antipr0duct

Infact I could get it a lot cheaper than the i5 with the same specs. Also I am not a huge fan of overclocking.

Hello, I really considering an upgrade here. As you might be aware of, I run on AMD and wanna play this game decently. So I am browsing several shops on- and offline. I now got a quite interesting offer. Instead of an i5 or i7, I stumbled over another type of CPU made by Intel. I am talking about the XEON series. As a matter of fact, I could purchase a E3-1225V3 rather cheaply. To my knowledge the processor is pretty much the same as an i7 without the internal GPU (which I don't need anyway). This I would combine with a ASRock Z87 PRO3 MoBo. Any thoughts on that? Thx antipr0duct

Hi, I am suffering from the same problem here. I had an HD 6850 before I finally got my HD 7950 PCS+. And guess what, the upgrade did change the performance of other games, but with ARMA3, I am having the same performance as I had with the old HD6850, so really bad FPS in Multiplayer and somewhat "decent" FPS in SP. Although I do not fully agree with what Sneakson has posted earlier on, I do agree using ANY AMD CPU seems to be an issue, so if you can afford it, buy a decent Intel CPU and MoBo instead of a new GPU. I am playing with several people now, and everybody on an AMD machine suffers from the same problem, bad FPS that is. I really hope, the next ArmA will run on a new engine, one that can deal with multi core in a better way.

...That's the attitude I talked about. I am settling for 30FPS in Multiplayer in ARMA3, that would be nice actually. I do not settle for less than 60FPS, 1920x1080 (which is not sub HD to my knowledge) in other MP games though. Also, I did not claim the game was designed NOT be played with AMD, I'd rather say the game was designed NOT to use the potential multi-core CPUs have, which is a shame really. But this is a fact that can not be changed, which is also, a shame.

Sneakson, I can not talk for everybody here, but my guess is, that we mainly discuss FPS in multiplayer here, so what would be interesting is to actually tell us what your FPS in multiplayer are!? Your would be surprised what my FPS count in SP and Benchmarks is, it isn't bad and more than playable, even though I am using a small&cheap PC setup compared to your "standards". Onlineplay is where it is at, struggling with 12FPS, this is actually pissing people off. I really would not care to play on 30FPS, no matter what quality setting. But when it comes to quality settings, it doesn't get better or worse by changing them. The FPS is identical in "high" or "low" setting, even on "very high" with a few sliders to "ultra" does not alter the FPS at all, not to the better, or to the worse. So in the end, it appears to be an issue just with AMD CPU. And here we are again: A game that is already not designed to be played by everybody, makes AMD CPU obsolete. Cool, can it be more elitist? "Intel users yay" "AMD users go f*ck yourselves" I think I am going to just get rid of ArmA3, which is just a shame really, but I fail to see a reason spending 300€ just to play this game. There are other titles out there, which run just fine on "very high" settings despite using AMD.

Well thank you for your input. Having read the entire post, I do appreciate the gesture to help. However, there is a somewhat elitist attitude hidden between those lines I can not ignore. It appears that people who can not or don't want to afford as "little" as 1400$ or more should go ahead and f*ck themselves. In conclusion they should just stay from the holy world of gaming, or in this case ArmA. I am not saying these are your personal intentions or even attitude, it's just one interpretation. This is nothing personal but rather some sort of annoyance towards the gaming community itself... Having said that, your signature does state the fps values in midgame. Are these actual values from MULTIPLAYER or just sp missions? Thank you. PS: I am still interested in any reports of people playing on a.machine with a AMD fx-6300 CPU

This is an really awful situation. To my knowledge the PSU currently does not provide full power to the GPU since I've to use an adapter to somehow add another 6pin power supply for the PCIe GPU. Are there no AMD CPUs out there which actually manage that game? Or are there anymore workarounds? Any people here who actually PLAY Multiplayer with a FX-6300?

Let's put it this way, the PSU is required as my current PSU just does not support 2x6 pins for the PCIe graphicscard, I am using a workaround there so a replacement is required. To upgrade to a intel CPU would cost me +300€ as I can no longer use my old MoBo. Do the benchmarks you posted actually have an impact on Arma3? You are playing on a Phenom II x4 955, are you not? How is your performance?

Yeah, I heard about "intel" being the better choice, my budget however is somewhat limited. I just revised my hardware and it isn't as bad as I thought. It turns out that the MoBo does support PCIe 2.0 and would also support an fx-6300 AMD. I would rather spend my money on that CPU (fx-6300), new case and power supply and maybe a ssd than spending the same money just for a new MoBo and CPU (intel). But if I do understand correctly, the fx-6300 would not really change anything, despite the fact it does have a larger cache than my current athlon? Thx for the help

Dear Arma3 Community, it took a while for me to actually find players/friends who would join the Arma3 world, I've now got approx. 5 people I know to play this game in multiplayer. I've been owning this game since the alpha and only tested it in alpha and beta state. I never got around playing it in the finished version. Having played a few rounds of CO-OP in multiplayer, I got to the point that this game somewhat close to unplayable in MP. The reasons for this: FPS drops! I've managed to tweak (using this guide: http://day0.com.au/forum/arma/638-arma-3-performance-tweaks-and-settings-guide) the game here and there, and using the ArmA3Mark benchmark mission, I've got it running at about 40 - 60 FPS, which is nice. However, the game itself in multiplayer just does not play fluent, it drops below 20FPS at runs at most around 15FPS, which is just horrible. Getting close to a fire, makes it even worse as the the frames per second drop below 3-5. I've tried to figure out what exactly may be causing this. Yes, I am aware that there are issues with the servers itself reducing the FPS of the client, however I do also think this might be related to a somewhat "bad" PC setup. Here are my specs: CPU: AMD Athlon II x4 640 @ 3GHz RAM: 8GB DDR 3 1333MHz GPU: Radeon HD 7950 PCS+ MoBo: ASUS M5A78L-M LX The issue I see here is the CPU and the MoBo. The CPU's cache is at 512k which is quite low I am afraid, additionally the MoBo (motherboard) only supports PCIe 1.x whereas the graphicscard actually supports PCIe 3.x See where I am going? My idea is now to upgrade to a new MoBo and CPU. I've came across a new branch of CPUs (or APUs) called the A-series. I am not going to plan to use the integrated GPU chip at all, but rather use it in conjunction with my HD 7950. I am aware of the fact those A-series CPUs are basically "just" quadcores, however, they are usually clocked at higher GHz than the FX series. As far as I am aware of (please correct me here), multithreading is not really supported by Arma3, is it? So as a result a CPU with better performance in single threaded applications should do much better than a hex- or octacore CPU of the FX-series!?!? What do you think will be the benefits running on PCIe 3.x instead of PCIe 2.x ? (to my knowledge, FX series does not support PCIe 3.x?) Do you have any other recommendations? thx the antipr0duct

Hi GVN, Why don't you do it "my way"? It worked for me, maybe it does for you too. Just follow all the steps in green print. But yes, I do agree. This issue was annoying as it can be and it took more than a day to fix it.

No need to escalate this further... as mentioned in my numerous edits, I've successfully solved the problem by myself. It appears the installer is f*cking things up when installing to the default paths.

Well, it was bought at "gamesload.de". File version is: 2.0.2.0

HI there, I searched through the forum and had no luck finding a solution, so I decided to register. So first of all, HELLO!!!!!! Issue is of course the " MPTable.shadow & pixel shader PSSpecularAlpha" I am getting and to be quite honest, I am f**king annoyed by this issue and I hope someone can help me here. First, here are my sys specs: Time of this report: 8/17/2012, 19:32:16 Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120305-1505) BIOS: BIOS Date: 08/15/11 09:45:49 Ver: 05.10 Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 640 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz Memory: 8192MB RAM Available OS Memory: 8190MB RAM Page File: 2419MB used, 13959MB available Windows Dir: C:\Windows DirectX Version: DirectX 11 DX Setup Parameters: Not found User DPI Setting: Using System DPI System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent) DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 64bit Unicode Card name: AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Chip type: AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x6739) DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz) Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6739&SUBSYS_23041787&REV_00 Display Memory: 751 MB Dedicated Memory: 1008 MB Shared Memory: 3839 MB Current Mode: 1600 x 900 (32 bit) (60Hz) So first of all, I DID NOT PURCHASE this software via steam but downloaded it from a retailer including a proper gamekey and everything. That very retail version IS already 1.62. I also own ARMA II black edition which was part of a gamer mag I bought couple of weeks ago. First of all, I did buy arma2 abnd arma OA to play DayZ, everything worked from day one and since there has been some strange beta update, launchers don't seem to work with that mod no more, so I decided to uninstall everything to have a fresh installation to install the before mentioned mod. Since then, everything has been a mess... and yes the error message is exactly the one dealt with by this very thread. I first tried to simply uninstall and install the games: - Arma 2: no issues - OA: MPTable.shadow & pixel shader PSSpecularAlpha Ok, no joy there, so what I did was deleting all data that was somehow related to the game including every effing entry with the systems registry AND deleting all data associated with that game in my AppData diretory (that also includes the necessary restarts). I then proceeded to do the following: As the OA version was already at 1.62 I had to obviously skip that part. Everything was done as admin (I also tried not to run it as admin), so this can not be the issue. I am really puzzled, as everything seemed to work when I used the six launcher for dayZ, but now, I can't even get OA running at all because of these errors. (besides DayZ is currently not installed, also any launcher is no longer installed neither are any registry entries, as they were also MANUALLY deleted) another approach: - deinstalled everything i.e. Arma2 and OA and all associated files including registries. - restart - installed OA first - ran it and it WORKED - installed Arma 2 - F*CKED up again i.e. same error message like before Edit: I've found some sort of errorlog in my AppData directory (I was just about to delete it again). Maybe this will shed some light on the issue: Exe timestamp: 2012/08/17 19:03:26 Current time: 2012/08/17 21:35:20 Version 1.62.95248 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgInGameUI/MPTable.shadow'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Recruit.recoilCoef'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Recruit.autoreload'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Recruit.animSpeedCoef'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Recruit/Flags.CameraShake'. Warning Message: []: '/' not an array Cannot evaluate '' - no file Warning Message: []: '/' not an array Cannot evaluate '' - no file Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Regular.recoilCoef'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Regular.autoreload'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Regular.animSpeedCoef'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Regular/Flags.CameraShake'. Warning Message: []: '/' not an array Cannot evaluate '' - no file Warning Message: []: '/' not an array Cannot evaluate '' - no file Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Veteran.recoilCoef'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Veteran.autoreload'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Veteran.animSpeedCoef'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Veteran/Flags.CameraShake'. Warning Message: []: '/' not an array Cannot evaluate '' - no file Warning Message: []: '/' not an array Cannot evaluate '' - no file Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Mercenary.recoilCoef'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Mercenary.autoreload'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Mercenary.animSpeedCoef'. Warning Message: '/' is not a value Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgDifficulties/Mercenary/Flags.CameraShake'. Warning Message: []: '/' not an array Cannot evaluate '' - no file Warning Message: []: '/' not an array Cannot evaluate '' - no file Error: 80004005 in D3DXCompileShader while compiling the PSSpecularAlpha:0 pixel shader (w:\c_branch\poseidon\arrowhead\lib\d3d9\ShaderSources_3_0\PSBasic.hlsl) error X3501: 'PSSpecularAlpha': entrypoint not found ErrorMessage: Error compiling pixel shader PSSpecularAlpha:0 If you do have any idea, please let me know. Thx anti edit: BTW, the display driver has also been updated to the latest version edit 2: oh yes, I also deleted the config files, as suggested by some people in this forum, no joy either ----------------------------------------------- Yet another approach: deinstalled everything (all Arma files, including Arma 2 and OA and deleting all registries manually) restarted the system (win7) installed Directx9 (as admin) restarted the system installed OA in a custom directory I created earlier on (I named it C:/Arma OA) as the admin user (to make sure, no files of prior installations are still located at the same place, I am not sure if this can happen, but as it is windows, I play it safe) started the game, NO ERRORS this far. Version is 1.62.95248 restarted sytem and ran OA, again, no errors ran beta patch 96061, a new error occured: No entry ".profilePathDefault'.. As this thread suggests, I deleted the .cfg file which did not help. The game still starts but the game menu (in which one can chose single player, multiplayer, options, etc) is all messed up and does not contain any readable characters. However, the game runs fine using the "old" arma2oa.exe in the games root directory. issues with new beta patch persistent installed arma 2 in a entirely different directory, Arma 2 was not yet started starting Arma OA, Works on Version 1.62.95248 starting Arma 2 in a custom directory (C:/Arma 2) now, working, no issues so far starting OA once again... JOY! :D I may have found a solution to this. Arma 2 and ARMA OA are now working without any flaws, HOWEVER, the beta patch issue is still persistent, it seems I am stuck at 95248 for now and I will address this is another thread. *to search for registry entries associated with both games, run the "regedit" command (START ---> type "regedit" in the "search programs and files" field and hit ENTER). You now have the option to search the hole "computer" for those little bastards. To do this, click on "computer" and proceed to click on the "edit" tab followed by the "FIND" option and type something like "bohemia" in the search field. The programm should now show the first match, check carefully whether its a registry associated to the game, this should be easy if the path to the game. If the path is pointing to the download directory, its most likely downloaded content which should no be deleted. TO FIND THE next registry entry, hit F3 and proceed deleting any registry you may find, proceed until the program can no longer find any records. REBOOT! So maybe this method (the one printed in green) will solve the problems other people are having with this. LAST EDIT (i hope) I also fixed the issue in which the beta patch launcher "f**ked" things up. I simply renamed the original "arma2OA.exe" to "arma2OA BAK.exe" (rename it to whatever suits you) and copied the beta patch launcher (96061) to the root directory of the armaOA directory. Its the one called "arma2oa.exe" (note the lower case characters used by the beta patch launcher). Ran the 96061 client and HOOOOOORAY, that thing worked. So finally, I do hope, this documentation may be helpful to others. I've invested quite some time to solve this, but it in the end, it appears to be working. Now I am going to try and install the dayZ mod manually, but that is another story. Oh and BTW, if this is helpful in any way, would someone please be kind enough to put this in a decent format? :D