Operation Arrowhead performance optimizations/comparisons

[MavericK96 0]

All of the red values you've placed are generated by the game and changing them has no effect (confirmed by Suma in another thread).

As for the bold values, you shouldn't need to change refresh unless your monitor can't do 75 Hz. FramesAhead is subjective, and some people like using 1. Use whatever gives you the best performance. (I think 1-3 are valid values for that one)

[puzzola 10]

Thank you MavericK96.

Does it mean that red values change everytime I play? what if I set the file as read only?

My monitor reach 60MHz so i must set to 60.

Does GPU_DetectedFramesAhead affect performance and grafic quality too?

Which the smoothest?

[recon 7185 10]

---------- Post added at 09:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:22 PM ----------

Sounds pretty okay. However what counts is not the average Framerate. This is always painting the wrong picture of the overal perceived performance. You should concentrate on the lows/valleys of FPS. If your Frames sometimes drop down to an unacceptable low then this would be a reason to change something. (sometimes even 20FPS can feel acceptable)

Just as a recommendation: I dont think shadows on high is necessary. I would rather trade more AA for it. Most people also have pp disabled. Also viewdistance could be reduced by 400-600 metres for infantry missions. But in the end this is your personal decision and only depends on your likings.

One final note: the way you set the mouse settings also has a tremendous impact on how you perceive the performance. I put floating, head shaking and mouse flatting (are these the correct terms in english) to zero!

I think my minimum is ok, but I will have to see when I get home. It has a little stutter from what might be hyperthreading, but will I gain fps if I disable it? Also any 480 owners running a single card post their fps and settings?

[ast65 10]

Thank you MavericK96.

Does it mean that red values change everytime I play? what if I set the file as read only?

My monitor reach 60MHz so i must set to 60.

Does GPU_DetectedFramesAhead affect performance and grafic quality too?

Which the smoothest?

Frames ahead affects the feel of the game: Greater numbers will give you a more "laggy" mousefeeling whilst smaller will give you a more "direct" control feeling.

From my experience it´s important that the setting for detected frames is the same as max frames, I´ve set them both to 0, best setting for precise aiming over long distances.

[puzzola 10]

But I've GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;

Is it not too much downing it to zero?

What range and step can I use (from 0 to 2000 with steps of 100 maybe)?

About the other values (the red ones), do they change at everytime?

[ast65 10]

I think 1000 is just default setting, meaning the MaxFrames parameter isn´t defined at all, 0-8 should be valid settings.

The values are only written by the game at first startup or rewritten if you delete your userconfig (which I recommend doing everytime you apply a new patch, btw).

They may differ if your system config is changed, in your case because of different OS.

[puzzola 10]

Thank you, very usefull.

I'm going to make some try.

I think that Win7 have the old config before I changed ATI X1950pro with Ati HD5670.

I'll post the results

[puzzola 10]

I made the tests:

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;(this value is the max that the GPU can reach).

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=effective performance of GPU (possibly limited putting a fixed value in the previous setting).

I tried setting GPU_MaxFramesAhead as 0/1/8 without noticing difference

I tried setting GPU_DetectedFramesAhead manually and fixed the file as read only. The sole difference is maybe that with discrepancy in the two values it run less smooth (?).

With GPU_DetectedFramesAhead fixed higer than the GPU can reach (8 in my test), maybe a little more LOD switch.

I tought that from 0 and 8 the difference would be appreciable in quality or issues but it seams not.

I'll probably let the default values with 0 Headbobbing to prevent seasickness.

Still don't understand why rendering is default 1440x900.

I'll put it the same as display 1280x1024.

Any other suggestion is welcome

[jpinard 10]

Hope to be back soon, hospital.

[OrdeaL 10]

Changing the GPU_DetectedFramesAhead number has no affect what so ever as this is just the game detecting what your gfx card options are.

i.e. if you set detected frames ahead to 5 in your nvidia control panel it will read 5 in the ArmA2OA.cfg under GPU_DetectedFramesAhead when you next start the game up in arma2.

You may aswell leave at GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000 because your gfx card sets the detected frames ahead anyway and over rights anything you have in the the .cfg file anyway unless you change the GPU_MaxFramesAhead= to a lower number then the gfx card options. But why would u set this to a lower number anyway when you can just change it in the gfx card options therefore you may aswell not touch these options and just play around with it in the nvidia control panel for example till you find the right setting for you. Default is 3.

As Maverick said the 3d_performance number is written by the game so changing that number wont make a difference. If you would like to make the number different i found a way but no idea what the difference is with performance... Delete the ArmA2OA.cfg, start the game, go to video options, change the "quality performance" option in the very top right of the screen to "very high", then close the game, delete the .cfg file again, start the game, change all the video settings back to how you like them, close the game and now check your ArmA2OA.cfg and you will see that number has changed to 3D_Performance=100000; or if you changed it to "high" during what i just said that number will read something like 3D_Performance=93750 etc etc...

Hope this helps in some way.

edit, Also localVRAM=; and nonlocalVRAM=; are written by the game so changing these numbers WONT do anything.

Edited August 6, 2010 by OrdeaL

[puzzola 10]

Ok, I restored default. Now would like to try changig GPU_MaxFramesAhead from the card itself but I have no CCC panel 'cause I use ATI tray tools and can't find an option about it.

What is suposed to do this setting? Is a preloadinf of frames to have smoother flow or what? Do you know where to set in the card?

Thank you again

P.S. Wandering through the ATI tray tools settings I noted that in hardware>overclock settings the memory frequency is setted at 500. To be exact, I have Bios mem 1000, actual mem 500 (maybe 2d?) and the possibility to tag a "like DDR". If I do so Bios go to 4000 and actual to 1200.

i searched the F.a.q. on tray tools forum but i'm sorry don't find a solution.

My card is an ATI Radeon HD5670 1Gb DDR5 and I think that ram frequency should be 4000 mhz.

If you have the same tools can give help: Have to set this value manually? what whit the settings if i disinstal and reinstall tools?

Ati hotkeypoller is running (saw in services) so it's supposed to use all capacity in 3D Applications?

Edited August 7, 2010 by puzzola

[krazikilla 5]

Anyone here tryed playing Arma2 v1.7 or operation arrowhead with a AMD phenoxm X2 6 core 1090T BE?

or with the 1055?

i really wonder how good the new coremanagement works.

[Slides 10]

In the target field of the shortcut, make sure you go to the very end, add one space and paste in the above. Those settings are for quadcore. Is that what you have?

Does this work with steam?

[Dwarden 1125]

cfg values are explained here

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/arma2.cfg

[old_painless 182]

Hm, I am confused: How does the cfg-file play together with the in-game menu selections?

For instance, there is a variable called PostFX in the cfg-file, which handles postprocessing. But I can also manage postprocessing in the Video Options menu in-game. So which setting wins?

Cheers,

OP

[njmatrix 2]

Anyway we can get just ONE post of tweaks instead of 1000 of everyones versions?

[OrdeaL 10]

Anyway we can get just ONE post of tweaks instead of 1000 of everyones versions?

i know how u feel bro haha

[cenkcnk 0]

i have gtx260 amd x4 3,4 ghz and 4 gigs ram but oa frames are very poor

[gL33k 0]

OA need an overclocked core i7 or i5 (750/760 per example) to work well.

or maybe some SSE optimization could improve the state of game.

[MavericK96 0]

Anyway we can get just ONE post of tweaks instead of 1000 of everyones versions?

Not all the same tweaks work for the same people, though. It's kind of a trial-and-error situation.

[pestbeule 10]

====note====

2. Stop using a RAM Drive.

Hi... Why should I stop using a RAM Disc. I thought this is the ultimate "tool" for performance because Arma is reading tons of data from my drive? Can you please explain it to me?

See here

Edited August 25, 2010 by pestbeule
added a link

[hbk 0]

Hi.

After messing up with the graphical settings for optimization purposes, I'll try to summarize what I've understood so far. I did not find this kind of explanation elsewhere, but think it can be very useful, especially when trying to optimize ArmA2 for the best "eye candy to resource ratio".

I'll try to explain the impact the settings have on visuals without much technical gibberish, but for an understanding of some of the most basic terms (such as anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, etc), I suggest you go pay a visit to wikipedia.

Of course, feel free to correct me if (when) I'm wrong.

• Visibility: The view distance of drawn terrain. There seem to be a very classic "fog effect" from about 80% to 100% of view distance (in order to smooth transition from "terrain" to "no terrain"). I.e. if you have 3000 view distance, fog effect will start at about 2400 meters.
  Objects draw distance seem to be directly tied to this view distance, with a ratio of about 50% ~ 60%. I.e. if you have 3000 view distance, objects will be drawn (and so visible) up to about 1800 meters.
  It would seem that player visibility is tied to AI visibility, meaning the farther the player can see objects, the farther the AI can see objects. Or in more simpler terms, if view distance allow player to view AI, AI can also view player, and vice versa.
  
• Brightness: Your classical brightness setting.
  
• Gamma: Your classical gamma setting.
  
• Quality Preference: A series of presets for all settings. It will change (what the option displays will change) in order to reflect what the game thinks of the processing power needed to display actual settings.
  
• Interface resolution: The actual screen resolution. The interface is always drawn at the screen resolution.
  
• 3D resolution: The actual 3D "frame buffer" resolution. If it is lower than "interface" resolution, it means the GPU will upscale (zoom) the 3D image to the "real" resolution. If it is higher than the "interface" resolution, the downscale (unzoom) will actually result in a simulation of SSAA (super sampling anti-aliasing).
  
• Texture detail: The overall texture resolution. It is tied to video memory. If settings are increased beyond actual video memory settings, video memory settings will increase accordingly.
  At higher settings, it will mainly impact the texture resolution of distanced objects.
  Al lower settings, even close objects will have low resolution textures.
  
• Video memory: The amount of memory "reserved" for textures. It is tied to texture detail. If settings are decreased beyond actual texture detail settings, texture detail settings will decrease accordingly.
  It would appear this setting is meant to be used in conjunction with "texture detail" setting and has no impact outside that scope.
  
• Anisotropic filtering: Impacts the kind of textures that are subject to anisotropic filtering, from no textures to (almost?) all textures. In between settings apply anisotropic filtering to most important textures such as ground and road.
  It does not seem to impact the actual level of anisotropic filtering (which may be a 4x or 8x).
  
• Antialiasing: The level of MSAA (multi sampling anti-aliasing) used. Disabled = No MSAA. Low = 2x MSAA. Normal = 4x MSAA. High = 6x or 8x MSAA depending on your GPU.
  
• Terrain detail: The amount of "ground detail" displayed. At the lower setting, almost no grass is drawn and the "grass simulation layer" is not displayed ("grass simulation layer" consist of supplementary terrain polygons drawn to simulate concealment in grass using z-buffer occlusion). At other levels, this setting impacts the amount of grass drawn and the distance at which drawn grass is replaced by the "grass simulation layer".
  
• Object detail: The LOD (level of detail) switching distance for all objects. Does not seem to impact object view distance. At low settings, even close objects are drawn with somewhat low LOD. At higher settings, LOD swapping occurs much farther. It also has an impact on the amount of grass drawn.
  
• Shadow detail: The kind of shadows used. Disabled = No shadows. Normal = Only "geometric shadows" (on all objects). High = A mix of "geometric shadows" for some objects and "shadow maps" for other objects (it seems mostly "shadow maps" are used actually, and "geometric shadows" are limited to in-vehicle self shadowing). Very High = Same as High with much higher quality "shadow maps".
  
• Postprocess effects: Best explained here: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=101040
  
• Interface size: The size of interface elements (text, crosshairs, icons, menus). From smaller to bigger.
  
• Aspect ratio: Your typical aspect ratio setting.
  

Edited August 25, 2010 by HBK

[frogblastvent 10]

Over at OCZ support forums there is a SSD Tweak tool which works.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?49779-SSD-Tweak-Utility

Also this tool works great.

http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

Ran CC and disabled paging file then a reboot and then ran the Tweak and another reboot.

System runs much faster now, no increase in fps, just very smooth play in Arma2.

It seems that the Large System Cache enabled by the tweak tool does a great job in using more of the ram.

This system has 12 gig in it, Arma2 tends to use up to 1.5 gig. Win 7 64 bit

The system runs great except in Arma2 online multiplayer, after a couple hours then it slows down. The ram use is almost all 12 gig as the paging is using up all the ram. During play with no paging file there are still the objects loading on screen, but is is very fast and most times don't even see it happen. Also instead of single or small groups of objects loading on screen, there will be large areas that load very fast. The data in ram does not get moved to the paging file on disk so the loading is off ram all the time untill you run out of ram after a couple of hours.

So 64 bit os and no ramdisk is the best way. And no paging file if you have like 12 gig ram. Keep paging file on if you don't have this much ram. Just ordered another 12 gig, as the board has 6 slots, will try with 24 gig ram and see how it plays after many hours on-line.

Also in armory i can have VD @ 10k and texture and object details at very high flying at 4x speed zoomed in with no lag or stuttering. The load times off the SSD are longer and there is some lag as the graphics load but after 30 sec it is quite smooth.

Also ordered a gtx 460 to replace this gtx 260.

Edited August 27, 2010 by frogblastvent

[njmatrix 2]

Not all the same tweaks work for the same people, though. It's kind of a trial-and-error situation.

I dont want to know what works for everyone else I want a clear list of tweaks we can play with on our own I know the ArmA series is erratic but I would like to see a list of

1. file names (IE MP_Config.CFG )and location of these CFG files.

2. What lines pertain to what,example of this is :

Seta CG_POV "90" is your Point of view anything past 90 doesn't work

THAT is helpful information. I could really careless what works for you. Also maybe one cfg posted for low specs and 1 for high as reference points.

Edited August 30, 2010 by njmatrix

[alan.rio 18]

Anyway we can get just ONE post of tweaks instead of 1000 of everyones versions?

I agree, has anyone read though the thread in enough detail to summarize? It would save people an awful lot of time.