been of no help at all aside from cookie-cutter responses from other threads) Now. Anyone have relative experience with a similar rig that could help out with some pointers?

Edited May 26, 2012 by Mongrolian

[Nicolas145 1]

I'm having low performance with Arma 2 Free and Arma 2 OA Demo.

My specs are:

AMD Phenom X6 3.2Ghz

AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256bits X2 (Crossfire)

Motherboard Asrock Deluxe5

Power supply GS800 800w

500GB Sata HD

My screen resolution is 1920x1080, No matter how much i lower the settings, it'll keep running in less than 30 fps.

[Mongrolian 1]

I'm having low performance with Arma 2 Free and Arma 2 OA Demo.

My specs are:

AMD Phenom X6 3.2Ghz

AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256bits X2 (Crossfire)

Motherboard Asrock Deluxe5

Power supply GS800 800w

500GB Sata HD

My screen resolution is 1920x1080, No matter how much i lower the settings, it'll keep running in less than 30 fps.

X6 is the 6 core processor right? I'm having the same issue with my FX-6200 6 core. If I find out what's causing it I'll let you know.

[Leon86 13]

You're wrong. It performs better than I expected in every single other application. The processor you cited was the 8 core FX. The processor I have just came out about a month and a half ago and has very little to no information out there for it. The numbers say it all and so does personal experience with all the big name titles out on the market today. It outperforms all of the other models (including the 6 core phenom you also cited) but for some reason ARMA 2 doesnt mesh well with it. Next time do a little bit of research before you try and "help" people. (Which you've been of no help at all aside from cookie-cutter responses from other threads) Now. Anyone have relative experience with a similar rig that could help out with some pointers?

your processor is the same as that 8 core, only with 2 cores disabled. they're not really 8 cores but 4 modules with 2 "cores" that share a lot of the hardware, a bit like hyperthreading, but not quite (hyperthreading has very few parts double)

They've increased core count but performance per core per clock has slightly decreased, clockspeed went up a bit so that mitigates it a bit, and overall performance in well multithreaded stuff went up. Most games aren't multithreaded that well, exception being bf3.

arma however only scales well to about 3 cores, maybe you could gain something with -cpucount=3, not sure if it works that way but my guess is that way the workload that scales well to 3 cpu's could be divided over the 3 "full" modules. maybe you could go even further and tell windows arma can only use core 1, 3, and 5 or something, to force it. Of course overclocking might also get you some extra performance.

Otherwise I'd say just play with settings, you have a fast gpu so you dont have to lower resolution or antialiasing, make sure shadows is high or highest too as medium is cpu instead of gpu. Cpu killers are model detail and viewdistance, but I guess you have that figured out by now.

[Mongrolian 1]

your processor is the same as that 8 core, only with 2 cores disabled. they're not really 8 cores but 4 modules with 2 "cores" that share a lot of the hardware, a bit like hyperthreading, but not quite (hyperthreading has very few parts double)

They've increased core count but performance per core per clock has slightly decreased, clockspeed went up a bit so that mitigates it a bit, and overall performance in well multithreaded stuff went up. Most games aren't multithreaded that well, exception being bf3.

arma however only scales well to about 3 cores, maybe you could gain something with -cpucount=3, not sure if it works that way but my guess is that way the workload that scales well to 3 cpu's could be divided over the 3 "full" modules. maybe you could go even further and tell windows arma can only use core 1, 3, and 5 or something, to force it. Of course overclocking might also get you some extra performance.

Otherwise I'd say just play with settings, you have a fast gpu so you dont have to lower resolution or antialiasing, make sure shadows is high or highest too as medium is cpu instead of gpu. Cpu killers are model detail and viewdistance, but I guess you have that figured out by now.

I've actually considered running it off only 3 cores as it seems my friends and people with lower-end rigs are able to run it just fine with no lag at all. I'll give it a try in a few days when I'm back at my desktop and post my results in this thread. It seems the fellow that posted below me is having the same issues with a similar rig but using the Phenom X6 @ 3.2GHZ. I appreciate the help and input.

[Nicolas145 1]

X6 is the 6 core processor right? I'm having the same issue with my FX-6200 6 core. If I find out what's causing it I'll let you know.

Yes its a 6 core processor, and thanks.

---------- Post added at 02:05 ---------- Previous post was at 02:01 ----------

I've actually considered running it off only 3 cores as it seems my friends and people with lower-end rigs are able to run it just fine with no lag at all. I'll give it a try in a few days when I'm back at my desktop and post my results in this thread. It seems the fellow that posted below me is having the same issues with a similar rig but using the Phenom X6 @ 3.2GHZ. I appreciate the help and input.

I'll try this when i wake up tomorrow.

[Slevikch 1]

Hey all,

Whenever I change the settings in game from Low to Very High, my FPS remains in the same 34-40 region, sometimes dips in the 20s but the change in graphic quality is minimal. So, I'm assuming that my FPS issue is processor related. Currently I'm using an AMD Phenom 955BE (3.2Ghz x4) and have no FPS issues with other games. Are there any small fixes or specific options that could be disabled to improve this?

Thanks

[Nicolas145 1]

Using 3 cores didn't help at all.