ArmA2 / OA (low) performance issues

[ceeeb 147]

Siddhi, have you tested your system with other games? Run some other CPU and 3Dmark type benchmarking software to make sure performance is generally what it should be.

Also keep an eye on temperatures, it might be caused by the CPU or GPU overheating and throttling.

Haven't tried:

There is an option in BIOS for enable/disable/auto ACMH (sp?) which is somehow related to the OS.

AHCI? - if so it should be enabled (auto should enable it) for a modern system/OS, although it should be set prior to installing OS.

Edited February 11, 2013 by ceeeb

[Siddhi 10]

i have tried a number of games (that unfortunaty I am not really interested in), and the Laptop works great - GTA IV on max Levels etc.

On some Level it is really is quite simply shit coding - and it Looks like BIS Support is pretty shit as well. Their "Support email" Forum is deactivated - i.e. you can try to send a message but nothing happens. i am trying other routes as well but i am pretty irritated by this lack of interest in a Problem that quite evidently applies to thousands of customers - and also once comitted fans.

[kklownboy 43]

To be honest i just compared his benchmarked specs to mine, and his CPU is a lot better then mine(http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html (I have a 955)),

No its not. That benchmark is BS.As most CPU benchmarks are. His CPU is 2.3, But it will do 3.30 in a Single Core single thread stituation .ARMA is multicore and threaded. Your 955 smokes his cpu in ARMA.

while my GPU is a tiny bit better (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+4870&id=30 vs http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GT+650M) than his.

His 4870 isnt a real 4870, its a laptop 4870m Big difference. Also he has HD4000 intel gfx, which i would assume is the real issue bar the lame HDD. There are real problems with switchable gfx(and with AMD for sure)that have been supposedly addressed but alot of this type of laptop users still are complaining. The OP should do his homework and find the correct Bios/drivers and cooling. Along with setting his CPU count and thread count in his Beta params.

This is not a Bis issue this is a 45w 2.3ghz CPU with on board gfx trying to play at 1080p, with 5400rpm HDD caching a 8GB ready boot SSD.

[SoccerSpartan 1]

I have similar specs to some of these guys and am experiencing poor frame rates as well. I cant even pull 30.

Ive been getting lower frame rates than I should be getting with my PC. Specs:

Windows 7 64bit

8 gb RAM

Intel Core i73610QM CPU @ ~3.2-3.3 ghz

Nvidia GT 650m with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM

And I have my game installed on an 32gb SSD

I know Arma does not perform the best, but I have not been able to get steady frames. Ive been benchmarking on Chernarus and I get ok frames in the open and in most towns/villages (around 20-25) However sometimes, especially when I get close to/in a forest, my frame rate will just drop to 10-15. This can get really annoying espically in multiplayer. I have my settings set to Very High with no AA, ATOC, Post Processing, or shadows @ 1600x900 resolution. Lowering my settings really does not make the frame rate any higher (turning everything to low for example only improves it about 5 frames).

Im thinking there is something wrong with the way my game/system is set up, any ideas?

[chrisb 196]

I have similar specs to some of these guys and am experiencing poor frame rates as well. I cant even pull 30.

Card related, most of these.

GT650m, is your problem area..

Sorry.:(

[NeMeSiS 11]

No its not. That benchmark is BS.As most CPU benchmarks are. His CPU is 2.3, But it will do 3.30 in a Single Core single thread stituation .ARMA is multicore and threaded. Your 955 smokes his cpu in ARMA.

His 4870 isnt a real 4870, its a laptop 4870m Big difference. Also he has HD4000 intel gfx, which i would assume is the real issue bar the lame HDD. There are real problems with switchable gfx(and with AMD for sure)that have been supposedly addressed but alot of this type of laptop users still are complaining. The OP should do his homework and find the correct Bios/drivers and cooling. Along with setting his CPU count and thread count in his Beta params.

This is not a Bis issue this is a 45w 2.3ghz CPU with on board gfx trying to play at 1080p, with 5400rpm HDD caching a 8GB ready boot SSD.

1) You can only compare CPU frequencies if they are in the same series, they are not, so benchmarks are all we have to compare them. But even with a single thread his would be better than mine. A 955 1mhz does not perform the same as an i7 1mhz. (Which is really shitty English, but really? I mean... Back when the P4 was big people fell for this and even then it wasnt true, though everyone believed it and P4 sales when through the roof)

2)He doesnt have a HD4870m, good job on clicking my links/reading his post.

Im not saying its a BI's fault, but A2 is definately underperforming on his system.

[SoccerSpartan 1]

Granted, I cant pull 30 on Very High, so I guess its not too bad. But still, smooth frames would be nice.

[Siddhi 10]

1) You can only compare CPU frequencies if they are in the same series, they are not, so benchmarks are all we have to compare them. But even with a single thread his would be better than mine. A 955 1mhz does not perform the same as an i7 1mhz. (Which is really shitty English, but really? I mean... Back when the P4 was big people fell for this and even then it wasnt true, though everyone believed it and P4 sales when through the roof)

2)He doesnt have a HD4870m, good job on clicking my links/reading his post.

Im not saying its a BI's fault, but A2 is definately underperforming on his system.

I am trying to follow kklownboy's argument. I accept the first couple of assertions as plausible, but if I am forcing GT 650M why does the intel Gfx matter ? by the way when I have forced the intel card instead I get exactly the same performance although with a very strange "red snow" effect..

If was the lack of power (why the hell would that matter when the system is so much more advanced then my old is a mystery) wouldn't I notice a difference when I e.g. switch battery modes and unlock the CPU in the BIOS? Because there is not even 1 FPS difference.

Finally, I am TRYING to do my "homework" - I would very grateful for no -BS and knowledgeable BIOS or driver suggestions. For instance, maybe I should roll-back to older drivers? Otherwise I am uptodate with everything. And the BIOS options have pretty much all been used up.

btw GT-650M is a great card that works for everything else and apparently also is usually fine for Arma2 ..

[NeMeSiS 11]

btw GT-650M is a great card that works for everything else and apparently also is usually fine for Arma2 ..

Its slower than my HD4870 which was released over 4 years ago and i will upgrade mine as soon as A3 comes out. Though it is okish for a laptop.

Anyway, i am not sure why it happens.

For more diagnostics you could run A2 windowed and run Core Temp in the background to check if your CPU frequencies are what they should be (no throttling due to power/heat/whatever issues while under load), and do the same for your GPU. (I use the Ati Tray Tools monitoring options which can show GPU activity, temperatures and clock frequencies. Those options may work on your nVidia card as well, if it doesnt you may need to look for another tool.

Also: Could you be more specific about what FPS each benchmark scenario gives you?

[kklownboy 43]

1) You can only compare CPU frequencies if they are in the same series, they are not, so benchmarks are all we have to compare them. But even with a single thread his would be better than mine. A 955 1mhz does not perform the same as an i7 1mhz. (Which is really shitty English, but really? I mean... Back when the P4 was big people fell for this and even then it wasnt true, though everyone believed it and P4 sales when through the roof)

2)He doesnt have a HD4870m, good job on clicking my links/reading his post.

Im not saying its a BI's fault, but A2 is definately underperforming on his system.

My bad on the vid, i was looking at the more common layout paired with his CPU. His 'i7"isnt a 'real i7, as in a desktop version.

As for a 650m... well, It still the same issue, Underpowered for the Rez he runs at. The total fail at 7fps, i would say is some powersaving slowdown due to how the Benchmark works and his setup in Bios. He has switchable graphics. He should get a logging program like Adia64, and just see what is running at speed and what is not.

---------- Post added at 10:15 ---------- Previous post was at 10:03 ----------

.....

You can download a free version of Adia64( http://www.aida64.com/downloads )and set it log.

Edited February 20, 2013 by kklownboy
useless info

[NeMeSiS 11]

And in benchmarks you can find alot of AMD benchmarks that will shine on yours, and then find alot of Intel benchmarks that will make Intel look awesome.

I cant seem to find a benchmark that puts mine close to his. (Also game benchmarks)

Anyway, keep in mind that this is the 'ArmA2 / OA (low) performance issues' thread, not the 'yell at confused new people who dont understand ArmA2' thread. ;)

[kklownboy 43]

@Siddhi;

If in the Bios, there is a C state option, and a EIST option and you can turn them off, it will level out your CPU. You will still need to tell ARMA to use 4(maybe 3) cores and X-number of threads for best performance.

Your 650m in a A notebook review;

"... Demanding games of 2011 like Battlefield 3 will be playable in 1366x768 and medium or high settings.."

A2OA is a much more demanding game than BF3.

Edited February 20, 2013 by kklownboy
more info on 650m

[vilas 473]

has anyone read what i answered few pages ago ?

this game require 3 GHz, you have 2.3 GHz and you demand this game to work as on desktop with 2500K ?

i have now job-borrowed-PC which is 2500K, Nvidia 550 Ti, and it can take Arma on good quality display, but hey, it is desktop ,

second thing, you live in poor countries like me ? if not , then why not buy desktop ? i said few pages ago, on my 6 years old desktop i had better performance than you have on your "top laptop",

buy Alienware if you must have laptop for gaming,

[Stinkfinger 10]

I seem to be having some preformance issues that I would appreciate some insight with. When I play ArmAII on my laptop there are times that I am watching a slideshow and not sure I should be spec wise.

Alienware M17x R2

Windows 7 Ultimate

Intel Core i7 i7-840QM

8GB DDR3

320 GB 7200 RPM drives in RAID0

ATI Radeon 5870x2 (Crossfire) 1GB each

Output to 22" Dell monitor 1680x1050 or internal 17" at 1920x1200

Benchmarks will run about 35-47 but when I am playing online, 60-80 players I am dipping into the high teens and low 20s pretty consistently.

Drivers are up to date, system is a fresh install, no bloat, and I have tweaked the OS to minimal overhead and defragged etc. Any help would be much appreciated.

[NeMeSiS 11]

has anyone read what i answered few pages ago ?

this game require 3 GHz, you have 2.3 GHz and you demand this game to work as on desktop with 2500K ?

Stop talking about the damn frequencies. Pentium4s reached 3ghz 10 years ago, that doesn't mean they can run ArmA2. Frequencies say nothing about the actual speed of the CPU.

[kklownboy 43]

Stop talking about the damn frequencies. Pentium4s reached 3ghz 10 years ago, that doesn't mean they can run ArmA2. Frequencies say nothing about the actual speed of the CPU.

Really? his post is two weeks old. Your the one who pulled out the old CPU, he was doing modern CPU notebook, to Desktop. I do get your point. But your wrong. Speed is defined by Frequencies, with similar architecture. And Hz is a part of the whole measurement, you cant remove Hz and then talk about speed.

---------- Post added at 10:24 ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 ----------

I seem to be having some preformance issues that I would appreciate some insight with. When I play ArmAII on my laptop there are times that I am watching a slideshow and not sure I should be spec wise.

Alienware M17x R2

Windows 7 Ultimate

Intel Core i7 i7-840QM

8GB DDR3

320 GB 7200 RPM drives in RAID0

ATI Radeon 5870x2 (Crossfire) 1GB each

Output to 22" Dell monitor 1680x1050 or internal 17" at 1920x1200

Benchmarks will run about 35-47 but when I am playing online, 60-80 players I am dipping into the high teens and low 20s pretty consistently.

Drivers are up to date, system is a fresh install, no bloat, and I have tweaked the OS to minimal overhead and defragged etc. Any help would be much appreciated.

Well you need a faster CPU. Your 3.2 turbo (if it is even running at that during the game?) is only at one core. your CPU is 1.86~? So to use NeMeSiS's thinking, your CPU is like a P4 at 3.2 for the game.( considering the Engine of the game most likely doesnt use modern CPU architectures/instruction sets SSEx etc?). Also the Benchmarks do not represent MP play. Best to use the editor and interact in game. So any fixed VD on a server may slow you down, and if you cant turn off grass that will slow you down too. Then there is the actual server frames, and your internet connection. What MP game are you playing?

[NeMeSiS 11]

Really? his post is two weeks old. Your the one who pulled out the old CPU, he was doing modern CPU notebook, to Desktop. I do get your point. But your wrong. Speed is defined by Frequencies, with similar architecture. And Hz is a part of the whole measurement, you cant remove Hz and then talk about speed.

Alright, maybe I did put a bit too much emphasis on 'nothing', still, it is not a pretty way to compare CPU's.

[ilganna 10]

Hello guys,

on my PC I found a way to achieve a good number of FPS (30-40 in cities, 50-60 on fields).

First my specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7 860 2.8GHz (3.4GHz on Turbo)

RAM: 16GB PC3-10600

GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 2GB @915MHz

HD: 128 GB SSD (SATA 2) + 1 TB Sata 2 @ 5400

Screen: Samsung TV 37" HDMI @ 1920*1080 60Hz

Windows 8 Pro 64bit

What I did:

First I ensured I had the latest Nvidia Drivers and performed a clean install (will override any user setting).

I tried then ArmA 2 and DayZ mod and the performance was horrid.

I then changed the settings to:

View Distance: 1600

Texture Detail: Very High

Video Memory: Default

Anisotropic Filtering: Very High

Anti Aliasing: OFF

ATOC: All Trees + Grass

Terrain Detail: Very High

Object Detail: Very Low

Shadows: Medium / High

HDR: Normal

PPAA: FXAA Sharp

Post Proccessing Effects: Off (annoys me)

Vsync: On (up to you)

Interface resolution: 1920*1080

3D resolution: 1920*1080

With these settings FPS may drop to 10 but for the hardware it seems too low.

The magic setting I found is to set the CPU affinity to the ARMA2 process to CPU 0,1,2,3,4,5 . Disable CPU 6,7.

Please note that I tried also to disable Hyper-Threading but it didn't help.

With that trick (needed every time you start the game) I achieved a good performance.

On a side note, while playing during the dawn/night, I have ALWAYS 60 FPS an not dropping even once.

Hope this helps.

Michel

[kklownboy 43]

Anti Aliasing: OFF

ATOC: All Trees + Grass

You cant have ATOC with out in game AA.

[burlaka 1]

Hey guys, So I just bought the ARMA 2: Combined Operations on Steam to play DayZ, but the low fps is unbearable.

Weird thing is, My FPS is almost the same when i play on High settings and Low settings. They both end up around 10-15 FPS.

My Specs:

Macbook Pro Late 2011 17'

Quadcore 2.4ghz i7 (i7-2760QM)

1gb AMD Radeon HD 6770M

16GB RAM

Im running windows 7 ultimate through bootcamp.

I can play most games on good fps.

Any advice or information will help.

[Con411 1]

has anyone read what i answered few pages ago ?

this game require 3 GHz, you have 2.3 GHz and you demand this game to work as on desktop with 2500K ?

i have now job-borrowed-PC which is 2500K, Nvidia 550 Ti, and it can take Arma on good quality display, but hey, it is desktop ,

second thing, you live in poor countries like me ? if not , then why not buy desktop ? i said few pages ago, on my 6 years old desktop i had better performance than you have on your "top laptop",

buy Alienware if you must have laptop for gaming,

i3570k @ 4.5 Ghz

Radeon 7950@ 1Ghz

8Gb ram.

20 fps in DayZ, OA, Wasteland, etc.

Still tweaking around daily to figure out what is causing it but i'm running out of ideas.

My final option is going to be to remove everything arma related part from the mods, reinstall it all on my SSD, move the mods there and start tweaking from scratch if that doesn't work this POS is going in the trashcan and hopefully arma 3 will give me a playable framerate.

[domokun 515]

@Con411 & burlaka: try these tried and tested tweaks:

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

Then let us know how you get on.

Although moving CO onto an SSD will not increase your framerates, it should get the game loading more quickly and running more smoothly.

But basically disable AA, reduce draw distance and install a recent beta patch (I recommend 100697, as betas since then seem buggier).

[kklownboy 43]

If only 20fps you are doing it wrong. But then it is Cherno. And you only have 2GB card. I would imagine your settings are to much for your setup. My 4.2ghz with a 7970 does 10fps better at the low FPS spots with 6xAA all max...except PP. Oh i run under 2.5k VD

[domokun 515]

If only 20fps you are doing it wrong. But then it is Cherno. And you only have 2GB card. I would imagine your settings are to much for your setup. My 4.2ghz with a 7970 does 10fps better at the low FPS spots with 6xAA all max...except PP. Oh i run under 2.5k VD

You're right that something's wrong but I seriously doubt that "only" 2GB vid card is to blame.

In fact, unless you're running triple-head at 6xAA, a 2GB is more than sufficient.

I have a practically identical setup (3570k@4.3/7850@7870/8GB DDR3/128MB SSD) to Con411 and can run most of Cherno @ 30 fps @ 1920x1200 @ with 4km VD, with everything on High or Very High except post-proc (low) and AA (SMAA maxed).

[chrisb 196]

Hey guys, So I just bought the ARMA 2: Combined Operations on Steam to play DayZ, but the low fps is unbearable.

Weird thing is, My FPS is almost the same when i play on High settings and Low settings. They both end up around 10-15 FPS.

My Specs:

Macbook Pro Late 2011 17'

Quadcore 2.4ghz i7 (i7-2760QM)

1gb AMD Radeon HD 6770M

16GB RAM

Im running windows 7 ultimate through bootcamp.

I can play most games on good fps.

Any advice or information will help.

Easiest test, I find, is;

Go into the editor put one unit (you) in Cherno and look around the city, I get 50’ish fps doing that. Turn fast and slow in free look mode and it should be smooth, no stutter etc. Some parts of the city drop into the top 40’s fps for me, but not many, should still be smooth, use 2000vd.

If you do that, then come back with what you get, plus your settings in-game, with smooth turns in free look..:)