Operation Arrowhead performance optimizations/comparisons

[MavericK96 0]

With the GTX 460 out now @ $200, I would maybe check that out. It performs surprisingly well, and also I expect AMD/ATi to drop their prices pretty soon, because of it.

[savior 10]

I had missed that, it is much better than 470 and 480. Also power consumption and temperatures are good. In the benchmarks it is usually beetween 5830 and 5850, but often also below 5830. And yes, ATI must lower prices soon because of it.

Anyone has one of these video cards (ATI 5830, ATI 5850, Nvidia GTX 460) and can report how well it runs on Arma 2 ?

[jonneymendoza 10]

I had missed that, it is much better than 470 and 480. Also power consumption and temperatures are good. In the benchmarks it is usually beetween 5830 and 5850, but often also below 5830. And yes, ATI must lower prices soon because of it.

Anyone has one of these video cards (ATI 5830, ATI 5850, Nvidia GTX 460) and can report how well it runs on Arma 2 ?

SLI will never be as good as a single card solution and whilst you get a bit more fps on 460 sli compared to one 480, the game experience is not as smooth as the 480.

[S7_Mega 10]

Anyone has one of these video cards (ATI 5830, ATI 5850, Nvidia GTX 460) and can report how well it runs on Arma 2 ?

I haven't played in a while until a couple of days ago. I use to have a 4870 and now have a 5850. Only played single player so far but the framerates are better. I was zooming in and out of the red trees and 30-35fps at lowest, 60fps at best with medium to medium high settings. At work now so I don't remember what they are set to.

[froggyluv 2136]

Well just bought and installed OA from Steam and...

...1-2 fps :eek:

Seriously, this sucks. I haven't been paying attention to all of the recent tweaks and what not but I did update the video drivers and for 1 SP mission the FPS bounced around quite a bit from high 30's to 1 or 2 for stuttering delays. Next I defragged and now i can't get above 2fps again.

Here is my config

language="English";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=93750;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Windowed=0;

Resolution_W=1440;

Resolution_H=900;

refresh=75;

winX=16;

winY=32;

winW=800;

winH=600;

winDefW=800;

winDefH=600;

Render_W=1280;

Render_H=900;

FSAA=2;

postFX=3;

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=0;

HDRPrecision=8;

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=526938112;

nonlocalVRAM=2147483647;

Honestly this is the exact same thing that happened to my Arma2 with the Betas until the very last crop came in which seemed to fix everything. No amount of tweaking did anything with that bunch and I'm pretty sure that this build of OA is similar to those Arma2 betas.

I've no idea how to add parameters and what not from steam as folders and exe. are all wonky *sigh*

would be nice if I could just start this game up and play...

Specs: e8500 stock

4870 512

8 gigs memory

asus pq5 pro

Vista 64

Edit- set HDR=0 and this time I got some normal FPS but it will drop from 75 (desert) to 1 constantly having a freeze frame effect.

Edited July 18, 2010 by froggyluv

[bono_lv 10]

Try to disable postFx and Antialiasing, it reduces fps drastically for Arma.

[froggyluv 2136]

Thanks.

For some reason that HDR setting makes or breaks it. I just installed the Beta which overwrote my config and put the HDR back to 8 and voila, 1 fps. When its that bad, you cant even access your Options menu :rolleyes:

Recorrected that setting and now with Beta it runs much better. Still stutters but overall playable and actually quite enjoyable (still haven't been to the big town yet).

[jpinard 10]

The combination of post processing effects are new in OA, so I'd guess there is a lot of tweaking BIS can do on that front alone.

[[aps]gnat 28]

I found "-CpuCount=4" made a HUGE improvement to FPS and smoothness. (unpatched OA)

[jonneymendoza 10]

Gnat;1689376']I found "-CpuCount=4" made a HUGE improvement to FPS and smoothness. (unpatched OA)

diddnt make a difference for me

[MavericK96 0]

diddnt make a difference for me

My guess is that the following are true:

1. [APS]Gnat has Hyperthreading enabled.

2. You do not.

Correct?

[cabelo3d 10]

just copy or rename it to arma2.exe to use same driver profile for ARMA 2

this will not work with Steam version but there is workaround

1. rename arma2oa.exe to arma2.exe

2. open Command propmpt

3. use path to your game

e.g.

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\ARMA 2 Operation Arrowhead

4. create symbolic link arma2oa.exe which targets arma2.exe

mklink arma2oa.exe arma2.exe

5. now steam will launch the game w/o complains

6. driver Crossfire / SLI profile should kick in and works by detecting arma2.exe

in some cases normal symlink might not be enough and hardlink is needed

mklink /h arma2oa.exe arma2.exe

that's all enjoy your game 'working' SLI / Crossfire

I'm having a very bad performance in SP.

I7980x @ 4.0

6Gb ddr3 ocz Gold 1600

2 green caviar 500Gb Raid0

Windows 7x64

HD5870 Crossfire

Please, do I need to open the regular comand prompt of windows to do that?

Paste that "cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\ARMA 2 Operation Arrowhead" in there?

How do I create a simbolic link?

I'm a newbie and a foreigner, please can you explain that once again a bit more detailed? If possible, a step by step would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

[lugiahua 26]

I am not sure why, but I lost about 15 fps overnight.

My CO/AO was smooth until last night with about 25FPS, then today it dropped to around 10 only without a reason.

I did installed CBA and a few aircrafts addons last night, but it was fine when I tested them before went to bed.

Win XP

Q6600 2.4GHZ

3.5 GB Ram

HD 3800 1GB

[[aps]gnat 28]

1. [APS]Gnat has Hyperthreading enabled.

Yeh, must be, I certainly didnt enter BIOS to switch anything off. ;)

[jonneymendoza 10]

My guess is that the following are true:

1. [APS]Gnat has Hyperthreading enabled.

2. You do not.

Correct?

i got hyper thread enabled mate.

[prysk 10]

Hello..

I got new PC a few days ago.

i7 920@3,8GHz

GTX 470

6BG RAM

Windows 7 64bit

In MP i have 45-60 fps. Playing is smooth and looks great, but i have little stuttering every minute,looks like lag, but its not. Any suggestion, what should i do?

Before i have Q6600@3,2GHz, GTX 260, 4GB RAM and everything was ok ! :(

[MavericK96 0]

i got hyper thread enabled mate.

Are you running the beta?

[S7_Mega 10]

Hello..

I got new PC a few days ago.

i7 920@3,8GHz

GTX 470

6BG RAM

Windows 7 64bit

In MP i have 45-60 fps. Playing is smooth and looks great, but i have little stuttering every minute,looks like lag, but its not. Any suggestion, what should i do?

Before i have Q6600@3,2GHz, GTX 260, 4GB RAM and everything was ok ! :(

This is normal.

[jonneymendoza 10]

i just got a 480gtx today and i must say i am happy with it. i ran a few benchmarks and i got an average of 56fps with every settings on its highest. i achieved this by disabling HT and OC my cpu i7 920 to 3ghz. made a massive difference from 39fps to 56fps just by doing the above.

---------- Post added at 06:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:46 AM ----------

Are you running the beta?

nope.

[MavericK96 0]

i just got a 480gtx today and i must say i am happy with it. i ran a few benchmarks and i got an average of 56fps with every settings on its highest. i achieved this by disabling HT and OC my cpu i7 920 to 3ghz. made a massive difference from 39fps to 56fps just by doing the above.

---------- Post added at 06:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:46 AM ----------

nope.

Interesting. You're one of the few, then. (regarding HT being on and no stutter)

That's cool about the GTX 480. I've thought about getting one but I can't really justify the cost right now. What card were you using before?

[prysk 10]

Im happy 2 with my gtx 470 but dont tell me, you like the soud of card. I saw gtx 480 and its worst sound then my gtx 470.I hate this coolers, im w8ting for Arcticcooling, they wrote me, that their coolers for gtx 460/470/480 will be ready in a month.

[jonneymendoza 10]

Interesting. You're one of the few, then. (regarding HT being on and no stutter)

That's cool about the GTX 480. I've thought about getting one but I can't really justify the cost right now. What card were you using before?

i had a 260gtx before and only managed 30fps with most settings on medium.

---------- Post added at 09:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:30 AM ----------

Im happy 2 with my gtx 470 but dont tell me, you like the soud of card. I saw gtx 480 and its worst sound then my gtx 470.I hate this coolers, im w8ting for Arcticcooling, they wrote me, that their coolers for gtx 460/470/480 will be ready in a month.

i heard the 470 is louder. my 480gtx is a bit loud no questions asked but its noit as loud as a 360. i can hear it but its not that annoying. i can live with a bit of noise and heat for trade with running arma 2 oa on its highest possible settings and hitting 60fps most cases

[cmls5 10]

Hey guys I am one of the senior admin and technical expert from the BAttlegroup XTRA clan (host of the most popular ACE-warfare server). I have been tweaking the OA game to get maximum fps (as got horrible stuttering with the game at first).

There are two factors which need to be looked at;

1) If you have crossfire you will need to enable it as it OA does not have native support for Crossfire (at the moment).

- the two methods are, change the arma2OA.exe to Arma2.exe (but can mean that Arma2OA will startup as Arma2 instead sometimes) or use a program called ATI XFIRE XTENSION (http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?id=121774) also found on the bohemia forum.

2) To reduce the stuttering you need to add -cpucount=2/4/6 -exThreads=7 to the start parameters (depending on number of processors as it states on the front page), this has noticable effects due to the OA not being optimised for dual/quad/hexcore processors.

3) The latest 10.6 drivers reduces performance and causes more LOD delays (i am currently using 10.4 drivers which help the LOD)

4) To increase the performance remove post processing (disable) and set memory to medium.

5) Depending on your setup i would recommend to use medium setting with high terrain for a GTX 460 or 5770, up the levels to high for 5850 or GTX 470 and very high for GTX 480 5870 or 5970.

6) for older cards you should still get good performance just make sure you set levels to medium or high not very high, AA has no major effect on the FPS, but allows for crisper graphics.

These are the setting that have been reported by other XTRA members and settings that i have tested. I have also tested on a old PC e8400, 2gb ram, 8800 GTX and with all setting at medium or high i get between 35-45 fps in towns.

My current spec is as follows

Core i7 920 4.4 GHz

6 GB ram (2000 MHz)

2*5870 (900/1250 XFX new bios)

1000w PSU

Custom Water cooling (dual and triple in a cosmos case:)

- XTRA-PCs are for sale come october if you interested email me at ljs511@googlemail.com for a custom quote

---THe BATTLEGROUP-XTRA COMMUNITY ARE ALWAYS INTERESTED IN HELPING-- visit us www.Battlegroup-XTRA.eu

Edited July 21, 2010 by cmls5

[albeezy1984 10]

Hey guys I am one of the senior admin and technical expert from the BAttlegroup XTRA clan (host of the most popular ACE-warfare server). I have been tweaking the OA game to get maximum fps (as got horrible stuttering with the game at first).

There are two factors which need to be looked at;

1) If you have crossfire you will need to enable it as it OA does not have native support for Crossfire (at the moment).

- the two methods are, change the arma2OA.exe to Arma2.exe (but can mean that Arma2OA will startup as Arma2 instead sometimes) or use a program called ATI XFIRE XTENSION (http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?id=121774) also found on the bohemia forum.

2) To reduce the stuttering you need to add -cpucount=2/4/6 -exThreads=7 to the start parameters (depending on number of processors as it states on the front page), this has noticable effects due to the OA not being optimised for dual/quad/hexcore processors.

3) The latest 10.6 drivers reduces performance and causes more LOD delays (i am currently using 10.4 drivers which help the LOD)

4) To increase the performance remove post processing (disable) and set memory to medium.

5) Depending on your setup i would recommend to use medium setting with high terrain for a GTX 460 or 5770, up the levels to high for 5850 or GTX 470 and very high for GTX 480 5870 or 5970.

6) for older cards you should still get good performance just make sure you set levels to medium or high not very high, AA has no major effect on the FPS, but allows for crisper graphics.

These are the setting that have been reported by other XTRA members and settings that i have tested. I have also tested on a old PC e8400, 2gb ram, 8800 GTX and with all setting at medium or high i get between 35-45 fps in towns.

My current spec is as follows

Core i7 920 4.4 GHz

6 GB ram (2000 MHz)

2*5870 (900/1250 XFX new bios)

1000w PSU

Custom Water cooling (dual and triple in a cosmos case:)

- XTRA-PCs are for sale come october if you interested email me at ljs511@googlemail.com for a custom quote

---THe BATTLEGROUP-XTRA COMMUNITY ARE ALWAYS INTERESTED IN HELPING-- visit us www.Battlegroup-XTRA.eu

hey i just did that to my arma2 and arma2 now runs way better than before. i used to get 10-20fps all the time and now its 20-30fps in and out of towns. i did notice a big difference when i rolled back to old nvidia drivers. im using 197.45 and it runs smoother than before.

specs:

amd 64 x2 3.0ghz

9500gt 1gb 197.45 drivers

4gbs of ram

win7 64

settings:

100% 3d res

everything on normal

aa/af/pp all OFF

so far its enjoyable except playing OA. i tried everything for OA but no effect. modified cfg and launch commands and fiddles in my nvidia settings to no effect

[-)rStrangelove 0]

Got my MSI GTX460 768MB yesterday (replaced EVGA GTX260 800MB) and installed the new nvidia 258.96 WHQL. Some things i've noticed:

1. The GTX460 is far more silent, very pleasant now

2. MSI has afterburner software included, can be used to overclock the card within 1 min (which i did). Works like a charm and you get running statistics ingame, very nice. (powered by riva tuner)

3. The ArmA2 benchmark 2 seems to be entirely CPU-based. I had 20 fps with my gtx260 and now i have ... 20fps with the 460. :p

4. ArmA2OA benchmark results in 71fps, but i use 1920 x 1080 with custom settings (low to medium for most things, AA & postfx off)

5. Textures in ArmA2 are loaded much faster. I see bushes & trees switching to the right LODs as soon as they enter the screen, with the 260 they changed 2 seconds later (in the middle of the screen, very annoying).

I had about 17200 marks in 3DMark06 (default settings), now i have 18200 marks. It's not a night and day difference, but all games 'feel' much smoother now.

I can recommend the 460, bought it for 200Eur. Best price/performance balance atm imo. :)