70054-70184 stability and performance feedback, compared to 1.05

[EricM 0]

It's a little more stuttery sometimes and lost around 1fps in the benchmarks (tested multiple times), but the flying is supersmooth, so it compensate. Voted same.

[mrn 0]

Unpredictable pauses still present for me which aren't present in 63826

And run in Vanilla mode.

[langgis08 10]

voted 'good' - perf in benchs/test scenarios little higher, more stable, "feeling" of smoother gameplay

- comparing different ingame setups (each same, of course) with new beta & 1.05 -

thx so far @BIS

[snkman 351]

I voted BAD.

Utes always was my lovely island to test things, becouse it runs pretty good with 45 - 55 FPS.

Since 70054 i only have around 25 - 30 FPS on Utes which really is a BAD thing.

So the difference is very noticeable to me.

[mrcash2009 0]

Just tested the latest and I get the exact same experience (near unplayable) with basically all patches since "69645" <<< onwards to this latest still brings along this new thread way of texture loading etc ... how this works I do not know but its having a blatant adverse effect on my system.

Here my post of my test which ive done with this patch which acts in the exact same way as this one (so I don't repeat) :

http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1620091&postcount=106

Ive been running with 63826 since it arrived and no complaints at all (or any beta previous).

I installed 69645 the other day .. and bam ... really bad FPS ... really laggy on map, laggy when moving and turning. I did updated Nvidia drivers to latest WHQL just before and had not played for a while and I use mods.

So today I simply loaded the game with 69645 vanilla and the SP mission "Sipher" running it at night as a single SF player at 50 percent difficulty. This is basically hardly any enemy near you at start apart from heli insertion ... just you and no other AI at night in Chernarus. The map was laggy on start for briefing when it was dynamically placing items .. 5 second pause to then allocate items ready for mission. In the heli it was lagging and then when i got out spinning was awful the best way to describe it is the lag and fps was like I was in a middle of a large firefight with 5 heli and 4 10 man units each side and I was dropped into it, in the day maxxed out using all AI mods. Yet im 1 man no AI near me and at night with no mods.

So .. I then exited and saved the mission at the point of stood after heli insertion. Exited, flipped my "beta" folders around so it would load 63826 and went back into game. I then resumed the Cipher mission, low and behold the heli is still flying away im stood on my own and spinning on a dime, smooth as silk like the map was totaly empty and acting as it should.

I repeated this on simply 1 man on different maps, flipping between old and new beta to load same mission, every time it was the same.

So to report, never in any time of using A2 and betas have I seen such a massive performance drop to unplayable since using them. Something is very strange with the way its handling in the 69645 beta. I can repeat the issue time & time again.

To recap by simply introducing 69645 my system running A2 with usual setting never changed (with or without any mods) and just putting 1 player on a map runs like ive installed it on a single core 1 gig machine with built in graphics card ... remove and play 1.05 or old beta and it runs totally fine.

BI ... if you want more info I fine with supplying more just ask me what you need.

To conclude ...

Quote:

"69645 on my rig runs so bad that its unplayable"

Which im totally surprised at becuase all betas and A2 have not been that bad at all for me. PLus the difference is so obvious and extreme that if this was a released patch I would be making some serious complaints to BI ... im not because this is beta but you might want to see how this works on rigs like my combination because so far this runs to the point of broken almost.

Bottom line 69645 > onwards = near unplayable fps (Vanilla and 1 man on a barely populated island see the above URL link to my test post) ... resuming the same mission pre 69645 all the way back to 1.05 = spin on a dime fps as it should be. The difference is so much that its "wrong" right now on my system.

:confused:

Im a little worried right now becuase if this is voted ok and becomes eventually the latest patch, I simply cant ever update my game as it plays so bad with the new change.

I also notice a "pulling" feel on main menu too, so the performance drop is all over. Again loading briefings have 5 second pauses at the map which I don't experience before, and when switching to Night vision its a 3-4 sec delay from pressing the key to it showing, yet resuming with older patches is totally fine.

Edited May 5, 2010 by mrcash2009

[KeyCat 131]

Just tried build 70100 and same stuttering problems as before. Only way to get it somewhat playable it is to set Terrain Detail = Very Low, so on my rig it seems to be the grass and/or terrain detail thats causing this bad stuttering.

Windows XP Pro

Intel C2D E6850 @ 3.41 GHz

2 GB RAM @ 1066 MHz

2 x Seagate ST3250620AS SATA-II 250 GB HDD

GeForce GTX 260 896 MB with drivers 191.07 WHQL

As previous this simple test was done on Utes with me as infantry walking/running in terrain, no other units/scripts/addons running. Back to build 63826 for me.

/KC

[InFireBaptize 0]

Just tried build 70100 and same stuttering problems as before. Only way to get it somewhat playable it is to set Terrain Detail = Very Low, so on my rig it seems to be the grass and/or terrain detail thats causing this bad stuttering.

Windows XP Pro

Intel C2D E6850 @ 3.41 GHz

2 GB RAM @ 1066 MHz

2 x Seagate ST3250620AS SATA-II 250 GB HDD

GeForce GTX 260 896 MB with drivers 191.07 WHQL

As previous this simple test was done on Utes with me as infantry walking/running in terrain, no other units/scripts/addons running. Back to build 63826 for me.

/KC

when do you get the stutter? flying? driving? zoomed in?

I have come into conclusion that the stutter is texture loading hard drive related issue. Or it might be the paged pool.

Edited May 5, 2010 by InFireBaptize

[KeyCat 131]

when do you get the stutter? flying? driving? zoomed in?

As stated in my posts, just by simply running in terrain on Utes - nothing else going on just me as a simple US infantry man :confused:

I have come into conclusion that the stutter is texture loading hard drive related issue. Or it might be the paged pool.

That was my initial impression as well with build 69645 but after checking my HDD activity on later builds there isn't much streaming on Utes and in my case this stuttering (feels like I have rubberbands tied to my ancles) seems affected by two things.

1. Video Memory settings (usually use Default, worse if setting to High/Very High)

2. Terrain Detail (only at Very Low it is now somewhat playable)

Don't have theese problems with 1.05 final nor with beta build 63826. Must be damn hard to be a dev when feedback/results are all over the place but I'm sure BIS works it out!

/KC

Edited May 5, 2010 by KeyCat

[MavericK96 0]

That was my initial impression as well with build 69645 but after checking my HDD activity on later builds there isn't much streaming on Utes and in my case this stuttering (feels like I have rubberbands tied to my ancles) seems affected by two things.

1. Video Memory settings (usually use Default, worse if setting to High/Very High)

2. Terrain Detail (only at Very Low it is now somewhat playable)

Don't have theese problems with 1.05 final nor with beta build 63826. Must be damn hard to be a dev when feedback/results are all over the place but I'm sure BIS works it out!

/KC

Yeah, I notice the same thing regarding stuttering using "Very High" Video Memory versus "Default", which is why I always use "Default", but in 1.05 it gives me v-buffer creation error crashes. This seems to have been fixed/helped greatly in the new betas. I'm also fairly certain it's not hard-drive related, because whether I use HDD, SSD, or RAMDisk, I still get almost the exact same amount of stutter in the same places.

[Punisher5555 0]

Just tried build 70100 and same stuttering problems as before. Only way to get it somewhat playable it is to set Terrain Detail = Very Low, so on my rig it seems to be the grass and/or terrain detail thats causing this bad stuttering.

Windows XP Pro

Intel C2D E6850 @ 3.41 GHz

2 GB RAM @ 1066 MHz

2 x Seagate ST3250620AS SATA-II 250 GB HDD

GeForce GTX 260 896 MB with drivers 191.07 WHQL

As previous this simple test was done on Utes with me as infantry walking/running in terrain, no other units/scripts/addons running. Back to build 63826 for me.

/KC

The 197.45 drivers give me way better performance KeyCat. I use to have stuttering too, but not with the newest WHQL ones. 191.07 are really old.

I can now set the video memory setting to very high too. When I was on those old ones I could not.

[no use for a name 0]

Yeah KeyCat those drivers are old. I used them for a while also but the newest Nvidia ones work just as good, if not better. for me at least

[mosh 0]

I voted same (as 1.05).

1.05 - good

63826 - good (used since day it came out)

69645 - bad, white textures, stuttering (used for about an hour, then back to 63826)

69782 - good as 63826 (used for 6 hours +)

70054 - good as 63826 (used so far an hour +)

All settings VERY HIGH (video memory - DEFAULT), 1680 x 1050, 3000 VD, PP off.

Playing 'When Diplomacy Fails', as host with AI, and runs fine.

Everything feels about the same (performance wise, I don't pay attention to AI) since 1.05.

But 69645 was as bad as the game has ever run (I should say the only time the game ran bad, performance since release has always been fine for me).

The benchmarks, with all the different betas (vanilla, no mods, using my VERY HIGH settings), have all been about the same, 1 or 2 FPS difference... I go by feel not FPS, so I pay little attention to numbers. CTD are very rare (almost never, once a month maybe?) and I honestly don't look at the reports either.

70100 - good as 63826 (used so far an hour +), so I voted same as before (the game runs great, very happy)

EDIT - another thing I just noticed is I haven't been using cpucount=2 anymore (not since the new betas started rolling out). My command line only has

-nosplash -mod=beta

and no problems with my cpu... don't know if that means anything.

Edited May 6, 2010 by Mosh
more stuff

[metalcraze 290]

I have worser performance with 70100 than I had with 70054

Just to doublecheck this I deleted beta folder - created a mission with a player facing a certain direction just to test FPS in the exactly same place (forest with orange trees)

Then I installed 70054

30-31 FPS

Deleted beta folder, installed 70100 right away

26 FPS

That's a pretty noticeable loss and cities started to stutter again

[KeyCat 131]

The 197.45 drivers give me way better performance KeyCat. I use to have stuttering too, but not with the newest WHQL ones. 191.07 are really old.

I can now set the video memory setting to very high too. When I was on those old ones I could not.

Thanks for the input guys.

Could very well be driver issues on my end, I'm gonna try 197.45 WHQL and see whats happening, will let you know...

/KC

Edited May 6, 2010 by KeyCat

[MavericK96 0]

One interesting thing I noticed in the beta was that when I was flying around Chernogorsk, back and forth under that one walkway (so, really low) is that a couple of times the screen would go black and say "Receiving..." for about 10 seconds or so, then resume gameplay. I didn't notice this happening when I had Antialiasing on Normal, but I kicked it up to Very High for kicks, because I found that for whatever reason, my framerate in Chernogorsk both on the ground as infantry and in the air flying was the same with Very High as it was on Normal. I assume the "Receiving..." message has something to do with video memory. My VD is set to ~3500.

[Drew 10]

maybe its just me but the ZU 25's *or the trucks with the anti air craft cannon the back of them have lost their sound*

is it just me or can someone else test this? its the resistance one

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

other than that performance has increased

[KeyCat 131]

OK, tried 197.45 WHQL along with beta 70100 but the result is pretty much the same, maybe a slight improvement while having Video Memory set to Default but hard to say since I can't really "measure" the stuttering. Whatever changes made in build 69645 and onwards my rig really don't likes...could it be OS related?

While at it I also updated Realtek High Definition Audio drivers to latest version 2.48 but no change either.

BTW, since I for some reason lost ~20-25% FPS with 197.45 WHQL in another simulator (Flaming Cliff 2) I have rolled back to 191.07 WHQL.

/KC

Edited May 6, 2010 by KeyCat

[=wfl= sgt bilko 10]

In NVidia gfx drivers make sure to set "Multi-display/Mixed-GPU Acceleration" to "Single Display performance mode" (even if you run dual view with two or more displays).

[maddogx 13]

hard to say since I can't really "measure" the stuttering.

Stuttering can be measured using diagnostic scripting commands in-game, by comparing the average framerate with the average minimum. The difference between those two values is an indicator for how much stuttering you are experiencing. If both values are the same, stuttering would be zero.

Check out the CIT issue on stuttering in largie cities here. There is a test mission for Chernogorsk that measures various framerate values. You can easily edit it to fly around and measure different locations. Then run it with different versions of Arma2 and see what the framerates are like. :)

[MavericK96 0]

I was playing the beta on my favorite ACE server, and everything was going great (better performance than 1.05, no v-buffer crashes, etc.) until I was playing for 1.5-2 hours or so, and then suddenly the game locked up, no sound, nothing. I was able to ctrl-alt-del and it said the game was not responding, so I had to close it manually through the task manager. The error in the .RPT looks like this:

Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 4952 KB, error 8
Virtual free 26939392 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3192299520 B
Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 4956 KB, error 8
Virtual free 26939392 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3191926784 B
Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 4960 KB, error 8
Virtual free 26939392 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3191926784 B
Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 4964 KB, error 8
Virtual free 26939392 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3191926784 B

...

Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 5160 KB, error 8
Virtual free 26939392 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3188940800 B
File read error: @ACEX\addons\acex_t_wep_mg.pbo,ERROR_NOACCESS
Error 3e6 reading file '@ACEX\addons\acex_t_wep_mg.pbo'
ErrorMessage: There’s a problem with the disc you’re using. It may be dirty or damaged.

I think I posted about this issue before. Not sure what is causing it.

EDIT: I've gotten the error before not using ACE, as well, so it's not that.

[InFireBaptize 0]

Yeah, I notice the same thing regarding stuttering using "Very High" Video Memory versus "Default", which is why I always use "Default", but in 1.05 it gives me v-buffer creation error crashes. This seems to have been fixed/helped greatly in the new betas. I'm also fairly certain it's not hard-drive related, because whether I use HDD, SSD, or RAMDisk, I still get almost the exact same amount of stutter in the same places.

The stutter you're referring to here is the micro-stutter due to your two graphic cards setup. The stutter i had was because of hard drive read, check resource monitor you'll see tree.pbo, structure.pbo, building.pbo, etc... causes lots of hard drive read, i lowered my settings a bit, everything back to normal, disabled AA, AAA, PP, Shadow high, VM very high and the stutter disappeared "i only had stutter while looking into scope flying/driving as a gunner". I have also disabled windows indexing, NTFS hard drive related settings, i also had a stupid software from asus that was reading from my hard drive constantly "steelvine".

[Herbal Influence 10]

Crash after 2 hrs of online gaming with 70100 and a bit slower in general.

But much better AIs which is nice.

[MavericK96 0]

The stutter you're referring to here is the micro-stutter due to your two graphic cards setup. The stutter i had was because of hard drive read, check resource monitor you'll see tree.pbo, structure.pbo, building.pbo, etc... causes lots of hard drive read, i lowered my settings a bit, everything back to normal, disabled AA, AAA, PP, Shadow high, VM very high and the stutter disappeared "i only had stutter while looking into scope flying/driving as a gunner". I have also disabled windows indexing, NTFS hard drive related settings, i also had a stupid software from asus that was reading from my hard drive constantly "steelvine".

The stuttering I'm referring to is not really very "micro", though. I do get some "micro" stutter when flying around, but it's hardly noticeable and doesn't bother me. I'm talking pretty considerable framerate drop stutter when turning quickly with Video Memory set to anything other than Default.

[todayskiller 10]

Hello Everyone...this is a noob question and I'm sorry :)...Should I Download these Beta patches? or will they end up coming out with them once they are out of beta? (or will they not at all)?

If you don't know what I mean above, is the 1.05 patch the "final Patch"? and these are just other patches not posted? Or will they continue to patch it up.

[MavericK96 0]

Hello Everyone...this is a noob question and I'm sorry :)...Should I Download these Beta patches? or will they end up coming out with them once they are out of beta? (or will they not at all)?

If you don't know what I mean above, is the 1.05 patch the "final Patch"? and these are just other patches not posted? Or will they continue to patch it up.

Theses are just for users who want to test the betas before a final patch is released. I'm certain they will eventually release a 1.06 final patch, but for right now if you want to try the betas, you might get some of the benefits early rather than waiting for the final release.