Operation Arrowhead performance optimizations/comparisons

[silentspy 10]

1.07 and 1.52 are on the same level.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1663287&postcount=1

did you read placebo's post on page 6?

I understand :)

Regarding performance there are a number of posts by Marek which specifically address the possible causes of performance differences between ArmA 2 v1.07 and OA v 1.52, these are along the lines of:

1. OA 1.52 isn't quite as optimised as A2 v1.07 (more like 1.05) but the advancements will be rolled out in new patches as soon as they're ready.

2. OA isn't compatible with Crossfire/Dual GPU's in the same way that A2 now is (this is a driver issue) but renaming the exe to something that is compatible will improve things.

3. The new graphic settings have change the resulting performance so you need to find the right balance for you (there's a pinned thread in here where Marek explains the new settings and how they affect performance).

Hope that helps a little :)

this must mean there is a few things let out that need to be put in a new patch

[Placebo 29]

Yup..

[Montanaro 0]

ugh, even with all my settings on the lowest possible (except vram) or disabled I still get missing textures and massive artifacts.

I have no idea what to do anymore, I figured an 512mb ati 5670 would be good enough to handle it.

I dont get it, my FPS is always smooth, it's just these damn artifacts, I can't play when I have a giant texture in my face.

[jpinard 10]

ugh, even with all my settings on the lowest possible (except vram) or disabled I still get missing textures and massive artifacts.

I have no idea what to do anymore, I figured an 512mb ati 5670 would be good enough to handle it.

I dont get it, my FPS is always smooth, it's just these damn artifacts, I can't play when I have a giant texture in my face.

A few suggestions:

* Of course the first one is try a different driver version.

* Weird corruptions are often the sign of a dying or defective video card.

* Talk to someone running OA with as close to the same card as you and use their exact settings, both in-game and in your video control panel.

* There may have been a file corruption. This happened to me when I was playing ArmA2 1.05 and tried to do the downed UH-1Y Armory mission. I failed the mission and the game could not be exited. I had to shut the game down hard and from then on I got errors with the UH-1Y copter. I had to uninstall, delete all my files and configs, and re-install the game.

* You didn't copy/paste your old key settings from the OA profile did you? They are different and could cause issues if you took that shortcut.

* Watch the temps on your video card to see if they're going to high.

* Are you using a 3rd party heat-sink/fan for your card? There are widespread reports 5xxx ATI cards are getting shorted and poor heat transferance with many aftermarket models.

* Can you possible take a fraps video to show us?

[Dave White 0]

can anyone explain why I seem to get 180 fps on the rolling demo screen but only manage 23fps in game? And even though fraps will show various frame rates after I change the settings nothing actually affects it up or down?

i7 920 overclocked 2.8

6 gb of ram

gtx 295

win 7 64

[jpinard 10]

can anyone explain why I seem to get 180 fps on the rolling demo screen but only manage 23fps in game? And even though fraps will show various frame rates after I change the settings nothing actually affects it up or down?

i7 920 overclocked 2.8

6 gb of ram

gtx 295

win 7 64

What "rolling demo"? Do you mean the stuff in the background on the main sceen?

Also, 2.8 GHz is barely an overclock.

[pauliesss 2]

Also, 2.8 GHz is barely an overclock.

No offense, but i7 920 even without OC should(or will in the next patch) handle this game with no problems, so thats definitely not a problem of small overclock. :)

[Alwarren 2767]

can anyone explain why I seem to get 180 fps on the rolling demo screen but only manage 23fps in game? And even though fraps will show various frame rates after I change the settings nothing actually affects it up or down?

i7 920 overclocked 2.8

6 gb of ram

gtx 295

win 7 64

The missions (especially the campaign) are, I think. more CPU intensive than GPU intensive. Meaning, the AI and stuff running in the background, moving massive amounts of troops around, is slowing things down.

Just a guess, really. I think the campaign missions use a lot of post processing too which might also slow things down, but primarily it is a CPU issue.

[jpinard 10]

No offense, but i7 920 even without OC should(or will in the next patch) handle this game with no problems, so thats definitely not a problem of small overclock. :)

Not quite so. I upgraded my rig many months ago primarily for ArmA2 and did a reidiculous amount of work to make sure it woudl optimize my ArmA2 gameplay (research and testing) - there is a linear relationship between cpu speed and #AI. So as you increase your speed, you can increase the # of AI on the battlefield without a hit in performance. Overclocking makes a tremendous difference when you have more than 70 AI on the field. I'm not going to go back and dig up all my old data, but I believe it was something like ~ .3-.7 AI per MHz. Go from 2.66 GHz to 3.66 GHz (1,000 MHz) and you can see why this is such an important piece of the equation. Adding 300-700 AI to a battle with no fps loss is huge. Of course this is assuming you choose reasonable graphic settings for your video card.

Edited July 2, 2010 by jpinard

[MavericK96 0]

Gotta agree with jpinard here. 2.8 on an i7 920 from 2.66 stock is not going to be noticeable. If you have decent aftermarket cooling (even on air) and decent case airflow you should be able to pull at least 3.5 GHz out of any i7 chip. I got 3.8 GHz out of mine with barely changing any voltages or anything else at all, pretty much right out of the box with a Vigor Monsoon III cooler.

[Montanaro 0]

A few suggestions:

* Of course the first one is try a different driver version.

I've tried 3 versions, same problem

* Weird corruptions are often the sign of a dying or defective video card.

It's only a couple months old (doesn't mean it's not defective), but I can run other games without problem, CDS Black Shark included

* Talk to someone running OA with as close to the same card as you and use their exact settings, both in-game and in your video control panel.

* There may have been a file corruption. This happened to me when I was playing ArmA2 1.05 and tried to do the downed UH-1Y Armory mission. I failed the mission and the game could not be exited. I had to shut the game down hard and from then on I got errors with the UH-1Y copter. I had to uninstall, delete all my files and configs, and re-install the game.

Haven't got far enough to get any corruptions!:p

* You didn't copy/paste your old key settings from the OA profile did you? They are different and could cause issues if you took that shortcut.

Nope, just got Combined operations, never played ARMA2 before

* Watch the temps on your video card to see if they're going to high.

I suppose, I've been meaning to look at this, but I've had my scythe fan blowing 130cfm directly onto card with another nearby sucking out. But again I haven't had problems with other games, and even with minimal settings I get bad artifacts in towns

* Are you using a 3rd party heat-sink/fan for your card? There are widespread reports 5xxx ATI cards are getting shorted and poor heat transferance with many aftermarket models.

Nope, but I have to wonder how well the stock cooling fan works considering it's size.

* Can you possible take a fraps video to show us?

Not much to see I'm afraid, as long as there are buildings around on ARMA2 or OA, I get jagged artifacts jutting across the screen, not so much at first, but after a few seconds maybe a minute of running (possibly something wrong with memory)

5 characters

[-)rStrangelove 0]

can anyone explain why I seem to get 180 fps on the rolling demo screen but only manage 23fps in game?

AI and mission / campaign scripts.

Personally i think setting

terrain details = very low (some grass is still rendered, nice)

object details = high

shadows = high

viewdistance = 2000

is the best balance between looks & fps until we get the next OA patch.

I gotta say i can understand the surprise of all the new guys here on the forums. We vets are burned children, everything better than worse is good enough for us lol. For someone coming from MW2 or BC2 ArmA2OA must look horrible.

All i can say is: patience. Patches and custom addons will be coming, its really worth waiting.

Edited July 2, 2010 by ])rStrangelove

[1in1class 0]

I guess thats all that we can do is wait till an new patch that fix the lag and preformance issues. OA is realy bad at the lag in SP its like your playing in MP with an bad host. Hope this issue gets fix vary soon cause its making the game not playable. You just keep skipping around on the maps, not fun:sad: Also i have an Intel Core Duo Cpu E8400 3.00GHz, what should i use for the cpuCount?

Edited July 2, 2010 by 1in1class
need

[pauliesss 2]

Not quite so. I upgraded my rig many months ago primarily for ArmA2 and did a reidiculous amount of work to make sure it woudl optimize my ArmA2 gameplay (research and testing) - there is a linear relationship between cpu speed and #AI. So as you increase your speed, you can increase the # of AI on the battlefield without a hit in performance. Overclocking makes a tremendous difference when you have more than 70 AI on the field. I'm not going to go back and dig up all my old data, but I believe it was something like ~ .3-.7 AI per MHz. Go from 2.66 GHz to 3.66 GHz (1,000 MHz) and you can see why this is such an important piece of the equation. Adding 300-700 AI to a battle with no fps loss is huge. Of course this is assuming you choose reasonable graphic settings for your video card.

Oh, okay, I agree....anyway, all I wanted to say is that if he wait for the next patch(or few patches) he should get better performance without OCing his CPU more. :)

(I am an "overclocker" too, unfortunately, not enough money for buying better PC right now...)

[Bloodbane15 10]

I hope some of the future patches fix these performance issues, because right now I can't figure out why it's running so badly.

I'm running Windows 7 x64

AMD Phenom 9500 (2.2ghz Quad Core)

4GB DDR2 Ram

ATI 5850 1GB DDR5

And OA runs horribly.

At first i was running Visibility - 3050

Video Memory - High

Anisotropic Filtering - Normal

AA - Low

Post processing effects, Terrain and Object Detail - Normal

Shadows - High

With a 3D resolution at 1920 x 1080.

I ran all 3 benchmarks (launching with the combined operations) and got the following average frame rates.

Benchmark 1 - 17 FPS

Benchmark 2 - 5 FPS

Benchmark 3 (the Arrowhead one) - 18 FPS

I then changed the Shadow detail to Normal, Post Processing effects to Low and the resolution down to 1120 x 896 as well as making sure VSYNC is disabled and using the -nosplash -cpucount=4 -exThreads=7 launch commands.

My Benchmarks were then as follows.

Benchmark 1 - 18 FPS

Benchmark 2 - 5 FPS

Benchmark 3 (the Arrowhead one) - 20 FPS

So as you can see i got almost no FPS improvement.

It's making the game really difficult to play which is a shame because myself and some clan mates really got into Arma 2 and we are planning on doing the same with Arrowhead.

If anyone has any ideas on anything else I can try I'm open to suggestions.

[Derbysieger 11]

Note that the .exe is not set as Largeaddressaware (as 1.07 Arma2 build currently is), but can easily be changed to be such.

Try http://www.4shared.com/file/-2fB1A0O/LaatiDo.html if you wish to check how this affects your performance.

Wow thanks alot. That with cpuCount=4 and exThreads=7 made a huge difference for me. On Takistan I now have 30-40fps (during Campaign). Before, it dropped sometimes below 20 with even lower settings. O_o Zargabad is now playable when I lower shadow details. But it only runs as good as Takistan when I lower my graphic settings significantly.

OA Benchmark: 30fps

My Settings are now:

Resolution/3D Resolution: 1920x1080

Viewdistance: 7800

Textures: High

AF: High

AA: Normal

Terrain Detail: High

Object Detail/Shadow Detail/Post Processing: Very High

I'm running:

Win 7 64-Bit

Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.99GHz (Overclocking from 2.66 to 3.99GHz gave me boost of ~5-8 fps in ArmA II. ArmA II was the reason I overclocked)

6GB DDR3 RAM

Toxic HD4870 1GB

Disabling HT isn't an option for me because the difference when rendering videos and photos etc. is too big.

To everyone owning a i7: If you consider to overclock, try going up to 3.8-4GHz. The difference between 3.6GHz and 3.99 was enormous for me.

Edited July 2, 2010 by Derbysieger

[mrbinkels 10]

Note that the .exe is not set as Largeaddressaware (as 1.07 Arma2 build currently is), but can easily be changed to be such.

Try http://www.4shared.com/file/-2fB1A0O/LaatiDo.html if you wish to check how this affects your performance.

Will this invoke fade if you enable LAA on the .exe?

[Derbysieger 11]

Will this invoke fade if you enable LAA on the .exe?

No. Not for me. But you have a backup file anyway.

[arcadebert 10]

Hi all,

well impressed wi the perfomance gain on my mid range system!

Specs:

amd Phenom II x 4 @2.8ghz

ati radeon HD 5770

4gb ram

win7 64 bit

SP campaign 25-45 fps in OA, arma2 20-35 fps

Settings

3d res 1920x1080

quality: high

view distance: 1600

AA: low

post processing: normal

Edited July 2, 2010 by arcadebert
Settings

[Richey79 10]

Wow thanks (setting the .exe to largeaddressaware helped) alot.

Glad to hear it.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=101571&page=4

New beta patch is specifically for OA, and is LAA, plus some other good stuff.

[1in1class 0]

So did anybody try the new beta of Nvidia? Did it make the lag thing in SP game go away? Not seeing to much of anyone saying the beta driver did goods for this issue nor to much about the cpuCount by some people. So what works?

[Montanaro 0]

My graphics were doing fine for once, until I started flying, then bam missing ground textures, and boom artifacts jutting through my screen.

Needless to say I crashed....

Any ideas, could view distance (2500) or the fact I get these problems mostly when I fly have anything to do with it?

[jpinard 10]

So did anybody try the new beta of Nvidia? Did it make the lag thing in SP game go away? Not seeing to much of anyone saying the beta driver did goods for this issue nor to much about the cpuCount by some people. So what works?

I'm using the NVidia beta driver and it didn't make any difference to the laggy feeling. I changed some of my framesahead settings which has improved it and ofc course the new OA beta patch makes it MUCH better.

Edited July 3, 2010 by jpinard

[aeggwards1 10]

Just thought I would share my experiences. When I first got OA I set it up with the same settings as Arma 2 1.07:

VD: 5000

Resolution: 1650x1050

3D Res: 133%

All settings on high except disabled AA and PP on Normal.

I was getting stuttering and low performance u until I enabled the cpuCount=4 switch. The difference was outstanding. I can now run the game as above but with a VD of 10K or a VD of 5K with all settings on very high.

Specs:

Intel Q9505 2.8GHz

Nivida 250 GTX

4GB Ram

32bit Windows 7 Professional

Thanks BIS, this game is awesome!! :D

[shataan 1]

With the new nVidia beta drivers, I get 44 fps, all vis settings Very High accept for no AA/AF in OA. 1680x1050. 3D res 100%, vis dist. 3600.

Phenom 1090T BE

GTX 295

8 gigs DDR III at 1600

RAID 0

Win 7 Ult. 64 bit

Not sure if 44 is a good fps or not. But ingame in the campaign etc, the games pretty sweet. Looks awesome with 3Deep as well. Can`t wait to try the OA Update patch when released. Pretty surprised how polished/refined OA is right outta the gates. Gonna be over the top once we see a few patches.

I hope some higher rez textures are forthcoming. ;p