ArmA2 / OA (low) performance issues

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

•Intel® Core™ i3-2120 3.3GHz 3MB Cache Processor

•6GB DDR3 1600 Installed Memory, Expandable to 8GB

•1TB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive

•Super Multi DVD Burner Optical Drive

•Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium

Well, rlziggy, it's still not enough, the i3-2120 is a dual core processor, it has built-in Intel HD 3000 graphics card and that won't run ArmA II either. Here's a great laptop spec resource, http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i3-2310M-Notebook-Processor.45318.0.html (CPU similar to yours, still not enough to run games without a GPU)

You really need a laptop with a dedicated graphics card, like the GT650M, or this GTX 660M, or an HD 7970M.

; )

Edited September 22, 2012 by Iroquois Pliskin

[Leon86 13]

It doesn't even have the 3000, it has the 2000 which is much slower.

intel notebooks with a 3xxx cpu have the hd4000 on which arma2 should be playable (on low, at 1024x768 or something)

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

It doesn't even have the 3000, it has the 2000 which is much slower.

You're indeed correct, http://ark.intel.com/products/53426/Intel-Core-i3-2120-Processor-(3M-Cache-3_30-GHz)

Solution has been found privately for rlziggy.

intel notebooks with a 3xxx cpu have the hd4000 on which arma2 should be playable (on low, at 1024x768 or something)

I wouldn't count even on Ivy Bridge CPUs with 4Ks. Haswell should remedy that if 3x performance specs for the iGPU are to be believed. :)

Edited September 23, 2012 by Iroquois Pliskin

[rlziggy 1]

Well, rlziggy, it's still not enough, the i3-2120 is a dual core processor, it has built-in Intel HD 3000 graphics card and that won't run ArmA II either. Here's a great laptop spec resource, http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i3-2310M-Notebook-Processor.45318.0.html (CPU similar to yours, still not enough to run games without a GPU)

You really need a laptop with a dedicated graphics card, like the GT650M, or this GTX 660M, or an HD 7970M.

; )

Those specs are for a desktop that i have

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Those specs are for a desktop that i have

Doesn't matter, here's your desktop CPU - http://ark.intel.com/products/53426/Intel-Core-i3-2120-Processor-(3M-Cache-3_30-GHz)

Integrated GPU HD 2000 - clearly not enough to run the game.

P.S. if that's your desktop, then you can upgrade it with the components that I've suggested via PM - no need to purchase a new motherboard and CPU.

[Rapala 10]

Hi I have a quick question. I bought this game 2 years back and spent countless hours trying to get the performance to an acceptable level but ultimately failed. I gave up on it hoping a patch would come around to fix the issues. (My hardware was and still is medium to high end)

So the question is, has there been some incredible patch that fixed the low framerate issue so that I should try install again?

Guys sorry to double post, but it seems my question was missed...

[domokun 515]

Guys sorry to double post, but it seems my question was missed...

Yes but make sure you run OA (not A2), install the latest official patch (1.62) as well as the latest beta patch.

Plus avoid large (2+ km) draw distances and anti-aliasing unless you have a fast (4+GHz) quad core and a mid-range or better graphics card that is less than 2 years old.

More details here:

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

[doveman 7]

Guys sorry to double post, but it seems my question was missed...

I'd say no. I'm running the latest beta and still get framerates mostly in the 20s (and below sometimes) when playing SP missions. It seems CPU/AI-related rather than GPU as I can see that it only uses 50% of my CPU and changing the graphics options doesn't help (changing some options (Object Detail and PP mostly) does substantially increase the FPS whilst in the Options but as soon as I return to the game it drops back to <30 FPS.

[chrisb 196]

I understand that certain maps/terrains/islands whatever everyone likes to call them, are heavy on fps. But, if your going to have a mission based, say, in or around a large city, think about how fps is going to perform first, then locate your mission properly. For example, you have ‘city 34’ on snakemans ‘51km desert’ terrain, its possibly one of the largest, other than Fallujah or Bagdad, but it performs outstandingly well, i.e. 65-110 fps in the heart of the city. O.k there is not the clutter (some would say needless clutter) in the city, like overgrown public areas etc, but you could add these if you really wanted to (why, who knows) for very little fps drop (using the right veg), waste bins, vehicles etc could also be added for very little fps drop.

The city itself has an abundance of buildings, many with rooftop, balcony positions. There are tree lined roads plus alleyways, yards, open area public squares etc. Its an ideal environment for larger city battles, allowing me and the group I play in 150ai in combat in the city and still have 50+fps.

Chernarus cities are never going to perform well, and putting large amounts of ai in there would be silly really. But you could use perhaps ‘Podagorsk’ or ‘Miroslavi’ both offer similar terrain types to Chernarus but with far better fps, Miroslavi has a large riverside city which gives excellent fps compared to anything Chernarus has to offer. Missions can be made for any type of battle city or not and still obtain great fps, its just where to put your combat (& ai amount).

There is, well I don’t know how many, but I have around 170-200 terrains/maps/islands, all of varying types, many have cities that perform really well, plus countryside, although Chernarus is fine in the rest of the terrain, it’s the cites and larger towns where things begin to be a problem if there are lots of ai around fighting. But there is a whole host of other terrains as good, some arguably better than the stock terrains, most indeed perform really well fps wise.

Just think:

What’s the mission, how many humans are going to be there, how many ai, what is the likely worse case scenario for heavy combat, i.e. how many roughly will meet at one time in combat, includes ai and human. Which terrain type do you want, again i.e. arid, European, tropical etc. Where are the likely best places to put your battle, best performance fps wise. Are you willing to place a few items into the mission, that are to enhance an area, for example, some places may not be the best lit areas, but you can add all sorts of lighting via the editor. Do you need more tree’s, bushes etc, again easily and quickly added, low hit (fps) tree’s and bushes. Its all a matter of planning and having the terrains to work with. United Sahrani performs great now in a2, that and its possibly one of the most beautiful places to put a mission.

So look around, yes arma 2 can be heavy on everyone’s pc in places, but for every place that’s grinding down your pc there is probably a place that doesn’t. You just need something comfy to get around on/in to have a good look, I recommend the ’mozzie’ then go explore, there are thousands of places to base missions, and I don’t think I exaggerate there, o.k. maybe 999 places, who knows, there’s lots, that will not hurt your pc or fps..

If you think, no I’m not going to go to that bother each time I want to make a mission, i.e. enhancing a place with lighting, tree’s, bushes etc, you only have to do it the once, save as a template, then copy/paste the same enhanced area prior to setting up another mission based in the same place.

ramble, ramble......

:D

[doveman 7]

ChrisB,

Do you have a link to this "city 34" mission or another that you get 65+ FPS with? I'd like to test (in SP) to see if I get the same results because if not, obviously something needs tweaking on my system or something about ArmA isn't working right on my system.

[chrisb 196]

The ‘51km Desert’ terrain and City 34 are not missions, I have linked the terrain, the city is in the furthest N-NE.

Edit: Replaced pics with ones showing fps.

Also the city map.:)

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/337/arma2oa2012092521463362.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/10/arma2oa2012092521441054.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/201/arma2oa2012092521431499.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/221/arma2oa2012092521425999.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/525/arma2oa2012092521461921.png/

Edited September 25, 2012 by ChrisB

[[frl]myke 14]

O.k just checked this before posting and forgot that msi does not for some reason show fps (why?),

In MSI Afterburner settings, in the OSD tab, did you checked the "show OSD on screenshots" checkbox?

[chrisb 196]

Myke;2229940']In MSI Afterburner settings' date=' in the OSD tab, did you checked the "show OSD on screenshots" checkbox?[/quote']

Thank you, done that now, well after all that time of not knowing. Learn something new everyday..;)

[doveman 7]

The ‘51km Desert’ terrain and City 34 are not missions, I have linked the terrain, the city is in the furthest N-NE.

Yeah, the clue's rather in the names isn't it :o

Thanks for the link. I tested with 51km Desert (and the required addons) in City 34 and got up to 100 FPS in a quick run around. At the location shown on this map, looking across the courtyard, I get 74 FPS which drops to 66 when scoping (with a normal rifle, not sniper) and to about 64 when zooming in from scope. Turning around and looking at the buildings behind me it goes up to 85-90 FPS though. Sometimes, having a lot of sky in view increases the framerates, so that if I look directly up it goes to 144 FPS but that's not that useful most of the time ;) Have you got any missions you could share that use tons of AI like you mentioned, as I'd like to see how it holds up on my system (or were you using a dedicated server machine for that, in which case it's not really relevant to my attempts to get a good SP/Co-op experience)?

http://imageshack.us/a/img696/599/arma2oa2012092600363978.png (3383 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img832/5446/arma2oa2012092600364641.png (2783 kB)

Unfortunately I didn't realise I could have the FPS show on the screenshot either until it was too late and I couldn't be bothered to go back and re-do it. I took some on Bystirica to show my settings and how bad it tends to get normally though.

http://imageshack.us/a/img692/6158/arma2oa2012092600500310.png (3041 kB)

looking the other way:

http://imageshack.us/a/img801/5301/arma2oa2012092600505128.png (3020 kB)

zoomed in:

http://imageshack.us/a/img109/2702/arma2oa2012092600505701.png (3001 kB)

[chrisb 196]

using a dedicated server machine for that, in which case it's not really relevant to my attempts to get a good SP/Co-op experience) [/url]

Plus we use some in-house mods, that if they were mine, they’re not, I would share. But they are built into the missions so it would have little to no use to anyone outside the group, also they are particular to our ongoing game.

Still its not all bad, try putting you and your group (small fireteam) you can lead or you can give your leader a waypoint and just be a squad member, place the squad to the south of the city (just outside the city) and have them go straight north either via you commanding or one waypoint for your squad leader, to exit the city north (do it where the cities widest, if you can understand). Place smaller enemy combat groups, fireteams etc around the areas your likely to go through, spread them out, say a dozen to start with, bearing in mind your ‘as straight as pos’ route.

Add this simple patrol script to each of the squad leaders init, as typed;

[group P1,getPos this, 200] call BIS_fnc_taskPatrol;

just replacing the P1 with P2, P3 etc and of course naming your team leaders P1,P2 to match etc (only the squad leader needs to be named). No need to put anything else. You could alter the patrol range, which is shown as 200mtrs at present, say in city set it at 100-150mtrs or so, then just play.

If you have gl4 the ai will wonder through buildings and have quick looks from rooftops etc every now and then, plus they may help via becoming re-inforcements when you engage the enemy, so beware. Its unpredictable and fun, plays different more or less every time..

Now quick and easy for the above scenario setup:

For ease: make one of the enemy units and copy/paste the ( [group P1,getPos this, 200] call BIS_fnc_taskPatrol; ) script into the leaders init as above, you can copy it from this page then in the squad leaders init paste it i.e. hold down left ’Ctrl’ then press ’V’.

Now hold down ‘shift’ key over the leader of the enemy squad and click LMB, all the others in the unit should now be highlighted, now with them highlighted (you can let go of the buttons) hold down ’left ’Ctrl’ and press ’C’ still with the cursor/arrow still over the squad leader, you have copied the group inc the script, now just click on the map where you want to place enemy squads and hold down left ’Ctrl’ again this time pressing ’V’ you have pasted into the map a copy of the squad inc the script. Do this a dozen times, then just change all the squad leaders name from P1-P2.P3 etc in the init and the name fields, right upto P12 plus alter orientation if required and tweak.

Also as said, you could change the patrol range distance if you want, not really worth doing that yet as they will all patrol different areas anyway, but def the units name i.e. P1-P2 etc (has to be done).

You now have a scenario type mission, if it plays well and you want more ai, highlight all the enemy units by holding down LMB and drag over, then place the cursor/arrow over one of the squad leaders and copy, i.e. hold down left ‘Ctrl’ key and press ‘C’. Click anywhere on the map, hold down left 'Ctrl' and press 'V' and you have doubled up your ai count, don’t forget to change the squad leaders name’s/init's, from P12-P24.. And so on, start with fireteams of four and first game 48 enemy units, double up second game and 96 enemy units and so on..

Quick easy and fun.

Once you have done this for the first time it will take all of around 15mins to make these types of scenarios possibly less. Hope I haven't missed anything. ;)

If you knew this already, well it may help others, who knows..:D

Now just back to your post, yes its odd, one of the only cities where, if you look at the buildings the fps goes up :D, also when I place lots of ai on here it makes little impact for each group..

See how you get on.

Edited September 26, 2012 by ChrisB

[chrisb 196]

Recreated your map location, results: see below pics

Looking down the courtyard = 85-95 fps

Looking straight up = 185+ fps (usually over 200fps on this terrain, disappointed with that)

Zooming in, fps goes up = 100+ fps

Turning to look at the buildings = 116-125 fps

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/arma2oa2012092604130668.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/88/arma2oa2012092604151006.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/823/arma2oa2012092604132239.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/266/arma2oa2012092604113540.png/

I took some on Bystirica to show my settings and how bad it tends to get normally though.

Couple of things, 2000vd on the ground is enough in most cases, imo, might find it increases fps when you zoom, either slightly or fully, which is what you do a lot of the time in combat, so that’s where you need your fps increase.

Also ‘zeu_oa_c_fov’ (Zeus mod), use this and it will give you a slightly more realistic field of view, again imo, also should help fps a little, try and see, you may not like it, in the pics above your looking at it.

Also, and to be honest probably just to humour me, could you try with Video Mem to Very High setting and see fps difference. Also Terrain Detail to Very High and Object Detail to Normal, if you try these separately then all together at the same time, just to see the difference in fps.

Your at a higher res to me (1920x1200) I’m 1920x1080, so could be a difference there.

How many mods are you running ?

I don’t think your that far away from many other players performance in general, ignoring the pic with 28fps you have, whats that about!, tree’s are turning into blobs as well:butbut:

It was worse for you, if I remember from your other posts, here and there, so you have improved it, or am I getting mixed up with someone else, not sure.

Other than try the above I'm lost to know what you can do regards heavy terrains. However you have more than enough kick for other terrains, try Celle2 or Zernova for european style, there are quite a lot you could try.

Don’t forget though that Bystirica is a chunk of Chernarus really. We all know what that’s like.

Think I might make a list of the terrains I have sometime and what style they are, i.e. arid, european, tropical etc plus performance.. put it up on the forum here somewhere, may help others..

:)

[doveman 7]

Recreated your map location, results: see below pics

Couple of things, 2000vd on the ground is enough in most cases, imo, might find it increases fps when you zoom, either slightly or fully, which is what you do a lot of the time in combat, so that’s where you need your fps increase.

Also ‘zeu_oa_c_fov’ (Zeus mod), use this and it will give you a slightly more realistic field of view, again imo, also should help fps a little, try and see, you may not like it, in the pics above your looking at it.

Also, and to be honest probably just to humour me, could you try with Video Mem to Very High setting and see fps difference. Also Terrain Detail to Very High and Object Detail to Normal, if you try these separately then all together at the same time, just to see the difference in fps.

Your at a higher res to me (1920x1200) I’m 1920x1080, so could be a difference there.

How many mods are you running ?

Thanks and wow! I changed Vid Mem to V.High and it made a substantial difference, even though it doesn't appear to change how much VRAM is actually used (around 550MB whether on Default or V.High) and the GPU hits 100% in either case.

These are on Default in order:

Straight ahead - 69 FPS

Scoped - 63 FPS

Zoomed scoped - 62 FPS

Straight Up - 155 FPS

Behind - 85 FPS

http://imageshack.us/a/img692/7664/arma2oa2012092613432237.png (2767 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img641/2913/arma2oa2012092613432799.png (2753 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img846/6791/arma2oa2012092613433591.png (2694 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img24/6945/arma2oa2012092613435216.png (2547 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img253/8559/arma2oa2012092613430320.png (775 kB)

and these are the same on V.High:

Straight ahead - 83 FPS

Scoped - 78 FPS

Zoomed scoped - 75 FPS

Straight Up - 195 FPS

Behind - 102 FPS

http://imageshack.us/a/img266/6312/arma2oa2012092613443958.png (538 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img204/7962/arma2oa2012092613442541.png (2758 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img59/3729/arma2oa2012092613443030.png (2668 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img837/7671/arma2oa2012092613444453.png (2520 kB)

http://imageshack.us/a/img641/3113/arma2oa2012092613451178.png (3120 kB)

Now they're not quite as good as your results (except for looking straight up) but as you say, that might be accounted for by the slightly higher res and perhaps different settings. Not sure why your scoped view increases FPS whilst mine decrease it though? Actually, putting Terrain Detail to Very High and Object Detail to Normal as you suggested does change that so that the scores change slightly to 82, 88, 88, 185, 102 but then I get the horrible LOD switching so I need Object Detail on V.High.

Total CPU usage was 50%, with the four cores hitting 47.6%, 95.9%, 83.6%, 61.2% but of course there was no AI which is one of the major things the CPU normally has to deal with.

Note this was testing without the beta, just 1.62. I ran the tests with beta 97239 and with my settings back to Terrain Detail on Very High and Object Detail on Low, I get 82, 74, 74, 185, 103 and with Vid Mem back to Default 70, 64, 63, 170, 90. I imagine the fix for the LOD switching bug accounts for the slightly lower results when scoping the far end of the courtyard although I'm not sure why that would lower the straight up sky view.

I think everything I've read before has advised that Vid Mem should be set on Default and that setting it on anything else will limit the amount of VRAM ArmA can use to less than I have available but clearly there's a bug with it that's limiting performance for some reason.

I'll go and test on some other islands but I should post this before I lose it ;)

---------- Post added at 14:40 ---------- Previous post was at 14:34 ----------

Still its not all bad, try putting you and your group (small fireteam) you can lead or you can give your leader a waypoint and just be a squad member, place the squad to the south of the city (just outside the city) and have them go straight north either via you commanding or one waypoint for your squad leader, to exit the city north (do it where the cities widest, if you can understand). Place smaller enemy combat groups, fireteams etc around the areas your likely to go through, spread them out, say a dozen to start with, bearing in mind your ‘as straight as pos’ route.

Add this simple patrol script to each of the squad leaders init, as typed;

...

If you knew this already, well it may help others, who knows..:D

Hey, thanks for going to the trouble of posting detailed instructions for doing this. About all I know how to do in the editor is plonk units down, so your effort wasn't wasted ;)

I'll certainly play around with this when I get a chance. :D

---------- Post added at 15:29 ---------- Previous post was at 14:40 ----------

OK, I tried Bystirica again and that was still appalling and struggling to stay above 30 FPS. So I tried Utes and that's much better at around 60-80 FPS (although it drops to 49 FPS when zoomed in on trees). This game really doesn't seem to like trees, which is weird considering the default islands but zooming in on trees on Utes tends to cost between 7-13 FPS. Anyway, as long as I can keep it above 30 FPS and enable Vsync I'll be happy enough :)

The real test will be some SP missions as these are what have been causing me problems and playing on MP servers, where obviously the server rather than my PC is doing the heavy AI work, generally hasn't been too bad with around 50 FPS from memory (not sure about that as I don't always play with FRAPS on and I'm often too busy trying not to get shot to notice!)

PS. To answer your question, the only mods I've been running for these tests are the pmc_51km_desert related ones.

Edited September 26, 2012 by doveman

[chrisb 196]

I would be happy with those results, shows its not your setup, seems to be the game playing tricks as usual. The zooming in thing, I think mine goes up because of a mod I’m running, not sure and not complaining.:)

Looks like your cores are working well, around the same as I get, your vram should be around 730ish on heavier terrains, also do try out the zeus fov it will increase your fps slightly I’m sure.. May not be to your taste though as it, ever so slightly, zooms in the screen, perhaps that’s where the increase fps comes from when zooming with a weapon, who knows..

:D

[doveman 7]

Yeah I'm plenty happy with that nice boost from putting Vid Mem on V.High :)

On Utes the VRAM usage was around 700-800MB so that's OK. I'll give the zeus fov mod a try, I've probably already got it somewhere anyway ;)

Just need to see if anything can be done about the trees now, not so much the ugliness of them (although it would be nice if they could be improved) but the fact they're still LOD switching very slowly and noticeably when zooming in, which was supposedly fixed in the beta (the fix works for buildings with Object Detail on V.High but not, it seems, for trees).

EDIT: I tested with the dx9 atiumdag.dll from Cat 12.8 and 12.6 (I'm running 12.4 normally at the moment) and got the following:

12.4 (97239 beta), 81, 75, 72, 190, 104 (previous test 82, 74, 74, 185, 103)

12.6 (97239 beta), 81, 74, 72, 188, 102

12.8 (97239 beta) 78, 72, 70, 172, 101

12.8 (1.62 non-beta), 78, 72, 70, 172, 101

So it seems 12.8 is not quite as good as 12.4 or 12.6, although there's not a lot in it. Strangely I found that starting with Vid Mem on V.High and switching to Default and back to V.High would boost the FPS slightly, with 12.6 or 12.8 anyway, I'm not sure I tried with 12.4. Anyway, it seems the Vid Mem setting is a bit buggy.

Edited September 26, 2012 by doveman

[doveman 7]

Well outside of 51km Desert I'm still having problems. Trying to play a mission in the campaign Soldiers of Valour yesterday I was getting around 20-30 FPS and the BAF campaign was much the same.

I've been testing today with all mods disabled to try and see if I could find a mod that was causing the low FPS and haven't found a culprit yet, although the BAF campaign does seem to be working better without any mods now. However, one thing I've found and that's bugging me is that the FPS will drop to 45 or lower when looking in certain directions, even though the CPU and GPU are only using about 60%, so why isn't it using the available power to try and keep the FPS higher? I even tried dropping all the settings (except Video Memory) to low or disabled and it still wouldn't keep the FPS up and just ended up using the CPU/GPU even less.

In E08, on some parts it does push the GPU to 99% and it's understandable if the FPS drops when it's running at max, although some of the places this happens, for example the last 5-10 seconds of the last scene after it pans aways from the buildings onto the trees, seems no more complicated than the previous part of the scene. I was testing with ATOC and AA disabled (SMAA V.High instead) but it still seems to struggle around trees.

I also noticed that it's only using about 1GB out of my 16GB, as the used RAM was at 3749MB before loading ArmA and only hit around 4800MB.

I tried making a video with MSI Afterburner showing the RAM/VRAM/CPU and GPU stats on screen but even with ArmA running from a separate drive to the Windows/Recording one it causes a considerable hit (i.e on high I get about 51 FPS without recording and 35 with) and the video's very jerky anyway, despite recording at 60 FPS, so the onscreen stats aren't a very useful reflection of what is shown when not recording. If there was some way to graph the stats which was synced with the start of the test, that would be better as it probably wouldn't affect the results much but I don't know of a way to do that.

[kklownboy 43]

when recording (fraps) set it to 30fps. E08 has alot of CPU/Script work going on and isnt a GPU tester, its more of a full system tester. A2OA rarely ever gets to 1.5+GB of RAM. It is a 32bit game. All that you describe about looking in certain directions getting FPS drops etc, happens to everybody. It can all be adjusted with settings, OCing, And your Display resolution....

For me the biggest first boost was getting 4.2GZ on myCPU way back when with A2,. I always have had CF or sli with top of the line cards since A1(stupid thousands of $$$$). The next biggest boost was a SSD(OS and Game on it) with A2 and OA, still using CF or SLi with top cards. The latest boost has been my 7970! (and for my player friends who have 680s). Much much more than any CF or SLI combo i have run. This is just one card, will get another soonish. But it has allowed me to play at 2048/1536 6XAA VH etc... Tho i keep my VD 3k~ or what is allowed by the MP mission i play. I get on average 45fps~ i can get my 75 refresh on some maps, but also get 25fps too. If i lower my rez to 16/12 I am good for 60s almost all the time (40s are the low 100 is my refresh). For me its not about the fps, tho it has to be playable, its about IQ. A 680/7970 will get you that at 1080p right now. Your 6950 is not( to me) a 1080p card. It would take atleast two, and you would still be short on VRAM. My 79703GB will use 2.7+Gb of my VRAM. I dont hit the wall anymore.Same goes for the 680 4GBs.

Hope this is some info that matters.. But we all hit low FPS. I can play in the mid 20s Been there since A1...

[chrisb 196]

I have said most of this before on here I think regards fps, so put it in a spoiler, saves space..:)

Clean with no mods running, I get 40-45fps in E08.

If I’m honest it bears little resemblance to the missions I make, which tend to be smaller insertion type skirmish missions 70 ai tops usually, that’s throughout the mission, in combat at one time maybe 30-40 ai tops, usually a lot lower. SP mission on any of the desert type terrains and the average fps for that type of mission would be 50-55fps pos above on some, heights would be in the 70-80’s lows in the 40’s with all my mods running, and I use a lot of mods. The ai ones being a big draw on cpu, but it handles the game very well, v-sync is disabled and there is little noticeable tearing, my monitor is good upto 75hz so not too bad.. Heavier terrains can vary a lot, Namalsk I get reasonably high fps in the top end of the 50’s in a mission. Chernarus and obviously it drops back to the lower 40’s as an average, can be a little lower or higher, again depends on mission content and location.

PMC/VTE terrains give massive fps, missions can quite easily be in the top 60’s. Holtz ofp islands are far better than the originals imo for fps.

The CWR2 mod ofp islands are pretty bad fps wise for me, not sure why, the same (2010 version) island by Hotzenplotz can be 20frames higher!! So I stick to hotz for the ofp islands. Tip; get as many islands as you can, then you have a choice plus with fps differences, 160ish probably more, I think I have, so plenty of places to set missions with very good fps.

Msi takes near 30fps when recording, I have a vid on Jade I did, without recording and its in the 80-90’s fps, recording and its in the 60’s, so pointless recording to get any idea of what’s happening performance wise. Recording will always cause a hit and make the game look like crap most of the time, unless you put time and effort into recording in top quality and have lots of upload time:butbut:

However, back to E08, with the same mods running in E08 I get 32-35fps, so the ai mods especially slow things down. But still if I was to play the mission with the average 32fps, it would still be completely o.k. ai would hit their marks as they should as the rates are above 25fps. It’s a good guide, keep your fps above 25 and you should still get sensible ai behaviour, therefore a good game, below that and the game can get a little, well, bad where ai are concerned.

There is no stuttering or jitters and the game runs smooth, might get a little popping depending on settings, but only little and rare. Tearing isn't an issue, if it were I would buy a 120hz monitor. I never have v-sync enabled.

Settings are around here usually, I can occasionally disable aa, on certain terrains its pointless with it on. Also on heavier terrains I might knock Terrain Detail down to low or very low, that gives a real fps boost for heavier terrains, for me anyway. I use ivd usually, but dvd and vffpss I also use occasionally, depends on mission and location, these are all handy to have and use.

I play at 1920x1080p full HD on one screen (22â€LED backlit), so really its very good, game looks fantastic. The card in my a2 pc is a 2gb HD5850 toxic (excellent little SE card), runs at 80-100% most of the time. Cores run 90-80-70-70% average, can drop obviously depends on what’s happening, but in the thick of things the cores run high, so its turning the game over well.

It’s a gaming pc, so the only thing it has to think about is the game, that can make a difference imo, its lean and clean.. Auto defrag every start-up inc game folder & storage hdd, and ccleaner once a week. Very little in the way of programs, just what’s needed really, plus the monitoring ones such as msi and Logitech lcd monitoring (keyboard function). Windows running on basic, no aero. Stopped amd ccc at 12.1 as it gives excellent performance for me, don’t want to risk later versions..

Couple of things in the game configs and a few tricks keep it running great.. Its just a run of the mill pc, but it performs really well, if it didn’t I would replace it, but I have never felt I needed to.

I’ve upgraded for my a3 pc, but I have a feeling the increase will not be astounding. If I were to run a2 in my a3 pc I would think 10fps average increase probably, going off what I have seen from other users with similar setups. New pc will probably just jog rather than run like my a2 pc has to do now, if you understand what I mean, but running’s good, keeps it healthy.. Already thinking 8*** series though..;) maybe a cheap 7970 going in the new year..

I have no idea why the setup works so well for a2, just the combination of cpu/gpu seems to work very well..:D

[doveman 7]

when recording (fraps) set it to 30fps. E08 has alot of CPU/Script work going on and isnt a GPU tester, its more of a full system tester. A2OA rarely ever gets to 1.5+GB of RAM. It is a 32bit game. All that you describe about looking in certain directions getting FPS drops etc, happens to everybody. It can all be adjusted with settings, OCing, And your Display resolution....

For me the biggest first boost was getting 4.2GZ on myCPU way back when with A2,. I always have had CF or sli with top of the line cards since A1(stupid thousands of $$$$). The next biggest boost was a SSD(OS and Game on it) with A2 and OA, still using CF or SLi with top cards. The latest boost has been my 7970! (and for my player friends who have 680s). Much much more than any CF or SLI combo i have run. This is just one card, will get another soonish. But it has allowed me to play at 2048/1536 6XAA VH etc... Tho i keep my VD 3k~ or what is allowed by the MP mission i play. I get on average 45fps~ i can get my 75 refresh on some maps, but also get 25fps too. If i lower my rez to 16/12 I am good for 60s almost all the time (40s are the low 100 is my refresh). For me its not about the fps, tho it has to be playable, its about IQ. A 680/7970 will get you that at 1080p right now. Your 6950 is not( to me) a 1080p card. It would take atleast two, and you would still be short on VRAM. My 79703GB will use 2.7+Gb of my VRAM. I dont hit the wall anymore.Same goes for the 680 4GBs.

Hope this is some info that matters.. But we all hit low FPS. I can play in the mid 20s Been there since A1...

Well I tend to see my VRAM around 900MB, so I'm not sure it needs more than 2GB to be able to do 1920*1200. I need to OC my 6950 from 800/1250 to 920/1350 (which I've tested it at stable before) or higher if possible though, to get a bit more performance out of it. With SMAA I'm not sure I even need any AA but if so, I'd be happy with 2x or 4x.

The fact that E08 is a a full system tester is the reason I use it. There's not much point running a benchmark that shows what my GPU can do if it bears little relation to how the game will actually run when it's having to deal with the CPU stuff. I only tried recording at 60FPS to see if it would capture the actual performance but it clearly adds too much load and reduces the framerate too much, so that's pointless. I tried MSI Afterburner rather than FRAPS as I've seen a lot of complaints about FRAPS recording.

I was trying to play the BAF campaign with a few mods (@blastcore_visuals;@cba;@cba_a2;@cba_oa;@cowarmod;@cowarmod-cba;@dfs_stanceindicator;@gdtgrassmod;@jsrs;@mapplus;@pradar;@rh_heli_sound_mod_1.1;@sapclutter;@sos;@sthud;@stmovement") yesterday and at a few points that went really bad and dropped to 20 FPS or below, which was unplayable. If I could keep it above 30 (or maybe even 25 if that's playable) all the time I'd be happy but it's these drops that really annoy me. There's always a freeze at the start of a mission when CBA is enabled, which I understand is normal and isn't really a problem as long as that's the only time it happens.

I haven't done much testing but it seems like my other system (Athlon II X4 630, 8GB, 1GB 6850) is able to maintain the framerate better. It's only running at 1280x720 but it just seems not to get these really low drops, although as I say I can't be sure as I haven't tested much. On the couple of occasions that I've tried to play a LAN game with both PC's, I've had to abort as it became very jerky and unplayable after a while, which I guess could just be down to the main PC (server) rather than both PCs.

---------- Post added at 14:24 ---------- Previous post was at 14:01 ----------

Clean with no mods running, I get 40-45fps in E08.

It seems strange you get 40-45fps with your Athlon II X4 640@3.4Ghz and 5850 whilst I drop to under 30 at the end with my Phenom II X4 955@3.8Ghz and 6950 (although it does go higher than 45fps in some parts). I see from your settings that you use "Terrain Detail - V.High, Object Detail - Normal", whereas I use "Terrain Detail - Low (or V.Low), Object Detail - V.High" as Objects needs to be on this to prevent the LOD popup (which I find very annoying/distracting) at the moment. Perhaps they'll be able to find a fix so that we can put Objects on a lower setting without getting the LOD popup as having it on the higher settings does hit framerates. Your other settings are similar to mine, although I have my VD at 3000 (when I compared 2000 and 3000 it didn't seem to make much difference although I'm not sure I've tested in E08) and SMAA - V.High, rather than FXAA - Normal, although I think SMAA is meant to be pretty much performance neutral anyway. I've also tried ATOC - Disabled, Shadow - Disabled and PP - Disabled but it doesn't seem to help me. In fact, that's how I had it set yesterday when I was playing the BAF campaign and it dropped to 20fps and became unplayable.

with the same mods running in E08 I get 32-35fps, so the ai mods especially slow things down. But still if I was to play the mission with the average 32fps, it would still be completely o.k. ai would hit their marks as they should as the rates are above 25fps. It’s a good guide, keep your fps above 25 and you should still get sensible ai behaviour, therefore a good game, below that and the game can get a little, well, bad where ai are concerned.

That's still higher than I get even without the mods. If I could rely on it to stay above 25fps and everything work properly I'd be satisfied but as I found when playing the BAF campaign yesterday, it doesn't even do that all the time at the moment.

v-sync is disabled and there is little noticeable tearing, my monitor is good upto 75hz so not too bad

Tearing isn't an issue, if it were I would buy a 120hz monitor. I never have v-sync enabled.

I don't really understand those comments. As I understand it, v-sync locks the framerate to the monitor's refresh rate and prevents tearing (which I see a lot). Whether your monitor does 75hz or 120hz isn't going to stop you getting tearing if the game isn't synced to the monitor with v-sync as far as I know.

Msi takes near 30fps when recording, I have a vid on Jade I did, without recording and its in the 80-90’s fps, recording and its in the 60’s, so pointless recording to get any idea of what’s happening performance wise. Recording will always cause a hit and make the game look like crap most of the time, unless you put time and effort into recording in top quality and have lots of upload time

Yeah, I found that. Didn't realise it would cause such a hit but I know it can't be used to record performance now, which is why I suggested it would be good if there was an app that could log/graph performance in sync with ArmA.

[chrisb 196]

Again doveman its long (in the spoiler again), but your system should run the game.. I know it doesn't very well but!

I don’t think its strange that I get that with my a2 rig, its meant to get performance like that, as yours is meant to get far better performance than it does or mine, that to me is the strange part, that it doesn’t. Somewhere within your system there must be a flaw, that's all I can think of, where who knows but with that system you should run a2 fine. Not by any means 60fps steady throughout, not possible, well I don’t think so.

When I run it with mods especially gl4/slx mixed I get a few seconds pause to the game on start up of a mission or test (E08), so that effects the overall score I would think as it takes a little time for all my mods to load up, when I say a little time, its probably seconds, but it still makes a difference. I think that is why my score with mods is quite low, by the end of the test its running really smooth and well but the start lets it down.

Regards the Terrain Detail, I meant ‘Objects detail’ gives me a good increase, not Terrain. I find Terrain detail gives no difference in performance on my system from the lowest to the highest, however, Object Detail from the lowest to the highest on my system is 8-10fps !! So again what’s going on there?

25fps, keeping above this figure should be no problem for you with that system, with mods running.

Maybe my card being a 2gb makes a difference, whether it’s the marriage between the cpu/gpu that I struck lucky, but most I see on the internet with the 2gb HD5850 ‘Toxic’ cards are doing really well, game wise. I suppose that’s why they are reasonably hard to get hold of and have held a good price, even after quite a time from release. The 2gb toxic hd5850 are really good cards, they cool almost instantly with vapourX, matter of a couple of seconds. OC hugely apparently, I haven't really bothered it handles it as is 'stock'.

This is Jade Grove

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuRtp93_kMM

recorded using msi so add 30fps to the count whilst watching, without recording and its in the late 80's early 90's fps, can go as high as 110-120fps in places. Most of the desert terrains are like that for me, really high fps. Desert buildings make little difference, whereas Chernarus building are terrible where frames are concerned, just bad. But its an average you work on and where you loose looking at buildings, you gain looking at grass and open areas.

Few stills of Namalsk, reasonably heavy terrain, enlarge to see the fps in the corner;

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/706/arma2oa2012092612251167.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/545/arma2oa2012092612255051.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/832/arma2oa2012092612295713.png/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/811/arma2oa2012092612301499.png/

the rates bounce around a little but are always pretty good.. Have you tried ‘sap clutter’ or summer veg mods, they can make a little difference. Landtex for Chernarus was a good mod for fps help. Its all about testing and tweaking, in game as well as in the configs, glad they put fxaa & smaa in game now for setup rather than the configs.

Try out ‘dvd’, ’ivd’, ’mwvd’ or or ‘vffpss’, if you haven’t already tried, they can and do make a difference, you can use them on the go in game, although dvd runs auto after setting it up in the configs, but the other two can be setup in the configs and tweaked in game.

Your vd of 3000 does not make a difference much when general viewing, but you may find it makes a difference when you come to certain vegetation and buildings, I would maybe turn it down to 2000. If running dvd set the max vd to 4000 if your on the ground and 500 min, preferred fps at say 28fps for you as your having problems, I have 40fps preferred when using it. It has a function that gives extended vd when scoped, which is very helpful and it doesn’t turn down quality of image, nor does ‘mwvd_1.02’, whereas ‘ivd’ & ‘vffpss’ can ingame, once setup first in the configs.

Of course with the current game patch and beta’s that would all need checking out again. I use ‘ivd’ or ‘dvd’ a lot in heavier terrains, don’t bother with the quality part of ‘ivd’, just stick to my ingame settings. ’Dvd’ will auto drop vd, but it can cause a little stutter when changing from 'very high' vd to 'low' vd, nothing too bad though. Its o.k. with normal/small changes in vd, which is most of the time, if setup in the configs right.

The part about your card not being 1080p, well, what can you say:rolleyes:, course it is, 1920x1080p is easy to get to with most any amd/ati hd card with or above the 4*** series, imo..

Of course you can knock clutter on the head a little here and there..;)

Edited October 8, 2012 by ChrisB

[doveman 7]

Thanks ChrisB,

What I really meant when I said it was strange that you get better results than me is what you said, that it's strange I get worse results than you ;)

I've got 2GB on my 6950 as well, so that can't be the problem. I made sure I got a 2GB card to avoid running out of VRAM. I lose about the same as you when increasing Object detail, so that seems normal (if annoying).

I'll have a look at Jade Grove. I do normally use sapclutter and gdtgrassmod. I tried one or more of the dynamic VD adjusters before and found it kept changing too much but I'll take another look as I obviously just need to set it up right. I think the main reason I was interested in it was so that I could increase the VD when flying. I'll try testing at VD 2000 as well to see if it makes a difference.

I'd like to try running from a RAMdisk to eliminate any possible HDD bottlenecks as I've got 16GB at the moment and can probably use 11-12GB of that (running DCS World from a 10GB RAMdisk leaves me about 2.5GB free, DCSW has only used about 2GB in my tests, despite being 64-bit and as we know ArmaII can only use 2GB) but I wouldn't really know which files to put on the RAMdisk. The OA common folder is 3.67GB and Expansion/Addons is 4.09GB so I could fit both of those on it but A2/Addons is 8.21GB, A2/Common is 3.42GB and A2/Expansion/Addons is 4.09GB so I obviously can't fit all that in and that's not including any mods/extra terrains. There is a good thread about running A2 from a RAMdisk but unfortunately it hasn't been updated for CO to show which files are used most and therefore would be best to put on the RAMdisk.

Mind you, running DCSW from the RAMdisk didn't seem to make any significant difference to either loading times or playability but that doesn't mean A2 would be the same of course.

I've installed GameBooster again now so I'll see if killing any unneeded processes with that before launching A2 helps. I've been careful not to install lots of stuff since setting up W7 again and I don't think there's anything running that could be causing problems for A2 but it's worth a try!