Trees killing performance

[Potatomasher 0]

I noticed this trees killing fps too. I'm pretty sure that in 1.5 there was no fps hit by trees. Only in these recent beta patches. Lag starts suddenly and is very severe and suddenly it may disappear and fps increases.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Maybe for you, but for me trees (especially some of them) makes the game unplayable with textures set as low as normal. Going to low completely eliminates the tree problem, but also the fun since it just look like... Oh well.

During recent beta phase, issues with trees has seemed to me to go both up and down, depending on situation. But the lastest feels a lot better. Not sure if it is because that's what I want to see, or if I'm now at normal running same tree textures as I did on low before. It does feel a little like that. Trying to get better again, I went up to high. That got my PC pissed and threw me right on the desktop :p

Got this error message btw, kinda fun :)

=====================================================================

== H:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\beta\arma2.exe

== "H:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\beta\arma2.exe" -showScriptErrors -window -nosplash -mod=beta

=====================================================================

Exe timestamp: 2010/05/07 05:07:08

Current time: 2010/05/08 00:18:12

Item str_disp_server_control listed twice

Item STR_USRACT_ZEROING_DOWN listed twice

Item STR_USRACT_ZEROING_UP listed twice

Exe version: 1.05.70184

Error in expression <

[bhaz 0]

Didn't realize there were new betas out for nVidia. Can you comment on whether or not they make a difference over 197.45?

From the NVidia site:

This driver contains a recommended update for the beta release of the PC game APB. It is otherwise identical to the 197.45 WHQL driver.

[metalcraze 290]

I'm using a GTX285 and the only time I run into a significant problem is when looking at Kamyshovo, something about those small islands right next to it that just makes my FPS drop like a rock.

Same. Considering that there's nothing else on the screen but them and water.

[Jelliz 10]

I put up a demo mission(cutscene style) to show off the difference between red trees and green trees. I didnt see any demos on this issue. As for me the difference is huuuuge. Red trees is a major fps drain. Feel free to post this on the CIT. This was made between krasnostav and those two lakes.

http://www.filefront.com/16424663/treeslowfpsdemo.Chernarus.7z

Specs:

Acer Aspire 8920

Intel Core 2 duo 2,5ghz

4gb RAM

Nvidia 9650M GS 512mb RAM

Vista 32bit

EDIT: nvm, i registered on devheaven, will post there.

Edited May 12, 2010 by Jelliz

[otrebla_snake_ita 2]

Why don't you post it on DEV heaven?

[Jelliz 10]

;1627025']Why don't you post it on DEV heaven?

nvm, i found the register button. Its posted

[qwertz 10]

I experience the FPS drop with non-evergreen trees too. This is quite to be expected because they are very detailed objects compared to - lets say - a rock on the ground.

However, I would vote to NOT change (i.e. dumb down) the tree details. Trees in ArmA 2 look fantastic and are one of the reason the game does not look like the usual XBox ported game.

I am glad that BIS is one of the few companies left that produce for the PC as the main platform, not consoles, using the advanced capabilities and processing power of today's hardware.

However, the flip side of this is that assumptions have to be made as there is a wide range of PC configurations out there. Now, many developers go for the lowest common denominator, while a few (including Crytec, and BIS) focus on scalability to max out today's and even tomorrow's processing capabilities.

As frustrating as this might be for people that currently do not have high end systems, it makes the game look fresh even in a year or two from now, and grows with the advancement in hardware specs. Plus, it is scalable in the other direction as well - just turn down the details to match your hardware specs and/or use the PROPER mods.

Summary: +1 for leaving the trees as detailed and beautiful as they are.

:cheers:

qwertz

[CarlGustaffa 4]

just turn down the details to match your hardware specs and/or use the PROPER mods.

A dualcore with 9800GTX is not that outdated. I would expect being able to run normal textures. And I do, and I get anything between 20-40FPS. Near those trees I get below 10FPS, quite often below 5 even. Switching to low textures, there is not much penalty on nearly all other settings and everything is just dandy.

Except one thing - the trees "look" horrible. But not for the actual graphics, but because enemies will hide behind leaves I can no longer see through and they will kill me. My buddies will ask me if I'm blind or dumb. NOT fun :( That even happens on the lowest object detail.

Personally I'd rather be able to lower the details of the trees, but be able to keep a normal texture which enables me to fight again. True, they look awesome, but in a tactical game like this, it sucks having to stare at the ground and loose all situational awareness in the process, for the sake of beautiful trees.

Have you ever tried being a SAW gunner at 5 FPS? It just doesn't work... Having to spend much time in your settings screen going back and forth between texture sizes? FAIL. And yes, this still happens some places with current beta when I'm running at normal. Old conifer trees, not a problem at all. If some of the trees manage to bring an otherwise smooth game to a crawl, then I say there is something wrong with them - good looking or not.

[ohara 0]

I think that your problems is caused by overdraw, so tunning texture qulity will not help in fact. In case of overdraw could help to set 3D resolution lower, for example on 80%.

[teaboy 11]

Well I got my new rig, now and its all set up, Ive tried the game in vanilla 1.5 and beta and the fps with tree's issue is gone (well no where near as much an impact). So as the new machine uses an ATI card, am betting this is an Nvidia card only issue.

My old System was as follows

Intel dual core E1500 2.0ghz (over clocked to 2.4ghz)

2Gb Ram

Nvidia 8500gt 512mb Not Overclocked (With the latest drivers 197.45)

vista 32bit Service pack 2

Hard drive is 286GB SCSI, Currently 198GB free space.

New System is as follows

Intel i7-860 quad core 2.8ghz (factory default)

4GB Ram

Ati HD5770 1GB Ram (Single card not crossfire)

1Tb Serial ATA 3-GB/s Hard drive.

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit (no updates installed as yet)

Ohara - if you can tell me how i go about getting the following:

getPos, getPosASL and getDir values

Then i will bable to provide you with results from both rigs after running the same test on both rigs. As the old one is i just simply set back up in the spare room.

I Think getPos, getPosASL and getDir values is something to do with mission scriting but am new to all that.

Edited May 13, 2010 by teaboy

[kklownboy 43]

A dualcore with 9800GTX ...

Well to be real, a 9800gtx(is it a 9800gtx+?)

is just a 8800gt, which is a 8800gtx( nvidia...)which is a 250gf now or somthing like that, and is 3 years old...BUT, my point is, to get good frames at all times, you need to be in 1280/1024 (max!) for your res with low AA, and 1200~2000 VD, and then on a 60hz Display will hurt alot too, for the vsync ect.

[Yapab 10]

So as the new machine uses an ATI card, am betting this is an Nvidia card only issue.

My old System was as follows

Intel dual core E1500 2.0ghz (over clocked to 2.4ghz)

2Gb Ram

Nvidia 8500gt 512mb Not Overclocked (With the latest drivers 197.45)

vista 32bit Service pack 2

Hard drive is 286GB SCSI, Currently 198GB free space.

New System is as follows

Intel i7-860 quad core 2.8ghz (factory default)

4GB Ram

Ati HD5770 1GB Ram (Single card not crossfire)

1Tb Serial ATA 3-GB/s Hard drive.

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit (no updates installed as yet)

You have got to be JOKING right? You think its an nvidia issue when you have a computer thats probably 2 or 3 times as fast? The 8500GT is a LOW END card, the 5770 is about 3 times as powerful.... sorry but you are plain wrong in that assumption. :eek:

[Erratic 10]

Yeah there is a noticable performance drop, I'd say when your in some wooded areas it just about halfes the performance.

[teaboy 11]

You have got to be JOKING right? You think its an nvidia issue when you have a computer thats probably 2 or 3 times as fast? The 8500GT is a LOW END card, the 5770 is about 3 times as powerful.... sorry but you are plain wrong in that assumption. :eek:

Low end eh???? Even though the 8500GT (thats well within the games required system spec) run's the game fine on normal settings, at 25-30fps in places. Its a graphical issue with the orange trees not a an issue of how fast the PC or gpu is. OH and i didnt say the issue is completely gone either, just that it is no where near as noticeable. Also i used very high settings for the new Rig to compensate for the difference but even on low settings the fps still drops even with the 5770, but just no where near as noticable as with the 8500gt, so the drop in fps is still there just not as bigger an drop.

It doesnt matter how fast the persons computer or gpu is here, what matters is that people are getting an fps drop from the trees even with medium/highend systems. So before replying and basically terying to tell everyone here that the FPS drop was down to medium/low range card, i suggest you get your facts right as even highend systems are having the same problem. But it seems to be more nivida cards users that are getting the most siginificant drop in FPS.

If you are right about the card, then please explain to everyone here, why with an 8500gt i was getting 25-30fps that would drop down to as low as 5fps when nearing orange trees or by just standing still and looking at them? and explain why people like bensdale with a gtx275 card was getting similar drops in fps as qouted below??

the following below is qouted from bensdale's post on the bug ticket for the issue on dev heaven. Just look at that there system spec hes using, its better than my own new system!! yet highend nvidia card and major fps drops. where with highend ATI card the fps drop is no where near as noticable, as it is with an nvidia card

Updated by bensdale 4 months ago

* File FPS.bmp added

Thx for your answer.

I think thats the normal performance drop like many arma2 players have and report in the BIF. besids i notice that my first post a bit confusing is.

i mean with: "50fps on open field and conifer-forest = 25fps on bushes and deciduous trees" that if you have 50fps on open field an conifer-forest, you have circa 25fps on bushes and deciduous trees. Sorry i realising this after kju post the link from alex.

Sorry i am a absolutley editor dummy and i have not a hunch of scripting etc. painful :( .

i can you only help with this:

stand in a area of conifers and stand in a area of bushes

Like this:

look on the attachment sccrenshot, walk on the side road from krasnostov in direction of khelm. the first was i notice is strong stutter (a lot of bushes on this road). go to the market area (marked on screenshot) and look in n/o direction without AI etc. i have 30fps. Only few steps forward and you are in the conifer- forest and 50fps. Ok 30fps looks not so bad, but if you play a cti misson and nearby ar many bushes my performance drop to 20fps. that is a drop of minimum 20%. Arma2 is designed for large wars and many player need this 20% or a part of it, for a smooth gameplay on large wars.

i think this is not a bug, it looks more like bad optimation.

PC:I7920/GTX275/6GB DDR3 1600/ on a gigabyte ex 58 extreme board

OS: Win7 64

ArmAI2 settings: Resolution/fillrate: 1920x1080/ view distance: 2500

Texture deatil: verry high/ video memory: default/ Anisotrp. filter: verry high/ AA: disable/ landscape detail: high/ object detail: normal/ shadow: high/ postprocess: disable

(sorry my ArmA is in german)

So errr... what were you saying about it being the 8500gt card being the problem for being to lowend in your opinion, and about me being plain wrong in my assumption?????? :rolleyes:

Edited May 14, 2010 by teaboy

[Yapab 10]

Sorry buddy, but your argument is wrong, you now say that the 5770 also gives you a performance drop but not as large, well its not hard to figure out WHY.... because its a stronger card!

I can tell you I've played ARMA2 on more than 6 different GPU's and every GPU experiences this problem, not just Nvidia. Also with a high end GPU this problem is much less because of the power. I run 2x GTX275 in SLI and my FPS drops less than 10% when looking at these trees, but my other machine with 8800GTX drops probably 40%... so it is all down to how fast your GPU is.

There is no doubt that the trees affect render performance on all cards, just your assumption that its Nvidia based because you got better performance with a much stronger CPU/GPU is invalid.

Yapa

[teaboy 11]

Sorry buddy, but your argument is wrong, you now say that the 5770 also gives you a performance drop but not as large, well its not hard to figure out WHY.... because its a stronger card! (not as strong as your GTX 275 SLI that takes a hit of 10% FPS compared to just a hit of 3-5 FPS on my 5770)

I can tell you I've played ARMA2 on more than 6 different GPU's and every GPU experiences this problem, not just Nvidia. Also with a high end GPU this problem is much less because of the power. I run 2x GTX275 in SLI and my FPS drops less than 10% when looking at these trees, but my other machine with 8800GTX drops probably 40%... so it is all down to how fast your GPU is.

There is no doubt that the trees affect render performance on all cards, just your assumption that its Nvidia based because you got better performance with a much stronger CPU/GPU is invalid.

Yapa

In my Original post i said the following which you didnt qoute in full.

"Well I got my new rig, now and its all set up, Ive tried the game in vanilla 1.5 and beta and the fps with tree's issue is gone (well no where near as much an impact). So as the new machine uses an ATI card, am betting this is an Nvidia card only issue."

So i am not just "now saying" that 5770 gives a drop in Fps as well, as i said that all along, just it isnt as noticeable, and thats even on all settings maxed out execpt PP and VD. But even on LOW settings its the same drop in FPS.

My point is that it is mainly Nvidia card's that are being effected the most!

You are basing your argument that my card is more powerful and thats why i am not getting as much of an impact compared to the 8500gt i have in my other rig. Yet you yourself have a more powerful set up of 2 x gtx275 compared to my 1x 5770 yet still getting a much bigger clubbering of 10% of your fps compared to just 3-5fps that i get, worse case scenario, which isnt even noticable without FPS counter showing the FPS count. So is it GPU and CPU power related? NO... otherwise id have a worse drop in FPS then what you get, if it were!

You are also trying to argue (although in directly) that my quad core i7 860 2.8ghz and 1x 5770 card is more powerful then bensons i7 920 (that i assume is quad) and gtx285, when it clearly is not. Yet benson is having the same drops in FPS as you. If it was to do with CPU and GPU power then you would not be having such a drop in FPS and bensons should not be having any drop in fps when i myself only have a drop of 3-5 fps (worse case).

That being said, if this was a GPU/CPU power related issue, then Benson should get a similar if not better Perfomance on his system then i currently do on mine. But he isn't, so it can not possibly be down to CPU/GPU power, can it!

So yes, i stand by what i said. As i do believe that the Game is not well optimised for Nvidia cards compared to ATI.

Edited May 19, 2010 by teaboy
changed colour of fonts contained in brackets that i added to the qouted post when i originally posted

[frag85 10]

When in the middle of thick wooded areas (on any island) with High or V.High Object Detail I can watch my GPU temp go up. These areas seem to be bottle necked by GPU's for most people I have played with.

[randir14 10]

People have complained about this since the game came out, I doubt it will ever be fixed. The only thing that helped me was to use the "PROPER low veg" mod by kju. The trees still looked good but performance went way up. BIS should just incorporate his mod as an optional install in their next patch.

[bensdale 0]

I have still the "trees problem".

for example:

I play a AAS MP game and all looks good, but after 30min my FPS goes realy strong down if i look in a trees area (before on the same direction, absolutly no FPS collapse). If i look in a other direction, the game works absolutly smooth. If i try with flush, the game works for 5min normal, and after this comes the same Problem.

I hope this problem is because not all server run on the newst beta patch like Firebal said on the CIT:

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/10271

[Flash Thunder 10]

Yeah I think BIS got alittle carried away with the vegies

They consist of alot of polygons, alot of the branches look very high polygon, and then underneath the plane of the ground theres the end of the tree trunk which is also being rendered even though you cannot see it.

Some of the trees also have alot of roots that are very high detailed.

I think they should create a tree drawdistance or give us a tree density filter.

Also Chernarus was a bad design decision basing such a huge open world game on a map that consists of 100,000's of trees and expect the average guy with a 8800gt will be able to run it...

making a niche game even nichier with these high system requirements just to display these trees.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I'm one of those average guys. Tree density filter or tree drawdistance wouldn't help, as it's not the number of trees that is the problem, but certain trees as you get up close to them. Well, for me anyways. Could be different for others.

I've tried Sumas suggestion on using 80% 3D resolution, and it seems to help quite a lot. But the amount of unsharpiness/blurrinesss is too extreme. Really hurts my eyes, even if I was now able to run higher texture setting and even some AA on.

[NeMeSiS 11]

I'm one of those average guys. Tree density filter or tree drawdistance wouldn't help, as it's not the number of trees that is the problem, but certain trees as you get up close to them. Well, for me anyways. Could be different for others.

I've tried Sumas suggestion on using 80% 3D resolution, and it seems to help quite a lot. But the amount of unsharpiness/blurrinesss is too extreme. Really hurts my eyes, even if I was now able to run higher texture setting and even some AA on.

You could also just run a lower resolution? ;)

[Dead3yez 0]

I think animations (wind) should be removed from lower lods of trees, same with grass. If this would give any performance boost then it's definitely worth it I think. It probably won't help certain trees close-up, but overall it might help.

[LeadCommando65 10]

You could also just run a lower resolution? ;)

Decreasing resolution makes the game looking far worse than just decreasing the tree quality. If you lower the resolution you will get a less quality on each entity in the game. But many people get only a performance loss caused by certain trees.

The problem is that the current trees aren't well optimized. There so many areas on the trees where you could easily decrease the polygon count, nobody would ever notice. It just hurts everytime if I see how the framerate goes down when I look from a scenery with beautiful trees (confiers, etc.) to a scenery with other beautiful trees (broadleafs, especially the red ones, ...). I'm sure there is a way to get the red ones better optimized without making them look awful.