Operation Arrowhead performance optimizations/comparisons

[W.- -.R.R.e.L. 10]

Was searching for a SSD, but it's alot of money atm. Just bought 2 games..

So I should defrag partition D: were my ArmA is installed? And what kind of windows services should I turn off?

Edit: Followed your link to turn off sum services :)

ThX

Edited October 31, 2010 by W.[ ].R.R.e.L.

[vitaliy0001 10]

Is...

i7 820QM

ATI 5830

8GB RAM

...enough to run ARMA 2 at MAX settings at good framerates?

[ast65 10]

The machine to run ArmA2 at max settings (10 k VD) with good framerate isn´t build yet :p

but you should be able to run it on preset "very high" (3.6 k VD etc.) with smooth framerate :)

Edited November 1, 2010 by @ST

[W.- -.R.R.e.L. 10]

I've run the OA benchmark and got 66 FPS with the following settings

Visibility - 2128

Res. and 3D -1920x1200

Texture - Very High

Vid. mem. - Default

AF - Very High

AA - Disabled

Terrain/objects - Very High

Shadows - High

PP - Disabled

Should I got a little more when I changed some things? Thx ahead :)

[Guest General Nuisance]

The machine to run ArmA2 at max settings (10 k VD) with good framerate isn´t build yet :p

but you should be able to run it on preset "very high" (3.6 k VD etc.) with smooth framerate :)

See, this is the one problem I and many others I'm sure have with the "Operation Flashpoint"/"Armed Assault" series of games by Bohemia Interactive. By the time one has a system which can run the games at near-maximum/maximum settings. A new game in the series has been released which again far exceeds the performance capabilities of the latest hardware.

It's a shame as I really do want to play "ArmA 2" as I can see it's a very good game to play if one can run it at an optimum level with a good enough visual quality. For me, I can't achieve it yet and until I get my system upgrade and/or I buy "OA" then I don't know whether I'll see a difference in the quality of gameplay which will satisfy me enough so that I can play and enjoy the game.

[chiefredcloud 10]

See, this is the one problem I and many others I'm sure have with the "Operation Flashpoint"/"Armed Assault" series of games by Bohemia Interactive. By the time one has a system which can run the games at near-maximum/maximum settings. A new game in the series has been released which again far exceeds the performance capabilities of the latest hardware.

It's a shame as I really do want to play "ArmA 2" as I can see it's a very good game to play if one can run it at an optimum level with a good enough visual quality. For me, I can't achieve it yet and until I get my system upgrade and/or I buy "OA" then I don't know whether I'll see a difference in the quality of gameplay which will satisfy me enough so that I can play and enjoy the game.

I feel for you and I've been where you are now. And I dare say that I will be where you are now when ArmA moves forward again. But I personally see no way that Sims such as ArmA can progress unless they use as much of or all the power avaiable to them.

I suuspect that companies like BIS DO look at what is available for the average player play with (computer) other wise they would run themselves out of business.

If you look at ArmA 2 you'll realise that it doesn't use ALL of what it could. I.e. Direct X-11 and other things.

But yea, I DO feel for all that cannot play such a great sim.

[Guest General Nuisance]

I feel for you and I've been where you are now. And I dare say that I will be where you are now when ArmA moves forward again. But I personally see no way that Sims such as ArmA can progress unless they use as much of or all the power avaiable to them.

I suuspect that companies like BIS DO look at what is available for the average player play with (computer) other wise they would run themselves out of business.

If you look at ArmA 2 you'll realise that it doesn't use ALL of what it could. I.e. Direct X-11 and other things.

But yea, I DO feel for all that cannot play such a great sim.

That's the thing, the game's engine should use such things as SLi/Crossfire and multi-core CPUs but for some reason. BI again hasn't included this necessary function within the code and so we're left with running this hefty game engine on single core CPUs and GPUs. I appreciate the difficulty in bringing such a high-concept game to the masses, both in terms of scope and content. However, I can't understand why the game has trouble with utilising more than 4GB of RAM, multi-core CPUs, GPUs etc? These are necessary for such a game to function properly. Another point is that many players are still encountering difficulties with running this game without major problems to do with the graphics, frame rates etc.

May I ask what are your system specifications?

I had another game online just now and with my current settings I enjoyed an average FPS of 50-60 in a wooded area with occasional rate of 70 FPS. However, as soon as I'm in an urban location it can drop to the lower 20s. I'll persevere with the online play and see if I can enjoy it.

[chiefredcloud 10]

May I ask what are your system specifications?

I7 CPU 920 Quad Core @ 2.67GHz

6 Gigs of Ram

Nvidia 450 video card

1 T drive

[Heatseeker 0]

I had another game online just now and with my current settings I enjoyed an average FPS of 50-60 in a wooded area with occasional rate of 70 FPS. However, as soon as I'm in an urban location it can drop to the lower 20s. I'll persevere with the online play and see if I can enjoy it.

I'd like to know wtf is wrong with the A2 buildings... i dont apretiate trading large towns for small ones that load slowly and destroy frame rates just because they look prettier. I've read that Sahrani runs even better in the A2 engine so i think the problem lies in the game assets rather than the engine itself? I miss the large towns and the pretty south sahrani vegetation!

[maturin 12]

So if I buy OA and combine it with Arma 2 in the normal way, can I choose to run the game with Arma 2 settings (and hence performance) alone?

I already have A2 1.08

What sort of framerate hits do people get?

[Ziji 10]

Hi.

I made this account to post in here, ASSUMING this is the right thread.

Here's the deal: ArmA 2 Demo ran pretty good. Average FPS was 32 or so, and I loved playing it; so I bought the game.

LO AND BEHOLD, I get a new video card (upgraded from GTS 250 to GTX 460) and now, the game will freeze up at random points (makes ArmA 2 vanilla unplayable and won't start up at all anymore, and ArmA 2: OA will randomly freeze up and have a HUGE drop in FPS every so often averaging around 12).

I have no idea WTF is causing this because my rig should blow it out of the water.. even with my old card.

Here's my specs:

AMD Phenom II X2 550 Processor 3.11 GHz

4gb RAM

GTX 460 768mb RAM

W7 x64

EDIT: I'd like to add, boot camp and the scenario: "One Shot, One Kill" ran PERFECT.

No lag, relatively high FPS, everything went great.

It's MP and other missions that just destroy the FPS.

Edited November 28, 2010 by Ziji

[empa 10]

Hi.

I made this account to post in here, ASSUMING this is the right thread.

Here's the deal: ArmA 2 Demo ran pretty good. Average FPS was 32 or so, and I loved playing it; so I bought the game.

LO AND BEHOLD, I get a new video card (upgraded from GTS 250 to GTX 460) and now, the game will freeze up at random points (makes ArmA 2 vanilla unplayable and won't start up at all anymore, and ArmA 2: OA will randomly freeze up and have a HUGE drop in FPS every so often averaging around 12).

I have no idea WTF is causing this because my rig should blow it out of the water.. even with my old card.

Here's my specs:

AMD Phenom II X2 550 Processor 3.11 GHz

4gb RAM

GTX 460 768mb RAM

W7 x64

EDIT: I'd like to add, boot camp and the scenario: "One Shot, One Kill" ran PERFECT.

No lag, relatively high FPS, everything went great.

It's MP and other missions that just destroy the FPS.

Did you make a full driver clean when changing GPUs?

[Ziji 10]

Did you make a full driver clean when changing GPUs?

Yes, all that's in there is my 260.99 drivers.

EDIT: Here's another thing: First time I ran AO, it was slow and etc like vanilla ArmA 2 has been after the first time I played (seriously, first and second time I played ArmA 2 it ran fine; like the demo. Then I closed it out, and played another game, came back and suddenly it's all choppy and unplayable. Wtf?).

I ran One Shot, One Kill, like I said above and it ran fine.

Now I try to play it, on VERY LOW settings (as opposed to Very High/High) and I get like 2 FPS.

What is going on?!?!

EDIT 2: Just played again.

Everything ran perfectly, except a few hiccups but I think that's because I was hosting a co op game and my buddy was from Denmark so...

Who knows.

This is weird.

Edited November 28, 2010 by Ziji

[maturin 12]

How serious are you about not using maxmem parameters? I don't really know what they are, but Zeus AI recommends their use.

Will anything bad happen if I use both maxmem=2047 and -cpucount=2 -exThreads=1?

[phertiker 10]

How serious are you about not using maxmem parameters? I don't really know what they are, but Zeus AI recommends their use.

Will anything bad happen if I use both maxmem=2047 and -cpucount=2 -exThreads=1?

Probably not, but the "cpucount" and "exThreads" variables won't have any effect as those are automatically detected these days. I'm not sure what the status is of the "maxmem" setting but I never bother with it.

[Atkins 10]

I have e6750@3.1Ghz, 4Gb, hd4850 and win7. I am running CO.

I can tweak the graph settings and add addons to get somewhat good results from benchmarks (40-60fps) but no matter what i do the Harvest Red campaigns Manhattan part only gives me 17-25 avg fps which does not feel smooth most of the time.

Changing graph settings does not affect fps that much in that mission, running with medium settings gives about 19-25 fps and running it so that it looks like Doom1 from 1994 gives about 20-27 fps.

Is there anything else i can do to take the load off the cpu?

[meade95 0]

Hi.

I made this account to post in here, ASSUMING this is the right thread.

Here's the deal: ArmA 2 Demo ran pretty good. Average FPS was 32 or so, and I loved playing it; so I bought the game.

LO AND BEHOLD, I get a new video card (upgraded from GTS 250 to GTX 460) and now, the game will freeze up at random points (makes ArmA 2 vanilla unplayable and won't start up at all anymore, and ArmA 2: OA will randomly freeze up and have a HUGE drop in FPS every so often averaging around 12).

I have no idea WTF is causing this because my rig should blow it out of the water.. even with my old card.

Here's my specs:

AMD Phenom II X2 550 Processor 3.11 GHz

4gb RAM

GTX 460 768mb RAM

W7 x64

EDIT: I'd like to add, boot camp and the scenario: "One Shot, One Kill" ran PERFECT.

No lag, relatively high FPS, everything went great.

It's MP and other missions that just destroy the FPS.

I'm having somewhat the same issue - I've gone from a 8800 GT (512mb) - To a GTX 460 (1028 MB) - And where on the benchmarks I've gone from around 37 FPS with 8800GT....to now 57 FPS (with slightly higher game settings) with the GTX 460.....

I am now have slight stutters during the game that I never had before with the 8800GT - There are just slight pauses and stutters usually around buildings or just going in or out of doorways..... .This never happened with the 8800GT (a much lesser card in power / performance standards)????

I also have an audio issue where since moving to the GTX 460 I now have a constant buzz when using headphones (only). Not when using desktop speaker systems just when trying to use headphones (impossible now).

What are peopels settings? In the game I have

Video Memory = High

Terrain Detail = normal / high (trying both)

Object Detail = normal / high

View Distance = 1200

Anisoropic = Normal

Antialiasing Noraml / high

Now For my GTX 460 itsef - Its settings (main ones)

Anistropric = App Controlled

Antialiasing (gamma correction) = On

Antialiasing mode = App Controlled

Max Pre-Rendered Frames = 3 (just bumped it to 4, to see if this helps at all ??)

Texture filtering / anistoropic sample = Off

Teture filtering / neg lod bias = Allow

Threaded Optimization = Off

Triple Buffering = On

Vertical Sync = Force Off

[-)rStrangelove 0]

I found the real cure for stuttering is getting a faster harddrive. 99% of stuttering was gone after i installed ArmA2 on my Kingston SSD.

Also changed my MSI GTX460 to a PALIT GTX 570 1280 MB, running at default speeds (nvidia original values).

ArmA2 OA Benchmark with MSI GTX460 768MB: 66

ArmA2 OA Benchmark with Palit GTX570 1280MB: 79

ArmA2 settings:

Visibility: 2000

Both resolutions 1920 x 1200

Texture detail: NORMAL Terrain detail: LOW Postprocess effects: DISABLED

Video memory: HIGH Objects detail: NORMAL Interface size: VERY SMALL

Anisotropic filter: DISABLED Shadow detail: HIGH Aspect Ratio: 16:10

Antialiasing: DISABLED HDR Quality: NORMAL VSync: DISABLED

System:

Core2Quad 9550 OC @ 3.6 (air)

Palit GTX570 1280MB / SamsungT240

Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3

2 x 2 GB OCZ 8500

X-Fi ExtremeGamer

BeQuiet! 700W

Thermaltake Armor VA8000

WinXP 32bit SP3

ArmA2 installed on Kingston 120GB SSD

Edited December 18, 2010 by ])rStrangelove

[P.Denton 10]

I have the same issue about which the guys above this talked.

Significant FPS drop down(temporally freeze) have occured every 3 seconds when running both CO and OA only since the 1.55 patch was out.

This happens whatever the setting is. Lower or higher doesn't matter.

Before that, I didn' have any trouble playing this game.

Since then I haven't even play this game.

But PMC was released, so I got back to this game to play it.

I assumed that 1.56 patch was now out with PMC's and this would fix my freeze problem.

But this turned out to be wrong.

This problem still occurs even running with beta 76752.

I dont have money to buy SSD.

Does anybody know how to fix this?

My spec:

CPU:Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @3.00Ghz

Mem:4GB

GPU:GTX 460 with driver 260.99

OS:Windows 7 64bit

Edited December 19, 2010 by P.Denton

[DaJonkel 10]

I've been screwing with Arma 2 for days and the biggest performance boost I got was from making sure Arma 2 and everything included was defragmented properly. So that's my advice for everyone.. get that done first and then change whatever video settings you want as those don't even get close to the change in performance proper harddisk management gives you.

[-=seany=- 5]

I've been screwing with Arma 2 for days and the biggest performance boost I got was from making sure Arma 2 and everything included was defragmented properly. So that's my advice for everyone.. get that done first and then change whatever video settings you want as those don't even get close to the change in performance proper harddisk management gives you.

so your saying defragmenting your HD gave you a tangible increase in FPS? I just don't see it, might make the game a bit less stuttery but I don't see how it could increase your fps more than changing video options :386:

welcome to the forum btw :)

[jonneymendoza 10]

no get a ssd. that will make a difference so i've heard

[P.Denton 10]

I experimentally ran Arma2 OA with the latest beta patch 76815.

It was really surprising that Arma2 was running fine without a problem.

1 or 2 months have passed since I played this game normally.

Although nothing was changed in my system (not defragmented, no new software installed), today I got an official 1.57 patch and steam automatically downloaded it and applied it, so I tested if Arma2 goes fine.

The result was that the phenomenon I had encountered before happened again.

Annoying continuously temporally freeze prevent me from playing this.

Of course, I defraged my HDDs and tested any combination of start up parameters (cpucount, exthreads, winXP mode, etc) but the results were the same.

A nightmare has come.

When is the time to play Arma2?

Update on this problem:

When I use launching parameter "-cpucount = 1" fixed my problem.

My CPU is Core2Duo Dual CPU, so I set -cpucount = 2 or don't set any param when launching.

If somebody has some trouble like this, see if your parameter is right.

Edited December 24, 2010 by P.Denton

[igneous01 19]

i have:

4 1057 mhz gskill ram ddr2

anthlon 4200 + dualcore

geforce 9500 1gb memory

but the most i can play with is 2500m view distance and most things low, with aa and anisotropic filtering off. and at most the frames i get are about 15 - 20.

guess ill have to experiment to see what to improve

[nikiforos 450]

For me the best patch until now is the 1.56 . I would not install 1.57 and risk the good and stable game that I have right now.

1.56 the best patch since the release of Operation Arrowhead.